Note: Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive. See
https://archive.org/details/scottishreminisc00geikuoft
Transcriber’s note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
A caret character is used to denote superscription. A
single character following the caret is superscripted
(example: Matthe^w). Multiple superscripted characters are
enclosed by curly brackets (example: 12^{th}).
Other notes will be found at the end of this document.
SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES
* * * * * *
PUBLISHED BY
JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS, GLASGOW
Publishers to the University.
MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.
_New York_, _The Macmillan Co._
_London_, _Simpkin, Hamilton and Co._
_Cambridge_, _Bowes and Bowes._
_Edinburgh_, _Douglas and Foulis._
MCMVIII.
* * * * * *
SCOTTISH · REMINIS-
CENCES ❧ ❧ BY SIR
ARCHIBALD·GEIKIE·K.C.B.
Glasgow · James · MacLehose
and · Sons · Publishers · to
The · University · 1908
First Edition, April, 1904.
Reprinted April 1904, 1905, 1908.
Glasgow: Printed at the University Press
by Robert MacLehose and Co. Ltd.
FROM THE PREFACE.
One who has sojourned in every part of a country and for sixty years
has mingled with all classes of its inhabitants; who has watched the
decay and disappearance of old, and the uprise of new usages; who has
been ever on the outlook for illustrations of native humour, and who
has been in the habit all along of freely recounting his experiences to
his friends, may perhaps be forgiven if he ventures to put forth some
record of what he has seen and heard, as a slight contribution to the
history of social changes.
Literature is rich in Scottish reminiscences of this kind, so rich
indeed that a writer who adds another volume to the long list runs
great risk of repeating what has already been told. I have done my
best to avoid this danger by turning over the pages of as many books
of this class as I have been able to lay hands upon. In the course of
this reading I have discovered that not a few of the ‘stories’ which
I picked up long ago have found their way into print. These I have
generally excluded from the present volume, save in cases where my
version seemed to me better than that which had been published. But
with all my care I cannot hope to have wholly escaped from pitfalls of
this nature.
No one can have read much in this subject without discovering the
perennial vitality of some anecdotes. With slight and generally local
modification, they are told by generation after generation, and always
as if they related to events that had recently occurred and to persons
that were still familiarly known. Yet the essential basis of their
humour may occasionally be traced back a long way. As an example of
this longevity I may cite the incident of snoring in church, related at
p. 86 of the following chapters, where an anecdote which has been told
to me as an event that had recently happened among people now living
was in full vigour a hundred years ago, and long before that time had
formed the foundation of a clever epigram in the reign of Charles II.
Another illustration of this persistence and transformation may be
found in the anecdote of the wolf’s den (p. 292). The same recurring
circumstances may sometimes conceivably evoke, at long intervals,
a similar sally of humour; but probably in most cases the original
story survives, undergoing a process of gradual evolution and local
adaptation as it passes down from one generation to another.
CONTENTS.
Pages
CHAPTER I.
Social changes in Scotland consequent on the Union of the
Crowns. Impetus given to these changes after Culloden in
the eighteenth century, and after the introduction of
steam as a motive power in the nineteenth. Posting from
Scotland to London. Stage coach travelling to England.
Canal travelling between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Loch
Katrine in 1843. Influence of Walter Scott. Steamboats
to London. Railroads in Scotland. Effects of steamboat
development in the West Highlands, 1–37
CHAPTER II.
Traces of Paganism in Scotland. Relics of the Celtic
Church; ‘Deserts.’ Survival of Roman Catholicism in
West Highlands and Islands. Influence of the Protestant
clergy. Highland ministers. Lowland ministers. Diets of
catechising. Street preachers, 38–76
CHAPTER III.
The sermon in Scottish Kirks. Intruding animals in country
churches. The ‘collection.’ Church psalmody. Precentors
and organs. Small congregations in the Highlands. Parish
visitation. Survival of the influence of clerical
teaching. Religious mania, 77–106
CHAPTER IV.
