On the “tap,” too, there is a “kist,” or large block of gran

[Illustration:

OUR WESTERN HILLS,

AND WHAT MAY

BE SEEN FROM

THEIR SUMMITS

BY

A GLASGOW

PEDESTRIAN.

ONE SHILLING

GLASGOW

MORISON BROTHERS

99 BUCHANAN STREET]

Our Western Hills.

Uniform with this Volume.

One Shilling: Cloth, 1s. 6d.

THE ELDER AT THE PLATE. A Collection of Anecdotes and Incidents

relating to Church Door Collections. By Nicholas Dickson.

THE KIRK BEADLE. A Collection of Anecdotes and Incidents

relating to the Minister’s Man. By Nicholas Dickson.

ANECDOTES AND REMINISCENCES OF GEORGE GILFILLAN. By David Macrae.

LITERARY COINCIDENCES, A BOOKSTALL BARGAIN, AND OTHER PAPERS. By

W. A. Clouston.

PERSONAL ADVENTURES BY A DETECTIVE. Pages from Note Books of

Lieut. A. Carmichael, Glasgow Detective Department.

OUR WESTERN HILLS:

How to reach them;

And the Views from their Summits.

By

A Glasgow Pedestrian.

Glasgow:

Morison Brothers,

1892.

To JAMES R. MANNERS, Esq.

My dear Mr. MANNERS,

Among many ways in which a holiday, or a Saturday afternoon, can be

profitably and enjoyably spent by those members of the community whom

the late Dr. Andrew Wynter designated as “our working bees,” there

should be none more attractive than a climb to the top of some of our

highest western hills. The following pages, which are respectfully

dedicated to you who suggested them, make no pretence to fine writing

or original matter, but are simply a short and, I trust, readable

guide to those who care to make a journey to the hilltops which they

attempt to describe. The hills that find a place in these pages are

accessible to all who are capable of average physical endurance, and

the account of what may be seen from their tops and in their immediate

neighbourhood may help to add to the pleasurable emotions that are

certain to arise from a visit to them. We certainly miss at home the

solemn and almost unearthly look of the Alps, but our Scottish hills

have a greater variety in colour, size, and shape, and many of them

have historical and antiquarian associations which help to make them

the more interesting to those who climb them. It is astonishing,

considering what a wealth of mountain scenery we have in Scotland,

that their cult should have been so late and should still be so scanty.

There are those who are nothing if they are not practical, and who

see in a mountain or a range of hills little more than so many acres

or tons of waste soil, which would have had a much greater economic

value if it could be levelled down in some way. We can scarcely hope

to interest such; but people are getting more alive to the value and

significance of mountains, and are beginning to feel that if there be

healthy power anywhere on earth for the wasted body, or the sorrowing

soul, or larger thoughts of God and of ourselves, they are to be found

on the top of some lofty hill. Who can long be sick at heart with the

glory of hill and dale and sky about him? and who frail of step with

his nostrils full of the scent of varied nature, and his tread on the

springy heather? Indeed, it has been truly said that “the mountains

in their nearness, and yet remoteness, in the poetry and romance that

gather round them, in their simplicity and purity, in the aspirations

they kindle, and in the manifold and yet often occult services which

they render to humanity, are to the world what religion is to life.”

These articles have been written in the midst of an active and busy

life, and have been prepared for publication so hurriedly as to make it

impossible that they should be free from mistakes. They will, however,

to some small extent help and interest those who have not fuller and

better guides.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

LOUDON HILL, 1

TINTO, 10

CAIRNTABLE, 19

BALLAGIOCH, 29

KAIM HILL, 37

GOATFELL, 48

THE EARL’S SEAT, 57

DUNMYAT, 67

BEN DONICH, 76

BEN VENUE, 84

THE COBBLER, 95

BEN LOMOND, 107

MOUNT MISERY, 118

BEN LEDI, 130

THE MEIKLE BEN, 142

OUR WESTERN HILLS.

LOUDON HILL.

There is hardly any excursion within a few miles of Glasgow that

combines more of what is pleasing in history, poetry and patriotism,

and varied scenery of the sweetest kind than a trip to Loudon Hill.

Either the South-Western or the Joint Line, from St. Enoch, takes the

traveller to Kilmarnock, or “Old Killie,” as it is pettingly called by

the Kilmarnockians, a place that is suggestive of St. Marnock in the

eighth century, Burns at the end of last century, and bonnets in the

present. The line now takes him past Galston, where there is to be had

a view of the well-trimmed hedges, characteristic of the roads on the

Loudon estate, and the plantations of magnificent trees, which from

their age—at least a century—tell that Scotland had proprietors fond

of planting before the time of Dr. Johnson. And here is to be seen,

rising among the greenery of “Loudon’s bonnie woods and braes,” which

Tannahill sings so sweetly of, the palatial-looking towers of Loudon

Castle, that has been not inaptly called the Windsor of Scotland. It

is said that here were signed the Articles of Union between England

and Scotland, beneath the branches of a gigantic yew tree, which yew

tree is also memorable from the fact—for this at least is a fact—that

James, second Earl of Loudon, addressed letters to it, when secretly

communicating with his lady during the period of his banishment—“To the

Gudewife, at the Old Yew Tree, Loudon, Scotland.”

