CHAPTER VIII.

FROM SKYE TO CALCUTTA.

“With a low silver-tongued monotony

The little billows whisper as they fall,

Calm is the forehead of the outer sea

As though it would not rewake at all.

“But yestermorn, like mountains earthquake shaken,

The waters swayed against the dawning light,

And now they lie, like sorrows overtaken

By weary sleep, that cannot wait for night.”

O hone! O hone! to think that such a change could have passed o’er the

spirit of our dream. Here we are once again in beautiful Loch Staffin.

But can it be that this is indeed the fairy bay in which, so few days

ago, we took such exceeding delight? Now the pattering rain falls with

dull plash on the sullen waves; a heavy ground swell rolls us to and

fro, and the cold spray dashes over us; the bitter wind whistles through

the rigging, or blows in hollow gusts, echoing among the crags; on every

side the lowering sky is black with gathering storm; the slippery, black

rocks are flecked with salt sea-foam, and there is no beauty in the

dripping sea-weed, or the wet sands, or the flapping sails of the

fishers’ boats—with their rich brown changed to dirty black.

It is with infinite difficulty that we effect a landing (for business

has brought us here, and must be attended to); but as to embarking

again, it is simply impossible. So there is nothing for it but to spend

the night ashore in the little inn. All night we hear the sullen moaning

of the wind, and the waves beating heavily on the shingle; and when the

cheerless dawn breaks over the cheerless land, nothing is visible

through the colourless mist, save heaps of tangle and weed lying in dark

masses along the shore. Nevertheless we must re-embark with all speed,

for the skipper distrusts his anchorage, and wants to run for Portree.

So we are off, and look up at the great basaltic rocks, all dim and

grey, wondering what had made them so beautiful in our eyes? Our

question is answered by the sun himself, shining out suddenly through

the mist, lighting up the grand old Storr—now right above us, and

revealing a thousand beauties of form and colour. Still we pass along

the same basaltic pillars, which at one spot are fairly bent over, as if

by some vast pressure in their early life. By the time we reach Portree,

the evening is clear and sunny. Next morning, when we would again set

sail, we find ourselves becalmed.

[Illustration: THE STORR.]

You remember our first arrival at Portree was by the steamer at 4 A.M.,

and we awoke to find only torrents of rain. Now we had time enough to

row about the harbour, fishing and sketching from all points, and

rejoicing in the stillness of a calm as perfect as that wherein Milton

describes the beginning of Messiah’s reign of peace:—

“The winds with wonder whist,

Smoothly the waters kiss’t,

Whispering new joy to the mild ocean,

Who now hath quite forgot to rave,

While birds of calm, sit brooding on the charmëd wave.”

I think no more perfect image of peace exists than these soft

white-breasted “birds of calm,” floating on a mirror so still, that each

white plume is reflected; the brightest spots on the broad plain of

gleaming light.

This fine sea-loch divides itself into an inner and an outer harbour,

perfectly land-locked. The former is still known to the older fishers as

Loch Columbkille, being one of the spots specially dedicated to St.

Columba, who was patron saint of half of Skye, and many neighbouring

isles. The other half was the property of St. Maelruhba. At the further

end of the loch, close to the sheriff’s house, is a small rocky islet,

where a few fragments of building and traces of old graves are all that

now remain to mark the spot where once stood the oldest monastic

building in Scotland; so, at least, say certain of our wisest

antiquarians. Early and late we rowed about on those calm waters;

sometimes landing in some little creek, where the great rocks sheltered

us from the burning sun, and the cool wavelets, rippling over white

sand, whispered an irresistible invitation to bathe. Then, wandering

along the shore, some heathery knoll would tempt us to linger amid its

fragrant purple till the mellowing evening light called us back to our

floating home.

Alongside of the _Gannet_ lay two yachts, similarly becalmed, the

inmates of which, for lack of better distinction, we dubbed the

“Cockneys” and the “Paddies;” and we took the usual British interest in

one another’s proceedings. At last we made sure of a gale, and

determined to sail next morning. So at 3 A.M. I went off to the head of

the bay to get a final sketch of the Storr; and returned, of course, to

find the breeze more sleepy than ever. Next day we determined we _would_

get under way; so we contrived to get to the mouth of the harbour, and

there lay immovable till the men got into the boat, and, rowing with all

their might, contrived to tug us back, greatly to the edification of the

Cockneys and the Paddies, who had had too much wit to try.

You see our sailors were above the common practice of whistling for the

wind, as their brethren the fisher folk do to this day in most real

earnest. Hugh Miller tells us how, often, when he has been sailing with

the Cromarty fishermen in calm weather, he has watched them with faces

anxiously turned in the direction whence they expect the breeze, and

earnestly invoking the wind in a shrill, tremulous whistling. He says

that one evening when it was blowing hard he commenced whistling a

careless tune, whereupon one of the men instantly silenced him, saying,

“Whist, whist, lad! we hae mair nor eneugh wind already.” He traces this

superstition back to the old days of mythology, when each spirit of air

or earth or water must be invoked in its own language and in its own

manner. He quotes another instance of this conciliatory dealing with the

elements, when, in the case of a rising storm, one of the fishers used

to be told off to sit astern and continually move his hand to and fro

over the waves, as though making mesmeric passes, to soothe the spirit

of the storm. The St. Kilda men came nearer to “pouring oil upon the

water,” inasmuch as they made a pudding of the fat of sea-fowl, and

fastened it to the end of their cable, to hinder the waves from

breaking. Sometimes the fiery Highlanders opposed wrath to wrath; and

there is one angry tide always chafing and fretting off the coast of

Mull which is called the “Men of Lochaber,” because, having occasion to

cross over to Mull, the contrast of these waves with their quieter

waters amazed and angered them to such a pitch that they drew their

dirks and stabbed the waves!

Speaking of oil upon the waters, how strange it is that we should hear

so much of its use and yet go on thinking of it as wholly a fiction. So

far back as the days of Pliny, he tells us how “all seas are made calme

and still with oyle, and therefore the dyvers do spurt it abroad with

their mouths into the water, because it dulceth the unpleasant nature

thereof, and carryeth a light with it.” In later days we have heard of

the fishers at Gibraltar pouring oil on the sea to still its motion, so

that they might the better see the large oysters lying beneath; and the

fishermen of Bermuda do likewise when the ripple of the water prevents

their seeing clearly enough to strike their fish. The divers of the

Mediterranean actually do spurt oil, in the way Pliny described, in

order to clear the light under the surface of the water by the stillness

so caused. And on our own Scottish rivers, both poachers and other folk

besides well know the use of a good flask of oil in smoothing the

surface of the deep brown pool where the silvery salmon lie all

unconscious of the impending spear. We also hear of the fishermen of

Lisbon, when finding the surf on the bar of the Tagus unusually rough,

emptying a bottle or two of oil into the sea, and thereby soothing the

waves so far as to be able to pass the breakers in safety. I wonder how

the experiment would answer at Madras! It has further been observed that

the leakage of oil pumped up with bilge-water out of whaling vessels,

seems to surround them with smooth water while their neighbours are

pitching in a chopping sea. The herring fishers on our Scotch coasts say

they can tell at a distance where the shoals of fish lie by the

smoothness of the water over them (we know how oily _they_ are); and the

seal fishers used to detect when their victims were eating their oily

fish below the water by the unruffled surface above them.

A curious letter on this subject, shown to Dr. Franklin, seems first to

have called his attention to the matter. The letter told of a stormy

passage in a Dutch ship, when the captain, to prevent the waves from

breaking over the vessel, poured a small quantity of olive oil into the

sea, a little at a time, not more than four quarts altogether; and so

effectual did this prove, that the writer suggested that surely the same

simple means might be made greater use of. Franklin accordingly tried

sundry experiments on a very rough pond one windy day. He found that

when he stood to leeward the wind blew the oil back to the shore; but on

going to the other side of the pond, one teaspoonful produced an instant

calm over a considerable space, and spreading rapidly, soon made an oily

film over an extent of at least half an acre, which he says became as

smooth as a looking-glass. He afterwards tried the experiment on a

larger scale with less effect than he expected, for the swell continued,

only the surface was not wrinkled or broken, and though the sea around

was white with crested waves, there were none in the smooth track left

by his boat, and he noticed that a barge rounding the headland under

sail, at once turned into that oily path as on to a turnpike road. It is

curious that after the subject had been so far taken up by so learned a

man, it should not have been turned to more practical account. Possibly

a few extra kegs of oil may still come to be looked upon as part of the

regular stores of our fishers. As concerned our present cruise we needed

no such soothing influence, for we watched the smooth, glassy, unrippled

surface of the water till we despaired of ever getting out of harbour.

At last, however, the welcome breeze sprang up, and when the spirit of

the wind did awaken it did so in good earnest, and we straightway

returned to Loch Staffin, where I had determined to have a fortnight

alone with the rock-spirits of Quiraing. It was very dismal to watch my

playfellows sail away in the evening, but I received a cordial welcome

in the wee inn, though “inn” I should not call the kindly farmhouse

where I found myself in the position of an honoured guest. My gentle

landlord was most assiduous in his care, and being the only creature who

could speak a word of English, used anxiously to come and interpret

whatever information might be necessary to the one fair spirit who was

my minister—namely, a strapping, cheery wench, Peggy Mòr, who, though of

course utterly guiltless of English, was wonderfully “gleg at the

uptak.” This was fortunate, as her master was generally absent all day.

