morning to pursue our excursions, and returning on successive occasions
at nightfall, the charm of the place grew upon me, until I came to view
it not merely a refuge from exposure and fatigue, a nook screened and
protected by Nature's benediction from wintry storms and Hebridean
gloom, but as a sanctum for the spirit, an ideal resting-place for
restless souls,--a place to be loved and longed for forevermore. If I
have said too much, and you convict me of romance and exaggeration,
fellow-travellers, who like me have sometimes made this haven, then
sunlight and moonlight and soft breezes and sweet sounds have been
kinder to me than to you, and you did not see Oban in the light and the
air that I did.
One would scarcely expect, judging from the size of the town, that Oban
could contain more than a single comfortable inn; still, besides the
Caledonian Hotel, of which alone I can testify from experience, there
are at least two or three similar public-houses, and I know not how many
lodging-houses of lesser pretension; for Oban is the centre of no little
travel, and is the rallying-point and rendezvous for tourists,
especially during the months of August and September, the popular season
in the Highlands.
At the Caledonian, an hotel not dissimilar to our best summer resorts in
the White Mountains and other picturesque districts, we were
comfortably, I may say luxuriously, entertained. The accommodations, as
with us, included ladies' parlor and _table d'hote_, and, after a brief
lounge in the former and a substantial meal at the latter, we were ready
to set forth for an evening stroll through the town, a stroll never
omitted by us at that hour in Oban, a delightful and essential sedative
after the fatigues or excitements of the day,--strolls the charm of
which I could never quite define, and the impression from which is
incommunicable. There would seem to be little that was pleasant or
memorable in our perambulations of the main street of a little
fishing-town,--the Bailie, with his stump of a pipe for company, always
choosing the esplanade, while Christie and I as frequently idled along
the opposite pavement, pausing now and then at the little shop-windows
and gazing at their mean or meagre displays, illumined by a farthing
candle, with a keener zest than I had ever experienced in the Rue Rivoli
or the Palais Royal. Our walk rarely extended beyond either extremity of
this street; it was uniform, monotonous, unvaried by any more striking
incident than a lunge into the most humble and ill-furnished of the
shops to procure a penny pipe for the Bailie, whose smoky stump had
accidentally come to grief, or a continuation of our stroll as far as
the remotest point of the arc formed by the quay, where, seated on a
wall of rough stones, we took in at one glance the moonlit bay, and the
quiet, peaceful town, scarce a hum from which reached our ears, so
hushed and still was the place at this hour.
A couple of little girls of true Gaelic blood came and gazed curiously
at us one evening, as we thus sat. The elder of the two, a head shorter
than her companion, responded readily to the Bailie's questions,--among
other things naively accounted to us for her diminutive size, as if it
were a foregone and inevitable result of her lot, by the grave
statement, "Oh, I am the eldest, Sir; I tended all the rest"; and then,
at his request, they united in singing us a genuine Erse song, the
guttural accents of which, softened by their childish tongues,
harmonized wonderfully with the Hebridean landscape, redeemed from its
otherwise rigidity and gloom by Oban gleaming like a pearly jewel from
its rude setting of stone. It was the only incident that I can recall
connected with our moonlight ramblings. Was it not, perhaps, the
absence of incident or adventure, the holy calm, the unbroken stillness
of the scene, that lulled our hearts then to pensive musings, and that
still whispers to our memories, "Peace"?
The Caledonian, though it found room for us, was wellnigh overflowing
with visitors. Besides our fellow-passengers and those of another
steamer of the same line, which had arrived almost simultaneously from
the northern or opposite direction, there were not a few who had either
been waiting in Oban, or had returned thither from some excursion in the
neighborhood, to be in readiness for the first opportunity for a voyage
around Mull. This trip, which occupies twelve hours, is during the
travelling season advertised for every alternate day; but, as the
pleasure, oftentimes the possibility, of the excursion is dependent on
wind and weather, persevering tourists are often detained for a week or
more in default of sunshine and a fair breeze. The elements on the
morning after our arrival being in all respects favorable, the great
household was early astir. Though breakfast is served on board the
luxurious pleasure-boat, we preferred to rise at the earliest notice and
make all possible haste with our toilets, for the sake of breakfasting
on terra firma. Many were of the same mind with ourselves; and the
crowded tables, the good-natured jostling of elbows, and the eager
scrambling for food, with the bells of variously bound steamers at the
neighboring pier already ringing out their warning, exhilarated us with
a sense of companionship and excited us to activity. Indeed, the analogy
which I detected between hotel life in the Highlands and in our own
country may have been partly due to these hasty breakfasts, which the
necessity of securing a long day rendered as inevitable to tourists as
hurriedly bolted meals so often are to travellers on our interminable
routes, or to our time-saving business-men of callous digestion.