The old churchyard of Loudon nestles in a quiet nook by the wayside,

which has been the burying-place for nearly 400 years of the Loudon

family, a family which, in its first Earl, Chancellor Loudon, and

oftener than once since, has done good service to the cause of liberty.

Here also lie the remains of the gifted but unfortunate Lady Flora

Hastings, who is said to have died of a broken heart on account of a

cruel and unfounded slander raised against her by one of the ladies of

the bedchamber of H.R.H. the Duchess of Kent.

The traveller by the train which reaches Newmilns at one o’clock will

get the help of a brake (if so inclined) as far as Darvel.

It was doubtful weather when we started, and the leaden clouds drove

over the sky in heavy masses, “one long drift of rugged gloom”—but it

is a waste of time to pay any attention to the weather in this country,

one has only to go on and take its buffets and its rewards “with equal

thanks.” Presently there appeared a bit of blue sky no larger than

one’s hand, not even enough to make the Highlandman’s well-known nether

garment, which soon spread over the heavens, and in the course of a

few minutes the sun’s beams straggled though the lovely green foliage,

making golden patches among the roadside flowers, and the wild ferns,

and causing the long grass to sparkle as if all the diamonds of Brazil

had been scattered over it.

The distance from Darvel to Loudon Hill is three miles, although

it seems much less to the traveller, from his having such a clear

view of its rugged and well-defined outline straight before him. The

hill springs up suddenly from the surrounding level, and it looks

higher than it is. At Loudon Hill Inn, 2½ miles from Darvel, a road

to the left over the Irvine, which is here a mere burn, leads to the

hill, which is easily accessible in more senses than one. From the

large number of excursionists that visit this hill, it would not be

surprising to hear that the farmers in the neighbourhood preferred

that it should be less free to the public. But the Earl of Loudon,

though not possessing the ground round about, is the proprietor of the

hill, and makes the public welcome to visit a place so memorable and

picturesque. The unpleasant and unfortunately too-much-resorted-to

“Notice to Trespassers” finds no place here, and we can only say that

if there were more of his disposition in the country the relations

between high and low would be much more friendly than they are at

present. Of course there is another side to the question—this, namely,

that landowners are frequently tempted to put up prohibitory notices

because of the deplorable fact that a certain section of the public do

not show a sufficient regard for the rights of property.

The hedges look beautiful, hung as they are with garlands of the

milk-white thorn; and those who care for a study of silver and blue may

have it now. The silver—the drifted snow of the water crowfoot, the wee

crimson-tipped daisy, and the pendent snowballs of the wild cherry. Of

the blue—patches of wild hyacinth, with just shade enough for varying

tones from the purple spikes of the unfolding bells in the deeper shade

to where the sunshine ripples on paler blue, in charming contrast

to the new spring grass. The summit is reached from the western

side, there being a pathway through the trees, and, though a little

toilsome, the ascent is more than repaid by a most extensive prospect.

The hill is round, conical, and of romantic appearance, formed of

columnar trap, and part of an extensive trap-dike which is said to

trouble the whole coalfield of Ayrshire in a north-westerly and

south-easterly direction, having its beginning in the vicinity of

Greenock. Looking north and east and south, there is little within

the first 8 or 9 miles but a wide expanse of moorland, that, with the

exception of one or two spots on which farmhouses stand, seems to

stretch for miles. About a mile to the north-east is the schoolhouse

of Drumclog, and a small monument marking the spot where Claverhouse

and his dragoons were routed by the Covenanters under Hamilton, Burley,

Cleland, and Hackston, on June 1st, 1679, a Sabbath morning. In this

affair Claverhouse lost his cornet and about a score of his troopers,

while the Covenanters lost only four men. This whole district, being

quite inaccessible to cavalry, was a favourite place for the holding

of conventicles. The locality, as well as the engagement itself, are

described in “Old Mortality,” and by Allan Cunningham in his poem, “The

Discomfiture of the Godless at Drumclog.”

A little to the north of Drumclog the Irvine rises in what at the time

of the battle was a mere moss, but the rivulet is now conveyed in a

straight line through an artificial ditch, and inclining to the west is

joined by the Hairschaw Burn, and flows past the south side of the hill

in a deep ravine. At one time trout were readily got here; but a lime

work at the junction of the Hairschaw and the Irvine, according to an

old angler, “seems to have hurt the health of the fish, for they have

never been seen since it was started.” It has sometimes been a question

whether the parish got its name from the hill or from the valley; but

as Loudon or Loddam means marshy ground, and as not long ago the Irvine

flooded the whole valley, it is probable that the parish was named

after the valley. The banking of the river and tile-draining make the

name no longer appropriate; but the memory of the marshy ground is kept

alive in the “Waterhaughs,” a farm not far off on the Galston side of

the river. About a quarter of a mile to the south of the hill, on the

summit of a precipitous bank overhanging the old public road, there is

a small turf redoubt, about twenty yards in length, called Wallace’s

Cairn, to mark the spot where some of his men were buried after the

battle which took place in the narrow gorge below. At this place, which

is the watershed for the Clyde and the Irvine, in a narrow pass, down

which the winds come in grand style, and which is therefore called the

Windy Hass or Wizen (Gullet), Wallace and a small band of warriors lay

in ambush, attacked and defeated a rich English envoy from Carlisle to

the garrison at Ayr, although they were only 700 against 3000. A large

quantity of booty was got, and, according to Blind Harry, “a hundred

dead in the field were leaved there.”