When my intelligent giantess succeeded in understanding my various signs

she would pat and stroke me exultingly, uttering clicks and chuckles of

exceeding interest and delight.

Mine host was, in some way, responsible for all the lunatics in the

district, and being a man of a tender heart, could rarely resist the

appeal of any who were particularly anxious to leave the asylum and find

occupation among his herdsmen. So it came to pass that various strange

beings haunted the neighbourhood, _haavelings_, as we call half-witted

creatures on the mainland. One in particular who herded the _kye_ was

engaged in a ceaseless warfare with devils, and was for ever battling

with invisible foes, in order to protect himself and us. The raging

waves were an especial annoyance to him, and he attributed their noise

to myriads of women roaring in concert. It used to amuse me in the

evenings to hear all the farm lads and lasses gathered round the kitchen

fire, “laughing and daffin’ and lilting and quaffing,” and after their

simple supper of porridge and milk, singing all manner of Gaelic songs

and choruses, which were just sufficiently softened by distance to lose

their harshness; “low winding songs, with as little beginning or end as

the murmur of a brook,” and well in keeping with the wild sea and

mountains round me.

Each day that promised a tolerable allowance of sunshine I went up to

the Rock Wilderness, getting a lift in “the cart,” which was full of

sweet fresh straw, very needful, considering the character of the ground

over which we jolted. But on the whole the rain had the best of it, and

though a waterproof rug and waterproof coat made _me_ quite amphibious,

my sketching blocks lived under shadow of an umbrella, which alas! was

rapidly giving up the ghost. What was to be done? The problem was solved

by the return of mine host from a distant cattle market, whence he

brought me a fairin’—a roll of pale brown ribbon. It mattered not that

the poor umbrella was dark maroon; we sewed strips of ribbon down each

seam, and little patches of ribbon under every tear, and when our

masterpiece was finished, it not only defied wind and rain, but was the

admiration of all beholders—nay, more; it proved a fruitful topic of

conversation, which is no mean praise in these parts!

Events were few and far between. In three weeks about three drowned

tourists arrived from Portree _viâ_ the Storr—pedestrians, of course—and

one day, while I sat painting on the shore, a very large English yacht

came in, with a steam-tug to take care of her. The owner having packed

as many of his party as could find room into “the cart,” went off to

Quiraing. I was much amused at noting the difference between the English

sailors who manned this yacht and those we had had to do with. The

latter were grave thoughtful men, content with the simplest fare,

biscuit, herrings, and milk, and appreciating the beauty of scenery as

much as we did ourselves. These, like a pack of wild boys were intent

only on the fun of foraging, and capturing sheep, fowls, eggs, whatever

they could lay hands on, and their verdict on each place where they had

halted was solely dependent on the commissariat. Then I began to realize

how curiously this contrast must have struck the frugal old Highlanders,

when first the Saxons came among them, and the grim humour that prompted

their retort to some English taunt—a retort which became

proverbial—“Show me a Southron, and I will show you a glutton!” Far be

it from me to apply such a term to these jolly tars. Nevertheless, not

one of them gave a glance at the strange scene their master had come so

far to look at, though they found considerable amusement in watching my

sketch of it.

Three months later, when I embarked for India at Southampton, a cheery

voice wished me luck, and that I might get good drawings, and looking

up, I recognised one of these hearties. Just beyond him, on the deck,

sat one of “the Paddies,” who was equally astonished at meeting a

neighbour from the _Gannet_. He left us at Aden, going to see Bombay and

the North-West Provinces. A month later, as I sat in a lovely garden in

Agra, I started at hearing my name. There stood my friend, who having

“done” India thoroughly, was on the eve of embarking for Australia, or

any other place where English, and English only, would greet his ear!

When the time came that I must bid adieu to Quiraing, my friends at Uig,

true to the good old precept, “Welcome the coming, speed the parting,

guest,” escorted me as far as Portree. My next halting-point was

Sligachan Inn, which stands on the borders of Lord Macdonald’s deer

forest of Sconser.

The drive from Portree to Sligachan was over a heathery moor, a broad

expanse of rich browns and purples, with patches of vivid green, or dark

moss with darker peat stacks ready cut for winter fuel. Here and there a

broken sea-bank, and a rippling stream; and beyond, an ever-changing

outline of fine mountain forms, just appearing through the mist, then

vanishing again. The inn, though small, is comfortable enough, and

affords shelter to a wondrously varied multitude of tourists and

travellers. Members of the Alpine Club, distinguished artists,

statesmen, ecclesiastics, botanists, geologists, yachting parties,

pleasure seekers of all sorts, drovers, excisemen, down to that class of

tourist who “does” Skye as a sort of unpleasant duty, and confides to

his friend “‘ow hawfully the ’orses gibbed coming up these ’ideous,

’orrible, ’ills,” adding that if only Nature had “put all the ’ills into

the ’ollows, it would have been a much finer country.” Also giving him

startling information of all sorts, such as that “A gwilse is the female

of a gwouse,” and making oh! such havoc of all local names. One of these

southern gentlemen, whose presence had only been remarked by his

excessive silence, suddenly electrified his neighbours by springing

wildly towards the window, exclaiming, “There they are! There they are!

Don’t you see the red deer?” at the same time pointing out a couple of

collie dogs which were quietly surveying the world from the brow of the

hill. After this failure the unhappy man once more relapsed into

silence, and made no further attempt to enliven the public. But none of

these conveyed to our ears so curious a sensation as when a pretty young

woman, who had been listening in much bewilderment to a discussion about

Oban, suddenly looked up, and with an expression of beaming

intelligence, exclaimed, “Well to be sure! Why, I thought you were

talking of Oban in London!” Judge of our first feelings of

mystification, and congratulate us on our command of countenance, in

that, as a vision of Holborn Hill slowly presented itself to our minds,

we contrived not to move a muscle![63]

But though we take our quiet laugh at the Sassenach, perhaps he, in his

turn, may find his little joke at the expense of some of our northern

worthies, and may treasure up such speeches as that of a certain drover,

who, moved with indignation at finding himself supplied with a

dessert-spoon at second-course, shouted to the damsel in waiting to

bring back his soup-spoon, exclaiming, “Hoot! lassie, isna ma mouth just

as big for pudding as for kail?”

Many a good story has been told under that roof, and many a queer

longwinded discussion of every topic under heaven, overheard, with more

or less amusement, by people, who, accustomed always to go on trotting

round and round their own social cabbage-leaf, here catch perhaps the

only glimpse they ever get of the existence of their fellows, whose

diverse caste has run them likewise into their several grooves; grooves

wherein (like those delicate white-shelled creatures[64] which bore

their thousand paths through the hard rock, yet rarely break through the

thin stone barrier that separates them each from the others), they may

work their way through this hard world from their birth to their grave,

each ramming his own head against the stone wall, and buying his own

experience without once coming in friendly contact with his nearest

neighbours, or venturing to run in any of their thousand and one

smoothly-worn paths. Here, however, for once, they do just meet, and

bring with them enough of their own individuality to make them amusing

studies for one another.

And of all this, you get full benefit, as the little inn boasts of only

one private sitting-room, and the occupant thereof is considered by the

other inmates exclusive indeed. I for one had been so long alone with

the Rocks and the Peggy Môr, that I was not disposed to shun my species!

Moreover I was fortunate enough to fall in with thoroughly pleasant

companions, who, arriving on the same day as myself, were likewise in no

hurry to leave so beautiful a spot. So we formed ourselves into a most

agreeable _coterie_, and found abundant pleasure, social and scenic,

during the three happy weeks we spent beneath the shadow of the dark

Cuchullins. Of those kindly companions, one alas! may never more tread

mountain crag. Ere two summers had passed, during which he had scaled

many a cloud-capped summit, he met his fate suddenly, as he had always

himself predicted. Wandering alone on the Maritime Alps, a falling mass

of rock struck and killed him in a moment. Some peasants brought tidings

to Mentone of the death of an unknown Englishman, and after a while it

was known that this was our friend of the Cuchullins, and that yet

another of the companions of these two short years had passed away from

earth.

The inn stands on a flat peat-moss, just where a brown trout-stream

rushes down Glen Sligachan into a salt sea-lake of the same name. To the

right of the valley towers the mass of dark peaks, eight of which are

upwards of 3,000 feet in height. Of these, Scuir-na-gillean or the

gillie’s hill, claims precedence. It earned its name in remote ages from

a legend that two lads had been killed while attempting to scale its

dark crags, and till very recently its summit was deemed inaccessible.

Even to the most experienced cragsman the ascent is no child’s play, as

has been recently but too well proven, when a member of the Alpine Club

met his death alone among these cruel black rocks, his body being found

next day at the foot of a precipice.

On the other side of the valley rises a ninth peak of similar height

(Blabhein, pronounced Blaven), also of greenish black hyperstene; its

strangely serrated outline cutting hard against the sky.

Against it, in strong relief, stands Marskow, one of a group of conical

hills of red syenite, whose steep sides are furrowed by the torrents

(true children of the storm) that rush down literally from the clouds.

These red hills seem like huge piles of disintegrated rock, pale flesh

colour, more curious than beautiful, though a brilliant green herbage

has managed to creep up the lower slopes, and glances with rainbow light

when touched by that “clear shining after rain,” with which dwellers in

a hill country become so familiar. Another of these pink hills bears the

name of Glamaig, whose shoulder, Scuir-na-Mairi, or the crag of Mary,

was so called in memory of a woman who was there killed in attempting to

rescue her cow.

