[Illustration: View of Corra Linn.]
The river Clyde in the neighbourhood of the town of Lanark presents,
according to the testimony of all travellers, some of the most romantic
and picturesque scenery in the world. We shall confine ourselves at
present to a short notice of the Linns or falls which have been so much
celebrated. The word _Linn_, we may remark, is the Gaelic _Leum_, and
signifies merely a fall or leap.[1] Its application to a cataract, or
fall of water, is general throughout Scotland. Burns has introduced the
word with very happy effect in his humorous and well-known song of
Duncan Grey, where, in describing the perplexity and despair of the
rejected suitor, he says--
“Duncan sighed baith out and in,
Grat his een baith bleer’d and blin’,
Spak o’ loupin’ owre a linn;
Ha, ha, the wooin’ o’t.”
“_Spak o’ loupin’ owre a linn_,” writes one of his correspondents, the
Honourable A. Erskine, to the poet, “is a line of itself that should
make you immortal.” But to return to the linns on the Clyde. The first
precipice over which the river rushes, on its way from the hills, is
situated about two miles above Lanark--and is known by the name of
Bonnington Linn. It is a perpendicular rock of about twenty, or, as some
authorities state, thirty feet in height, over which the water after
having approached its brink in a broad sheet, smooth as a mirror, and
reflecting the forests that clothe its margin, tumbles impetuously into
a deep hollow or basin, where it is instantly ground into froth. A dense
mist continually hovers over this boiling cauldron. From this point
downwards the channel of the river assumes a chaotic appearance; instead
of the quiet and outspread waters above the fall, we have now a confined
and angry torrent forcing its way with the noise of thunder between
steep and meeting rocks, and over incessant impediments. The scenery on
both sides, however, is exquisitely rich and beautiful. A walk of about
half a mile, which may be said almost to overhang the river, leads to
the second and most famous of the falls, that called Corra Linn, from
the castle of Corra, now in ruins, which stands in its neighbourhood.
“The tremendous rocks around,” says the report on the parish of Lanark,
published in Sir John Sinclair’s Statistical Account of Scotland, “the
old castle upon the opposite bank, a corn-mill on the rock below, the
furious and impatient stream foaming over the rock, the horrid chasm and
abyss underneath your feet, heightened by the hollow murmur of the
water, and the screams of wild birds, form a spectacle at once
tremendous and pleasing. A summer-house or pavilion, is situated on a
high rocky bank, that overlooks the linn, built by Sir James Carmichael,
of Bonnington, in 1708. From its uppermost room it affords a very
striking prospect of the fall; for, all at once, on throwing your eyes
towards a mirror, on the opposite side of the room from the fall, you
see the whole tremendous cataract pouring as it were upon your head. The
Corra Linn, by measurement, is eighty-four feet in height. The river
does not rush over it in one uniform sheet like Bonnington Linn, but in
three different, though almost imperceptible, precipitate leaps. On the
southern bank, and when the sun shines, a rainbow is perpetually seen
forming itself upon the mist and fogs, arising from the violent dashing
of the waters,”--as Byron has beautifully sung of the Cataract of
Velino, in Italy:--
⸻“On the verge,
From side to side beneath the glittering morn,
An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge,
Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, unworn
Its steady dyes, while all around is torn
By the distracted waters, bears serene
Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn;
Resembling, ’mid the torture of the scene,
Love watching Madness with unalterable mien.”
A short distance below Corra Linn is another fall called Dundaff Linn,
the appearance of which is also very beautiful, though it is only about
three feet and a half high. About three miles farther down, and a
considerable way past the town of Lanark, is the last of the falls, that
called Stonebyres Linn. It is a precipice, or rather a succession of
three precipices, making together a height of sixty-four feet. The same
general features of rugged rocks, here appearing in all their dreary
bareness, there concealed by trees and shrubs, of wild birds winging
their flight over the bounding cataract and mingling their screams with
its roar, and of cultivated nature in its most luxuriant beauty
contending all around with the sublimity of the untamed torrent, which
belong to Corra Linn, mark that of Stonebyres also, though with some
diminution of the romantic effect. A peculiar phenomenon which is to be
seen here, is that of the incessant endeavours of the salmon, in the
spawning season, to mount the lofty barrier by which they now find their
migration from the sea for the first time opposed. Their efforts, it is
almost needless to say, are quite unavailing. It is also stated that the
horse muscle, the pearl oyster, and some other species of fish, which
are found in great numbers below this fall, are never seen above it.
Trouts, however, have been observed to spring up the small ascent of
Dundaff Linn apparently without difficulty.
-----
Footnote 1:
The word has also been derived from the Welsh _Linn_, signifying “a
lake” or “water.” This root is likewise found in the Greek language,
and its proper signification seems to be, “water.”
---------------------