height of the season; but we in Glasgow can have a day’s outing
quite as good for half the money, and at any time. It is not “down
the water,” but up to the Earl’s Seat, the highest point in what is
popularly called the Campsie range. Find your way to Strathblane in
the manner most agreeable to your mood. On reaching the station, turn
to the right, past the handsome parish church, the pulpit of which was
long filled by Dr. William Hamilton of astronomical fame, the father of
the still more famous Dr. James Hamilton, of Regent Square, London, and
soon after you will readily find the way up the hillside to the Spout
of Ballagan.
In doing so you can think of the time when the church and lands of
Strathblane were gifted to the hospital of Polmadie, in the parish of
Govan, and how those, with one-half of the lands of “Little Govan,”
seem to have formed the most important endowment of the hospital.
You can think also how the present church occupies the site of the
church that preceded it, and that to the Duntreath family are due many
improvements which have been made in the building in recent years. Much
valuable family history is, we are afraid, slowly decaying among the
weeds and mosses of many a neglected churchyard, but Mr. Guthrie Smith,
in his book on Strathblane, has acted the part of an “Old Mortality” in
this one.
The Spout is a cascade of 70 feet formed by the Blane in its passage to
the valley below, and which, with its surroundings of rock and wood,
presents a scene of the most wild and romantic beauty; the hollow into
which the river plunges being filled up with a vast collection of
gigantic stones piled upon each other, and adorned on its sides with
many alternate strata of various hues.
Anyone can see for himself at a glance at Ballagan the process by which
our mountain glens and gorges are formed—how after a heavy rainfall the
descending waters rush down the watercourses, setting all the boulder
and rock fragments in the bed of the stream in motion. The last of the
old race of the Levenax, or Lennox, had a castle near to and in sight
of this romantic glen, from which fact the range of hills was, and
frequently still is, called the Lennox range, and its highest point
the Earl’s Seat. Ballagan House, which is close at hand, commands a
beautiful view of the fall, and is within hearing of its music, even
when it has not the power to strike a loud note. In flood-time the
Spout is stupendous, and increases its apparent height by covering the
huge masses below so as to vie with the sublimity if not the beauty of
Cora Linn. This may seem to some to be rather strong language, but all
measurement is comparative, and it may be possible to feel that there
is more than prettiness or even grandeur here.
The view, even half way up, is not to be despised, the beauty of
which consists in its “breadth,” as an artist would say. The meadows,
with their green frames of hedges, may be compared to small cabinet
pictures—lovely, but small. This is life-like—a broad cartoon from the
hand of nature. The sward rises and rolls along in undulations like the
slow heave of an ocean wave. Handsome trees of all sorts are scattered
around, under whose ample shade cattle can, and, to judge from the
brown and bare patches around their trunks, evidently do, repose in the
heat of the day. Following up the stream, which in its higher reach is
called the Laggan Burn, we come on two smaller cascades, and after a
pleasant and comparatively easy ascent up the fretted terraces of trap,
reach the summit, 1894 feet above the sea level, 3 miles to the north
of the station we have left, and at the meeting point of Killearn,
Campsie, and Strathblane parishes.
The climb to the top will well repay a visit, as will readily be
believed when we say that the eye embraces a range of scenery extending
all the way from Ben Lomond to Tinto. The prospect before us is of the
most beautiful description; the vast basin of the Clyde from Kilpatrick
to Dechmont lying stretched at our feet, with Glasgow, Paisley, and
many other towns and villages scattered on its breast; while the line
of the horizon is formed by the Gleniffer, Fereneze, and Cathkin braes.
Immediately below us is the valley of the Blane, or Warm River; and
we cannot help acknowledging that Strathblane (the valley of the Warm
River) is a word that is peculiarly descriptive of the valley, which
is sheltered in almost every direction from the violence of the winds.
The probability is that, with part of Campsie (the crooked strath,
according to some), it was at some long-past date a fresh-water loch,
and that subsequently the barriers in the direction of Loch Lomond were
broken down, and the valley drained accordingly. The nature of the soil
contributes to establish this opinion, consisting largely of sand,
gravel, and other comminuted fragments of the neighbouring rocks. The
valley of the Blane, as it winds its way westward from the bare and
desolate conical hill of Dunglass, 400 feet high, on the east, to the
conical and finely wooded hill of Dunquaich, on the west, also 400
feet high, is one of the prettiest in Scotland, quite equal to and not
unlike the drive between Crieff and St. Fillans, which Dr. John Brown,
in his “Horæ Subsecivæ,” calls the finest 13 miles in Scotland.
