LOCH LOMOND AND THE TROSSACHS
The Scotch lakes form the one element of repose in a landscape which,
in almost every other feature, suggests the most terrific activities of
nature. Excelling all in size, beauty, and romantic interest is Loch
Lomond, in Rob Roy’s country. It is the pride of the Scottish inland
waters, as Cayuga is the gem in the chain of finger lakes in central
New York.
On our first visit neither railway nor other tourist-bringing
facilities, except steamboats, existed. Nor had the necessity of making
the lochs of Scotland the drinking-glasses of towns near by yet arisen
in so large a measure as to threaten to blot out some of the strands
and beaches famous in song and story.
Exquisite are the islands--about thirty in number and lying chiefly in
the southern part--that dot the surface, such as Inch Cailliach, the
Isle of Women, or Place of the Nuns; Inch Tarranach, or Monk’s Isle;
Inch Fad, or Long Island; Inch Cruin, or Round Island. One of the
largest of these is a nobleman’s deer park. Inch Loanig, or Yew Isle,
where Robert the Bruce planted yew trees for his bowmen, and where the
wood of the fiery cross was grown, and others that have associated
with their names ancient romance or modern utility, possess a double
charm. Geologically, the loch is the remnant of an (amputated) arm of
the sea, and usually but a few feet above the level of the great deep.
One of the dales near Loch Lomond, at whose entrance are the ruins
of an old castle, is Glen Fruin, the Glen of Sorrow. Here a terrible
battle was fought between the Macgregors and the partisans of the Laird
of Luss, the head of the family of Colquhon, in which the Macgregors
were victorious and the Colquhons almost annihilated. There is also a
Holy Pool of St. Fillan known, where incantations used to be made to
secure the influence of the saint for the recovery of insane persons.
It seems a literary outrage not to read, as a preparation, Scott’s
“Lady of the Lake,” before going through the Trossachs, or riding over
the ridge from Loch Lomond to Loch Katrine. This romantic defile, whose
Gaelic name means the “Bristled Country,” in allusion to its shaggy
physical features, is very narrow and beautifully wooded. Properly
speaking, the Trossachs extend from Loch Achray to Loch Katrine. They
are continued thence, by a strip on the northeastern shore to a point
above the now submerged Silver Strand, opposite to Ellen’s Isle, a
distance of less than three miles.
A stage-coach was waiting for us at Inversnaid, and we were so
fortunate as to get a seat in front on the top near the driver, who was
very intelligent, and showed us among other places the woods in which
Roderick Dhu’s men are supposed to have retired for their coronach, or
wailing over the loss of their great leader. On one side are the steep
green slopes of Ben Venue to the southwest, while on the northeast are
the precipitous crags of Ben A’an. Wood, water, rock, and hill make a
harmonious blending of lovely scenery. It was Sir Walter, the “Wizard
of the North,” who made this ravine the Mecca of tourists. In his day
there was no easy entrance or exit. The only access to the lake was by
means of a ladder, formed out of the branches of trees and roots.
Scott’s lines tell that
“No pathway meets the wanderer’s view,
Unless he climb with footing nice
A far projecting precipice.
The broom’s tough roots his ladder made,
The hazel saplings lent their aid.”
In a word, the Trossachs remind one of that wonderful geological fault
in the Helderbergs, in New York State, named “Indian Ladder,” this term
recalling the old method of entrance. One of the finest passes and
glens in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, as well as the canyons
of the West, now so well known and enjoyed, was shut up at one time by
Nature in like manner.
Some of the romance of the Trossachs neighborhood has been spoiled,
as has the scenery of the Catskill region, by the necessity of a
neighboring great city’s practice of the virtue which is next to
godliness. The vicinity of that ever-thirsty conglomeration of
humanity, that needs refreshment, cleansing, and mill-power, has
modified the scenery. The Glasgow Water Company had to raise the banks
of the lake several feet, to form a reservoir for the supply of the
mills on the Teith River. Among the sites thus desecrated were the
silver shore, where stood Ellen, “guardian naiad of the strand,” before
the royal Knight of Snowdon, and the spot where Roderick Dhu challenged
Fitz-James to single combat. Coilantogle Ford long invited the
fisherman to try his luck and the tourist to survey the ruins near by.