Superstition in Scotland. Holy wells. Belief in the Devil.
Growth of the rigid observance of the Sabbath. Efforts
of kirk-sessions and presbyteries to enforce Jewish
strictness in regard to the Sabbath. Illustrations of the
effects of these efforts, 107–141
CHAPTER V.
Litigiousness of the Scots. Sir Daniel Macnee and
jury-trial. Scottish judges, Patrick Robertson, Cullen,
Neaves, Rutherford Clark. 142–155
CHAPTER VI.
Medical Men. Sandy Wood. Knox. Nairn and Sir William Gull.
A broken leg in Canna. Changes in the professoriate
and students in the Scottish Universities. A St.
Andrews Professor. A Glasgow Professor. Some Edinburgh
Professors--Pillans, Blackie, Christison, Maclagan,
Playfair, Chalmers, Tait. Scottish Schoolmasters. 156–184
CHAPTER VII.
Old and new type of landed proprietors in Scotland.
Highland Chiefs--Second Marquess of Breadalbane; late
Duke of Argyll. Ayrshire Lairds--T. F. Kennedy of Dunure;
‘Sliddery Braes’; Smith of Auchengree. Fingask and
Charles Martin. New lairds of wealth, 185–204
CHAPTER VIII.
Lowland farmers; Darlings of Priestlaw. Sheep-farmers. Hall
Pringle of Hatton. Farm-servants. Ayrshire milk-maids.
The consequences of salting. Poachers. ‘Cauld sowens
out o’ a pewter plate.’ Farm life in the Highlands. A
Skye eviction. Clearances in Raasay. Summer Shielings
of former times. Fat Boy of Soay. A West Highlander’s
first visit to Glasgow. Crofters in Skye. Highland ideas
of women’s work. Highland repugnance to handicrafts, 205–238
CHAPTER IX.
Highland ferries and coaches. The charms of Iona. How to
see Staffa. The Outer Hebrides. Stones of Callernish.
St. Kilda. Sound of Harris. The Cave-massacre in Eigg.
Skeleton from a clan fight still unburied in Jura.
The hermit of Jura. Peculiar charms of the Western
Isles. Influence of the clergy on the cheerfulness of
the Highlanders. Disappearance of Highland customs.
Dispersing of clans from their original districts.
Dying out of Gaelic; advantages of knowing some Gaelic;
difficulties of the language, 239–273
CHAPTER X.
The Orkney Islands. The Shetland Islands. Faroe Islands
contrasted with Western Isles. ‘Burning the water.’ A
fisher of men. Salmon according to London taste. Trout
and fishing-poles. A wolf’s den, 274–293
CHAPTER XI.
Scottish shepherds and their dogs. A snow-storm among
the Southern Uplands. Scottish inns of an old type.
Reminiscences of some Highland inns. Revival of roadside
inns by cyclists. Scottish drink. Drinking customs now
obsolete, 294–320
CHAPTER XII.
Scottish humour in relation to death and the grave.
Resurrectionists. Tombstone inscriptions. ‘Naturals’ in
Scotland. Confused thoughts of second childhood. Belief
in witchcraft. Miners and their superstitions. Colliers
and Salters in Scotland were slaves until the end of the
eighteenth century. Metal-mining in Scotland, 321–346
CHAPTER XIII.
Town-life in old times. Dirtiness of the streets. Clubs.
Hutton and Black in Edinburgh. A feast of snails. Royal
Society Club. Bailies ‘gang lowse.’ Rothesay fifty years
ago. James Smith of Jordanhill. Fisher-folk of the Forth.
Decay of the Scots language. Receipt for pronouncing
English, 347–369
CHAPTER XIV.
The Scottish School of Geology. Neptunist and Vulcanist
Controversy. J. D. Forbes. Charles Maclaren. Hugh Miller.
Robert Chambers. W. Haidinger. H. von Dechen. Ami Boué.
The life of a field-geologist. Experiences of a geologist
in the West Highlands. A crofter home in Skye. The Spar
Cave and Coruisk. Night in Loch Scavaig, 370–409
CHAPTER XV.