While to the north, south, and east there is nothing but moor, with

an occasional hill to relieve the monotony; to the west there is a

landscape of unrivalled beauty. In the foreground there is the fertile

valley of the Irvine, dividing Galston on the south from Loudon on the

north, and Kyle from Cunningham, a vista of little less than 20 miles

in length.

This picture includes such details as these:—First, there is the hamlet

of Priestland; beyond which, close to Darvel, the Irvine is joined by

the Glen Water, supposed to be the scene of Pollock’s popular tale of

“Helen of the Glen,” up which also there are the remains of a British

fort, one of those round forts which are always to be found in the

track of the Roman invaders, which had been surrounded by a ditch,

and had a bridge and a gate. Then there are Darvel and Newmilns, with

their prosperous lace factories and their looms. On the south side

there are the beautiful plantations on the Lanfine Estate, almost

rivalling “Loudon’s bonnie woods and braes” on the north side, both

contributing to give a rich appearance to the landscape, and taking

away the barrenness which once characterized this now lovely valley.

Still farther off there are to be seen Hurlford and its smoke,

Kilmarnock and its Burns memorial, Dundonald Hill, the Firth of Clyde,

and the rugged heights of Arran. In the north-west there are the hills

above Dalry, Kilbirnie, and Lochwinnoch, hiding the heights of Cowal;

in the north there is the lion-like Ben Lomond, to the right of which

there is a view of Ben Venue, Ben Ledi being shut out by the high

ground at Avonmuir, 5 or 6 miles in front of us. Farther east there

is an occasional peep of the eastern part of the Campsie range, and a

full view of the Ochils. Due east Strathaven, 9 miles off, is plainly

seen, and the high ground near Carluke still farther away. In the near

south-east we have the Avon flowing away from us to the Clyde, and the

hills in which it takes its rise, and behind which Cairntable rises,

some 12 or 13 miles away. Due south there is Distinkhorn, only some

6 miles distant, and behind it in the dim distance are the hills of

Galloway. This is not by any means a bad view for a hill only 600 feet

above the level of the surrounding country; according to an old saying,

“One may go farther and fare worse.”

Then, around its foot, as we saw on our way up, there is much that

will please botanists. We passed here quite a small battalion of them,

each with the symbol of his order—a vasculum. Here are to be seen dark

red spikes of fumitory, which Shakespeare calls “rank fumitory,” from

its abundance, a sign of waste ground. It is a pretty little flower.

The flowers bruised in milk is a favourite village cosmetic. Among

the nettles is borage, a plant whose azure-blue blossoms and little

white rims at the centre figure so prominently in Titian’s picture of

the “Last Supper of our Lord,” and which has called forth the warmest

praise of Mr. Ruskin. At one time every country garden had its plant

of borage. It was used for quite a variety of purposes, and like many

a good but plain individual, it is better than its ragged appearance

would lead us to imagine. You need not be at all surprised if a cock

pheasant steps out proudly from the thicket, or if a squirrel darts

up a tree, or a rabbit comes out of the brackens to see what you are

after, or a partridge should alight on the stump of some tree that has

seen better days.

A walk back to Darvel for the coach to Newmilns station will enable the

traveller to reach Glasgow early in the evening.

TINTO.

If any one wishes for perfect quiet, and to be well out of the way of

smoke and bustle, of duns and other visitors—in fact, has a particular

desire to find within 40 miles of Glasgow a place which, for all

practical purposes, shall be to him or to her the world’s end—let

him make up his mind to spend a day on the top of that well-known

yet comparatively little climbed hill, Tinto. And for this purpose

let him take a return ticket and follow us to Symington—and there is

Tinto, or the Hill of Fire, before his view. There can be no mistake

as to what we have come out to see. There is not much to distract our

attention from the object we have in view, nothing near of a like kind

to compete with it. There it stands, like a large self-contained house,

all others at a respectable distance from it, not to be mistaken with

any other—nay, as destitute of relations as Melchisedeck, a great

porphyritic hill, dominating like a king over the Upper Ward. After

leaving the station, a quarter of a mile to the south, there is a

camp still to be seen covering half an acre. This takes us back in

thought to that old Simon Liscard, who, in the days of Malcolm the

Fourth or William the Lion, got this district as a territory, and

called the settlement Symon’s Town, abbreviated into Symontown, and

again corrupted or improved, according to the individual taste, into

Symington.

The sky becomes overcast, but we are not to be deterred by the muster

of the elements, and we step out valiantly in the face of a rising

wind, and also in the face of an interminable procession of rough

looking cattle, feeling that there is a little credit in being “jolly,”

as Mark Tapley would put it, under such circumstances. In spite of the

gloomy aspect of clouds there is something hopeful in the strength of

the wind, and soon they begin to draw off, and by the time we are a

little on our way the old battle has been waged and won, and we are

glad to take off any superfluous clothing as the sun throws off the

last porous film, and looks down on us with a cheery smile. The soil

here is not of the very richest. It reminds us of the saying in regard

to the Carse of Gowrie, which must have had for its author some one who

was foiled in his battle with the strong clay—“It greets a’ winter, and

girns a’ summer.” But for all that there are some good fields of grain

to be met with amidst the wide extended breadth of pasture land, and an

occasional flock and herd furnish an element of life which adds to the

interest.