At the head of the valley stands one cone whose name, Trodhu, recalls

the days when the old Norsemen overran the land, and left traces of

their presence all along the coast. Such names as Skeabost, Orbost,

Kirkabost, Hushibost, Bornaskitag, Hungladder, Valtos, and a thousand

more seem to carry us north to Scandinavian shores. For this cone of

Trodhu you must make, if you wish to look down on the far-famed Loch

Corruisk, literally the corrie of the water. Three hours’ good walking

or pony-riding should take you up beautiful Glen Sligachan, and by a

steep ascent to the shoulder of Trodhu, whence the view on a clear day

is magnificent. Wild hills rise high on every side of you; their dark

rocky crests half veiled by wreaths of floating mist. Far below you lies

black Loch Duich, connected by a streamlet with blacker Corruisk, whence

a river, perhaps a quarter of a mile long, rushes down the rocks into

Loch Scavaig, the most exquisitely transparent green sea-loch, on whose

calm surface is mirrored a great white waterfall that comes tumbling

over the crags. The contrast in colour between these lochs is most

striking; the fresh-water so sombre, like darkest indigo—the salt water

so wondrously green. On the latter float a few brown and red specks,

veiled with the faintest thread of blue smoke, which tells that the

fishers have kindled fires on board their boats, and are cooking their

midday meal of fresh herrings. A little apart from these, flutters a

tiny white sail no bigger than a fairy’s wing, which proves to be a

yacht just anchoring in the bay. And beyond Loch Scavaig lies the great

blue sea, from which rise the shapely hills of Rum, and the lower shores

of Canna and other isles.

[Illustration: LOCH CORRUISK, SKYE. _To face p. 354._]

Beautiful however as is such a day of glorious sunshine, when we feel

the mere fact of existence to be bliss unspeakable, there is no denying

that fine dry weather is certainly not the time to see these hills in

their glory. We thought ourselves singularly fortunate in having

selected a perfect day for our first visit to the corrie of the waters,

little thinking how a few days of sunshine would inevitably have parched

and scorched the rocks, and dried up every trickling stream and tiny

waterfall. We started, having our minds thoroughly imbued with Scott’s

description of this scene, “so rude, so wild,—yet so sublime in

barrenness.”

“For rarely human eye has known

A scene so stern as that dread lake

With its dark ledge of barren stone.

Seems that primeval earthquake’s sway

Hath rent a strange and shattered way

Through the rude bosom of the hill,

And that each naked precipice,

Sable ravine, and dark abyss

Tells of the outrage still.

The wildest glen but this can show

Some touch of Nature’s genial glow,

But here—above, around, below,

On mountain or in glen,

Nor tree, nor shrub, nor plant, nor flower,

Nor aught of vegetative power,

The weary eye may ken,

For all is rock at random thrown,

Black waves, bare rocks, and banks of stone.”

At the summit of the ridge below Trodhu we paused breathless with

delight at the glory of the panorama outspread before us. There, as is

customary, we turned the ponies loose, an amount of trust which these

wise creatures never betray. This done we started for a long and

fatiguing scramble down the steep hillside, fairly awed by our solemn

expectations, which intensified as we neared the ridge whence we might

overlook those black mysterious waters. Once there!... O bitter

disappointment! This weird and wonderful scene of whose barren grandeur

we had read such descriptions in poetry and prose—and had seen such

exaggerated pictures, beginning with Turner’s far-famed drawing, where

overhanging cliffs are shown overshadowing the black water; is _this_

Corruisk? _This_ the peerless loch whose stillness and solitude poets

have sung, as though no other spot of earth could show such leaden-hued

waters, embosomed in such a wilderness of rugged rock mountains, whose

black pinnacles seem to pierce the heavens, towering far above the

masses of floating clouds which for ever hang around their summits? We

looked for such grim solemnity as should befit the chosen home of

spirit-giants, and we beheld only a little dark tarn, with grassy shore,

surrounded by hills, very steep certainly, but not very impressive, and

all of much the same height, running in a slightly jagged line across a

cloudless blue sky; while every detail of arid rock and every tuft of

grass stood out clearly revealed in the calm sunshine. Not a wreath of

friendly mist was there to lend mystery to the scene, but far up the

valley a party of odious tourists were making the sad hills echo their

vulgar shouts! We stood mute with disappointment—and if we had not been

too tired, I think we should have gone straight back to the brow of the

hill. However by degrees a few clouds stole up, and some hill-tops were

partially veiled, and dark crags stood out in relief—and as the sun

moved westward long shadows from the great rocks fell athwart the weary

land. The shouting snobs were gone, and nature’s still small voice spoke

for herself.

Then we began to realize what that scene might be under dark effects of

storm and thunder—at the outgoings of morning and evening—or in the

clear starlight. So we determined to come back, and try a second

impression. And the second led to a third; and the third to a fourth;

and the oftener we went, the better we loved that wild ride through Glen

Sligachan, and the dark valley where the deep, blue-black tarns gleam

like black diamonds beside the emerald sea-loch. Often we halted just to

listen to the intensely solemn silence, broken only by faint whispers of

the breeze that just fanned the light mists in the corries, or the

rippling murmur of the quiet brooklet as it flashed here and there in

the sunlight. And sometimes when a jarring human voice rang harshly in

our ears, disturbing those perfect harmonies, we did feel—oh, such

sympathy!—with the grand old Indians, who believed that the lonely

stillness of their tranquil lakes was especially sacred to the Great

Spirit, and that His wrath would sink the canoe of any rash mortal who

dared to lift up his voice while on the waters.

Once in the days of the early settlers, a white woman had occasion to

cross Lake Saratoga, and the Indians, ere they started, warned her of

the danger that one rash word might bring. It was a calm, cloudless sky,

and the canoe sped like an arrow athwart the smooth waters. Suddenly,

when in the middle of the lake, the strong-minded woman determined to

prove to these simple folk the folly of their belief. So, like the

shouting snobs at Corruisk, she lifted up her voice in a wild cry that

woke every echo of the hills. The Indians were filled with

consternation. They uttered no word, but straining every nerve, rowed on

in frowning silence. They reached the shore in safety, and the soulless

woman triumphed. But the Mohawk chief looked upon her with scorn. “The

Great Spirit is merciful,” he said. “He knows that the white woman

cannot hold her peace!”

The apparent size of the corrie is strangely deceptive. It is almost

impossible to make the eye realise that the loch can be a mile in

length; and yet we know that it is nearly four, and that a grassy valley

lies at the further end, where the black rocks seem to close in so

precipitously. Well do the red deer know how to prize that oasis in the

rock wilderness—truly green pastures beside still waters. Yet not even

here does “the antlered monarch of the waste” reign in peace. Once, at

least, this little glen was the scene of as good a day’s sport as ever

fell to the lot of solitary stalker.[65] It was before the days of

cartridges and breechloaders, when men were liable to have their sport

spoilt and their tempers ruffled by the failure of a damp cap. In the

present instance, the irritating cause was the lack of that small

essential; for, after a long and tiring walk across the hills, the

sportsman suddenly bethought him that he had forgotten to replenish his

store. In vain were his pockets turned out, in hopes of finding hidden

treasure in some corner. All his search only produced five caps; short

allowance, you must confess, with which to start on a long day’s

stalking. However, he pushed on, and made for the head of Corruisk.

Judge of his dismay when he beheld five stags quietly feeding by the

stream that trickles through the green valley. All through the long day

he stalked them, one by one; and at midnight returned home, with one cap

in his pocket, having bagged the four fine heads each with a single

shot, while the fifth was so poor as not to be worth having. Next day

the foresters went in search of their prizes, and found them in spots so

inaccessible, that they had to cut them up where they lay, and bring

them down piecemeal, as no pony could possibly carry such a burden on

such ground.

But if the corrie of the waters has thus its tale to tell of the kingly

red deer, Loch Scavaig has older legends of the days when its shores

were haunted by fierce wild boars. On the edge of the loch there is a

cave wherein the chief of the Mackinnons once found shelter when

separated from his followers by the luck of the chase. He kindled a

fire, and proceeded to cook some of his venison on the embers. In one

hand he held a large bone off which he was cutting slices ready for

dressing, when a rustle on the dry sea-weed in the mouth of the cave

made him look up to see a dark creature approaching him with gaping jaws

and wicked tusks. He recognised a savage wild boar, and, having no

choice between absence of body and presence of mind, he made good use of

the latter. Holding the bone upright in his hand, he awaited the charge

of the grizzly brute, and dashed his arm down its throat, the

cross-bone, of course, holding the terrible jaws open, and leaving him

full time to despatch the foe with his hunting-knife. To this feat the

Mackinnons of the present day owe their crest, which is a boar’s head,

open-mouthed—apparently choked by a great bone. This description of his

cutting slices ready for dressing, points to a common manner of

preparing food in those wild days by simply squeezing the meat between

two flat stones, or two battens of wood, till all the blood was forced

out. Of course, there were many cases when kindling a fire would have

been inconvenient, and this was always ready.

This story of Mackinnon’s crest must remind Oxonians of the kindred

legend telling how a student of Queen’s College was wandering in

Shotover Wood, and reading a volume of Aristotle, when a fierce wild

boar charged him open-mouthed. The electrified student had no

alternative but to thrust Aristotle down the boar’s throat, which most

effectually choked him; in memory of which exploit the boar’s head,

borne into hall with all due pomp, still graces the Christmas dinner at

Queen’s.

