whimsical effect of the figure is almost obliterated by the greatness
of those rocks that tower high above, and are perched like the Semi
of Eig on the utmost ridge of the mountain. Your first impression is
that here “you get the air about you;” that, as a Lancashire man once
said to the writer of this about Blackpool, making a slip, “There’s
a deal of ozedone (ozone) about it.” We suggested that he probably
meant zoedone, to which the answer came, “Yes, now you have got it.”
You are on a mountain 2891 feet high, whose praises have been sung by
the Queen, by M’Culloch, and Alexander Smith, and now that you have
presumably made its acquaintance, you feel that your climb of two hours
is well repaid, and that the half has not been told you.
Sitting on the summit so narrow and acute, which has been compared to
the bridge of Al Sirat, the very razor’s blade over which the faithful
are to walk into Paradise, sitting astride on this rocky saddle, you
may have one foot in Loch Long and the other in Glencroe. The scene is
magnificent, and you may long and calmly gaze at it without any fear
that your horse will get restive or impatient under you. The cliffs
themselves are at once picturesque and sublime, and, most of all, that
square mass at the western extremity, which rises in a lofty and broad
magnificence, 200 feet or more, like a gigantic tower rooted on the
mountain’s brow. Alexander Smith speaks of this as “the Cobbler’s wife
sitting a little way off, an ancient dame, to the full as withered in
appearance as her husband and as difficult of access. They dwell in
tolerable amity the twain, but when they do quarrel it is something
tremendous. The whole country knows when a tiff is in progress. The sky
darkens above them; the Cobbler frowns; his wife sulks in the mist. The
wife’s conduct aggravates the Cobbler, who is naturally of a peppery
temper, and he gives vent to a discontented growl. The wife spits
back fire upon him. The row begins. They flash at one another in the
savagest manner, scolding all the while in the grandest Billingsgate,
while everybody listens to them for 20 miles around. Afterwards,
however, peace seems to be restored somehow when everybody is asleep.
And for the next six weeks they enjoy as bright and unclouded weather
as husband and wife can expect in a world where all is imperfect.”
Those huge masses of rock, grand in their style and powerful in their
effect, give this an advantage over most of the mountain views of
Scotland by the wonderful foregrounds which they disclose. Immediately
to the right of it, for example, are Ben Irne and Ben Vane, both higher
than it; and yet it is the Cobbler we know, and almost as if he had no
rival.
But the surrounding and distant scenery is also very varied and
splendid. East and north and west there is a perfect table-land of
mountains, too numerous to mention here, and which can best be studied
with a good map in hand. Conspicuous, however, are the giant heads
of Nevis, Anachan, Ben Lui, Ben More, Lawers, Voirlich, Ledi, and
Lomond. The view of Ben Lomond from this is specially grand. Looked
at from its own loch it is a shapeless mass, but here, by displaying
his ample peak, with precipices of 2000 feet or more, he shows what a
fine fellow he really is. You can see the bright gleaming waters of
Loch Katrine and Loch Lomond, beyond which even Stirling shows a smoky
front. To the south you have the long and sinuous extent of Loch Long
winding brightly beneath your feet, and prolonged between its mountain
boundaries till it reaches the Clyde and the sea. This loch reminded
some of the Queen’s friends, on the occasion of her visit to it in
1848, of Switzerland and the Tyrol, “surrounded by grand hills all so
green, and with such beautiful outlines, all so different from the
eastern part of Scotland, the loch winding along most beautifully so as
to seem closed at times.”
You can also see the glittering course of Loch Goil, Gareloch, and Loch
Fyne, all adding to the variety and beauty of this great landscape map.
And you cannot help feeling that the patriotic Scotchwoman was not far
wrong who said that “Scotland would be as big as England any day if she
were all rolled out flat like her.” You can see the Clyde at various
points, with the Cumbraes, Arran, and even the distant Ailsa, and,
according to some, several of the Western Islands, including Mull.
It is to those and similar points of the western coast that the
traveller strains his eye from the Cobbler. He can see but dimly, but
he feels the wild power that belongs to that broken and chaotic sea,
and his heart goes out to the early Gaelic sires who fished in the
firth, gave names to the summits, and spent their life amid that maze
of rock and flood. It was their feet that made the mountain tracks
where you and other tourists can safely climb to-day.