Looking south we have to the left a view of Lennox Castle, the seat of
a branch of the ancient earldom of Lennox, rebuilt in the boldest style
of Norman architecture, nearly 500 feet above the level of the sea, and
commanding a most extensive and picturesque prospect; and a little to
the west are the gentle undulations of the Craigallion table land, with
the venerable Mugdock Castle, of unascertained antiquity, the scene of
many bacchanalian orgies on the part of the Earl of Middleton and his
associates, who, after the restoration of Charles II., were seeking to
subvert the liberties of their country.
But Mugdock, which to most of us suggests a magnificent water supply,
has a history long anterior to the Restoration period. All the
authorities agree that about the year 750 a great battle was fought
at Maesydauc between the invading Picts under Talargan, one of their
kings, and the Cymric Britons under their king Tendeor. After a bloody
battle, the Picts were defeated and their king slain. Dr. Skene, than
whom there is no higher authority, identifies this battlefield with
the present Mugdock, in the parish of Strathblane. The field of battle
can be traced with but little difficulty. The Cymric army was posted
on the high ground on Craigallion, then part of Mugdock, above and to
the east and west of the Pillar Craig, with outposts stationed on the
lower plateau to the north. There they awaited the Picts, who came up
Strathblane valley through Killearn from the north on their way to the
interior of Cumbria or Strathclyde. Near the top of the Cuilt Brae,
in a line with the Pillar Craig, there is a rock still called Cat
Craig, _i.e._, Cad Craig, meaning the “Battle Rock.” In their efforts
to dislodge the Cymric army, whom they could not leave in their rear,
the Picts, doubtless, had penetrated thus far, and here the battle
began. It was continued all over Blair or Blair’s Hill, _i.e._, “the
Hill of Battle”—the rising ground on Carbeth Guthrie which commands
the valley of the Blane—and Allereoch or Alreoch, _i.e._, “the King’s
Rock,” was certainly so named from being the place where King Talargan
fell when the defeated Picts were being driven back to the north-west.
The standing stones to the south-east of Dungoyach probably mark the
burial-place of Cymric or Pictish warriors who fell in the bloody
battle of Mugdock.
Immediately opposite is Craigmaddie Wood and Moss, with the far-famed
Auld Wives’ Lifts, which are well worthy of a visit themselves, not
only on account of their position and their size, but also of the
uncertainty of their origin. Some regard them as the work of witches,
which is about as good a way of getting out of a difficult as the
Highland minister had, who always said when he came to some knotty
point, “But this is a mystery, my brethren; we will just boldly look
it in the face and then pass on.” Some regard them as the work of
glacial action, and yet others as a gigantic Druidical altar, on which
in some far-off period the dark rites of Pagan worship may have been
celebrated. We tried, but with little success, to give our mind to this
difficult problem, and finding the air “vara halesome”—quite too much
so, indeed—we made short work of some sandwiches, which, fortunately
for us, were thicker than those we get at Lang’s.
Time should be taken to have a look at the prehistoric wall above
Craigbarnet, and also at the great stone, “Clach Arthur,” on the brow
of the hill, said to mark the site of one of King Arthur’s victories.
The remains of the wall are still perfectly visible, and can be traced
as far as the Ballagan Burn. From the height above that burn a good
view is had of the wall running on westward towards Dungoin.
Earl’s Seat is flanked east and west by two hills, and it sends off
from its southern slope not only Ballagan Burn, up which we came, but
Fin Burn, passing down through Fin Glen, a little to the east. We make
this our route homeward, which, though less known than its neighbour
Campsie, or, more correctly, Kirkton Glen, is little inferior in
attraction, and for at least its length, its volume of water, and its
cascade is much superior. As we descend we have time to have a look at
Crichton’s Cairn, immediately above Campsie, so called, according to
one account, in memory of a local Hercules of that name, who, after
taking a wager to carry up a load of meal to the top, succeeded in
doing so, but died immediately after; and according to another, in
memory of a smuggler of that name who was overtaken and killed there
by gaugers. There is still another account of the matter, viz., that
Crichton committed suicide up there by hanging himself. “If this is the
true version, it is one of the most determined cases on record, as the
poor man would require to take the hanging apparatus with him.” Below
the cairn is the well-known Craw Road, between Fintry and Campsie,
by which in 1745 a detachment of Highlanders came south to join the
Chevalier, and a visit to the bend of which is supposed by some to be
“good for the whooping cough.”