After all, we had the mortification of feeling that we had been deceived
like children and huddled like sheep as an atonement for the
sluggishness or obstinacy of that less alert and punctual class of
travellers who, as the experience of steamboat agents had proved, could
be aroused only by successive bell-ringings and repeated threats of a
forfeited passage. We had some compensation and revenge, however, as,
seated in our early secured best places, we watched our
fellow-excursionists come straggling on board.
The Pioneer, strongly built for service in the open sea, and of ample
dimensions, must have boasted this day something like two hundred
passengers. So ample were the accommodations, so widely scattered the
parties, that I should scarcely believe the number to have been so
considerable, but for my vivid recollection of the successive and, as it
seemed, never-ending boat-companies, each of a dozen or more, that were
rowed ashore at the points where we made land. Of course there was but a
fractional part of these people whose individuality made any impression
on me. In one respect we were a unit: all were pleasure-seekers, and the
Pioneer, unlike most of the steaming monsters which ply on regular
routes, was dedicated to beauty, sacred to the adventurous and the
picturesque. She carried no mail; she was destined to none of the ends
of traffic or profit. Her freight was all human, Nature was her
mistress, and the love of Nature her inspiration and motive-power.
But as she lay there at the pier, puffing off steam and ringing
perpetual bells, she gave evidence of business-like impatience; and her
human cargo, as they came on board, had scarcely yet awakened to any
other emotions than those of unwillingness and discomfort. Some were yet
chewing the cud of unfinished breakfasts, the crumbs of which still
clung to their garments; others had the blue, ghostly look of unwonted
early risers, shivering with the chill morning air and the faint heart
which a fasting stomach entails; some, the latest comers of all, were
quite breathless, and were nervously holding on to the gloves, veils,
shawls, or over-shoes caught up at the last moment and only half put on
or adjusted.
Here comes a party of young people, however, lads and lasses, whose high
spirits triumph over all the inconveniences of the hour, and who, as
they rush laughingly on board, seem to defy the steamer to have started
without so important an addition to the joyousness of the occasion as
they represent. A group of elderly Scotch folk, anxious, bewildered, and
fussy, are congratulating themselves, on the contrary, that they are
just in time and "weel ower" the perils of embarkation. Here is a sallow
clergyman whose dress and expression proclaim him an English churchman;
he and his cadaverous wife, who seems, from her slightly pretentious
air, to have, as the English say, "blood" (a very little blood _I_
should judge in this case); both have a worn and melancholy appearance,
which is, I suspect, chronic, and not wholly due to the occasion. And,
why, whom have we here? we have certainly seen those girls before, who
are hurrying across the plank just as the last bell is ringing its last
stroke. Yes, to be sure, they are the same trio whom we found on board
the steamer which we took at Inversnaid on Loch Lomond, one day, when we
were returning toward sunset from a visit to Loch Katrine and the
Trosachs. Christie and I remember them perfectly, they and their young
brother seated in a picturesque group on the little upper deck, each
with open sketch-book copying Nature at the moment, or carrying out some
design conceived earlier in the day; their mother, the same self-poised
mammoth Englishwoman of marvellous physique and perfect equanimity of
forces who accompanies them to-day, seated at a little distance, the
occasional superintendent and invariable referee of their work and
progress. Their "papa" is of the party this time,--a tall, gray-haired
gentleman, old enough to be venerable, young enough to have the promise
of half a score of years or more yet in which to serve his country,--a
gentleman whose sweet dignity and serene self-possession entitle him at
a glance to the encomium once bestowed involuntarily by some English
friends of mine upon one of our gifted historians, "Why, he might be a
duke!" Our fellow-traveller was only Sir Thomas, however,--Sir Thomas
Somebody,--I have forgotten what, a London baronet, holding some high
office or other under Government. We may imagine it anything we please,
for I have forgotten that too. Indeed, the little we ever knew of him
was learned at a later day, I suspect, from a buxom lawyer's wife, up
North with her husband for the vacation, and who, as well as Sir
Thomas's family, was of our travelling company on an ensuing journey,
and had her little gossip with Christie. Other acquaintance than that of
accidental companionship we never had with any of the Pioneer's
passengers; but what a charm there is in that involuntary knowledge one
comes to have of these chance fellow-travellers whom we meet, pass, fall
behind, and come up with again, until they become at last familiar
features of our route!