At your foot is Arrochar, at the opening of a woody glen formed by
Anach, Voirlich, and Ben Tarbet, between which is seen Craigrostan,
a rocky peak of Ben Lomond. At the upper end of the Loch (Long) is a
glen, which, with its mountain, gets its name from fairies, a very
general creation of Highland superstition. You have due south the wild
and well-known Glencroe, which is only surpassed by Glencoe, its wild
and savage grandeur being on too broad a scale for the pencil. It is
some five or six miles in length, and the rocky ramparts through which
it runs are in most part composed of micaceous schist, beautifully
undulatory, and in many places embedded in quartz, and shining like
silver. Some of the huge boulders display these characteristics to
perfection. The narrow bed of the valley is occupied by a dashing
torrent, and you see the road carried along its course as near as the
tortuous bank and rocky fragments will permit. In some parts there are
beautiful scenes in the bed of the river; here the water is rushing
violently past some huge rock, or tumbling over it in cascades; and
there it is heard only to growl in an inaccessible dungeon. One of
those might pass for the grotto of a naiad. At one end the sunbeams
admitted through different apertures may be seen to play on the waters;
at the other a small cascade glitters in the gloom; while the sides are
wrought into various odd forms by the whirlpools, and in one part a
natural chair is scooped out of the rock.
But human habitations there are none! This part of the country does
not seem to belong to the amiable nobleman who told his factor that he
would rather see one human being on his estate than a hundred sheep. It
was once the abode of quite a small colony, but it is now little better
than a sheep walk, and hard work it must be even for the sheep to get
a decent livelihood here. Speaking of sheep, there is quite close to
you here a small burn called the Eagle’s Burn, which was until lately
frequented by eagles of a large grey kind, which have been known to fly
off more than a mile with a lamb in their talons. At the summit there
is the famous “Rest and be Thankful,” the theme of Wordsworth’s lines—
Doubling and doubling with laborious walk,
Who that has gained at length the wished-for height,
This brief, this simple wayside call can slight,
And rest not thankful?
It is a most agreeable green seat for the tired traveller, who can
not only rest his limbs, but feast his eyes as he looks back on the
zigzag path he has climbed, and the treeless solitude through which the
waters of the Croe wriggle in serpentine links. He can also indulge in
the cheap luxury of gratitude to Captain Lascelles and the men of his
regiment, who, according to the inscription on the stone erected to
commemorate the formation of the road, made it, immediately after the
rising in 1745. The Government at that time resolved to open up the
country by means of good military roads, and put the matter into the
hands of General Wade, who seems to have done his work well, and to
the astonishment of the natives, who are represented in after times as
saying—
Had you seen these roads before they were made
You would lift up your hands and bless General Wade.
We here came across a gamekeeper with the usual accompaniments of dog
and gun. He had a dog-whistle at his buttonhole, and his pocket knife,
which was a basket of tools in itself, he was using to empty and fill
his pipe. Getting into conversation with him, he told us that he loved
his gun as an old companion, and that he was so accustomed to the
balance and hang of it that he never thought of aiming—he simply looked
at the object, still or moving, threw the gun up from the hollow of
his arm, and instantly pulled the trigger, staying not a moment to
glance along the barrel.
The hilltops to the south of us, between Loch Goil and Loch Long, have
been facetiously called the Duke of Argyll’s Bowling Green, either in
irony or, more probably, as a delicate compliment to his lordship. All
Western Scotsmen have a high opinion of the greatness of the Macallum
More, and it may be that those who first applied the name meant to
intimate by it that so powerful is the Duke, that what to ordinary
mortals are stupendous hills are to him a mere “bowling green.”
It may be interesting to some who have taken part in recent political
elections for Dumbartonshire to know that Arrochar House, on the
opposite shore of the loch from the Cobbler, the residence of the last
chief of the Macfarlans, was at one time in the possession of the
laird of Novar. It was, however, rented by the Duke of Argyll, and
until lately was a most acceptable shelter to the tourist. It is now
a private residence. The land immediately to the north of you at one
time belonged to “the wild Macfarlan’s plaided clan.” They were great
depredators on the low country, and as their raids were often made at
night, the moon came to be familiarly called “Macfarlan’s lantern.”
Their place of assembling was Loch Sloy—“the Loch of the Lost”—near the
foot of Voirlich, from which they took their war-cry of “Loch Sloy,
Loch Sloy!” There once stood near to it a large plantation of firs, in
which on one occasion the men of Athole hid to surprise the Macfarlan.