When we find ourselves on the main road we make for a reddish small

quarry on the hillside to the south of us. We reach it by a short cut

past the front of the first thatched house we come to, and then turn

to the left for about five minutes’ walk on the Stirling and Carlisle

road. When we get to the top of the quarry there is a very good path

that leads all the way to the summit. As there is no omnibus that runs

to the top, we zigzag it in our own way. Now we make a false step; we

are finding our way over some troublesome stones, and often a huge mass

of bright flesh-coloured felstone. Like all other felstone hills, such

as the Pentlands and North Berwick Law, it is worn into smooth conical

eminences, usually coated with turf, which, when broken here and there

along the slopes, allows a long stream of angular rubbish to crumble

from the rock, and slide down the hill. We are for ever mistaking the

top, thinking we are at it, when, behold, there it is, as if farther

off than ever. And so on we go, up and down, over the elastic heather,

enjoying the ever-widening horizon, till at last we reach the very

summit, 2312 feet above the level of the sea, but not much more than

1700 feet vertically from its base. It stands on the mutual border of

the parishes of Carmichael, Wiston, Symington, and Covington, and forms

a sort of vanguard to the Southern Highlands. We could see parts of

sixteen different counties from it, including Hartfell and Queensberry

Hill in the south, Cairntable in the south-west, the peaks of Arran in

the west, and the Bass Rock in the north-east.

Looking to the south and east, and not at all far away, we have hill

range upon hill range. They are neither very grand, nor rugged—they

might almost be termed bleak and bare; and yet they have a beauty all

their own. With few exceptions they are wanting in vegetation, and

although to one accustomed to the rugged grandeur and rich variety of

the northern Highlands, they may seem tame and uninteresting, there is

a charm in their peaceful slopes and rounded summits which is not to be

found in the stern beauty of their northern neighbours. “Their beauty

is not revealed at first sight; it grows on the eye, which never tires

of gazing on their grassy slopes and watching the ever-changing play of

light and shade.”

On a clear day the hills in the north of England, and even the north

coast of Ireland, can be easily seen. We did not see them ourselves,

but _we have seen a man who has seen them_. We could see the infant

Clyde, made up of several streams, all rapid, noisy, and wildly

frolicsome, differing as much from the broad, calm, useful river at

Glasgow as the most capering and crowing baby differs from the gravest

sage. We could see it almost from the place where it takes its rise

near the sources of the Tweed and the Annan, and could follow it

winding like a silver thread along the bottom of a narrow dell, down to

a broad and splendid band of crystal through a diversified country, now

washing the skirt of a romantically situated Roman camp, now through

pleasant pastures and charming corn lands, and now skirting the base of

Tinto in a sweep so great and circuitous that a distance of more than

20 miles is run between points which in a straight line are not farther

apart than 7½ miles. We only lose sight of it when, after tumbling over

Cora Linn, it runs down beyond Lanark into what might well be said to

be at once the most beautiful and fruitful valley in Scotland.

Looking to the east in the direction of the self-important town of

Biggar (who has not heard the ancient joke of the district, London’s

big, but Biggar’s Biggar?), it was interesting to see the Clyde

approaching in that direction within 7 miles of the Tweed. Between the

two streams there lies, of course, the watershed of the country, the

drainage flowing on the one side into the Atlantic, and on the other

into the North Sea. And yet, instead of a range or a hill, the space

between the two rivers is simply the broad, flat valley of Biggar, so

little above the level of the Clyde that it would not cost much labour

to send it across into the Tweed.

And there are some members, possibly of a Glasgow Angling Club, one or

two of them up to the knees in the Clyde in the pursuit of what they

can get, even though it should be but a nibble. No more peaceful scene

could be found for one who wants to get away from the cares of his

ordinary daily life. I am content merely to be a reader of Walton’s

books, which are like those that Horace had in his mind when he said

that to read them was a medicine against ambitions and desires.

Looking west, we have on our left hand the united parishes of Wiston

and Roberton, with the Garf finding its way into the Clyde. We have now

time after feasting our eyes in every direction to think of the hill

itself. It is a wondrous mixture of volcanic product, a perfect museum

of minerals—overlapping a huge mass of transition rocks. It probably

bubbled into being in a series of red-hot upheavals at an epoch when

all that which is now the low country of Lanarkshire was a muddy,

torrid sea. It was much frequented by our heathen ancestors for their

sanguinary Druidical rites, and perhaps blazed often with both their

fires of idolatrous worship and their signal fires of war; for its name

signifies “the Hill of Fire.”

There is ancient precedent for the building of a cairn to commemorate

any striking event. It is a favourite Scripture method of memorial, and

has been much practised in our own Highlands. But as we stand by the

side of the immense cairn which crowns Tinto, and which is understood

to be equal to about 300 cart loads, we could not help feeling

sympathy for our poor forefathers, who are said to have carried them

up piecemeal through a series of ages, in the way of penance, from a

famous Roman Catholic church which was situated in a little glen at the

north-east skirt of the mountain, and we could not help saying that

“the former times were” not “better than these.” We found that we had

to pay for our splendid position by being exposed all through our stay

on the summit to a stiff south-west wind, which reminded us of the

popular rhyme—

But tho’ a lassie were e’er sae black,

Let her ha’e the penny siller,

Set her up on Tinto tap,

The wind wad blaw a man till her.