Getting to the bottom of Fin Glen, and keeping to the left, we soon
find ourselves in the far-famed Campsie Glen, with its Craigie Linn,
about 50 feet high, and its Jacob’s Ladder. The little churchyard
across the burn is worth a visit with its ruined belfry, its graves of
Bell, the traveller; Muir, the Campsie poet; and Collins, the parish
minister, who was murdered coming home from a meeting of the Glasgow
Presbytery in 1648 by a neighbouring laird who wanted to marry his
wife. The tombstones are chiefly flat, reminding one of the times,
not so long ago, when the graves of the dead were watched during
the night by the parishioners in turn to prevent the eager student
of anatomy stealing the bodies away. In former times funerals were
conducted on different principles from those in fashion to-day. In the
neighbourhood of Campsie when the head of a family died the custom at
one time prevailed of issuing a general invitation to the parishioners
to attend the funeral. The guests were usually accommodated in a barn,
where refreshments, consisting of cake, bread and cheese, ale and
whisky, were served in no stinted way. The proceedings began early
in the forenoon, but the “lifting,” as the removal of the coffin from
the house was popularly styled, did not take place till well on in the
afternoon. As a rule the coffin was carried to the place of interment
on hand-spokes. After a modest refreshment in the adjoining inn, we
make for the station, and reach Glasgow after a most enjoyable outing
of six hours.
DUNMYAT.
We started the other day for the top of Dunmyat, the nearest and most
picturesque peak of the Ochil range. If you have not been on its
summit there is a treat in store for you. We take the train from Queen
Street to Stirling, thence by car to Causewayhead, the most fitting
place from which to begin the pedestrian part of our journey. Taking
the road through the village, up the hill, and keeping to the right,
past the Wallace Monument, we soon find ourselves at the Parish Church
of Logie. We look into the churchyard a little further on, where we
admire the most simple and modest epitaph it was ever our lot to read,
over the grave of General Sir James A. Alexander, lately deceased, “He
tried to do his duty.” Keeping up past the gardener’s house, by a very
pleasant sylvan road, half-grown with grass and self-sown ash and other
trees, we come to the road to Sheriff Muir, about a mile up. We might
have reached this point from the Bridge of Allan (or the Bridge, as it
is locally called), _via_ St. Ann’s Road, but consider that we have
come unquestionably the most picturesque route. Keeping to the right
for a quarter of a mile, we find a gate which admits us to the moor.
Following an easterly north-easterly direction, now through what will
be in autumn a red sea of heather, and now through what is already a
diminutive forest of brackens, over hill and dale, too numerous to
mention, meeting occasionally a sheep or two feeding on the grass
(which seems more fresh and green the higher we go) and apparently
wondering how ever we came there, we reach the summit of Dunmyat, after
a most pleasant walk of two hours from the time we left Causewayhead.
It stands 1375 feet above the sea level, immediately behind another
high hill, which breaks almost sheer down in stupendous rocky cliffs
into the plain between Blairlogie and Menstrie, at Warrock Glen, a
great resort for picnics, where the famous strawberries and cream of
the district are in much request. It is a lovely day, and every little
rocky spur and crevice is seen with such distinctness that one could
imagine only yards instead of miles of space intervening. And, to those
who have time to explore them, how many lovely glens and other natural
beauties are here to be met with! Then, taking a further look, what
a magnificent panorama is here spread for us! Though not so high as
either the King’s Seat, near Dollar, or Bencleugh, near Tillicoultry,
yet from its peculiar position it commands a prospect which for united
gorgeousness and extent is probably not surpassed by any in Britain. We
have under our eye at one time a circular space of a hundred miles in
diameter, comprising nearly one-third of the surface of Scotland and
probably two-thirds of its wealth. On the north the rugged Grampians
rise ridge behind ridge. There they all are, the Bens rising one over
the other in tumbled confusion—the real Highland hills, peaks, and wild
valleys, stormy summits, and dark, dismal clefts, dimly stretching away
to the regions of the setting sun. Nearer hand are the well-wooded
plains of Perthshire, a part of which is concealed by the spurs and
branches of the Ochils themselves. On the west you can distinguish the
summits of Ben More, Ben Ledi, and Ben Lomond, and other smaller hills.