But his son Duncan surrounded it and set fire to it, destroying the
whole of the foe. The cruelty of the exploit gained for him the name
of “Duncan the Black Son of Mischief,” or Donucha-dubb-na-Dunnaidh,
which latter will give those who “haven’t the Gaelic” an idea of what
a Gaelic name looks like when in full dress. But Duncan seems to have
been a son of stratagem too, for we read that when once attacked by the
Athole men he kept watch, a little way off from a river which they had
to cross, took a remarkable coat of mail which belonged to his father
and fixed it on a tree. The enemy supposed it to be Macfarlan himself,
and their commander offered a reward to any who would shoot it, on
which the archers let fly their arrows fast and furious, but futile.
Duncan and his men when they had finished coolly picked them up,
attacked them all unarmed while crossing the ford, and obtained an easy
victory. This clan, which almost gained at one time a reputation equal
to that of the Macgregors for wholesale disturbance and depredation in
the lowland district, were declared in 1587 to be one of those clans
for whom the chief was made responsible. In 1624 some of them were
tried, convicted, and punished, and the rest removed to Aberdeenshire
and Banffshire. The lands have passed out of their hands altogether;
and the chiefs house, as already mentioned, is now a private residence.
Taking one more fond look of the grand panorama, we make the descent
in time to catch either the Loch Long steamer or the evening one
from Tarbet, and in course of time are transplanted from the land of
mountain and flood to the prosaic life and work of the city.
BEN LOMOND.
If Loch Lomond is the queen of Scottish lakes, Ben Lomond is the king
of Scottish mountains. He may not reign by divine right in one sense,
for there are higher heights than his in this “land of the mountain and
the flood,” yet he reigns by almost universal consent. There is none of
them all that attracts such a number of visitors from all parts of the
world who have heard of his greatness and majesty, beauty, and widely
extended dominion. It is the fashion to climb Ben Lomond at least
once in a lifetime, and that it has many who worship at its shrine is
evident from the otherwise unnecessary comfortable hotel at its base,
and the well-marked track which leads to the summit.
A return ticket should be taken to Rowardennan, say, on a Saturday
morning, from Queen Street low level; the hotel is to the right of the
pier, and opposite its garden wall will be found the beginning of the
track. The length of slope and the numerous breaks in the way make it
a journey of 6 miles. The path seems quite conspicuous from below along
a green ridge of hill; but soon it breaks off and dies away into a wet
and boggy valley. A little higher up an unheard-of rill becomes quite a
little torrent, and a gentle cliff turns into an apparently unscalable
crag. The ridge of the hill is green, but like most such lands is soft;
and this is the nature of the way till you reach the last stage, which
is steeper (excepting near the very summit), and is formed of large
fragments of slaty-rocky, intermixed with a kind of sparry marble
of considerable size. The first part of the journey is the least
agreeable, from its soft and boggy nature; halfway up the lake appears
to most advantage, its glassy surface studded with islands, round which
appears to breathe a perpetual spring.
We are now, however, coming near “the melancholy days—the saddest of
the year”; and before we get to the summit and down again a great red
ball will look out upon the world for a little space, and then sink
down into its shroud of gray cloud. But how beautiful the mountain side
is in its autumn robes. “The violin,” said Mendelssohn, when comparing
the sounds of an orchestra to the hues in the rainbow, “is the violet”;
and in the stealing sweetness of both there is a rare charm. The
musician’s well-known comparison of red to the sound of a trumpet is
scarcely to be recalled in autumn except for a scarlet berry, shining
like a spark here and there in the bushes or the trees, or for the
bright stomacher of the robin as he nears the ground trilling his sad
flute-like strain. The landscape is quickly becoming like a mezzotint
by Bartolozzi—a true study in copperplate. Every shade of brown, many
shades of red, and all tinges of green, may be seen in great masses of
leaves.
The summit is reached at an elevation of 3192 feet, and though the
ascent will cost you three hours and a little toil, it will well repay
you. It is not picturesque, like the view from Mount Misery, for it
defies the pencil; but it is nobly poetical, as it excites sensations
of the truest sublimity. It is wilder and more romantic, not having the
broad and majestic appearance that it has looked at from the south; but
is narrow and river-like, as most of the Scotch lakes are.