On the “tap,” too, there is a “kist,” or large block of granite, with

a hole in one side, said to have been caused by the grasp of Wallace’s

thumb on the evening before his victory at Boghall, Biggar; just as

Quothquand, a hill a little to the north-east, is crowned with a large

stone known as Wallace’s chair, and popularly believed to have been his

seat at a council held the same evening. The “kist” on the top of Tinto

is the subject of another curious rhyme, which Mr. Robert Chambers

thinks is intended as a mockery of human strength, for it is certainly

impossible to lift the lid and drink off the contents of the hollow—

On Tintock tap there is a mist,

And in that mist there is a kist,

And in the kist there is a caup,

And in the caup there is a drap;

Tak’ up the caup, drink off the drap,

And set the caup on Tintock tap.

This old world rhyme is finely moralised by Dr. John Brown in his

“Jeems the Door-keeper.” We have been here when the sunset has died

away upon the hill, like the “watch fires of departing angels,” and

from the undergrowth about the neighbouring river blackbird and ousel

sent forth their liquid pipings. The cuckoos that all day long had been

calling to each other across the fields, were now with a more restful

“chuck! chuck! chu, chu-chu,” flitting, like gray flakes, from coppice

to coppice, preparatory to settling for the night. The blackcock’s

challenge could still be heard from the lower ground, and from the

hillside came the silvery “whorl-whorl-whorl” of the grouse. Such

sounds can be heard far off in the stillness of the dusk.

Tinto has not much to boast of in the way of antiquities; but perhaps

enough has been said to lead some of our readers to go and “do” Tinto

for themselves; if so, we can only hope that they may enjoy it as much

as we did. It only requires six hours in all, and the remembrance of

the travel will be even pleasanter than the travel itself, for in the

remembrance the little drawbacks are all forgot, and the absence of

care and the blue sky, and the bright sun, &c., &c., remain.

CAIRNTABLE.

We remember reading, some years ago, in _Punch_, a paragraph headed

“Strange Insanity,” and stating that a respectable tradesman in the

City, in pursuit of a holiday, had positively thrown himself into a

cab, driven off to the Eastern Counties Railway Station at Shoreditch,

and had taken a ticket for Great Yarmouth. It is perhaps equally an act

of “strange insanity” in this year of grace and desirable excursions

for anyone to go to Muirkirk on a similar errand, for the line to

Muirkirk—like that of the “Great Eastern,” as the Eastern Counties is

now called—is not managed, to say the least, with the same expedition

that, as a rule, pervades the Caledonian system. But if anyone wishes

to see Cairntable, he must make up his mind to take a ticket for

Muirkirk. Soon after leaving Glasgow the whole valley of the Clyde

opens up to us, which is still beautiful in spite of its desecration

by coalmasters. We can sympathise with the English cyclist who, having

read the “Scottish Chiefs” before beginning his tour through Scotland,

had his mind full of the beauties and traditions of the neighbourhood,

but was disappointed to see the air thick with smoke, while far and

near tall chimneys vomited flame and steam. And this continues more or

less all the way till we reach the ore lands and blast furnaces of our

Scotch pig-iron kings, the Bairds.

As the village is to the north of the station, and Cairntable to the

south, it will save time, if there is no need to pay a visit to the

Black Bull or the Eglinton Arms, at once to take to the hill. On

leaving the station on the south-side, turn to the left 300 yards or

so, and follow a little stream a short distance beyond a lade which is

in connection with the iron-work, and you will find in the second bend

of the stream a curious phenomenon in the shape of a boiling (bubbling)

well; the water rising up so strongly as to make the sand appear to

boil over. After taking a drink, make through the moor for the middle

of the wall to the left, which follow, keeping close to it. After the

wall has been passed keep straight on till well up the shoulder of the

hill; make then, through the heather, in a south-easterly direction for

the nearest small cairn. After passing this keep in the same direction

among some large stones, which were probably meant to commemorate

some event, at the time considered sufficiently important, but the

knowledge of which is now gone, as there are no distinguishing marks

or hieroglyphs to be found on them. They are too small to have been

used in Druidical worship, as some have supposed. And now you reach a

very good footpath. From this the ascent is easy, the path being strewn

here and there with small bits of breccia or pudding rock, which enters

largely into the composition of Cairntable. Here are to be found small

pieces of quartz minutely mixed with sandstone, and nearly as hard as

granite. It formerly supplied for many a long year the millstones used

in the parish for grinding oats.

The summit is reached in about an hour and a half, 1944 feet above the

level of the sea, crowned with two immense piles of stones, and there

is great need for some tradition to account for these, as in the case

of the perhaps still larger cairn on the sister hill of Tinto. Would

the members of the Antiquarian or Archæological Society please make a

notice of this, and tell us if they were not meant to commemorate the

defeat of some Annandale thieves who used to infest the district?

