'Unless the fates are faithless grown
And prophets voice be vain
Where'er is found this sacred stone
The Scottish race shall reign.'
Without a doubt, the house of Brunswick claims the throne of those realms in consequence of their Stuart descent, so that the stone has not as yet failed in its effect, and every one desires that the 'destiny' should continue in the same line, whether the boulder from the borders of Loch Etive has anything to do with the matter or not.
[THE FALLS OF FOYERS.]
Here we have the culmination, as regards beauty, of the waterfalls of Scotland. This is one of the scenes that struck the imagination of Burns, as, standing by the fall, he wrote in pencil words that can never be omitted in any description for they fulfil all that description can effect—
'Among the heathy hills and rugged woods
The roaring Foyers pours his mossy floods
Till full he dashes on the rocky mounds
Where thro' a shapeless breach his stream resounds
As high in air the bursting torrents flow
As deep recoiling surges foam below
Prone down the rock the whitening sheet descends
And viewless Echo's ear, astonished, rends:
Dim seen through rising mists and ceaseless showers
The hoary cavern, wide surrounding, lowers,
Still, thro' the gap the struggling river toils
And still, below, the horrid cauldron boils.'
The last idea is one that ever recurs in the presence of a great waterfall, and in every respect the description is perfect, the shapeless breach, the bursting torrent and the deep recoiling surges are each impressed on the mind, even if the visitor has not read Burns's lines. When Dr. Johnson visited Scotland, he too saw the Fall of 'Fiers' as it is called in his Journey to the Western Islands, and although a long continuance of dry weather had robbed the fall of much of its promised grandeur, Dr. Johnson, while philosophically remarking that 'Nature never gives everything at once,' gives a striking word-picture, exercising as he says, his thoughts to 'conceive the effect of a thousand streams poured from the mountains into one channel, struggling for expansion in a narrow passage, exasperated by rocks rising in their way and at last discharging all their violence of waters by a sudden fall through the horrid chasm.' This is splendid, and if old Samuel Johnson had seen Foyers at its best he could not have improved on the description.
The steamers on Loch Ness invariably stay at the pier of Foyers, affording time to walk to the grand falls. The hotel here is built on the site of 'General's Hut,' and still in Johnson's day it is 'not ill stocked with provisions.' The name is given because General Wade, when superintending those roads that are rendered famous by his epitaph, was lodged at this spot. There are two falls, with a distance of about a quarter of a mile between them, the lower or great fall being that shown in the view. Over the upper fall there is a light bridge thrown, and the scene here is very fine, though it is exceeded in grandeur by the snow-white rush of the lower waterfall. The latter earns its title of the 'fall of smoke,' the spray rising in never-ceasing clouds of grey mist-like smoke.