Influence of Topography on the people of Scotland.
Distribution and ancient antagonism of Celt and Saxon.
Caithness and its grin. Legends and place-names. Popular
explanation of boulders. Cliff-portraits. Fairy-stones
and supposed human footprints. Imitative forms of flint.
Scottish climate and its influence on the people.
Indifference of the Highlander to rain. ‘Dry rain.’ Wind
in Scotland. Salutations on the weather. Shakespeare on
the climate of Morayland. Influence of environment on the
Highlander, 410–439
Index, 440–447
CHAPTER I.
Social changes in Scotland consequent on the Union of the Crowns.
Impetus given to these changes after Culloden in the eighteenth
century, and after the introduction of steam as a motive power
in the nineteenth. Posting from Scotland to London. Stage coach
travelling to England. Canal travelling between Edinburgh and
Glasgow. Loch Katrine in 1843. Influence of Walter Scott.
Steamboats to London. Railroads in Scotland. Effects of steamboat
development in the West Highlands.
When on the 5th of April, 1603, James VI. left Edinburgh with a
great cavalcade of attendants, to ascend the throne of England, a
series of social changes was set in motion in Scotland which has
been uninterruptedly advancing ever since. Its progress has not been
uniform, seeing that it has fluctuated with the access or diminution
of national animosities on the two sides of the Tweed, until, as these
sources of irritation died away, the two nations were welded into one
by the arts of peace. Looking back across the three centuries, we can
recognise two epochs when the progress of change received a marked
impetus.
[Sidenote: NATIONAL ANIMOSITIES]
The first of these dates from the failure of the Jacobite cause in
1746. At Culloden, not only were the hopes of the Stuarts finally
extinguished, but a new period was ushered in for the development of
Scotland. The abolition of the heritable jurisdictions, the extension
of the same organised legal system over every part of the kingdom,
the suppression of cattle-raids and other offences by the Highlanders
against their lowland neighbours, the building of good roads, and the
improvement of the old tracks, whereby easy communication was provided
across the country, and especially through the Highlands between the
northern and southern districts--these and other connected reforms
led to the gradual breaking down of the barrier of animosity that
had long kept Highlander and Lowlander apart, and by thus producing
a freer intercourse of the two races, greatly strengthened the
community as a whole, whether for peace or for war. On the other hand,
the landing of Prince Charles Edward, the uprise of the clans, the
victory of Prestonpans, and the invasion of England could not fail to
revive and intensify the ancient enmity of the English against their
northern neighbours. This animosity blazed out anew under the Bute
administration, when fresh fuel was added to it from the literary side
by Wilkes and Churchill. Nevertheless the leaven of union was quietly
at work all the time. Not only did Scot commingle more freely with
Scot, but increasing facilities of communication allowed the southward
tide of migration to flow more freely across the Border. English
travellers also found their way in growing numbers into that land
north of the Tweed which for centuries had been at once scorned and
feared, but which could now be everywhere safely visited. What had been
satirised as
The wretched lot
Of the poor, mean, despised, insulted Scot,
came to be the subject of banter, more or less good humoured. The
Englishman, while retaining a due sense of his own superiority, learnt
to acknowledge that his northern neighbour did really possess some good
qualities which made him not unworthy of a place in the commonwealth,
while the Scot, on his side, discovered that his ‘auld enemies’ of
England were far from being all mere ‘pock-puddings.’ As the result
of this greater intimacy of association, the smaller nation was
necessarily drawn more and more to assimilate itself to the speech and
ways of its larger, wealthier, and more advanced partner.
But the decline in Scottish national peculiarities during the hundred
years that followed Culloden was slow compared with that of the second
epoch, which dates from the first half of last century, when steam as
a motive power came into use, rapidly transforming our manufacturing
industries, and revolutionising the means of locomotion, alike on land
and sea. Scott in his youth saw the relics of the older time while they
were still fairly fresh and numerous, and he has left an imperishable
memorial of them in his vivid descriptions. Cockburn beheld the last
of these relics disappear, and as he lived well on into the second
of the two periods, he could mark and has graphically chronicled the
accelerated rate of change.