Before beginning to take in the surroundings we recall to our mind

that at the end of the twelfth century all around us was a forest, as

we learn from a charter granted to the monks of Melrose by the Grand

Steward of Scotland; and that this was so is abundantly plain from the

names of many of the farms, from the trees found in the moss (entire

hazel nuts being also found in it), and from small clumps and detached

trees of birch and mountain ash still to be seen on the braes and by

the side of the ravines.

And looking over this wide and uneven surface, sometimes rising into

considerable eminences, covered with dark heather, and presenting

nothing either grand or striking except its bleakness and sterility,

we cannot help thinking that this wholesale destruction of trees

is a thing much to be regretted from every point of view. It sadly

spoils the scenery, it deprives the district of their shelter, and

their prostrate trunks, by obstructing the water and assisting in the

formation of moss earth, prove injurious to the climate. From the

general altitude of the district fogs are frequent, rain is abundant,

and the climate cold, so that it might be said of it, as it is said of

Greenock and Arrochar, which are also hydropathic, that “it doesn’t

always rain, it sometimes snaws.” And yet it does not appear as if the

evaporation from the moss were injurious to the health.

Looking to the south we have a perfect tableland of small mountains,

the Leadhills range being a little to the east, those near Sanquhar

due south, and those near Dalmellington to the west, Blackcraig and

Enoch’s Hill being prominent between. Behind a small cairn to the west

of the two greater ones there is a very fine spring, the waters of

which, falling into the valley below, divide into two little streams.

The one part, under the name of the Garpel, runs into the Firth of

Clyde at Ayr, through the channel of the water of Ayr; the other, the

Duneaton, runs to the Clyde at Abingdon, and joins its long-lost sister

waters in the Firth, which we can see where we stand, after a most

interesting and no doubt useful course of more than 100 miles. Looking

east and north, we see the outline of the Lowther range, the southern

Grampians, with Culter Fell, Tinto, and over Tinto the Pentlands.

Our solitude is all the more apparent by a curlew and a plover which

circle round and round uttering most piteous cries, as if to say, “What

strange being are you? Have you come here to rob us of the early worm?”

One of the hunting spiders settles down beside us. It spins no web, and

depends on its power of leaping to catch its prey, and to watch its

movements is quite a study. It is a good fighter, and will fight the

garden spider, though it is larger than itself. It may not be generally

known that spiders have been worn in nut-shells and goose-quills round

the neck to drive disease and the devil away. But we will pass from

such a subject, for most people hold it in aversion, from the “little

Miss Muffit,” who “sat on a tuffit,” to the cleanly housewife.

In front of us we have Hairschaw Hill to the right, then Blackhill and

Middle Law, and between the latter two the road to Strathaven is seen

to wind, and we recall the long walk from and to Glasgow which Edward

Irving and Carlyle took one day, when the one was the popular assistant

to Dr. Chalmers, and the other had not yet been able to do anything to

show the stuff of which he was made. Looking north is the little and

now almost extinct mining village of Glenbuck, with its two artificial

lochs, the only sheets of water in the parish, constructed in 1802 to

supply the works of James Finlay & Co., at Catrine, covering between

them 120 acres. The Water of Ayr (smooth water) rises out of these, and

flows before our eyes through the village of Muirkirk, a small stream,

and then among holms and haughs through an open moor till joined by a

little stream which rises near Priesthill, and by “the haunted Garpel”

it becomes a large body of water. Still farther north, over Blackhill,

is Priesthill, where on the 1st of May, 1685, John Brown, of saintly

memory, whose house was always open to the benighted stranger or to

the persecuted in the days of the Covenant, was shot before the eyes of

his wife, by the bloody Claverhouse, his very soldiers refusing to do

the deed. It will be long before Scotland will forget the noble answer

of his wife to the brutal remark of his murderer, “What do ye think of

your husband now?” “I always thought much of him, but now more than

ever.” Close by at the farm of High Priesthill, during a thunderstorm,

about forty years ago, a waterspout fell, washing away some 30 acres of

the land.

Looking up the valley of the Douglas Water, which takes its rise at

the foot of Cairntable, on the north-east side, we see the policies

of Douglas Castle, the seat of the Earl of Home, and the “Castle

Dangerous” of Sir Walter Scott; and we recall to our minds that we

have in it a name intimately connected with the most splendid period

of Scottish history. It is an open question still whether the family

gave the name to the parish, or _vice versa_. The favourite tradition,

however, is that about 767 Donald Bain the Fair took the field against

the King. He was nearly victorious, when a person, with his sons and

followers, flew to the help of the King and routed Donald, who was

himself slain. The King thus rescued inquired to whom he owed his

deliverance, when one of the officers said, “Sholto Douglasse” (there

is the dark man). The King, in gratitude, gave him a tract of land

and the surname Douglas, which was given to the domain and the river

also. This appears to have some confirmation from the fact that Sholto

is still a kind of hereditary prænomen among various branches of the

Douglas family.

