Page:A Companion and Useful Guide to the Beauties of Scotland.djvu/212

194 has rendered desperate? The legend of the place (and almost every place of curiosity, either in Scotland, or elsewhere, has its legend), says, that an owner, in former times, of Craig upon Isla, having killed a man, fled to the Reeky Lin, and hid himself in one of the caves above described; but conscience would not let him rest there, though he was sure man could not disturb him. He declared, that in the dead of night he saw the de'il in the shape of a black dog, run up the towers of rock just facing the caves; which so terrified him that he quitted his hiding place, preferring the just punishment of his crime, by the hands of man, to the nightly horrors of the devil in the shape of a black dog!

Certainly the Reeky Lin is the finest fall I saw in Scotland, except the Fall of Fyres near Loch Ness. The Reeky Lin has very little wood about it, which is undoubtedly a great absence of beauty; but the majestic towering form of the rocks renders the scene both sublime and picturesque. From the high fall down the river for above a mile, are many more considerable falls, between rocks of vast height on each side. To the east of Isla, in Angusshire, in a very romantic situation under lofty mountains, stands Ayrly