[Sidenote: SOCIAL TRANSFORMATIONS]
Those of us who, like myself, can look back across a vista of more than
three score years, and will compare what they see and hear around them
now with what they saw and heard in their childhood, will not only
realise that the social revolution has been marching along, but will
be constrained to admit that its advance has been growing perceptibly
more rapid. They must feel that the old order has indeed changed, and
though they may wish that the modern could establish itself with less
effacement of the antique, and may be disposed with Byron to cry,
Out upon Time! who for ever will leave
But enough of the past for the future to grieve,
they have, at least, the consolation of reflecting that the changes
have been, on the whole, for the better. Happily much of the
transformation is, after all, external. The fundamental groundwork
of national character and temperament continues to be but little
affected. The surface features and climate of the country, with all
their profound, if unperceived, influences on the people, remain with
no appreciable change. Even the inevitable wave of evolution does not
everywhere roll on with the same speed, but leaves outlying corners and
remote parishes unsubmerged, where we may still light upon survivals of
an older day, in men and women whose ways and language seem to carry
us back a century or more, and in customs that link us with an even
remoter past.
[Sidenote: MODES OF TRAVEL]
It would be far beyond my purpose to enter into any discussion of the
connection between the causes that have given rise to these social
changes and the effects that have flowed from them. The far-reaching
results of the introduction of steam-machinery in aggregating
communities around a few centres, in depopulating the country
districts, and in altering the habits and physique of the artizans,
open up a wide subject on which I do not propose to touch. My life has
been largely passed in the rural and mountainous parts of the country,
where increased facilities for locomotion have certainly been the
most obvious direct source of change to the inhabitants, though other
causes have undoubtedly contributed less directly to bring about the
general result. It has been my good fortune to become acquainted with
every district of Scotland. There is not a county, hardly a parish,
which I have not wandered over again and again. In many of them I have
spent months at a time, finding quarters in county towns, in quiet
villages, in wayside inns, in country houses, in remote manses, in
shepherds’ shielings, and in crofters’ huts. Thrown thus among all
classes of society, I have been brought in contact with each varying
phase of life of the people. During the last twenty years, though no
longer permanently resident in Scotland, I have been led by my official
duties to revisit the country every year, even to its remotest bounds.
I have also been enabled, through the kindness of a yachting friend,
to cruise all through the Inner and Outer Hebrides. These favourable
opportunities have allowed me to mark the gradual decline of national
peculiarities perhaps more distinctly than would have been possible to
one continuously resident. As a slight contribution to the history of
the social evolution in Scotland, I propose in the following chapters
to gather together such reminiscences as may serve to indicate the
nature and extent of the changes of which I have been a witness, and to
record a few illustrations of the manners and customs, the habits and
humour of the people with whom I have mingled.
My memory goes back to a time before railways had been established
in Scotland, when Edinburgh and Glasgow were connected only by a
coach-road and a canal, and when stage-coaches still ran from the two
cities into England. I may therefore begin these reminiscences with
some reference to modes of travel.
Probably few readers are aware how recently roads practicable for
wheeled carriages have become general over the whole country. In the
seventeenth century various attempts were made to run stage-coaches
between Edinburgh and Leith, between Edinburgh and Haddington,
and between Edinburgh and Glasgow. But these efforts to open up
communication, even with the chief towns, appear to have met with such
scant support as to be soon abandoned. The usual mode of conveyance,
for ladies as well as gentlemen, was on horseback. A traveller writing
in 1688 states that there were then no stage-coaches, for the roads
would hardly allow of them, and that although some of the magnates
of the land made use of a coach and six horses, they did so ‘with so
much caution that, besides their other attendance, they have a lusty
running footman on each side of the coach, to manage and keep it up
in rough places.’ It was probably not until after the suppression of
the Jacobite rising in 1715 that road-making and road-repair were
begun in earnest. For strategic purposes, military roads were driven
through the Highlands, and this important work, which continued until
far on in the century, not only opened up the Highlands to wheeled
traffic, but reacted on the general lines of communication throughout
the country.[1] By the time that railways came into operation the main
roads had been well engineered and constructed, and were fitted for all
kinds of vehicles.
