Oban is modern, a place of many and excellent hotels fronting on the bay.  So far, only a small per cent of its visitors are Americans, and the indifferent roads leading to the town discourage the motorist.  Had we adhered to the route outlined for us by the Motor Union Secretary, we should have missed it altogether.  We had made a stop in the town two years before, and yet there are few places in Britain that we would rather visit a third time than Oban.

X

THROUGH HISTORIC SCOTLAND

The north of Scotland is rapidly becoming little more than a pleasure-ground for the people of the Kingdom, and its attractions are yearly drawing a larger number of Americans.  There are practically no European visitors, but that is largely true of the entire Kingdom.  The people of the Continent consider Britain a chilly, unattractive land.  Its historic and literary traditions, so dear to the average American, who holds a common language, do not appeal to those who think their own countries superior to any other in these particulars.

It is only a natural consequence that Scotland, outside of the three or four largest cities, is becoming, like Switzerland, a nation of hotelkeepers—­and very excellent ones they are.  The Scotch hotels average as good as any in the world.  One finds them everywhere in the Highlands.  Every lake, every ruin frequented by tourists has its hotel, many of them fine structures of native granite, substantially built and splendidly furnished.

We left Oban over the route by which we came, since no other was recommended to motorists.  Our original plan to follow the Caledonian Canal to Inverness was abandoned on account of difficult roads and numerous ferries with poor and infrequent service.  After waiting three hours to get an “accumulator” which had been turned over to a local repair man thirty-six hours before with instructions to have it charged and returned promptly, we finally succeeded in getting off.  This delay is an example of those which we encountered again and again from failure to get prompt service, especially when we were making an effort to get away before ten or eleven in the morning.

It was no hardship to follow more leisurely than before the road past Loch Awe, whose sheet of limpid water lay like a mirror around Kilchurn Castle under the cloudless, noonday sky.  A little farther on, at Dalmally, we paused at a pleasant old country hotel, where the delicious Scotch strawberries were served fresh from the garden.  It was a quaint, clean, quiet place, and the landlord told us that aside from the old castles and fine scenery in the vicinity, its chief attraction to guests was trout-fishing in neighboring streams.  We were two days in passing through the heart of the Highlands from Oban to Inverness over about two hundred miles of excellent road running through wild and often beautiful scenery, but there