But we have been long enough getting on board. It is well that these
laggards are the last, for it is high time we were off.
The wind being fair for our purpose, we are able to take the northern
course and commence the circuit of the island by striking directly for
the Sound of Mull, much the most favorable route, as it introduces the
traveller at once to some of the most picturesque objects of the
excursion.
The first of these, standing like a sentinel to the land-locked bay of
Oban, is Dunolly Castle, which commands the bold promontory around which
we bend our course, as, emerging from our little harbor, we gain the
comparatively open sea. The only remnant of this once proud dwelling of
the Lords of Lorn which remains entire is the old mossy tower or keep,
around which are grouped numerous ivy-grown fragments, attesting the
former greatness of a stronghold whose chieftain once had power to defy
and defeat Robert Bruce. Many are the traditions and associations that
cluster about this spot, but none, perhaps, more ancient and suggestive
than that which still points out the Clach-nacau, or the Dog's
Pillar,--a huge, upright pillar, a detached fragment of rock,--which
stands at the very edge of the promontory, and which is still pointed
out as the stake to which Fingal, chief of the race of Morven, mighty in
the hunt as well as in battle, was accustomed to bind his white-breasted
Bran, that "long-bounding son of the chase." "Raise high the mossy
stones Of their fame," sang the poet of Scandinavian heroes. The fame of
the huntsman and hound "is in the desert no more"; but as "the sons of
the feeble" pass along, they see, as did Fingal at the tomb of Ryno,
"how peaceful lies the stone of him who was the first at the chase!"
But we may not pause to muse upon Dunolly, with its dreams of other
days. As we sweep round the base of the promontory, a scene bursts on
our view so wildly grand that any single feature of the imposing
landscape shrinks abashed and owns its insignificance. We are making
direct for the entrance to the Sound of Mull; but behind and to the
north of us is stretched out a panorama of rock and hill and deeply
indented coast of incomparable grandeur. To the left of us rise the
rugged and desolate shores of Mull, while far away to the northeast
extends the lofty range of dark, resounding Morven,--the prospect in
that direction terminated and crowned by the huge and precipitous
Cruachan Ben, while in a more northerly direction the Adnamurchan Hills
shut in our horizon.
And when, at length, the eye is satisfied with gazing on the prospect in
its entirety, one after another, the moss-grown fortresses and other
hoary relics of ancient Erse architecture claim our reverent attention;
for the Hebridean chieftains, an amphibious race, almost invariably
chose the extreme verge of ocean-precipice for the site of their
fortresses, thus securing facilities for friendly communication, and
defence against the attacks of hostile clans. Dunstaffnage, though left
some distance to our right, is still sufficiently in view for us to
discern its regal proportions. On the opposite shore, and farther up the
coast, glimpses may be had here and there of many a solitary tower,
"that, steep and gray,
Like falcon-nest, o'erhangs the bay."
And as Imagination travels on, she sees each misty eminence crowned with
its airy castle, its ancient beacon,--
"Each on its own dark cape reclined,
And listening to its own wild wind,
From where Mingarry, sternly placed,
O'erawes the woodland and the waste,
To where Dunstaffnage hears the raging
Of Connal with his rocks engaging."