On the south we have the vast and fertile region extending from the
Campsie Hills to the Lammermoor chain, including Edinburgh, Arthur’s
Seat, the Bass Rock, and the Pentland Hills. The Devon, rendered
classic by Scott, a peculiarly winding river, after having made a
complete circuit of the Ochil range, is seen to fall into the Forth
at Cambus, almost directly opposite the spot where it rises, on the
opposite side of the hill. The Forth is seen immediately below in all
its serpentine contortions, and yet clear, luminous, and tranquil as a
mirror, enshrined in the centre of a richly-cultivated country. It will
give you some idea of its wonderful windings to know that it is 7 miles
by road to Alloa and 21 miles by water.
The Forth can here be traced almost from its source in the vicinity
of Loch Ard, the country of Rob Roy, to where it joins the German
Ocean; and the windings in its upper part, with the islets, capes,
and peninsulas which they form, are seen to more advantage here than
from Stirling Castle, and the lower part of the Firth is specked with
little vessels, and perhaps a steamboat, which give life and interest
to the scene. There may be a feeling of disappointment in looking
over to Stirling Castle, that it hardly answers to expectation in the
way of nobility of outline. But there still remains the Royal palace
with its quadrangle quaint and bizarre, adorned, as we know it to be,
with the grotesque statues attributed to the taste of James V., the
“Gudeman of Ballengeich.” The Carse of Stirling, 60 miles in length
and from 10 to 15 in breadth, with decayed and modern mansions, snug
farm houses, hamlets, towns and villages, cornfields and meadows,
float indistinctly on the view, till all seem lost in aerial tints.
Immediately in front of us is the Wallace Monument, a lofty tower of
baronial architecture, 220 feet high, crowning the Abbey Craig, which
of itself is about 400 feet high, near the base of which Wallace
concealed the principal part of his forces before the battle of
Stirling in 1297, which proved so disastrous to the English. If we
are not mistaken the genesis of the tower was as follows:—A monument
to Wallace had been long talked about. In 1818 a gentleman offered
£1000 to erect a monument to the hero on Arthur’s Seat or Salisbury
Crags. Some people have the idea that all the good things should go to
Edinburgh. However, after dragging out a miserable existence for years,
this project fell through. In 1856 a bitter attack on the memory of
Wallace appeared in the _North British Review_. Mr. Brown, the managing
proprietor of the _Glasgow Daily Bulletin_, replied with such telling
effect that a committee was immediately formed for the erection of
a national monument. Glasgow Green was proposed, but it was finally
arranged that it should be built on the Abbey Craig, Stirling, which
has the advantage of overlooking the scene of the memorable battle of
Stirling Bridge. It is one of the finest sites in the country, and one
wonders now how any other place was proposed, as from its commanding
situation it can be seen for miles around, and from the top of it you
have one of the finest views in the country. The eye can behold the
scene of six battles, viz.:—Cambuskenneth, where the battle was fought
between the Scots and the Picts; the battle of Stirling Bridge; the
plains of Bannockburn; the battle of Sauchie Burn, when King James III.
was cruelly murdered in the miller’s cottage; also where the Duke of
Argyll fought the Earl of Mar and the Jacobite clans in 1715. A little
farther south is Cambuskenneth Abbey and Bannockburn, redolent of Bruce
and fighting in the past, and carpets and tartans in the present.
Between the Abbey Craig and the foot of Dunmyat we have the
mansion-house of Airthrey, with its pretty wooded policies and its
artificial lakes. To the immediate north of Dunmyat is Sheriffmuir,
called so, no doubt, from having been one of those plains or moors on
which the wapinschaws, a feat of arms of the Middle Ages, took place
under the inspection of the Sheriffs. It was the scene of a very
sanguinary though indecisive battle during the Rebellion of 1715, on
the same day on which the Pretender’s army surrendered at Preston.