The hill at the lower end displays all the richness of diversified wood
and quiet beauty, but here we have a vast ocean of mountains, separated
by deep glens, in every direction, which look like the troubled waves
of a mighty chaos. They are broken and rugged in their outlines, and
rise up at once precipitately and abruptly from the water, and looking
north we miss those islands which give such a delightful interest to
the broad expanse of the lower portion. They have every variety of
form and magnitude, and sweep round as far as the eye can reach from
the Ochils in the east, north by Voirlich and Lawers, and Ben More to
Cruachan. To the west the peaks are too numerous to mention, but are
strikingly impressive from the double fact that they are so near to us
and so nearly of a size to that on which we stand. The mountain scene
here is simply magnificent, and everywhere high peaks toss up their
heads, wildly grand in storm, or calmly beautiful as immersed in the
lake “100 fathoms down.” To the south-west there is the wild confusion
of sea and mountain which forms the sea coast, with Ailsa, Arran, and
the Paps of Jura. Due south there lies the glassy mirror of the lake,
its islands now mere specks; the Vale of Leven, the rock of Dumbarton,
Clyde, and the distant counties of Renfrew and Ayr. Eastward is the
valley of the Forth, with the Castle of Stirling, and even that of
Edinburgh on a clear day quite visible. You can also see far over the
Kilpatrick range the conical peak of Tinto.
Among the most attractive objects are some of the lakes that lie
around; you see the upper part of Loch Katrine, reminding you that you
are not so far from home after all, on the one side of Ben Venue, and
the whole of Ard on the other, with its beautiful cascade of Ledard.
You cannot see its water, but you can see the exact spot where it
is, with its fall of 12 feet into a basin formed of solid rock, and
the water so transparent that at the depth of 10 feet the smallest
pebble can be seen. From this basin it dashes over a ledge of rock
and precipitates itself again over an irregular slope of more than
50 feet—a place peculiarly interesting from having been described by
Sir W. Scott both in “Waverley” and “Rob Roy.” And yonder is the Lake
of Menteith, with its soft pastoral beauty, and its three islands,
Inchmahorne, “the Isle of Rest,” with its ancient priory, which in its
day was visited by Bruce, and Mary, and James VI.; Tulla, or Cat’s
Isle, where the Earls of Menteith lived; and the little Dog Island,
where the kennel was.
Between these lakes (Menteith and Ard) you can also see the snugly
sheltered clachan of Aberfoyle, which can boast of a thermometer
standing at 80 degrees in the shade, and sometimes even at 84 degrees,
and in whose churchyard there is the grave of a Pat (or Patrick)
Graham, a member of the Menteith family, who was “vicar of Aberfoyle”
about the Revolution; and also the grave of Rob. Kirk, who had a chief
share in translating the Psalms into Gaelic, “Hiberniæ linguæ lumen.”
There also we can trace the track of the Glasgow water supply, a little
above Loch Katrine. Losing sight of it and Loch Chon by some rising
ground, you see it again over the hilly country between Loch Ard and
Gartmore, and can picture it in your mind, flowing through the Moss of
Flanders, round the shoulder of Dungoin, away yonder at the end of the
Strathblane range, a very river of health and life.
And just below you are some of the sources of the Forth, at the place
called in Gaelic, Skid-n’uir, or ridge of yew trees (which, however,
are not now to be seen). Here there rises a pretty copious spring,
which divides into two parts, the one going to the German Ocean, and
the other into the Atlantic, _via_ Loch Lomond. The Forth is soon
joined by the Duchray, and becomes a considerable river; and, as you
see it here, you can quite forgive the pride of Bailie Nicol Jarvie as
he said, “That’s the Forth,” with an air of reverence which, Francis
Osbaldistone tells us, the Scotch usually pay to their distinguished
rivers. The fall from Gartmore to Stirling is not more than 18 feet, as
was found by the measurement which was taken when it was proposed to
take the great canal up the bed of the Forth and join the Clyde by Loch
Lomond and the Leven.