[Sidenote: LOCOMOTION TO ENGLAND]
Before the beginning of the railroad period, the inhabitants of
Scotland had three means of locomotion into England. Those who were
wealthy took their own carriages and horses, or hired post-horses from
stage to stage. For the ordinary traveller, there were stage-coaches on
land and steamboats on the sea.
With a comfortable carriage, and the personal effects of the occupants
strapped on behind it, posting to London was one of the pleasant
incidents of the year to those who had leisure and money at command.
Repeated season after season, the journey brought the travellers into
close acquaintance with every district through which the public road
passed. They had a far greater familiarity with the details of these
districts than can now be formed in railway journeys. They knew every
village, church, and country-house to be seen along the route, and
could mark the changes made in them from year to year. At the inns,
where they halted for the night, they were welcomed as old friends,
and made to feel themselves at home. This pleasant mode of travelling,
so graphically described in _Humphry Clinker_, continued in use among
some county families long after the stage-coaches had reached the
culmination of their speed and comfort. My old friend, T. F. Kennedy of
Dunure, used to describe to me the delights of these yearly journeys
in his youth. Posting into England did not die out until after the
completion of the continuous railway routes, when the failure of
travellers on the road led to the giving up of post-horses at the inns.
[Sidenote: STAGE-COACHES TO LONDON]
One of my early recollections is to have seen the London coaches
start from Princes Street, Edinburgh. Though railways were beginning
to extend rapidly over England, no line had yet entered Scotland, so
that the first part of the journey to London was made by stage-coach.
There was at that time no line of railway, with steam locomotives,
leading out of Edinburgh. Stage-coaches appear to have been tried
between London and Edinburgh as far back as 1658, for an advertisement
published in May of that year announces that they would ‘go from the
George Inn without Aldersgate to Edinburgh _in Scotland_, once in
three weeks for £4 10s., with good coaches and fresh horses on the
roads.’ In May, 1734, a coach was advertised to perform the journey
between Edinburgh and London ‘in nine days, or three days sooner than
any other coach that travels the road.’ An improvement in the service,
made twenty years later, was thus described in an advertisement which
appeared in the _Edinburgh Evening Courant_ for July 1st, 1754:
‘The Edinburgh Stage-Coach, for the better accommodation of
Passengers, will be altered to a new genteel two-end Glass Machine,
hung on Steel Springs, exceeding light and easy, to go in ten days in
summer and twelve in winter; to set out the first Tuesday in March,
and continue it from Hosea Eastgate’s, the _Coach and Horses_ in Dean
Street, Soho, London, and from John Somerville’s in the Canongate,
Edinburgh, every other Tuesday, and meet at Burrow-bridge on Saturday
night, and set out from thence on Monday morning, and get to London
and Edinburgh on Friday. In the winter to set out from London and
Edinburgh every other Monday morning and to go to Burrow-bridge on
Saturday night; and to set out thence on Monday morning and get to
London and Edinburgh on Saturday night. Passengers to pay as usual.
Performed, if God permits, by your dutiful servant,
‘HOSEA EASTGATE.
‘Care is taken of small parcels according to their value.’