Turning to the west, and looking down the valley of the Ayr Water, we

have in sight not only Aird’s Moss, a large moss extending several

miles in all directions, but the monument also erected on it, about

a quarter of a mile off the Cumnock Road, to the memory of one of

Scotland’s worthiest sons, Richard Cameron. The utter desolation of the

spot gives it a melancholy interest, and nothing fair is to be seen but

Heaven above, the hope of which sustained the heart of the Covenanters

in their skirmish with the dragoons there in 1686. The heather and the

long grass bear no trace of the blood which must once have stained

them; but no true patriot will readily forget such scenes as those.

Not far off is the birthplace of Dr. John Black, a former minister of

Coylton, the author of a “Life of Tasso,” and of a learned work called

“Palaico Romaica,” in which he endeavoured to prove, but with more

ability than success, that the New Testament was originally written in

Latin, from which the Greek version was a translation.

In making the descent by the same route as that by which we reached

the summit, we see Loudon Hill taking a sly peep at us over the top of

the town; we think of the time not so long ago when there was not a

building save the kirk in the muir, in the vicinity of the now thriving

town, and of Lord Dundonald’s unfortunate coal tar manufacturing

experience here. The adoption of copper for sheathing the vessels of

the navy ruined the speculation, and the Earl lost heavily by it.

Coming down once more to the level ground, a good walker, who is also

a painstaking hunter of flowers, will not go unrewarded. All along

our course there are the yellow blossoms of the buttercup family on

the harder ground, daisies in the meadows, on the moor the bluebells

hanging their delicate heads, each appearing a little lonely and pale;

and there are also the exquisite waxlike blossoms of the bilberry,

growing quite abundantly, and looking quite as beautiful as any of the

rare heaths of the conservatory.

We find our way to the station through and among some wrought-out lime

quarries, the roughness of our route now reminding us of what must have

been the state of the road to Sorn, a little further down the valley,

when travelled on by one of our Scottish kings on his way from Glasgow,

and which he found to be so disagreeable that he said, if he wished

to “give the devil a job,” he would send him to Sorn in winter. What

thoughts crowd upon us as we review the work of the last hour or two

on our homeward journey; thoughts as to the probable, or established

history of rock and plant, of mountain and moor! And what an insight

do we gain into our ignorance as we have to acknowledge that to many

of the problems we must subscribe ourselves “agnostic,” or without

knowledge. In two and a half hours we reach the well-paved streets of

Glasgow.

BALLAGIOCH.

Given those three things, a good day, a liking for a walk over a

Scottish moor, and a small bag over the shoulder well filled with

eatables, could one do better than set out to make the acquaintance

of this comparatively unknown hill? The most interesting route, and

the most direct, leaving the least work for the pedestrian, is by the

Caledonian Railway, from the Central, to Clarkston Toll. From there

we avail ourselves of a coach to Eaglesham (kirk hamlet), not knowing

what the necessities of the day may be. In doing so, our mind goes back

to the time when Professor John Wilson (Christopher North) as a boy

spent some of his happiest days hereabout on the banks of the Earn, and

somewhat farther back to the time when the Romans had a village near

to the Sheddings of Busby. On arriving at Eaglesham we make for its

highest point, and there find the road that leads to Ballagioch, some

2½ miles off. On the left there are three reservoirs, the Picketlaw,

the mid dam, and the high dam—the last a broad sheet of water which

used to drive the wheel of the village cotton mill. On the right, about

100 yards from the village, we pass the road that leads to Moorhouse,

the birthplace of Robert Pollock, the author of “The Course of Time.”

A mile from the village of Eaglesham the road begins to rise. And

here we are reminded that if the early summer is the time of hope, it

is the time of strife as well. For here is, first, a dead mole; and

secondly, a couple of living larks. The mole and a brother of his had

been fighting for a wife; he had been wounded, his body ripped up, and

a part of his entrails eaten by the conqueror. The larks, a couple of

male birds, were now fighting, and the weaker was being worsted; and if

he had stuck to his guns as did the mole he would in all probability

have met with the mole’s fate. Halfway up the ascent on the left is the

road to Lochgoin, but we keep on the highway to Kilmarnock. As we near

the top we leave behind us, at the height of 800 feet above the level

of the sea, almost every sign of cultivation, and enter upon the moor,

in which the villagers have the right of casting peats and pasturing

a single cow. When we have reached the summit nearly another mile of

table-land lies before us, and Ballagioch is close upon us on the

right. The hill rises before us to the height of perhaps 200 feet from

the road, but our Ordnance map tells us that it is 1094 from the level

of the sea. This, however, is no great height for a Scottish hill, and

therefore we require no “guide, philosopher, and friend” to show us the

way to the top; we simply need to remember the short but pithy address

of the Highland officer to his men in the face of the foe, “There’s the

enemy, gentlemen, up and at them.”

Though the hill is not very high, yet with the exception of Misty

Law, near Lochwinnoch, and the Hill of Staik, on the borders of

Lochwinnoch, Largs, and Kilbirnie, it is the highest eminence in the

county of Renfrew. It is principally composed of the trap rock, which

is prevalent in the district, but several specimens of barytes have

been found in its vicinity, and a species of stone which bears extreme

heat without cracking, and has therefore been found to be well adapted

for the construction of furnaces and ovens. It is also said to contain

silver and lead ores, but if so, there is no outward appearance to show

that this is correct.