One very striking geological feature of this district is the prevalence

of the class of rocks known to Alpine travellers as _roches moutonnées_

and _blocs perchés_, that is to say, long swelling surfaces of bare

rock, in form like the outline of a great stranded whale, whereon lie

poised huge detached boulders of rock of totally different formation.

These vast rounded slopes of gritty chocolate-coloured sandstone are

almost always quite bare, even the kindly lichen failing to obtain a

resting-place thereon. All along the margin of the lakes, and indeed

everywhere on the lower slopes of these hills, these rounded red masses

appear, invariably lying in a transverse position to the general

direction of the valley; telling of a time, far hidden in the remotest

mist of ages, when mighty glaciers lodged in every ravine of those dark

mountain ranges, and thence slowly descended to the valleys with sure

though imperceptible progress, smoothing the rugged rocks as they passed

over them, and bearing on their cold ice-waves huge boulders of fallen

rock, weighing perhaps fifty tons or more, for many such still lie in

the valleys; gigantic masses which, from their formation, must evidently

have been carried hither from far-distant points. These boulders, of

every size, from the least to the greatest, lie scattered in every glen,

as though the giants of the mountain had been pelting their pigmy foes

in the lower world.

Constantly we find these erratic blocks perched on the very edge of the

rounded rock, as though the ice-wave had had no power to carry them

further; and so ever since, through the storms and hurricanes of

centuries untold, they have remained there, poised, as if waiting for

some new motive force to send them crashing down the hill. Although the

action of the glaciers has planed these swelling forms to such apparent

smoothness, you need but step upon them to find that they are in truth

all grooved with continuous minute lines; the result of which is, that

so far from being slippery, they are in reality so rough to the foot as

to afford a perfectly secure hold, and a most agreeable surface on which

to walk. A few days after returning to the mainland, I heard the

Archbishop of York make very striking reference to these glacial marks,

as illustrating the gradual moulding of human character and the

ineffaceable traces of daily life on the far-distant future; and

straightway there rose before me a vision of Corruisk in antedeluvian

days!

Strange indeed are the pictures that suggest themselves when, from time

to time, Mother Earth reveals to us hints of the marvellous geological

changes through which, in her long life, she has had to pass. Phases of

poverty and of wealth, of burning heat and bitter cold. Imagine days

when British coal-fields were forests of waving palms and giant

tree-ferns, rich and beautiful as a tropical jungle. Days, too, when

these isles were peopled with such monstrous reptiles as those which

haunt the dreams of our children after a day at the Crystal

Palace—creatures whose remains have been found even on yonder blue Isle

of Eigg. Not that the reptiles had it all to themselves. Gigantic

elephants and kindred creatures roamed through the forests and there

left their bones, which, after countless ages, have been dug up in the

streets of London and of Oxford by puny bipeds, who little dreamt that

they had built their cities on the very site of the great mammoth

cemeteries! The bipeds, however, seem to have invaded the land before

all these curious beasts had become extinct; so at least we may infer

from finding the bones of the woolly-haired rhinoceros lying beside

those of the rein-deer, the roebuck, and the horse, in the cave of

Aurignac, where apparently they had graced certain funeral feasts, and

the survivors, who were evidently _gourmets_, had split the rhinoceros’s

bones to extract the marrow! Moreover, in some of the British caves the

remains of brown bears and grizzly bears, hyenas and cave lions, elk and

bison, have been found together with objects manufactured by man.

Poor Mother Earth tells of far more sudden alternations of heat and cold

in her northern regions, where not only are the perfectly-preserved

carcases of woolly elephants found embedded in the ice-cliffs, but huge

buried forests, such as those in North Greenland, where now no shrub can

brave the cold, but where, in the very heart of the glaciers, fir trees,

oaks, elms, laurels, plantains, and magnolias have been dug up—not their

branches and trunks only, but even leaves and cones, all perfectly

preserved. It seems as if Greenland and Siberia are now passing through

the same course of treatment to which Britain was subjected so many ages

ago; possibly their shores may some day be considered as the temperate

zone, when our isles have attained some condition as yet undreamt of!

Sometimes we varied our route up Glen Sligachan by invading the Hart

o’Corrie, a deep, dark gorge running into the very heart of the

Cuchullins, which rise on every side in mighty crags—ash-coloured,

seamed with a green that is well-nigh black, and streaked with tremulous

lines of white that tell of rushing waters. No sound of living thing is

there save the cry of the muir-fowl startled from their sanctuary in the

rich blossoming heather; yet there was once an awesome night when these

rocks echoed the shouts of warriors and the cries of the dying; and a

great boulder of red rock, known as “the Bloody Stane,” still marks the

spot where a fierce battle was fought by the MacAllisters, the

Macdonalds, and the MacLeods, whose lands still meet at this very spot,

so each clan buried its dead on its own ground; and this it is which

makes the place so eerie in the moonlight, for as we all know, the

fairies fashion their bows and arrows from the ribs of men buried where

the lands of three lairds meet.

Many a fierce clan-feud have these silent hills witnessed, as some still

testify by the names they bear. Thus one dark spur overhanging Corruisk

is known as Strona Stree, or the Hill of Strife, the possession of its

bare and rugged crags having been hotly contested by jealous chiefs. And

at the back of this range lies the Corry-na-Criech, or Corry of the

Fight, a deep, dark gorge, where the MacLeods surprised the Macdonalds

in the act of dividing the spoil gathered in a foray on their own homes.

Then followed quick revenge, and the red rocks were dyed of a deeper

hue, with the life-blood of many a sturdy clansman.

In some of the marshy pools in these valleys we found a very rare, but

very ugly plant growing abundantly,[66] namely, the jointed pipewort, so

called because of its stalk being jointed and set at seven or eight

angles; its roots are coral-like. The plant is indigenous to North

America, and its only British homes are at this spot, the neighbouring

Isle of Coll, and a few small islets near. It is also found at Connemara

in Ireland. To botanists its rarity makes its existence here a point of

considerable interest, otherwise its insignificance would fail to

attract notice.

The expeditions to Corruisk always involved a stiff day’s work,

generally of twelve hours, of which eight were spent on the road, going

and returning. Moreover it was such a road as was not pleasant after

dusk, even for such sure-footed ponies as those we rode, so that we

always had reluctantly to leave off work just when the lights were most

beautiful; and our faithful, sturdy lout, Donald, took good care that we

should not outstay what he considered the right time. The height of

artistic pleasure would be to visit Corruisk with such a tent as that in

which I spent the following summer, amid loftier, but scarcely more

beautiful mountains.

Our homeward ride was always a delight, as we watched every changing

effect of sunset and gloaming, pass over beautiful Blaven and Marskow,

and their dark brethren. There was something eerie in the companionship

of our own shadows, lying right across the valley, on the opposite

hillside, as if some silent spirit of the mountain were haunting our

footsteps. Sometimes they fell far below us, and rested in ghostly

stillness on the white vapours that lay there hushed in deathlike

silence, motionless as “the mist that sleeps on a waveless sea.” And far

overhead the solemn mountains towered, Marskow and Glamaig glowing

ruddier and more golden in the light of the setting sun, and Blaven

rearing his dark crest against a pale green sky—a marvellous confused

mass of crags, ashy-grey as the heron’s wing, and cutting black in

strange serrated outline against the clear frosty heaven.

Many a time since then have the words of the “city poet,”[67] come

floating back to my mind, with the same great longing once more to

return to that beautiful wild valley—

“O wonderful mountain of Blaven!

How oft since our parting hour

You have roar’d with the wintry torrents,

You have gloom’d through the thunder-shower.

O Blaven, rocky Blaven!

How I long to be with you again,

To see lash’d gulf and gully

Smoke white in the windy rain.

To see in the scarlet sunrise

The mist-wreaths perish with heat,

The wet rock slide with a trickling gleam

Right down to the cataract’s feet;

While toward the crimson islands,

Where the sea-birds flutter and skirl,

A cormorant flaps o’er a sleek ocean floor

Of tremulous mother-of-pearl.”

It was always an amusing lottery, on returning in the evening to the

little inn, to ascertain who were the fresh arrivals, as many of our

southern friends came there for a few days, and looked upon a chance

meeting in Skye much as if we had met in Kamschatka.

I had been fortunate in securing a tiny little attic which possessed the

only window with a view of the Cuchullins, so I could see them at all

hours and seasons, in beautiful moonlight, and before dawn. Then when I

saw a clear pale sky, I knew what was coming, and went away down the

shore of the little bay to watch the fiery finger touch the peaks, while

their perfect image lay mirrored at my feet. Gradually the fire spread,

till the whole mass gleamed crimson in the clear frosty air, and the

cloudless sky was a faint lemon colour, and deep purply shadows lay on

the brown peat-moss. By the time that all this beauty had faded to the

“light of common day,” it was time to feel how chilling was the air, and

turn breakfastward, with some compassion for the sleepers who came so

far in search of beauty, and invariably missed the cream of it.