The north side of Ben Lomond excites a degree of surprise almost
amounting to terror. This mighty mass, which hitherto has appeared
to be like an irregular cone, placed on a spreading base, suddenly
appears as an imperfect crater, with one side forcibly torn off, and
leaving a stupendous precipice of nearly 2000 feet to the bottom. We
on one occasion were fortunate enough during our stay on the Ben to be
enveloped with a thick mist like a curtain, shutting off the view for a
time, and leaving us alone on the mountain-top, far above the clouds,
the sun shining on our heads all the time. We felt as if transported
into a new state of existence, cut off from all meaner associations,
and invisibly united with the surrounding purity and brightness. The
clouds rising again, we had a view of the lake in almost all its
length, and after this a slight shower came on, giving us many fine
effects of light and shade and aerial tints. The hills would become
of a dark purplish grey or blue, sometimes softened by a thin lawny
veil of mist, which, again gradually increasing, enveloped all but a
craggy point; and then a minute or two more and they would be enlivened
by a faint gleam of sunshine, spreading a dewy green over part of the
mountain, while the chief mass retained its dark brown or purple gloom.
When shut out from sight-seeing we turned our attention to the
etymology of the word Lomond; we tried to answer the question why it
was that Loch Loamin means “a lake of islands,” and Ben Lomond “the
bare green mountain.” They are both correct and true to nature, but
why so? And we had to give it up; we had to admit that Gaelic is
unfavourable to philological accuracy. Its words admit of so many
changes in form, and from their vocality coalesce so readily together,
that a very little ingenuity is sufficient to discover many different
radiations in the same compound. But once more the sun shone out, and,
turning from these dry roots to something more savoury, we discussed
our bill of fare and made up for the liquid loss sustained in the
climb. We sympathised with the party who wrote on the window-pane of
the Balloch Hotel long ago—
O Scotland, grand are thy mountains!
But why on their summits
Are there not fountains
Of good bitter beer
From Burton-on-Trent?
’Twould add to their value
A hundred per cent.
Looking northward we have the country of the Clan Gregor before us,
stretching along the Trossachs to Balquhidder, and on the north and
west to the heights of Rannoch and Glenorchy, a clan which was formerly
known as the Clan Alpine, which traced its origin from Alpine, an
early Scotch king. In an ancient Celtic chronicle, relating to the
proceedings of the Clan Macnab, it is said that “there is nothing
older than the Clan Macarthur except the hills and the rivers and the
Clan Alpine.” They were for long the dread of the Lowland part of the
Lennox district. The upper district of Loch Lomond, which belonged to
the Macfarlane clan in the days of old, is seen to great advantage. Far
up are seen the huge forms of Ben Voirlich and Ben Achray, and those
of numerous kindred giants. There is Inversnaid, and its memories
of Wordsworth and his “Sweet Highland Girl.” The hotel at Tarbet,
and the village and the road over to Arrochar, appear in Lilliputian
proportions. And lower down is Stuckgown House, a favourite residence
of the late Lord Jeffrey, who was, as Lord Cockburn says, “an idolater
of Loch Lomond, and used often to withdraw there and refresh himself
by its beauties.” Immediately opposite this, at the rocky foot of the
giant on whose head we stand, is Rob Roy’s prison, an arched cavern
in a rock some height above the water, which can be easily seen from
the steamer. It was said that he was in the habit of convincing those
whom other arguments failed to reach by giving them a dip in the loch
at this point; and it is generally understood that they did not need a
second.
Before starting to come down you should look over to Camstraddan Bay,
at Luss, and try to realise that the waters of the loch have increased
so much in the course of ages that about 100 yards from the shore the
ruins of houses are still visible. But Loch Lomond has other wonders
than this; it is said to have waves “without wind, fish without fin,
and a floating island.” The swell in the widest part, particularly
after a storm, has probably given rise to the first of these marvels;
vipers, shaped like eels, are said occasionally to swim from island to
island, and this may account for the second; and the floating island,
according to a very old tradition, shifted its quarters every now and
then from one part of the loch to another, like the ancient Delos.
But if ever there was such an eccentric island it has now settled down
and occupies a fixed place; but whether, as at Delos, this is the
result of Phœbus’ action our philosophers do not determine. However,
according to the old saying, that wonders will never cease, there is
still another in connection with this loch. At long intervals Scotland
seems to have been pushed up from her watery bed by the aid of mighty
subterranean forces, which have raised the lake about 20 feet above
the sea level, and converted it into a fresh-water lake. This has been
already referred to, but here the next and last wonder comes in. This
loch, thus raised, contains among a variety of other fishes one called
the powan, which resembles a herring, the descendant, it is thought, of
some one which had been too late in getting out. It is said, that there
is only one other loch in Scotland in which powans are found.