OBAN, IONA, AND STAFFA.
"For Oban is a dainty place;
In distant lands or nigh lands,
No town delights the tourist race
Like Oban in the Highlands."
CALEDONIAN CANAL, _September 3, 1902_.
The fog was so thick the morning we steamed down the ill-smelling
Clyde, and out through the Kyles of Bute, that we could see nothing
whatever, and had to content ourselves as best we could with the
tantalizing recollections of one member of the party, who on a former
occasion had made an excursion with some five hundred other persons,
delegates to the Glasgow Council and their friends, on the elegant
steamer, _Duchess of Hamilton_, up Loch Long, Loch Goil, and the Kyles
of Bute, with alternating showers and sunshine, getting charming views
of the lovely scenery that abounds about the Firth of Clyde. But the
atmosphere lightened somewhat as we steamed through the Crinan Canal,
and as we approached Oban it cleared completely, and gave us full
opportunity to enjoy the glorious scenery on every hand.
Situated near the southern terminus of the Caledonian Canal, and
also not far from the western isles, and being the starting point of
all excursions through this, the wildest and most romantic region of
Scotland, Oban is called "the Charing Cross of the Highlands."
[Sidenote: Rude Seas off the West Coast.]
The first excursion undertaken by our party from Oban was the famous
one to Staffa and Iona, and in this we were so fortunate that we
almost forgot our disappointment at the Kyles of Bute. Frequently the
sea is so rough in this windy region that passengers cannot be landed
on the islands. It was so on the day before our trip, and also on the
day after it. It seemed to us rough enough on the day we made the trip,
and the captain was doubtful about landing us until the very last.
But the boats from shore put out and came alongside, swinging on the
waves five or six feet up, and then quickly down again, so that it was
necessary for us to step in promptly, one by one, just at the moment
when they rose to the highest point. It looked dangerous, but nobody
backed out. It looked still more dangerous after we were in the tossing
boats, with the great green waves running high all around us. I think
several of the party had doubts whether they would ever again set foot
on land, and there were thankful hearts and deep sighs of relief when,
after the visit to Staffa, we all got safe back on the steamer. The
danger, however, was more apparent than real. The boats were staunch,
strongly manned, and handled with consummate skill.
[Sidenote: Iona and Columba.]
We visited Iona first, a small island and homely, but sacred and
memorable forever as the place where the presbyter abbot, Columba, the
Apostle of Caledonia, and his twelve companions from Ireland, landed
in A. D. 563, to begin that series of toilsome, but marvellously
successful campaigns, which resulted in the evangelization of a large
part of Scotland. The tomb of Columba is still shown in the ancient
cathedral. For centuries Iona was a part of the domain of the Duke of
Argyll, but three or four years ago the late Duke, the author of _The
Reign of Law_, presented the property to the Church of Scotland. Since
that time the cathedral has been re-roofed and otherwise restored, so
that now it presents a less desolate appearance than it did on my
first visit a few years ago. Iona was the burial place of the ancient
Scottish kings. More than fifty of them lie in the cemetery, hard
by the cathedral, in graves marked, for the most part, by ancient
tombstones, with interesting inscriptions. The last of these kings
to be laid here was Duncan I., who was murdered by Macbeth about the
middle of the eleventh century. Not far away stands Maclean's Cross,
supposed to be the oldest in Scotland. It is one of three hundred and
sixty Iona crosses which are said to have once stood on the island.
[Sidenote: Staffa and Fingal's Cave.]
Half an hour from Iona by the steamer is Staffa. Staffa means the "isle
of columns." It is of the same columnar basaltic formation as the
Giant's Causeway in the north of Ireland, and was produced by the same
outpouring of lava that formed the Irish Causeway. We climbed along
the irregular floor of perfectly formed polygonal columns, which fit
each other with absolute exactness, though no two are alike. We stopped
for a moment to sit down in Fingal's Wishing Chair, and then pushed
on to see the most impressive of all these natural wonders--Fingal's
Cave--which penetrates the volcanic columns for a distance of two
hundred and twenty-seven feet.
This stupendous basaltic grotto in the lonely Isle of Staffa remained,
singularly enough, unknown to the outer world until visited by Sir
Joseph Banks in 1772. As the visitors' boat glides under its vast
portal, the mighty octagonal columns of lava, which form the sides
of the cavern--the depth and strength of the tide which rolls its
deep and heavy swell into the extremity of the vault unseen amid its
vague uncertainty--the variety of tints formed by the white, crimson,
and yellow stalactites which occupy the base of the broken pillars
that form the roof, and intersect them with a rich and variegated
chasing--the corresponding variety of tint below water, where the ocean
rolls over a dark red or violet-colored rock, from which the basaltic
columns rise--the tremendous noise of the swelling tide mingling with
the deep-toned echoes of the vault that stretches far into the bowels
of the isle--form a combination of effects without a parallel in the
world!
Sir Walter Scott's lines express the sentiment most proper to the place:
"The shores of Mull on the eastward lay,
And Ulva dark, and Colonsay,
And all the group of islets gay
That guard famed Staffa round.
Then all unknown its columns rose,
Where dark and undisturbed repose
The cormorant had found,
And the shy seal had quiet home,
And welter'd in that wondrous dome,
Where, as to shame the temples deck'd
By skill of earthly architect,
Nature herself, it seem'd, would raise
A minster to her Maker's praise!
Not for a meaner use ascend
Her columns, or her arches bend;
Nor of a theme less solemn tells
That mighty surge that ebbs and swells,
And still, between each awful pause,
From the high vault an answer draws,
In varied tone, prolong'd and high,
That mocks the organ's melody.
Nor doth its entrance front in vain
To old Iona's holy fane,
That Nature's voice might seem to say,
'Well hast thou done, frail child of clay;
Thy humble powers that stately shrine
Task'd high and hard--but witness mine!'"
[Sidenote: The Great Canal.]
The trip from Oban to Inverness, through the Caledonian Canal, with its
alternating locks and lochs, and its mountain walls on either side, is
one of the finest in the world in point of scenery. It was something
of a surprise to us to find at Fort Augustus, half way up the canal,
the Benedictine Order established in a magnificent group of buildings,
which had been erected at a cost of four hundred thousand dollars, but
we presently remembered that there had always been a Roman Catholic
element in the Highlands, that this element had ardently supported the
pretensions of Charles Edward Stuart to the British crown, and that
Lord Lovat, the leading Roman Catholic nobleman of the region, had been
executed for the treasonable part he took in that affair. In the Tower
of London we had seen the block on which he was beheaded, with the
print of the axe showing plainly in the wood. In 1876 the Lord Lovat
of that time presented this splendid property to the Benedictines. Of
Prince Charlie's career in this part of Scotland we shall have more to
say in our next letter.