Page:A Companion and Useful Guide to the Beauties of Scotland.djvu/102

84 down into Glen Coe is bad, but carriages may and do go through it, as it is now one way to Fort William. The road to Fort William, over the Black Mount, was not always through this glen. You will see the old road striking off from the present one, about three miles and a half from King's House on the right, where there is a direction-post. It goes up, a zig-zag, the front of a prodigious steep hill; to go down it on the ether side, I was told, is infinitely more tremendous; and, from its danger and difficulty, it is called the Devil's Staircase. That road to Fort William is shorter, and passes by the head of Loch Leven, without a ferry. The road now used through Glen Coe, is by the ferry of Ballacoalish, or, as it is called, Balhulish, which crosses Loch Leven near its mouth.

I was told the Appin road from Balhulish is very pleasant, better for a carriage than through Glen Coe, and oftener travelled; but there are two ferries to cross, besides Balhulish, one over Loch Creran, the other over Loch Etive, near the fall of that lake into the sea, which is one of the finest cascades in the world, at spring tides. But having left my trunk at Tyndrum, I was obliged to return thither for it.