It is only by letting these varied aspects of the hills sink through

your eyes into your imagination, that you really get into the spirit of

the place, and of those remote days when Cuchullin and Diarmid, Ossian,

and Fingal dwelt among these wilds, with their beautiful wives, and

stalwart sons and daughters, brave vassals and trusty hounds, whose

adventures in chase and war have been the theme of the islesmen ever

since. Gradually they have taken colour from the poetic imaginations of

a people nurtured among stormy mountains and dreary moorlands—wild mists

and rocks, with wilder seas around—the legends becoming more and more

shadowy and weird as they were transmitted from one generation to

another, till sea foam and drifting vapour—wraiths and spirits of earth,

sea, and air became so interwoven with each heroic deed, and the whole

so magnified by the mists of ages, that they have taken the form of

those Ossianic legends, whose first appearance in the civilised world

occasioned a turmoil among men who had not cared to note for themselves

how the commonest story of the present day becomes fraught with poetic

imagery when heard from the lips of these untutored children of the

mist; keenly sensitive as they are to all spiritual influences, whether

of faith or of mere superstition. A people, moreover, who, from the dawn

of life always live more or less in memory of the “steadfast doom of

death;” whose chief anxiety is to stint themselves of luxuries during

life that they may provide fair linen for their winding sheet, and a

funeral feast for those who shall carry them to their grave. One of

their legends tells of a strange burial on one of these misty summits,

which bears the name of Ben-na-Cailliach, the old wife’s hill. For, just

as the old granite-faced pyramids of the east received the ashes of

mighty kings, so this great pyramid of unhewn red granite is sacred to

the memory of an old viking’s daughter, whose spirit could not brook to

sleep beneath green turf, so she bade her people carry her to the top of

the mountain “that she might sleep right in the pathway of the Norway

wind.” It was a hard task, and a steep and difficult ascent, but the

command of the dead must be obeyed. So there they laid her alone in the

starlight, and the wild winds and storms have for long ages raved and

battled around that lonely cairn.

“Strange grave without a name,

Whence the uncoffined clay

Shall break again—oh, wondrous thought!—

Before the Judgment Day.”

You will find many a cairn as you wander over these steep hillpaths,

each one marking where some funeral procession has halted; for many a

long and weary tramp will the Highlanders take, sooner than suffer the

dead to be laid in unloved ground, and all alike have the same longing

to be buried at the old home, and sleep with kindred dust. So when a man

dies, his old Bible and dirk, blue bonnet and plaid, are laid on his

coffin, and his friends gather round, while a few last words of reverent

prayer are uttered; then, shouldering their heavy burden, they start for

the far-away kirkyard, while the wild pibroch echoes through the misty

hills. In olden days it would have been the wilder coronach, but this is

now a memory of the past. At every spot where the coffin has rested a

cairn of loose stones is heaped up, and in future each passer by is

expected to add a stone in reverence for the dead. Curiously enough such

cairns also mark the spot where malefactors have perished or have been

buried, and each passer by flings a stone in token of abhorrence of

their crime, or, as some folks say, to appease the unquiet spirit, which

the old Celts believed was doomed to hover near the unhallowed spot.

Whichever is the true meaning, the custom is still kept up. It is

curious to remember that in Egypt, Syria, Ceylon, and some other lands,

cairns are likewise heaped, with strangely divers meaning—either in

honourable memory of the dead, or in abhorrence of some evil action. The

difference seems to be, that in the former case the stone is laid

carefully, in the latter it is thrown contemptuously.

Such a funeral procession as I have described you may chance to see

winding its way through these wild glens towards Skeabost, where a rocky

river runs between low, green hills into a blue sea-loch, both bearing

the same name, Snizort. On an island in the stream stands just such a

ruined kirk as those in Mull and Cantyre, with the same old carved

stones and rank grass—old knights with their swords, old mossy

inscriptions, some stones broken, others upheaved. The place was known

in olden days as “Sanct Colm’s kirk in Snesfurd, in Trouterness.” It is

a bonnie resting-place; but the frequent influx of new sleepers, and the

rushing and babbling of the divided waters, take away from the perfect

peace and silence—and the feeling of being alone with generations long

since forgotten, which lend such a charm to those quiet tombs among the

green bent hills. There is no bridge to connect the island with the

banks of the river, so the funeral processions from either side of the

country must ford the stream, and sometimes they find it in spate, and

have to wait for hours—it may be days—before they can lay their clansman

beneath the sod. Happily they find no lack of creature comforts in the

tidy village, and the usual approved method of keeping up their spirits

is rarely neglected. Nor need we wonder if, returning from the little

inn through the gloaming or in the moonlight, strange eerie tales gather

round the Island of the Dead—of weird phantoms riding on dark storm

clouds, or bright spirits on the moonbeam, connecting it with the world

of shadow.

There is sometimes a poetry of scene and thought about these Highland

funerals that sounds like an allegory in real life. Thus, one quiet

autumn day, two strangers wandered into the old kirkyard of Kilmorack,

perched on the top of a grey crag which rises abruptly from the Beauly,

the darkest of black-brown rivers, whose colour seems only intensified

by the scarlet and green and golden leaves of the overhanging trees. As

they lingered among the grey memorial stones, they noted a little

company sitting near a spot where the green grass had been newly

upturned. Presently one of these came forward, and offering the

strangers a cogie containing mountain dew, asked “if they would drink to

the bride, for she had gone home that day.” Such a toast could not be

refused. Then all the mourners came up, and each silently grasped the

hand of these new-comers who had wished their dear one God-speed on her

far journey to the Land o’ the Leal. Afterwards they inquired who was

this traveller to the spirit-land, and heard that it was no bride of

earth, but a village lassie who had thus passed away in her spring-time.

Numerous as are these ancient burial-grounds, they are not all held in

equal favour. In Easter Ross, for instance, where every green bay along

the coast has its quiet kirkyard beside the sea, though the old church

itself has generally mouldered away, you will notice a strange

predominance of very small graves, and may naturally suppose that

child-life in Ross-shire is at an unusually low ebb. The truth of the

matter is, that some peculiar sanctity is attached by the people to the

kirkyard of Nigg, to which they will carry their dead from distances of

forty miles, and the little graves by the lone sea-side are for the most

part those of unbaptized children, who are not deemed worthy to be laid

beside Christian dust in the much-esteemed ground of Nigg. This,

however, implies a superstitious reverence for baptism which a genuine

Highlander will indignantly disclaim; only in the strictest confidence

would such a confession be unwillingly made.

The implied disrespect to the poor babies reminds me of a speech made by

the old grave-digger at Nairn, in a year of sad mortality among the

little ones. A friend seeing him at work asked, “Weel, John, hae ye had

a gude season?” “Hoot na!” was the answer; “just a heap of sma’ trash!”

You perceive that being paid so much per foot for his work, his profits

varied with the stature of all comers.

Happily for the survivors, the old customs of extravagant funeral feasts

are now well-nigh among the things of the past. Such feasting, for

instance, as has been recorded at the funeral of one of the Lords of the

Isles in Iona, when nine hundred cows, each valued at three marks, were

consumed! Or that of Sir William Hamilton, which cost 5,000_l._, equal

to two years of his salary as Lord Justice Clerk! Or, again, that of the

Mackintosh, in 1704, when cooks and confectioners were brought from

Edinburgh—no easy matter in those days—and extravagant feasting was

continued for a whole month, waiting the arrival of the chief mourner,

who had to be sought and found in the south of England. Indeed one

account says that the body lay in state at Dalcross Castle for upwards

of two months, during which open house, in the widest acceptation of the

term, was kept, claret flowing incessantly. When at length the funeral

day arrived, the procession extended for four miles, the first man

having reached the churchyard of Petty before the last had left the

castle!

Such profusion marks the same strange law of hospitality which forbade a

Highland chief to question his unbidden guest as to his business until

the expiration of a year, should he choose to stop so long. Hence the

Gaelic sentence which describes the house of a chief as “the point to

which the road of every stranger leads.” Not that the chief had any

monopoly of this unbounded liberality. The poorest of these islanders

were so ready to entertain strangers and load them with the best they

had to give, that in olden days we hear of unprincipled persons from the

mainland frequenting the Hebrides for no other purpose than that of

sponging on their neighbours; and when the first householder whom they

honoured with a visit had been eaten out of house and home, he took them

on to his next neighbour, where they remained and repeated the process.

Perhaps the quaintest illustration of a hospitable board literally

groaning under the weight of good things heaped upon it, was a great

dinner given to Argyle by M‘Eachin, in Cantyre, whereat every creature

he could possibly lay hands on was roasted whole, and set on the table

“standing on its stumps!” There were an ox, a goat, a sheep, a stag, a

roe, hares, rabbits, and all manner of poultry, and many another good

thing, cooked in such fashion as might well have given Soyer a dream of

Bedlam!

There was one part of the coast which, to our great regret, we had not

time to visit, namely, that of Talliskar, which is said to be very fine

columnar basalt. We also omitted seeing the spar cave at Strathaird,

which Sir Walter Scott declared to be one of the three finest caves in

Scotland, the other two being Smowe, in Orkney, and Staffa. He records

how, having with difficulty clambered up the smooth, polished ascent,

over water-worn marble, he slid down again after the manner of

schoolboys, greatly to the detriment of his pantaloons! Within the cave

is a deep pool of limpid fresh water, and the roof is encrusted with

stalactites, which, when seen by torchlight, glitter like fairy

frost-work. Unfortunately the smoke of the torches, and the destructive

habits of tourists are rapidly destroying all beauty.

At length the sad day came, when we were compelled to bid adieu to

beautiful Skye—its mountains, and its kindly people. We took the coach

to dreary Broadford, where I suppose most future visitors will be landed

by steamers from Strome Ferry, the new railway terminus. Just imagine

the snorting iron horses having found their way even to these wilds

(solitudes no longer), and making those grand old summits echo back

their hideous shriek and whistle. The poet’s nightmare of seeing a

railway “bridge the Hebrides” has well-nigh been rendered a vulgar fact,

and his wail over the great Saxon invasion keeps ringing in our ears—

“Land of Bens and Glens and Corries,

Headlong rivers, ocean floods!