But that we are bound to the steamer's track, we should be continually
darting off our course to explore the deep indentations of island and
coast, many of which are the entrances to romantic inland lochs. Could
we spread white sails to the winds of Morven, and linger at pleasure in
this picturesque region, we should leave no haunted castle or lonely
watch-tower unexplored, from Castle Stalker, on its island-rock, to
Kin-Loch-Aline, on the copsy bank of Loch Aline, "one of the most
picturesque of the Highland castles," so says the Guidebook, and one
which brought material reward to its builder too; for tradition tells us
that it was built by Dubh-Chal, an Amazon of the Clan McInnes, who paid
the architect with _its bulk in butter_. What a dairy-woman, as well as
warrior, must this Dubh-Chal have been in her day! And what a fortune
this architect would have realized, could he have lived in ours!
We are now entering the Sound of Mull; and on our left, at the
eastern-most point of the island, Duart Castle, which commands the
entrance to the Sound, looks down upon us from its rocky promontory. We
have just passed the Lady Rock, which, bare and black at ebb-tide, but
wave-washed at high-water, is the scene of a legend which has given a
wicked notoriety to one of the ancient lairds of this same Duart. It
gave rise to Campbell's poem of "Glenara," and forms the basis of Joanna
Baillie's tragedy of "The Family Legend." But we have neither at hand
to consult at this moment, even if the steamer would pause to indulge us
in literary pastime; so we must wait the leisure of some winter evening
for poem and tragedy, and content ourselves with the prose account given
by James Wilson, (the Professor's brother,) which is as much as we can
digest _en passant_.
From this it seems that "Lauchlan Catenach Maclean of Duart had married
a daughter of Archibald, second Earl of Argyll, with whom it may be
presumed he lived on bad terms, whatever may have been the cause,
although the character of the act alluded to depends in some measure on
that cause. No man has a right to expose his wife, in consequence of any
ordinary domestic disagreement, upon a wave-washed rock, with the
probability of her catching cold in the first place, and the certainty
of her being drowned in the second. But some accounts say that she had
twice attempted her husband's life, and so assuredly she deserved to be
most severely reprimanded. Be this as it may, Lauchlan carried the lady
to the rock in question, where he left her at low water, no doubt
desiring that at high water she would be seen no more. However, it so
chanced that her cries, 'piercing the night's dull ear,' were heard by
some passing fishermen, who, subduing their fear of water-witches, or
perhaps thinking that they had at last caught a mermaid, secured the
fair one, and conveyed her away to her own people, to whom, of course,
she told her own version of the story. We forget what legal steps were
taken, (a sheriff's warrant probably passed for little in those days, at
least in Mull,) but considerable feudal disorders ensued in consequence,
and the Laird of Duart was eventually assassinated in bed one night, (in
Edinburgh,) by Sir John Campbell of Calder, the brother of the bathed
lady. We hope that this was the means of reconciling all parties."
Next comes, on our right, Ardtornish Castle,
"on her frowning steep,
Twixt cloud and ocean hung,"
the opening scene of Scott's "Lord of the Isles," and the stronghold of
that hero chieftain. It is now, for the most part, in ruins. One old
keep, or tower, still remains standing: the same, perhaps, of which Sir
Walter says,--
"The turret's airy head,
Slender and steep and battled round,
O'erlooked, dark Mull, thy mighty Sound,
Where thwarting tides with mingled roar
Part they swarth hills from Morven's shore."
And if we would form a conception of the inaccessible character of this
and similar ocean-washed fortresses, we have but to recall the poet's
description of the approach to it by Bruce and his companions on the
seaward side:--
"Hewn in the rock, a passage there
Sought the dark fortress by a stair
So straight, so high, so steep,
With peasant's staff one valiant hand
Might well the dizzy pass have manned,
And plunged then in the deep."
Other ancient castles meet our view, both on the right and left, during
the passage of the Sound. None of these rough, but romantic ruins
constitute the present residence of their owners, who could be better
accommodated in the poorest fishing-hut. They serve, however, to give
interest and dignity to the modern residence or miniature village which
nestles demurely under the shelter of their pristine fame. At Tobermory,
or the Well of Mary, the metropolis of Mull, the steamer stops to
deposit and receive passengers,--this, and one or two other pauses for a
similar practical purpose, constituting, in favor of a few chance
travellers, an exception to her otherwise strict character of an
excursion- or pleasure-boat. Indeed, in the eyes of the Islanders, the
services she thus renders may constitute her a business agent, though we
tourists, being so much in the majority, recognize her only in her
festive and recreative capacity. And, after all, who knows but this
scheme of touching at Tobermory originated in the design to accommodate
us with the lovely view which is presented by the picturesque,
straggling town, its terraced walks, its green copses, and its
mountainous background and inclosure, which combine to form the
landscape that greets us as we enter the little bay?
