A few miles farther on we came to Pitlochry, a surprisingly well built resort with excellent hotels and a mammoth "Hydropathic" that dominates the place from a high hill. The town is situated in the very center of the Highlands, surrounded by hills that supply the gray granite used in its construction; and here we broke our journey for the night.
Our way to Inverness was through a sparsely inhabited, wildly broken country, with half a dozen mean-looking villages at considerable distances from each other and an occasional hut or wayside inn between. Although it was July and quite warm for the north of Scotland, the snow still lingered on many of the low mountains, and in some places it seemed that we might reach it by a few minutes' walk. There was little along the road to remind one of the stirring times or the plaided and kilted Highlander that Scott has led us to associate with this country. We saw one old man, the keeper of a little solitary inn in the very heart of the hills, arrayed in the full glory of the old-time garb—plaid, tartan, sporran and skene-dhu, all set off by the plumed Glengarry cap—a picturesque old fellow indeed. And we met farther on the way a dirty-looking youth with his bagpipes slung over his shoulder—in dilapidated modern garb he was anything but a fit descendant of the minstrels whose fame has come down to us in song and story. Still, he was glad to play for us, and despite his general resemblance to an every-day American tramp, it was something to have heard the skirl of the bag-pipe in the Pass of Killiekrankie. And after all, the hills, the vales and the lochs were there, and everywhere on the low green mountains grazed endless flocks of sheep. They lay leisurely in the roadway or often trotted unconcernedly in front of the car, occasioning at times a speed limit even more unsatisfactory than that imposed in the more populous centers by the police traps. Incidentally we learned that the finest sheep in the world—and vast numbers of them—are produced in Great Britain. When we compare them with the class of animals raised in America it is easy to see why our wool and mutton average so greatly inferior.
A clean, quiet, charming city is Inverness, "the capital of the Highlands," as the guide-books have it. It is situated on both shores of its broad, sparkling river—so shallow that the small boys with turned-up pantaloons wade across it in summer time—while an arm of the sea defines the boundary on the northeast. Though tradition has it that Macbeth built a castle on the site of the present structure, it disappeared centuries ago, and there is now little evidence of antiquity to be found in the town. The modern castle is a massive, rambling, brown-stone building less than a hundred years old, now serving as a county court. The cathedral is recent, having been completed in the last quarter of a century. It is an imposing church of red stone, the great entrance being flanked by low, square-topped towers. As a center for tourists, Inverness is increasingly popular and motor cars are very common. The roads of the surrounding country are generally excellent, and a trip of two hundred miles will take one to John O'Groats, the extreme northern point of Scotland. The country around has many spots of interest. Cawdor Castle, where tradition says Macbeth murdered Duncan, is on the Nairn road, and on the way to this one may also visit Culloden Moor, a grim, shelterless waste, where the adherents of Prince Charlie were defeated April 16th, 1746. This was the last battle fought on British soil, and the site is marked by a rude round tower built from stones gathered from the battlefield.
From Inverness an unsurpassed highway leads to Aberdeen, a distance of a little over one hundred miles. It passes through a beautiful country, the northeastern Scottish Lowlands, which looked as prosperous and productive as any section we saw. The smaller towns appeared much better than the average we had so far seen in Scotland; Nairn, Huntly, Forres, Keith and Elgin more resembling the better English towns of similar size than Scotch towns which we had previously passed through. At Elgin are the ruins of its once splendid cathedral, which in its best days easily ranked as the largest and most imposing church in Scotland. Time has dealt hardly with it, and the shattered fragments which remain are only enough to confirm the story of its magnificence. Fire, and vandals who tore the lead from the roof for loot having done their worst, the cathedral served the unsentimental Scots of the vicinity as a stone-quarry until recent years, but it is now owned by the crown and every precaution taken to arrest further decay.
The skies were lowering when we left Inverness and the latter half of the journey was made in the hardest rainstorm we encountered on our tour. We could not see ten yards ahead of us and the water poured down the hills in torrents, yet our car ran smoothly on, the fine macadam road being little affected by the deluge. The heavy rain ceased by the time we reached Inverurie, a gray, bleak-looking little town, closely following a winding street, but the view from the high bridge which we crossed just on leaving the place made full amends for the general ugliness of the village.
It would be hard to find anywhere a more beautiful city than Aberdeen, with her clean, massively built structures of native gray granite, thickly sprinkled with mica facets that make it fairly glitter in the sunlight. Everything seems to have been planned by the architect to produce the most pleasing effect, and careful note must have been taken of surroundings and location in fitting many of the public buildings into their niches. We saw few more imposing structures in Britain than the new postoffice at Aberdeen, and it was typical of the solidity and architectural magnificence of the Queen City of the North. But Aberdeen will be on the route of any tourist who goes to Northern Scotland, so I will not write of it here. It is a great motoring center, with finely built and well equipped garages.
As originally planned we were to go southward from Aberdeen by the way of Braemar and Balmoral in the very heart of the Highland country—the route usually followed by British motorists. It passes through wild scenery, but the country has few historic attractions. The Motor Union representative had remarked that we should probably want to spend several days at Braemar, famous for its scenic surroundings—the wild and picturesque dales, lakes and hills near at hand; but to Americans, from the country of the Yellowstone and Yosemite, the scenery of Scotland can be only an incident in a tour. From this consideration, we preferred to take the coast road southward, which, though it passes through a comparatively tame-looking country, is thickly strewn with places replete with stirring and romantic incidents of Scottish history. Nor had we any cause to regret our choice.