Have we lived to see this outrage

On your haughty solitudes?

· · · · ·

Strange to them the train—but stranger

The mixed throng it bubbles forth,

Strand and Piccadilly emptied

On the much-enduring North!”

All of which is very fine theoretically; but practically it must be

confessed that a luxurious railway _coupé_ has _some_ advantages over a

crowded coach; and as to our brethren of the city, I only hope they may

all carry away as sunny memories of Skye as have clung to me. To them

above all others, the four-and-twenty hours which transport them from

the heart of London to the farthest limits of these wild hills should be

a concentrated essence of delight—and no British railway could possibly

lie through scenes more beautiful, than does the new Skye line. The old

folk will tell you that the railway is no new idea to them, for, just as

the making of the Caledonian Canal had long been foretold by seers, who

beheld ships with great white sails passing to and fro, where other men

could see only broom and heather,—so, more than two hundred years ago,

Coignoch Oig, the prophet of Brahan in Ross-shire (many of whose

prophecies have already been strangely verified) foretold that a day was

coming when every stream would be bridged, when a white house should

stand on every hill, and balls of fire would pass rapidly up and down

Strathpeffer. More especially, for the last thirty years have they

expected the railway, for it was about that time, “just thirty years

syne,” that the folk travelling by the coach, between Loch Carron and

Strome Ferry, (by the old road, which ran very near where the railway

now goes), were startled one dark winter night by seeing a great light

coming towards them, and as it drew nearer they saw that it was a huge

dark coach with fiery lamps—they could see no horses; only a great glare

of flames and sparks, and it rushed past them at a place where there was

no road, and vanished among the mountains. After this, the mysterious

coach was seen at frequent intervals for two or three years—till at last

the coachman could no longer stand the constant strain on his nerves,

and gave up running at night.

This is the story that you may hear from any old “_cailliach_” as she

sits in the gloaming, crooning her old songs by the light of the red

peat fire, or spinning her endless yarns to the group of bare-legged and

bare-armed lassies, whose bright eyes glitter in the ruddy light as they

press around her, or cling closer one to another, as the interest of the

story becomes more thrilling. Presently the lads will join them, for the

day’s work is done, and “e’en brings a’ hame” to the pleasant fireside.

But we must return to the coach which we left toiling along the steep

hilly road, only two years ago; and already we look back to these as to

“the old coaching days!” Yet there are people still living who remember

when the coaches first began to run regularly north of Aberdeen, and

what a grand thing _that_ was thought. Nay, more; there are many

gentlemen who can vividly recollect going from here to London in a

sailing smack, as the simplest and least troublesome route. How often I

have heard my father describe such voyages, and the annoyance of being

becalmed for days together. Then came the coasting steamers; a grand

improvement, and many a merry sail we have had in them between London

and Moray. Now all these are things of the past. You breakfast one

morning in sight of the great Skye hills, and the next finds you at

Euston Square—a process so simple, that life becomes one incessant

railway journey, for ever whirling to and fro!

On the present occasion, we were not oppressed by the encroachments of

civilisation. Our route lay by Kyle Akin, or Kyle Hakin (the Straits of

Haco), where we had to cross Loch Alsh by ferry. Happily the weather was

calm and dry, else the crossing in a small open boat might have been

unpleasant. The scramble of young natives to secure a fair share of our

luggage and our coin was something startling to behold in Britain.

Close to Kyle Akin are the ruins of Castle Moil, an old square keep,

whose solid and substantial walls seem to form part of the rock on which

they stand, overhanging the water. It was built by the daughter of a

Norwegian king (or some say, by a Scottish dame, known as Saucy Mary),

who exacted a toll from all vessels passing through the Kyles; and kept

a strong chain stretched from shore to shore as a toll-bar, the chain

being fastened with iron rings to the rocks on either side.

We drove on _viâ_ Balmacarra and Loch Alsh till we reached Dornie Ferry,

where, with one honourable exception (and he was an American), we found

every man connected with the ferry hopelessly drunk, in honour of a

cattle show. Some were surly; some were cheery; others helplessly

imbecile, having attained the same pleasant stage as that worthy

Londoner, who, returning home at an advanced hour of the morning

“shlightly shober,” plumed himself on being particularly early, having

passed the great tower of Westminster just as Big Ben was striking one,

and what was more, “_it had struck one sheveral times_”!

[Illustration: CASTLE OF EILEAN DONAN.]

Being thus forcibly detained, we consoled ourselves by sketching the old

castle of Eilean Donan, which stands on an island in Loch Duich. It was

built on the site of an old vitrified fort, by Alexander II., to overawe

the Danes and Norwegians; and the first constable of the castle was one

Kenneth Matheson, whose descendants were known as MacKennich, the sons

of Kenneth. Hence sprang the Mackenzies of Seaforth. Since then the old

castle has been twice consumed and twice rebuilded. In the last instance

it was taken for Prince Charlie by a farmer who held that all stratagems

are fair in love and war. So he feigned sore distress at the prospect of

stormy weather, and induced the governor to lend him some hands to help

in rapidly garnering the harvest. No cloud on the political sky,

threatened danger in that quarter, and the unwary governor sent a

detachment of his men to turn their swords into sickles. In their

absence, a strong body of Kintail men, surprised the enfeebled remnant,

and captured their stronghold.

Then the last Earl of Seaforth rallied all the men of Kintail to fight

in the Stuart cause, and as the pipes struck up their heart-stirring

notes the enthusiasm knew no bounds, and the crags around re-echoed the

wild shouts that rose, as one and all started up to dance on the old

leaden roof ere they went forth to join the prince. That defiant

war-dance was the last merrymaking of these brave lads. A few days later

a wail of grief and woe resounded from every hill and valley, for news

of battle and of defeat had been brought by the foe, who came to burn

the castle (A.D. 1719), and to tell how that gallant band had shed their

hearts’ blood for their king on Sherriffmuir.

When we had waited fully a couple of hours, our American friend thought

some of his men might be made to work; and, though they presented the

lively appearance of inebriated owls, they made a start; and under

pressure of startlingly strong language, did succeed in getting across.

It was, however, 10 p.m. before we reached Shiel House Inn, which stands

at the head of Loch Duich—a blue sea-loch—fringed with golden sea-weed.

The house is a pleasant one to halt at. Behind it rise the Seven Sisters

of Kintail, a group of grassy, cone-shaped hills, bearing so strong a

family likeness as to have earned this name. Next day we had a lovely

walk up Mam Ratakan, to see the sun set once more behind the far-distant

Cuchullins, and as we turned to descend, a wondrous effect of storm and

rainbow swept over the Peaks of Kintail.

About a mile from Sheil House is a subterranean cave, close to the road,

into which (if you are curious to see what was probably the dwelling of

some old Pict) you may crawl. Once inside, you will find a chamber eight

feet high, paved and lined with large flag-stones, and with a stone roof

of long slabs, resting on cross rafters, also of stone.

We greatly regretted not having left a day to see the Falls of Glomak,

by far the highest in Scotland, and within a very beautiful ride of Glen

Shiel. However, we were bound to push onwards to lovely Glen Quoich,

where the pleasant weeks slipped by all too quickly. Very charming were

the long glorious days on dark Loch Hourn, and pleasant too the social

evenings in the sunniest of sunny homes, when the deer-stalkers and

fishers returned in the gloaming to tell of their day’s sport, and to

dream away happy hours in a paradise of roses and fair women, lulled by

that

“Music, which gentlier on the spirit lies

Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes,”

music which seemed to glide away on each moonlight ripple, as the tiny

wavelets of the blue loch plashed against the trim, well-mown lawn.

[Illustration: GLEN QUOICH.]

The calm bosom of the lake is dotted with little birch-clad islands. One

of these, about the centre of the loch, was for many years the home of a

bold outlaw, Ewen MacPhee, who, having in an evil hour enlisted, soon

found the trammels of barrack life and the study of goose-step

altogether unendurable. So he returned to his native wilds in Glengarry,

where he was captured as a deserter, but, watching his opportunity, he

made one brave bound from off a rock so precipitous that his escort

cared not to follow; they fired at him, but missed their aim. Dashing

his hand-cuffs against a rock, Ewen was once more a free man, and for

many years found a safe haven amongst the hills of Lochiel, where he

chased the red deer, as his fathers had done before him. Here he wooed

and won a maiden of tender years, and he and his child-bride—she was but

fourteen—reared their flocks of wild goats, or wandering by the bonnie

burn-side, thence drew silvery fish enough for their simple table. After

some years, the fear of the law made Ewen seek a surer refuge for his

wife and her little ones; so he took possession of this little island,

where, beneath the shadow of the birch-trees, he built a bower for his

love, wherein she lived for many long years in safety. The loch supplied

them with fish, and the neighbouring hills with game; there, too, they

contrived to find pasturage for about sixty wild goats, asking leave of

no man. When Mr. Ellice bought Glen Quoich, MacPhee came, as a dutiful

vassal, to do homage to his liege, bringing him an offering of

goats’-milk cheese, and promising that he would not molest the new

laird, provided he was left undisturbed in his island home. The free

speech and bold bearing of this wild Highlander won the heart of the

new-comer, and Ewen was left in possession of his little kingdom.