II.
We leave Tobermory and the shelter of the Sound almost simultaneously;
and now, as we emerge into open ocean, the long wave of the Atlantic, on
which the steamer is rolling, no less than the grand ocean prospect,
unbroken, except by the numerous small islands among which our course
lies, betrays the fact that we are getting out to sea. We have passed
the westernmost extremity of the main land, and are outside of and
beyond the great island whose circuit we are making. The romantic and
legendary character of the scenery has now given place to the sublime;
and, the attention no longer diverted by a succession of objects close
at hand, we can give ourselves uninterruptedly to the contemplation of
Nature in her grandeur. The chief objects of our voyage already dawning
upon us. As we pass the Point of Callioch, a stormy headland on the
northeastern shore of Mull, we share the experience of the poet
Campbell, who, living for some months in his youth as a tutor at Sunipol
House, just in this neighborhood, wrote to a friend, "The Point of
Callioch commands a magnificent prospect of thirteen Hebrid islands,
among which are Staffa and Icolmkill, which I visited with enthusiasm."
Thus we have the poet's warrant, as well as that of travellers and sages
of many centuries, for the enthusiasm with which we had embarked on an
excursion, the principal objects of which were Staffa and its far-famed
Fingal's Cave, and Icolmkill, otherwise the sacred island of Iona.
But these objects of engrossing interest are still far off in the
distance. Staffa, the smaller and nearer of the two, presents but an
unimposing front from the quarter by which we approach, being oval in
form, low, and with a gently undulating surface, in which respect it
does not differ materially, except in its dimensions, from the inferior
islands among which we are steering our course, and which, cold, bald,
and of a monotonous and desolate uniformity, betray their near
relationship to the conical, heather-covered hills of the Highlands. It
almost seems, indeed, as if these islands were some old acquaintances of
the mainland, which have slipped their moorings and drifted out to sea.
A sense of loneliness and melancholy steals over one amid this bleak,
wild scenery,--a sense of having one's self drifted away from the haunts
of men, almost from those of vegetation, so much sameness is there in
the landscape, so little of promise or growth on the soil. No wonder
that Dr. Johnson, to whom London streets and atmosphere alone were
congenial, and who brought with him to the Hebrides his strong antipathy
to everything Scotch, was often a prey to discontent and murmuring in
these latitudes, and that in a moment of ill-humor he should have
exclaimed to Boswell,--"Oh, Sir, a most dolorous country!" No wonder,
that, his suspicions excited by the nakedness of the land and his
preconceived notions of Scotch cupidity, he should, on occasion of
losing his stout oaken stick, while crossing the Island of Mull on a
Highland sheltie, have vowed to Boswell that it had been stolen by the
natives, justifying the charge by the argument,--"Consider, Sir, the
value of such a piece of timber here!"
Campbell, so his biographer tells us, "felt the loneliness of his
situation at Sunipol House acutely at first, though he soon became
reconciled to a country which, though bleak and wild, was peculiarly
romantic and nourished the poetry in his soul." Even a creature of a
lower order than philosophers, poets, or even us poor tourists, has been
known to feel the chilling influence of Nature in these her wildest
forms, and though weaned from softer airs, perhaps reconciled to its
stern lot, has cherished in its innermost bosom a memory so warm, so
strong, as to assert itself at last with a force that fired and burst
the little breast in which it had unconsciously smothered. Witness
Campbell's little poem, "The Parrot," the incident of which he learned
in the Island of Mull, from the family to whom the bird belonged,--an
incident which inspired the poet to a strain so touchingly sweet that I
cannot resist the temptation to quote it entire.
"The deep affections of the breast,
That Heaven to living things imparts,
Are not exclusively possessed
By human hearts.
"A parrot from the Spanish Main,
Full young, and early caged, came o'er
With bright wings to the bleak domain
Of Mulla's shore.
"To spicy groves where he had won
His plumage of resplendent hue,
His native fruits and skies and sun,
He bade adieu.