Then there is the Loch Vennachar, with its lovely island of Inch Vroin,
which breaks its mirror-like surface. On the hillside overlooking the
loch is a hollow on the left of the road called “Lanrick Mead,” a flat
meadow which was the gathering-ground of the Clan Alpine. A mile beyond
Loch Menoca, as the road slopes toward the Brig of Turk, we have a
varied and extensive prospect, including Ben Venue.
[Illustration: THE TROSSACHS AND LOCH ACHRAY]
A sudden bend in the road winding around the margin of Loch Achrae
discloses the spur of the mountain forming the entrance to the
Trossachs. Slight wonder that this, one of the finest views to
be met with on the way, was selected by the artist Turner for his
illustration of “The Lady of the Lake.” He visited Scotland for his
book on “Provincial Antiquities,” for which Scott furnished the
letter-press.
Entering this wonderful defile of the Trossachs there is revealed a
scene of
“Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurled,
The fragments of an earlier world.”
Somewhere near the entrance of the gorge, Fitz James lost his “gallant
gray” horse. Perhaps, even without a silver suggestion, our guide might
show the exact spot where the poor creature’s bleaching bones once lay!
The rocks are verdure-clad and we catch a glimpse of Ben A’an rising
above the wooded precipices on the north.
Suddenly emerging from the wild mountain rocks and woods, we behold, as
Fitz James did,--
“One burnish’d sheet of living gold,
Loch-Katrine lay beneath him rolled;
In all her length far winding lay,
With promontory, creek, and bay,
And islands that, empurpled bright,
Floated amid the livelier light;
And mountains, that like giants stand,
To sentinel enchanted land.”
When on the steamer we passed by Ellen’s Isle, we might have easily
thrown a stone to drop in the place where lovely Ellen first looked
upon the Knight of Snowdon. What painter could make the scene more
lifelike than do the words of Scott?
Another one of the scenes described in “The Lady of the Lake,” and
pointed out by the cicerone, is the dread Goblin’s Cave. On the other
side of the hill is “the pass of the cattle,” by which the kine taken
in forays were conveyed within the protection of the Trossachs. In
those days the defile was used by the Highlanders for other than
strictly æsthetic purposes.
When we realize how true it was of the Highlanders, as of the sons
of Jacob, that their chief trade was in cattle, it is hardly to be
wondered at that many of the American highlanders of East Tennessee,
with their Caledonian ancestry, concerning the property of the cotton
planters long held the view of Roderick Dhu. Nor is it strange that
so many sturdy Scotch youth have been allured to our own Wild West to
become cowboys!
Yet, although it is the Highland black ox that figures so largely
in both poetry and economics, it was the goat that furnished the
consecrated blood in which the flames of the fiery cross were
extinguished. This terrible war-gospel and signal with anathema for
assembling the clans, with its ban of death upon all faint-hearted or
recalcitrant, furnished the final test of loyalty to the chief. It bade
the bridegroom leave his bride, the mourner his bier, the only son his
widowed parent, the smith his forge, and the fisherman his nets--all to
buckle on the sword. Scott, in a few lines of his “Lady of the Lake,”
pictures its awful significance.
No law-book or learned treatise can portray the old Highland life of
the clan--when the one tie of society was loyalty to the chief and its
symbol the sword--as do the writings of Sir Walter Scott. In old Japan,
in which I lived, I saw before me a mirror of Celtic Scotland.
Yet to-day, while one may “hear his own mountain-goats bleating
aloft” and thousands of the capricious creatures are domesticated and
available for milk and meat, there are thousands more that are as wild
as if their species originated in heather land. Their keenness of
vision and scent makes it nearly impossible for hunters to get within
shot of them.