One tiny island, at the junction of the river Quoich with the loch, has

for many a long year been the burial-place of the neighbourhood. From

far-distant hills the people bring their dead, and row across the stream

in sunshine or in storm, to lay them in the ancient churchyard where so

many bygone generations rest in peace beneath the green turf, amid the

murmurous voices of flowing waters, with the echoing hills on every

side.

A beautiful drive down Glen Garry brought us to old Invergarry Castle

and so to Fort Augustus, still called by the Highlanders Cill Chuimein,

in memory of that Cuming the Fair who twelve hundred years ago held the

bishopric of the Isles as seventh Bishop of Iona, but known to the

Sassenach only by the name of the grey old fort, whose rough walls still

bear the names of the Duke of Cumberland’s soldiers, carved in their

idle leisure in those grim quarters.

To you and to me those grey walls bring far other memories—such memories

as consecrate some few spots of earth, and mark them for evermore as

hallowed ground where Heaven’s own angels have paused rejoicing. Nay,

more, places which have been to us as the very gate of heaven, whence

there have been vouchsafed to us such glimpses of the glorious light

within the vail as may well cheer and sustain us along the darkest and

dreariest turns that can await us on life’s journey.

[Illustration: FORT AUGUSTUS AND THE GLENGARRY HILLS. _To face p.

374._]

Many a time, during the intervals of anxious watching, you and I have

looked down from those windows on the wild wintry storms, which,

sweeping over the cold grey hills, turned the blue waters of Loch Ness

to inky darkness. And again, when the strange chill of early morning

told that the long sleepless night was drawing to a close, how often we

have stood together watching for the crimson dawn which flushed Glen

Garry’s snowy peaks, and faded away to leave them dazzling and

glittering in the clear sunlight. Then one (whose mighty strength was

slowly ebbing as night after night passed by in pain and weariness, yet

to whose lion-like beauty each morning seemed to add a new, refining

touch of radiant spirit-light) would look up and whisper the words of an

old, old promise, telling how scarlet of a deeper dye might yet be made

whiter than that snow, to shine in the light of perfect day.[68]

Day after day slipped by among old memories and old friends, and we were

on the eve of returning to the ordinary life of high civilisation, when

a letter reached me from a sister far over the seas, suggesting that,

having seen the finest hills in Scotland, I should join her for a summer

in the Himalayas.

I think that if the post had gone that same morning the idea would have

been dismissed at once as utterly preposterous; but as some hours must

elapse before the old runner returned, there was no use in answering at

once. And so, while Loch Ness patiently sat for its portrait, it gave me

so many good reasons for going, and dismissed all difficulties so

summarily, and its little wavelets seemed to run to such a jingle of

Cuchullins and Koolins, and collies and coolies, that when the old

postman did start he was laden with a perfect budget of letters—one to

secure a passage in the next P. and O. ship; another to Winsor and

Newton for stores of fresh paints and Brobdingnagian sketching-blocks in

tin cases; a third to Thornton for such a waterproof as should mock at

Indian rains; and a fourth to Macdougal for extra warm raiment, an

investment much jeered at by my friends, but one which proved the very

comfort of my life in India.

Then away we sailed in the little steamer, taking a farewell look at

Castle Urquhart, said to have been once an old holding of the Clan

Cumming, and in later days one of the old royal forts of Scotland,

besieged by Edward I. in 1303, and which stood many a hard tussle with

the English in the succeeding years. For the last three hundred years

there has been no mention of it in any chronicle of fight or fray. It is

now a picturesque ruin, rising from the loch on a rocky promontory. The

Highlanders call these grey ruins Strone Castle, and believe that two

mysterious vaulted cells are hollowed in the rock below. The one

contains a countless treasure of gold; but in the other a fearful

pestilence is sealed up, which, if once released, would stalk forth in

irresistible might and depopulate the land, having first slain the rash

hand that opened its prison door. So the dread of liberating so dire a

scourge has even subdued the covetous craving for gold, and the

treasure-chamber remains inviolate.

Thus ended my pleasant six months’ wanderings in the Western Isles. A

fortnight later, (a fortnight divided into infinitesimal visits to an

incredible number of relations), I started for the Eastern Highlands,

and bidding farewell to Britain’s grey shores on a gloomy November day,

proceeded in search of sunshine, light, and colour—a quest speedily

rewarded with success. The six weeks’ voyage, amid new scenes and

pleasant companions, was a delight in itself, and its close was only

welcomed because older friends and more bewildering novelties greeted

our arrival in the strange Eastern world.

END OF VOL. I.

LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, BREAD STREET HILL.

[Illustration: CASTLE URQUHART. _To face p. 376._]

-----

Footnote 1:

Archibald Campbell, Esq., of Blythswood.

Footnote 2:

Mr. Darwin evidently alludes to this circumstance in his Notes on St.

Helena. He says, “I was standing on the edge of a plain, terminated by

a great cliff of about a thousand feet in depth, when, at the distance

of a few yards to windward, I saw some tern struggling against a very

strong breeze, whilst where I stood the air was quite calm.

Approaching close to the brink, where the current seemed to be

deflected upwards from the face of the cliff, I stretched out my arm,

and immediately felt the full force of the wind: an invisible barrier,

two yards in width, separated perfectly calm air from a strong blast.”

Footnote 3:

See the beautiful cast of this gateway in the Kensington Museum.

Footnote 4:

The virtue of the shamrock, as a charm against the stings of snakes

and scorpions, has also been recorded by Pliny, who declares that the

serpent is never seen on trefoil.

Footnote 5:

Annales Turcici, by Leunclavius.

Footnote 6:

In Acts xvi. 16, where we are told of the Philippian damsel possessed

of a spirit of divination, the marginal reading is ‘Spirit of Python.’

Footnote 7:

Engraved by Fabretti, Inscript. Antiq.

Footnote 8:

Maurice’s “History of Hindoostan.”

Footnote 9:

_Gram-Deota._

Footnote 10:

See Chapter V.

Footnote 11:

Quoted in “The Worship of the Serpent,” by the Rev. J. B. Deane.

Footnote 12:

_Ceridwen._ This was the goddess in whose honour our ancestors used to

dress up an image made of corn, and crowned with flowers, which was

carried home triumphantly with the last load of corn; while the

reapers sang the song of harvest-home to the music of pipes and drums.

A trace of this old custom still lingers in some of the northern

counties, where the ‘kern,’ or corn baby, still figures at the

harvest-home.

Footnote 13:

As shown in the following quotations from “Chronicles of the Picts and

Scots.” In the “Irish Chronicle” of the twelfth century the story runs

thus:—

“Nel was carried southward to Egypt

Heroes of dark blue weapons.

The daughter of Forann (Pharaoh) was given

Unto him afterwards.

The beauteous Scotia bare a son to Nel

After his arrival in Egypt.

A hero of a hundred fights,—Gaedhal Glass

Endowed with sovereign righteousness.

The Fein from Faenius (Father of Nel) are called,

Not small their renown.

The Gaedhil from Gaedhuil Glass are called,

The Scots from Scota....”

On the other hand, in the “Chronicle of the Scots,” preserved in the

British Museum, and bearing date A.D. 1412, we read that—

“Ye nation of Scotts began in y^e time of Moses, as is contained in

y^e Bibill; in quhilk time y^e Ethiops warred all Egypt with cruell

wars, for y^e quhitk y^e Egyptians called their ally in help, y^e

Greeks; that was allied then with them, as is now France allied with

us Scots. Therefore y^e King of Athens called Neolms [and?] his son

Gayelglas (after whom our language called is, Gayelige) with a great

power of men into Egypt, and discomfited y^e Ethiops, and abandoned

them aye, to the time that Moses rase; for y^e quhilk victory y^e King

of Egypt gave his only daughter and heir called Scota to this

Gayelglas in marriage, of y^e quhilk Scotia, we after was callit

Scottis, as y^e custom was then, to call nations after women, and not

after men.

“This aforesaid Scota and Gayelglas were maryite together in y^e time

yat y^e bairnes of Israel passyt in y^e Red Sea, and y^e death of

Pharaoh yat governed y^e land of Egypt. And for they saw y^e cruel

plagues that came on Egypt, they decreed to pass with their folk that

they brought of Greece, and many of Egypt, for to seek void lands and

to inhabit them; they went with gret riches and many ships, and so

they came to Spain.”

Footnote 14:

Daily Morning and Evening Prayer.

Footnote 15:

“Twenty-seven Identifications of the English Nation with the Lost

House of Israel,” by Edw. Hine, Glover, and others.

Footnote 16:

Jer. xliii. 6, and Jer. xliv. 14, being the authority quoted.

Footnote 17:

Ledwich, Fosbrook, and Higgins.

Footnote 18:

This connection may seem less far-fetched, when we recollect that

Cæsar states that the Druids of Gaul, whom he asserts to have been

less enlightened than those of Britain, made use of the Greek alphabet

in writing all public and private records.

Footnote 19:

It seems probable that it found a place in Russia, where to this day,

the dove is never eaten. In fact, I am told that a Russian would

consider it an insult to be offered a pigeon pie!

Footnote 20:

The Scandinavians seem to have kept up some communication with the

East in much later days, for in certain sepulchral barrows in the

parish of Sandwick, in Orkney, which are attributed to them, we find

coins of Athelstane, A. D. 925, with those of the contemporary Caliphs

of Bagdad!

Footnote 21:

Fergus, A.D. 536. St. Columba landed 563. Died 597.