Before the end of the century the frequency, comfort, and speed of the
coaches had been considerably increased. Palmer, of the Bath Theatre,
led the way in this reform, and in the year 1788 organised a service
from London to Glasgow, which accomplished the distance of rather more
than 400 miles in sixty-five hours. Ten years later, Lord Chancellor
Campbell travelled by the same system of coaches between Edinburgh
and London, and he states that in 1798 he ‘performed the journey
in three nights and two days, Mr. Palmer’s mail-coaches being then
established; but this swift travelling was considered dangerous as well
as wonderful,--and I was gravely advised to stop a day at York, “as
several passengers who had gone through without stopping had died of
apoplexy from the rapidity of the motion.” The whole distance may now
(1847) be accomplished with ease and safety in fourteen hours.’[2]
[Sidenote: EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW COACHES]
Passengers between Edinburgh and Glasgow before the days of railways
had a choice of two routes, either by road or by canal. As far back as
the summer of 1678, an Edinburgh merchant set up a stage-coach between
the two cities to carry six passengers, but it appears to have had
no success. In 1743, another Edinburgh merchant offered to start a
stage-coach on the same route with six horses, to hold six passengers,
to go twice a week in summer and once in winter. But his proposal
does not appear to have met with adequate support. At last, in 1749,
a kind of covered spring-cart, known as the ‘Edinburgh and Glasgow
Caravan,’ was put upon the road and performed the journey of forty-four
miles in two days. Nine years later, in 1758, the ‘Fly,’ so called on
account of its remarkable speed, actually accomplished the distance
in twelve hours. The establishment of Palmer’s improved stage-coaches
led to a further advance in the communications between Edinburgh and
Glasgow, but it was not until 1799 that the time taken in the journey
was reduced to six hours. In my boyhood, before the stage-coaches
were driven off by the railway, various improvements on the roads, the
carriages, and the arrangements connected with the horses, had brought
down the time to no more than four hours and a half.[3]
Much more leisurely was the transit on the Union Canal. The boats were
comfortably fitted up and were drawn by a cavalcade of horses, urged
forward by postboys. It was a novel and delightful sensation, which
I can still recall, to see fields, trees, cottages, and hamlets flit
past, as if they formed a vast moving panorama, while one seemed to
be sitting absolutely still. For mere luxury of transportation, such
canal-travel stands quite unrivalled. Among its drawbacks, however, are
the long detentions at the locks. But as everything was new to me in
my first expedition to the west, I remember enjoying these locks with
the keenest pleasure, sometimes remaining in the boat, and feeling it
slowly floated up or let down, sometimes walking along the margin and
watching the rush of the water through the gradually opening sluices.
[Sidenote: LOCH KATRINE IN 1843]
Both the stage-coaches and the passenger boats on the canal were
disused after the opening of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway in
the spring of 1842. A few weeks subsequent to the running of the
first trains, the _Glasgow Courier_ announced that ‘the whole of the
stage-coaches from Glasgow and Edinburgh are now off the road, with the
exception of the six o’clock morning coach, which is kept running in
consequence of its carrying the mail bags.’
Steamboats had not yet been introduced upon the large freshwater lakes
of Scotland, except upon Loch Lomond, when I visited the Trossachs
region for the first time in 1843. I was rowed the whole length of Loch
Katrine in a boat by four stout Highlanders, who sang Gaelic songs, to
the cadence of which they kept time with their oars. It was my first
entry into the Highlands, and could not have been more impressive.
The sun was almost setting as the boat pushed off from Stronachlachar
and all the glories of the western sky were cast upon the surrounding
girdle of mountains, the reflections of which fell unbroken on the
mirror-like surface of the water. As we advanced and the sunset tints
died away, the full autumn moon rose above the crest of Ben Venue, and
touched off the higher crags with light, while the shadows gathered
in deepening black along the lower slopes and the margin of the water.
Before we reached the lower end of the lake the silvery sheen filled
all the pass of the Trossachs above the sombre forest. The forms of
the hills, the changing lights in the sky, and the weird tunes of the
boatmen combined to leave on my memory a picture as vivid now as when
it was impressed sixty years ago.