The prospect from the summit, however, more than repays any

disappointment which we may have on this score. It commands a most

extensive and beautiful series of landscapes, embracing many counties

within its scope. On the one hand are the moors of Fenwick, formerly

called New Kilmarnock, with its memories of William Guthrie, its first

minister (1644), author of “The Christian’s Great Interest,” and from

whom the parish takes its chief fame. Beyond are the fertile woods and

fields of Ayrshire, with Loudon Hill, near which the battle of Drumclog

was fought, and an extensive sweep of the Ayrshire coast, with the

lonely and conical Ailsa Craig and the jagged peaks of Arran in the

distance. On a clear day the view in this direction commands the land

of Burns. On the other hand, we have in sight the grand valley of the

Clyde, with Glasgow and Paisley, and many other towns and villages in

its capacious bosom, while away in the dim distance we have a perfect

wilderness of mountain-tops. A little to the south and west is the farm

of Greenfields, with 1000 acres—somewhat of a misnomer, however, for

all around is a waste of peat. As we pass the farmhouse we see a herd

of lowing cattle, and hear the song of chanticleer in the farmyard.

And as we move along we come upon a fresh upheaval of earth, the work

of Master Mole, and still more frequently upon the burrow of a rabbit,

with tufts of downy fur strewing the neighbourhood. Near this there is

a road that leads to lonely but historically and otherwise interesting

Lochgoin, where John Howie wrote the “Scots Worthies,” where there

are still to be seen many things which will rejoice the heart of the

Christian patriot and the antiquary.

The loch itself is of little consequence, being entirely artificial,

and was first formed in 1828 to supply the mills at Kilmarnock with

water; but a little beyond, a few yards into the parish of Fenwick,

is the venerable house which has been the abode of the Howie family

for so many centuries (since 1178), and where they still retain all

the primitive, pious, and pastoral habits which distinguished their

Waldensian ancestry. This house during the times of persecution

frequently afforded an asylum to those who, for conscience sake, were

obliged to flee from their homes, to men like Cargill, Peden, Richard

Cameron, and Captain Paton, which rendered it so obnoxious that it was

twelve times plundered, and the inmates forced to take refuge in the

barren moors around. Indeed, standing on Ballagioch we can see the

homes of not a few who can trace their connection with ancestors who

suffered in the “killing times.”

And not far off, at the farm of Duntan, between where we stand and

Lochgoin, on the east bank of a stream which goes past the farm,

there is a rocky precipice, in the front of which there is a small

aperture capable of holding three or four in a stooping position.

One person can scarcely enter on hands and feet at a time. Tradition

tells us that two Covenanters, chased by dragoons, plunged through

the stream in flood, scaled the rock, and hid. The troopers did not

venture to follow them, but fired into the cave and went off, probably

believing that their intended victims had found a tomb instead of a

hiding place. Immediately to the south of us there is Binend Loch, a

large sheet of water covering about 50 acres, which would be a perfect

paradise for the patrons of the roaring game if it were only a little

nearer the haunts of civilisation. A little beyond this is what we in

Scotland happily call the watershed—a term that of late years physical

geographers have appropriated as expressive of a meaning which no

single term in English had conveyed.

All around us the ground is mossy, and intersected with sheep drains.

Here and there the fresh cuttings disclose trees embedded in the

moss, telling of a time when this now treeless country must have been

covered with waving forests. The trees are generally hazel, and often

they have a foot or several feet of moss beneath them, showing that

the moss must have existed anterior to the hazel. It is only when we

come to the bottom of the moss that we find the oak and the pine, the

remains of the ancient Caledonian forests. We come down on the north

side of the hill, and find not far from the farm of Lochcraig the coal

measures cropping out, and in the blocks of shale that rise up through

the moss are to be found abundance of specimens of the strange flora

of the Carboniferous age, the _Sigillaria_, so remarkable for their

beautifully sculptured stems, and their not less singular roots, so

long described as _Stigmaria_ by the fossil botanist.

In course of this walk it is easy to make quite a large botanical

collection. You may have the _Geum urbanum_ with its small yellow

flower and fragrant root with scent of cloves. This was formerly used

as a tonic for consumption and ague, and being infused was often used

by ladies for the complexion, and for the removal of freckles. Then

there is the blue meadow or cranesbill, _Geranium pratense_, and herb

Robert, _Geranium Robertianum_, and the sweet vernal grass and the

wood mellica. There is also the moschatel, or musk crowfoot, so called

from its musky fragrance, and the wood spurge, and ground ivy, a plant

which, when dry, has a pleasant odour, and which in country places is

sometimes still made into tea, and supposed to be good for coughs and

colds. We give these only as a few specimens to whet the appetite of

those who carry a vasculum and rejoice in a herbarium.

On leaving Ballagioch, for the sake of variety, we shape our course

north-west in the direction of Moorhouse, and soon, after crossing

the Earn, reach the Kilmarnock road. The railway has shorn this

road of all its former glory, when fifteen packhorses could be seen

regularly travelling between Glasgow and the west country, and when

the Kilmarnock carrier drove along it his six milk-white ponies of

diminutive size, but possessed of much mettle. Our walk to Clarkston

_via_ Mearns is much about the same length as the route we took from

Clarkston to Ballagioch _via_ Eaglesham, and at last we reach the city

somewhat tired, yet highly delighted with our day’s outing.

KAIM HILL.