Footnote 22:

St. Baithen, _alias_ Comin, died in 601. Comin Ailbe (that is, the

Fair,) died in 668, and was seventh Bishop of Iona. It is consolatory

to the Clan Cummin (_alias_ Comyn), to have produced at least two

saints, at so early a date!

Footnote 23:

9th June, A.D. 597.

Footnote 24:

“We deem it impious to fast on the Lord’s day, or to pray

kneeling.”—TERTULLIAN, _De Coronâ Militis_.

“The Church instructs her nurselings to make their prayers standing on

the Lord’s Day.”—BASIL. _De Spiritu Sancto_.

Justin Martyr says:—“Forasmuch as we ought to remember both our fall

by sin, and the grace of Christ by which we rise again from our fall,

therefore we pray kneeling six days, as a symbol of our fall by sin;

but our not kneeling on the Lord’s Day, is a symbol of the

resurrection, whereby, through the grace of Christ, we are delivered

from our sins and from death, that is mortified thereby.”—Constantine

enacted a law, that on festival days prayers were to be offered by the

congregation, not kneeling, but standing.—Hilary speaks of it, as an

apostolic practice, neither to fast, nor worship kneeling on the

Lord’s Day, or the fifty days between Easter and Pentecost.—Jerome

reckons it among the traditions of the universal Church.—Cassian says

of the Egyptian Churches, that from Saturday night to Sunday night,

and all the days of Pentecost, they neither kneeled nor fasted.

Footnote 25:

Zeus Apomyios or Myiagros, who was worshipped as the Disperser of

flies.

Footnote 26:

In most of these magical cures, the person bearing the healing draught

to the sick was forbidden to _speak_ to any one by the way—or if the

sick man came to drink himself, he was bidden to walk straight away,

and not look back. In the sacred record of one of Elisha’s miracles, a

curious coincidence suggests itself. When the child of the Shunamite

lies dead, and Elisha bids Gehazi take his staff, and lay it on the

face of the child, he expressly commands, “If thou meet any man,

salute him not, and if any salute thee, answer him not again.” Another

coincidence in the same story is the use of the mystic numbers, common

to East and West; Elisha stretches himself _three times_ on the body

of the child, who then awakes, and sneezes _seven times_.

Footnote 27:

The brooch is still in the possession of the Macdougalls of Dunolly.

Footnote 28:

This combination of sacred fish and geese is not peculiar to the

sculptured stones of Scotland. In Montfaucon’s Antiquities, vol. ii.

there is a very curious engraving of an Egyptian (wearing on his head

a triple emblem) embracing a stone altar, to which six geese and two

fishes are bound with cords.

Footnote 29:

Is it to this that we owe the expression that one will go through fire

and water for his friend?

Footnote 30:

Dion Cassius.

Footnote 31:

In case you care for further particulars of the “warp and woof,” which

combine to produce this extraordinary specimen of geological tartan, I

may quote Professor Edward Forbes’ description of the series of

formations shown in the face of the cliff.

First of all comes the crowning mass of huge columnar basalt, red,

brown, and yellow. Below this lies—

1. A thin band of small-rolled pebbles, mingled with fragments of jet.

2. Crumbling blue shales, with fossils, five feet in thickness.

3. A thin band of concretionary limestone.

4. Five feet of blue shale, with Ammonites and large Balemnites.

5. Two bands of hard, grey limestone, weathering yellow, three feet.

6. Dark blue fossiliferous shales, seven feet.

7. Red and yellowish limestone, with fossils, one foot.

8. Blue shales, one foot.

9. Ferruginous sands, with fragments of wood in the state of jet, one

foot.

10. Concretionary limestone, with fossils, one foot.

11. Soft white sands, three feet.

12. Hard fossiliferous sandstones, two feet.

13. Grey sands, with carbonaceous streaks, five feet.

14. Hard shales, with bands of fossil wood, three feet.

15. About fourteen bands of loose slaty and shaly beds, about twelve

feet in thickness, resting on the basalt which lies beneath the waves.

Add to this varied mineral colouring occasional stripes and patches of

vivid emerald and gold, wherever the kindly grass and moss has found a

niche, and you perceive that this natural tartan is about as diverse

as any “coat of many colours” ever woven in human loom.

Footnote 32:

_Otary Falklandica._

Footnote 33:

_Lutra mariana._

Footnote 34:

Giraldus Cambrensis, Archdeacon of St. David’s, born 1146.

Footnote 35:

Sebastian Munster, on Cosmography.

Footnote 36:

Aldrovandus.

Footnote 37:

The yacht was so named.

Footnote 38:

Those who, like ourselves, have, on the occasion of this festival,

heard a Romish priest instructing his flock of sturdy Scotch

peasantry, to bring their candles to him to be blessed (promising that

the burning of lights so sanctified would keep away all infectious

diseases from their homes), may well doubt whether the old

superstition has quite passed away.

Footnote 39:

Ezek. viii. 16.

Footnote 40:

Lev. vi. 13; Lev. x. 1.

Footnote 41:

Exodus xxx. 22 to 38.

Footnote 42:

Such was the teaching of Hermogenes.

Footnote 43:

Orissa, W. W. Hunter.

Footnote 44:

Rabibar.

Footnote 45:

I fear, however, that the majority are really great sepulchral

dolmens!

Footnote 46:

More probably, however, it comes from _panis_, “bread,” being land set

apart for the maintenance of her priests.

Footnote 47:

Job. xxx. 26 to 28.

Footnote 48:

The statistics of births in the principal towns of Scotland, give an

average of one tenth as illegitimate. In certain country parishes the

proportion is very much higher.

Footnote 49:

2 Kings xvii. 33.

Footnote 50:

_Maen-hir._ Stone-high.

Footnote 51:

Mill’s _Hist. of the Crusades_.

Footnote 52:

_The Church of Our Fathers._ By Dr. Daniel Rock.

Footnote 53:

Literally, _Draw-boat_.

Footnote 54:

Built by Lord Dunmore, the late proprietor. Now the property of

Charles Scott, Esq.

Footnote 55:

Chapter II.

Footnote 56:

Rude stone monuments.—FERGUSSON.

Footnote 57:

By the way, it is curious to notice that this word Gilgal is still in

use in Brittany to denote those great tumuli to which many stones were

“rolled.” Such an one for instance as that at the Mont St. Michael,

whereon the Christian Church is said to occupy the very spot where

Bel’s altar once stood.

Footnote 58:

Stennis, “The headland of the stones.”

Footnote 59:

Two ladies who visited these islands with Captain Otter, R.N., in

H.M.’s ships _Shamrock_ and _Rose_, engaged in the Admiralty survey.

Footnote 60:

For most of the details concerning those islands which the author was

unable to visit herself, she is indebted to a series of papers

entitled “Pen and Pencil Sketches of the Outer Hebrides,” which

appeared in the _Leisure Hour_, vol. for 1865.

Footnote 61:

The Saxons who pretend to shudder at our pipe music, quite forget that

the bagpipe was an English musical instrument of very old standing.

Chaucer has recorded of his miller, that “A bagpipe well coude he

blowe and sowne;” and it is further stated that this was the music

which cheered the Canterbury pilgrims on their journey. The instrument

itself is represented on divers old English carvings; such as in a

church at Cirencester, which dates from the time of Henry the Eighth.

It also occupies a prominent place on the organ screen in the chapel

at Magdalen College, Oxford, which represents the celestial choir with

their divers instruments of music. One comfortable-looking angel is

shown working his drone cheerily. This organ screen, though itself

somewhat modern, is copied in all its details from ancient carvings.

The pipes are also found carved in old Melrose Abbey, and on certain

stones in the Orkneys.

Footnote 62:

Shoulder to shoulder.

Footnote 63:

Nevertheless she was probably nearer right than ourselves, inasmuch as

Dean Stanley tells us that Holborn, like Hay Hill, owes its initiatory

H to sheer Cockneyism; the latter denoting the hill where the Aye

Brook once flowed, while the former takes its name from the Old Bourne

(the ancient river), which, rising in High Holborn, formerly ran down

that green hillside. Its once clear waters, like those of all the

neighbouring streamlets, have now been imprisoned and sentenced to

hard labour underground, in purifying sewers. The Dean also quotes the

suggestive names of Langbourne (the long stream), Tyburn (The Aye

Bourne), Mary-le-bone (from St. Mary le Bourne), Southborne, and

Shareborne as reminders of the early days, when these shares, or small

rills, flowed through peaceful meadows; and when ships came up to Old

Bourne Bridge, pausing on their way at Fleet Bridge; strange vision of

a time when the _fleet_, or swift brook, flowed (a silent highway)

where now the stream of busy life surges so noisily, with ceaseless

roar. Apart from this curious change in London’s geography

(above-ground at least) it is interesting to remember that our own

Scotch name for a brook, a _burn_, has so near a relationship to old

English—though I doubt whether many modern Britons ever think of a

river, in connection with “the _bourne_ whence no traveller returns.”

Footnote 64:

The Pholades.

Footnote 65:

Lord Middleton.

Footnote 66:

_The Eriocaulon septangulare._

Footnote 67:

Alexander Smith.

Footnote 68:

Roualeyn Gordon Cumming died at Fort Augustus, March 24th, 1866. Sir

Alexander P. Gordon Cumming only survived his brother five months.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.

● Renumbered footnotes and moved them all to the end of the final

chapter.

● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.

● Enclosed blackletter font in =equals=.

● The caret (^) is used to indicate superscript, whether applied to a

single character (as in 2^d) or to an entire expression (as in

1^{st}).