Both armies claimed the victory, and hence the well-known sarcastic
lines—
There’s some say that we wan,
And some say that they wan,
And some say that nane wan at a’, man;
But ae thing I’m sure,
That at Sheriffmuir
A battle there was, that I saw, man;
And we ran and they ran, and they ran and we ran,
And we ran, and they ran awa’, man.
It was in connection with this battle that we heard of a Highlander who
had lost at it his “faither and twa brithers, and a gude black belt
that was mair worth than them a’.” Half a mile north of the base of
Dunmyat there is a very fine well, which issues from more than sixty
springs, and bears the name of the Holy Well, and is said to have been
anciently an object of superstitious veneration and crowded resort on
the part of Roman Catholics. And this reminds us that over yonder,
across the wonderful valley that separates this range of hills from its
nearest neighbour, are the Touch Hills, and that there, amid the sweet
air of May, early in the morning of the first Sunday of the month,
crowds used to assemble to drink the water of St. Corbet’s spring, and
believed that by so doing they would secure health for another year.
Old persons were alive about half a century ago who remembered having
in their young days joined the health-seekers on these occasions.
Dunmyat, like the rest of the Ochils, is a rich field to the geologist
and mineralogist. But for this it must be examined where it abuts on
the highway. Its general character, however, is that of a great igneous
mound developing itself in felspar and porphyry, and occasionally in
fine pentagonal columns of basaltic greystone. It is penetrated by
large workable veins of barytes.
Having once more feasted our eyes on the fair prospect, and recalled
to mind those and other historical associations, we proceed to descend
on the east side towards the beautifully wooded glen of Menstrie. This
can be done in less than half the time we took to reach the summit
from Logie. It is as well to proceed for the first 50 or 60 feet with
caution, for the freshness and abundance of the grass is apt to conceal
the steepness of the hill at that part. Crossing a cart track which
leads to a shepherd’s house up the glen of Menstrie, the only house
that is visible looking northward from the summit, and keeping to the
right, we soon reach the first house of the village, which is styled
by the natives “Windsor Castle.” From its elaborate coat of arms, it
seems to have belonged to some noble family, but, _miserabile dictu_,
it is now tenanted by quite a host of the great unwashed. A popular
rhyme assumes some spirit of fairyland to have formerly loved Menstrie
for its rural beauty, but to have been driven away from it by the
introduction of its manufacturing mills, and represents the phantom as
sometimes saying pathetically at dead of night—
Oh, Alva woods are bonnie,
Tillicoultry hills are fair,
But when I think o’ Menstrie,
It maks my heart ay sair.
But we make for the train, which is just at hand, feeling that we could
willingly take the same journey at least once a year, and in another
hour we are at Queen Street.
AT THE TOP OF BEN DONICH.
Notwithstanding the fact that it had rained for two days previously, we
determined to get to the top of Ben Donich, not that it is very high,
but that its central position affords far-reaching views, such as many
higher hills can lay no claim to. It is in the midst of a network of
inland lochs, and the range of high hills, not to call them mountains,
not a hundred miles away from the better-known “Cobbler.” The ordinary
way to reach it is to take the steamer to Lochgoilhead. When there,
there is a temptation to follow the crowd, in the shape of the
passengers for St. Catherine’s and Inveraray per the coach road, which
is commonly said to be the only road out of Lochgoilhead, and which
was a famous drive in the days of old John Campbell, who with every
crack of his whip delighted to crack a joke at the expense of some
incautiously inquisitive tourist. But we deny ourselves the pleasure of
a view of Inveraray and the beautiful seat of the Macallum More, and a
peep into Hell’s Glen from that end of it; so we turn up between the
grocer’s shop and the Free Church.
The village is no sooner left behind us than we have to put a stout
heart to a steep brae. We soon reach the Donich Burn, with its shoals
and rapids, its large stones and deep pools, which, although specially
dear to the angler, has charms for everybody. We approach cautiously
and watch the trout—how alternately mouth and gills open and close,
keeping up an incessant pumping—as they lie behind stones watching for
luckless flies. Passing over to the other side as at once the quickest
route, and that by which the best views are to be got, we are not very
far up till we can see the hills that hem in Loch Long on all its
sides, standing up weird-like, jagged and fissured, grim and gruesome,
even in fine weather, lending sublime impressiveness to the scene. But
the view is one that should be seen on its own merits, not in one, but
in varying aspects, if it is to be viewed aright.