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Round About Falkirk, With an Account of the Landmarks of Stirling and Linlithgow
Round About Falkirk With an Account of the Landmarks of Stirling and Linlithgow Author:Robert Gillespie General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1879 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: CAMELON AND THE FIRST STEAMBOAT. Like the sun, we hold on our course westward. From the Camelon Eoad, the summer tourist must step aside, first, into Arnotdale. " Oh ! where is nature's simple, unelaborate modesty? " exclaimed David Gray; and here, with '' a passive feeling sweeter than all sense," we are overpowered with the blaze of gay and gaudy blossoms. Still, from the exquisite commingling of colours, the loveliest, if not the grandest, of the floral beds, is that in which the grey centauria, with its richly-powdered leaves, alternates with the '' cloth of gold" geranium, the blue Jobellia, and the dwarf beet. Many beautiful shrubs and trees are likewise artistically set throughout the grounds ; including the golden yew; the delicate Wellingtonia; the weeping gean, with its drooping foliage and bridal blooms ; the gorgeous rhododendron plant; and the golden-tressed laburnum. But on the south lawn there is, perhaps rarest of all, an old Scotch yew, which was transplanted into Arnotdale from Mungal- heacl, some sixteen years ago. Mayfield, too, with its grounds sloping south, and sparkling aquarium, looks quite tropical. Here the eye is utterly bewildered with the emerald beauty of the velvety sward and the brilliant blooms of thesurrounding slopes and parterres. The geranium borders, especially, quite remind us of Jerrold's plots, that were tickled with the hoe till they fairly laughed in blossom. Trees, shrubs, and flowers of the most varied kind, and drawn from remote regions of the globe, are here grouped so as to yield the largest amount of pleasure to the eye. In his conservatory, Provost R...« less