Almost buried among trees is Monymusk, as primitive in every way as the grand old hills around it, with only one hotel, or rather inn, but a very cosy one; and O! so quiet is everything here, that in the silence of the night, gazing from the coupé when the moon was silvering the mountain-tops, I have positively heard the field-mice sneeze.
About a quarter of a mile from Monymusk is New Paradise, a kind of a sylvan fairy-land. Here are miles of charming walks, here are rustic-seats, and wells, and streams and bridges, and arbours, and a lake, the whole embosomed in woods, in which are many a bosky dell beloved of birds and all kinds of wild forest creatures. There are little glades, where ferns and brackens grow nearly ten feet high; it is sweet to see the soft evening sunshine shimmering down from among the trees, and falling on these, their greenery relieved by patches of warm autumn brown, and by the crimson lights of tall foxgloves.
Do lovers come here in the evening? We never see them. We have the sweet place all to ourselves, and when we want to change the scene we journey farther on, and soon enter a gloomy defile or forest ravine. This is Paradise Old. Its gateway is a huge jawbone of a whale; for anything I know to the contrary, it may have been the identical whale that swallowed up Jonah. The tourist, at all events, feels swallowed up as soon as he has entered. The long avenue that lies before him is one of the most remarkable in Scotland. It is on moss you are walking, at each side are trees—larches, spruces, and firs, as straight as arrows, and fully one hundred and twenty feet in height, the stems of which two men can hardly touch fingers round. To your right, dimly seen, is the roaring Don, beyond it cliffs and braes, covered with forest and fern, heather and blaeberries.
You come at last to a large circle of gigantic beeches and limes, eighteen in all, inside which seats and tables have been placed, though they are now but little used.
The most remarkable thing about these wondrous trees is that they have grown almost straight, their stems are mighty pillars, and even their branches have gone upwards, skywards, as if seeking the light, the result being a vast and leafy colosseum forming a dome for over a hundred feet high.
The silence is unbroken save for the steady hum of the river, or the occasional cry of some wild bird, and as he looks upwards or gazes around him, a feeling of awe steals over the beholder, which cannot be repressed.
There is in the valley of the majestic Don many a village where the tourist might dwell for a time with a certainty of enjoyment. The scenery everywhere is grand and noble; it is all a classic land, and eminently historical; in every glen a battle has been fought, every parish has its castle ruins, every castle has a story of its own, and be you artist, author, actor, or antiquary, or merely an invalid seeking rest and health, you cannot do better than visit—
“The banks and braes o’ bonnie Don.”