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grass, and growing corn, spread over the deeper sides of the dale, waved in the breeze, whose whistling sound, mingled with the noise of a rivulet issuing from a lake on the height, and winding along the bottom past some farm cottages, alone interrupted the silence. Piteur castle in ruins, at the foot of the hill, revived the memory of feudal power, pomp, and violence. The wide valley of Strathmore spread large below, with its rich and well cultivated fields, and substantial farm steadings; and plantations scattered with irregular profusion in hedge rows, clumps, and extensive woods over its variegated surface. Midway across appeared the long winding line of the smooth glittering Isla, with the spire and smoke of Cupar Angus rising from its banks. Farther on rose the Grampian range, with ridges of vast height and stupendous mountains appearing on every side, and as far back as the eye could discern; the dark rock and heath interspersed with glittering masses of snow, the remains of the preceding winter; Mount Blair, in Glenshee, easily distinguished by its superior size and vicinity, and Shehallien in Rannoch by its long conical top, mountain still towering above mountain, till their summits were lost in the clouds of the distant horizon.

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Leaving the Sidla hills, the road stretches across the valley to Cupar of Angus, which is said to contain about 1600 inhabitants ; although the population must have been considerably diminished, or its increase prevented, by the neighbouring village of Burreltown, which, even though it should exceed Cupar in size, can hardly rival it in importance, as it is out of the line of the road from Dundee to the Blairgowrie pass. The town has a considerable linen manufacture, and a large tannery. In a field adjoining the town there are still distinct and visible marks of a Roman camp, which forms nearly a square of twenty-four acres. The vestiges however are now fast wearing away; the proprietors of the field not having, it seems, sufficient antiquarian taste to allow these marks to interfere with the most convenient and profitable arrangement of the field. About the centre of the camp, Malcolm IV. founded an abbey of Cistertian monks in 1104, and endowed it with large revenues. No vestiges remain of this abbey, except a very small portion of the wall of the towers, and the lower parts of some of the pillars, which were lately discovered on digging in the present churchyard. These remains of pillars are built with the beautiful red stone, of which there is a

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quarry near Cupar of Angus, and appear as strong and sufficient as if they had been recently erected.

The road is continued over a bridge, built across the Isla at Cupar for four miles and a half, first through highly cultivated fields, and then through thick modern fir woods, planted on a moorish tract formerly covered with heath and stagnant water, to the village of Blairgowrie, which is a burgh of barony formerly belonging to the Gowrie family. The extent is inconsiderable, the population being probably from two to three hundred; but it is of some importance, as a point of communication between the neighbouring districts within the Grampians and the low country. It is finely situate at the foot, and in the face of the first swell of the range, on the banks of the Ericht; which, issuing from the pass, proceeds along the sides of the village across the valley to the Isla. Here there is a spinning mill, and an inconsiderable linen manufacture. A justice court, recently established, is occasionally held in the village to settle disputes in the neighbouring districts, respecting small debts not exceeding 51.; and this has been found of the greatest utility in promptly enforcing the payment of trifling just debts, without the neces

sity of that expensive litigation which so often amounts to a total denial of justice. The summit of the hill behind the village commands a noble and extensive prospect of the valley of Strathmore, from Birnam hill on the southwest, to Glamis, the seat of the Earl of Strathmore, or even to Forfar, on the north-east.

It is rather a remarkable circumstance, that in the Carse of Gowrie and Moor of Lundie on the south of the Sidla hills, and in the course of the roads from Perth to Cupar of Angus and Blairgowrie in the Strathmore, on the north of the Sidla range, some thousands of acres have been cleared of wood, of modern plantation (20 or 30 years old), for the purpose of subjecting the soil to the plough. The situations were ill chosen for wood, the ground being much more profitably employed in tillage. This however is a rare instance in Scotland, the opposite process of enlarging the woods being much more generally adopted, and much yet remains to be done before the ancient forest covering is restored to those wide wastes, which, although in their present state of little comparative value, might, as stations for raising timber, be rendered a certain source of great private emolument and immense national utility.

The deep dell in which the Ericht flows for five miles previous to its efflux at Blairgowrie, is bounded on the south-west by the Stormont hills, extending towards the Tay at the Dunkeld pass; and on the north-east by a series of hills diverging towards Glenisla, through which the principal branch of the Isla descends to the Strathmore. Immediately on the north of the village, and on the western banks of the river, rise a series of sandy hills intersected by deep hollows, called the Clowes, or cuts of Manse, over which the road was formerly carried, the steep ascents operating almost as a prohibition upon all heavy carriage. The road, now crossing the Ericht by a handsome bridge at the village, stretches along a narrow flat on the eastern bank for about two miles; and then, again crossing the river by another elegant bridge at Craighall, it rises by a gradual ascent to the height of the western bank, on the north of the sandy hills. In the tract between the bridges, the sides of these hills are seen on the west of the river, forming a high embankment, partly covered with wood, and partly presenting a long steep declivity of sand and gravel, without a sufficient intermixture of earth to support vegetation of any description. Through a deep

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