Page:A Companion and Useful Guide to the Beauties of Scotland.djvu/206

188 At Blair Gowrie, the river Airdle sounds to be, or is called Airoch. About a quarter of a mile above the bridge, which is at the bottom of the town, is a very picturesque salmon leap, called the Keith of Blair Gowrie. The great rock stones in the river, at the Keith, above and below it, are of a very singular nature; of beautiful pebbles, in sockets (perhaps of clay), and so hardened therein that they seem one body, as they resisted every effort I could make to break off a bit. The plants, all about the Keith, appeared in the highest luxuriant vigour; but being ignorant of botany, I in that instance lost much pleasure. A few miles above the Keith, on the brink of the same river, is a very singular, sequestered, romantic spot. The house is situated on the edge of a promontory of a huge solid rock, hanging over the river, quite out of the perpendicular line. The rocks touching the river on each side of it, from the chasms and other irregularities in them, occasion the water to dash furiously round them. All the rocks are covered with trees of every sort; some straight as pines, others feathering and branching from the top to the bottom of them; and the opposite bank is a counter part of that on which Craig Hall is built. The rock,