No more remarkable contrast between the present tourist traffic in
this lake region and that of the early part of last century could
be supplied than that which is revealed by an incident recorded as
having occurred about the year 1814, four years after the publication
of Scott’s _Lady of the Lake_. An old Highlander, who was met on
the top of Ben Lomond, said he had been a guide from the north side
of the mountain for upwards of forty years; ‘but that d----d Walter
Scott, that everybody makes such a work about!’ exclaimed he with
vehemence--‘I wish I had him to ferry over Loch Lomond: I should be
after sinking the boat, if I drowned myself into the bargain; for ever
since he wrote his _Lady of the Lake_, as they call it, everybody goes
to see that filthy hole Loch Katrine, then comes round by Luss, and I
have had only two gentlemen to guide all this blessed season, which
is now at an end. I shall never see the top of Ben Lomond again!--The
devil confound his ladies and his lakes, say I!’[4]
[Sidenote: SCOTT AND THE HIGHLANDS]
If this indignant mountaineer could revisit his early haunts, his
grandchildren would have a very different story to tell him of the
poet’s influence. For one visitor to his beloved mountain in his
day there must now be at least a hundred, almost all of whom have
had their first longing to see that region kindled by the poems and
tales of Scott. No man ever did so much to make his country known
and attractive as the Author of _Waverley_ has done for Scotland.
His fictitious characters have become historical personages in the
eyes of the thousands of pilgrims who every year visit the scenes he
has described. In threading the pass of the Trossachs, they try to
see where Fitz James must have lost his ‘gallant grey.’ In passing
Ellen’s Isle, they scrutinise it, if haply any relics of her home have
survived. At Coilantogle Ford they want to know the exact spot where
the duel was fought between the King and Roderick Dhu. At Aberfoyle
they look out for the Clachan, or some building that must stand on its
site, and their hearts are comforted by finding suspended to a tree on
the village green the veritable coulter with which Bailie Nicol Jarvie
burnt the big Highlander’s plaid. So delighted indeed have the tourists
been with this relic of the past that they have surreptitiously carried
it off more than once, and have thus compelled the village smith each
time to manufacture a new antique.
Before steam navigation was introduced, packet ships sailed between
Leith and London carrying both passengers and goods. But as the time
taken on the journey depended on winds and waves, these vessels
supplied a somewhat uncertain and even risky mode of transit. Thus in
November, 1743, an Edinburgh newspaper announced that the Edinburgh
and Glasgow packet from London, ‘after having great stress of weather
for twenty days, has lately arrived safe at Holy Island and is soon
expected in Leith harbour.’
[Sidenote: STEAMBOATS TO LONDON]
The first steamboats that plied between Leith and London were much
smaller in size and more primitive in their appointments than their
successors of to-day. Mineral oil had not come into use, and animal and
vegetable oils were dear. Hence the saloons and cabins were lighted
with candles, and, as wicks that require no snuffing were not then in
vogue, it may be imagined that the illumination could not be brilliant,
and that candle grease was apt to descend in frequent drops upon
whatever happened to lie below. The Rev. Dr. Lindsay Alexander used to
tell that when he once accompanied a brother clergyman in the steamboat
to London, they were unable to obtain berths in any of the state-rooms,
and had to content themselves each with a sofa in the saloon. In the
middle of the night he was awakened by a groaning which seemed to come
from the sofa of his elderly friend. Starting up, he enquired if the
doctor was in pain. The answer came in a shaky voice: ‘I’m afraid--I’ve
had--a stroke--of paralysis.’ In an instant the younger man was out of
bed, calling for a light, as the candles had all burnt themselves into
their sockets. When the light came, the reverend gentleman was seen to
have been lying immediately below the drip of a guttering candle, and
the drops of tallow, falling on his cheek, had congealed there into
a cake that had gradually spread up to his eye. As he could not move
the muscles of his face, the poor man’s imagination had transferred
the powerlessness to the rest of his side. With the help of the
steward, however, the hardened grease was scraped off, and the doctor,
recovering the use of his facial muscles, was able once more to drop
off to sleep.
