A Trip Abroad by Don Carlos Janes
page 11 of 168 (06%)
page 11 of 168 (06%)
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us, blowing a cornet,--and just beyond was the new bridge over the Doon,
a short distance below the old one, which is well preserved and profusely decorated with the initials of many visitors. Along the bank of "bonny Doon" lies a little garden, on the corner of which is situated a house where liquor is sold, if I mistake not. It was before this house that I saw the musician already mentioned. As I came up from the old "brig o' Doon," I saw and heard a man playing a violin near the monument. When I went down the road toward the new bridge and looked over into the garden, I saw a couple of persons executing a cake-walk, and an old man with one leg off was in the cemetery that surrounds the ruined church, reciting selections from Burns. Such is the picture I beheld when I visited this Ayrshire monument, raised in memory of the sympathetic but unfortunate Scottish poet, whose "spark o' nature's fire" has touched so many hearts that his birth-place has more visitors per annum than Shakespeare's has. On the following day I had a pleasant boat-ride up Loch (Lake) Long, followed by a merry coach-ride across to the "bonny, bonny banks of Loch Lomond," which is celebrated in song and story. It is twenty-two miles in length and from three-quarters of a mile to five miles wide, and is called the "Queen of Scottish lakes." Ben Lomond, a mountain rising to a height of more than three thousand feet, stands on the shore, and it is said that Robert Bruce, the hero of Bannockburn, once hid himself in a cave in this mountain. A pleasant boat-ride down the lake brought me back to Glasgow in time to attend a meeting of the brethren in Coplaw Street that night. Leaving my true friends who had so kindly entertained me in Glasgow, I proceeded to Edinburgh, the city where Robert Burns came into prominence. In the large Waverley Station a stranger, who knew of my |
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