In addition to the Lowlander’s domestic cattle, systematically
“lifted” during the centuries by the Gaels or clansmen, there was a
distinct breed of Highland cattle called “Kyloe.” These creatures,
in prehistoric and Roman times, ran wild over the Scottish peninsula
and were especially numerous in the forest regions. Some few herds,
that are considered descendants of the ancient wild oxen, are
kept in Scottish noblemen’s parks as curiosities, much as are the
bisons--survivors of the old herds which once, millions strong, roamed
our Western prairies. These of the Chillingham breed are of a creamy
white color. Graceful in form, with short horns but slightly curved,
they are smaller than the domestic breeds. The West Highland cattle are
like these, but almost always of a black color.
Many scientific men hold that the Chillinghams, or reputed wild cattle,
are albinos. Apart from opinion, it is a fact that when the black
calves are born, they are carefully sorted out and sold for their veal.
The true Highland cattle, which we meet in herds on the moors and see
painted lovingly by artists, are hardy, imposing, and well fitted to
their climatic environment. With short, muscular limbs, wide and deep
chests, long horns and short muzzle, and their coats of shaggy hair,
they are noticeable in the landscape. They furnish much of the famed
“roast beef of Old England.” The milk of the cows is very rich, though
too scant in measure to make dairying profitable.
It seems now fairly well agreed that the original ancestor of these
local and most of the domestic breeds of cattle in northern Europe
was the auroch, or European bison, contemporary of the mammoth and
cave man, which became extinct about the beginning of the seventeenth
century.
Although Lochs Lomond and Katrine and the Trossachs are not in the
Highlands, yet, since the majority of visiting Americans do not cross
the boundary separating the Azoic and Crystalline rocks from the
fertile lowlands, they accept this romantic portion of heather land as
typical of the whole. It is not the oldest part of Scotia, yet, in
a sense, this tourist’s route is typical of the entire peninsula, in
suggesting the effect of Nature’s face and moods upon the human spirit.
One coming first to Scotland from a visit to Ireland asks questions.
Most striking in the history of mankind is the influence of the scenery
of a country upon the national temperament. Compare, for example, the
two peoples of the same race, the Celtic Irishmen and the Highlanders.
The islander’s home has a mild climate, good soil, and a fairly level
country, where men have been able to live without extreme toil. In
spite of all the Irishman’s troubles, whether coming to him from within
or without, he has maintained through the ages the traits of his
ancestors. He is naturally buoyant in spirit, impulsive, excitable,
rich in wit and good humor, but alleged to be without that profound
conception of the claims of duty which mark some other races.
On the contrary, the Highlander is rather reserved, self-restrained,
not merry or witty, but often sullen and morose. Yet he is courteous,
dutiful, persevering, faithful as an ally and brave as a foe.
Surely the differing environments explain, to a large extent, this
differentiation between two peoples of the same original stock. The
Highlander has lived in a glen, narrow, rocky, separated from his
neighbors in the next glen by high and rugged hills. On a niggardly
soil, stony and wet, and in a cold and uncertain climate, he has
battled for ages with the elements, facing Nature in her wilder moods
and has not played a winning game. Often he is near starvation, for on
his little field much rain and little sunshine falls. His seed often
rots in the soggy soil. The noise of storm and tempest, of whirlwind
and swollen waters, is ever in his hearing. He cannot be mirthful and
light-hearted like the Celt, but is often stolidly obstinate; or, it
may be, undauntedly persevering. No one who has heard his music but has
noted that melancholy which breathes like an undertone throughout his
songs and bagpipe melodies, even when they cheer and inspire to duty.
Nevertheless, the proud Scot will boast of his land so full of barren
mountains. “Iron them all out flat, and Scotland will be found to be as
large as England,” was the assertion, with triumphant air, of a native
who loved the heather.