[Sidenote: RAILWAY RIVALRY]
Railroads have been unquestionably the most powerful agents of social
change in Scotland. From the opening of the first line down to the
present time, I have watched the yearly multiplication of lines,
until the existing network of them has been constructed. Had it been
possible, at the beginning, to anticipate this rapid development, and
to foresee the actual requirements of the various districts through
which branch-lines have been formed, probably the railway-map would
have been rather different from what it now is. Some local lines would
never have been built, or would have followed different routes from
those actually chosen. The competition of the rival companies has led
to a wasteful expenditure of their capital, and to the construction
of lines which either do not pay their expenses, or yield only a
meagre return for the outlay disbursed upon them. A notable instance
of the effects of this rivalry was seen in the competition of two
great companies for the construction of a line between Carnwath on
the Caledonian system and Leadburn on the North British. The country
through which the route was to be taken was sparsely peopled, being
partly pastoral, partly agricultural, but without any considerable
village. When the contest was in progress, a farmer from the district
was asked to state what he knew of traffic between Carnwath and
Dolphinton, a small hamlet in Lanarkshire. His answer was, ‘Od, there’s
an auld wife that comes across the hills ance in a fortnicht wi’ a
basket o’ ribbons, but that’s a’ the traffic I ken o’.’ The minister
of Dolphinton, being eager to have a railway through his parish, set
himself to ascertain the number of cattle that passed along the road
daily in front of his manse. He was said to have counted the same
cow many times in the same day. The result of the competition was a
compromise. Each railway company obtained powers to construct a new
line which was to run to Dolphinton and there terminate. And these
two lines to this hamlet of a few cottages, and not as many as 300
people, were actually constructed and have been in operation for many
years. Each of them has its terminal station at Dolphinton, with
station-master and porters. But there were not, and so far as I know,
there are not now, any rails connecting the two lines across the road.
This diminutive village thus enjoys the proud preeminence of being
perhaps the smallest place in the three kingdoms which has two distinct
terminal stations on each side of its road, worked by two independent
and rival companies.
Not long after the opening of the North British line to Dolphinton,
I spent a day at the southern end of the Pentland Hills, and in the
evening, making my way to the village, found the train with its engine
attached. The station was as solitary as a churchyard. After I had
taken my seat in one of the carriages, the guard appeared from some
doorway in the station, and I heard the engine-driver shout out to him,
‘Weel, Jock, hae ye got your passenger in?’
[Sidenote: EARLY DAYS OF RAILWAYS]
The opening of a railway through some of these lonely upland regions
was a momentous event in their history. Up till then many districts
which possessed roads were not traversed by any public coach nor by
many private carriages, while in other parishes, where roads either
did not exist or were extremely bad and unfit for wheeled traffic, the
sight of a swiftly-moving train was one that drew the people from far
and near. Some time, however, had to elapse before the country-folk
could accustom themselves to the rapidity and (comparative) punctuality
of railroad travelling. When the old horse-tramways ran, it was a
common occurrence for a train to be stopped in order to pick up a
passenger, or to let one down by the roadside, and it is said that this
easy-going practice used to be repeated now and then in the early days
of branch-railways. An old lady from Culter parish, who came down to
the railway not long after it was opened, arrived at the station just
as the train had started. When told that she was too late, for the
train had already gone beyond the station, she exclaimed, ‘Dod, I maun
rin then,’ and proceeded at her highest speed along the platform, while
the station-master shouted after her to stop. She was indignant that he
would not whistle for the train to halt or come back for her.
Railway construction in the Highlands came later than it did in the
Lowlands, and entered among another race of people with different
habits from those of their southern fellow-countrymen. The natural
disposition of an ordinary Highlander would not often lead him to
choose the hard life of a navvy, and volunteer to aid in the heavy work
of railway construction. The following anecdote illustrates a racial
characteristic which probably could not have been met with in the
Lowlands. During the formation of one of the lines of railway through
the Highlands a man came to the contractor and asked for a job at the
works, when the following conversation took place:
‘Well, Donald, you’ve come for work, have you? and what can you do?’
‘’Deed, I can do onything.’
‘Well, there’s some spade and barrow work going on; you can begin on
that.’
‘Ach, but I wadna just like to be workin’ wi’ a spade and a
wheelbarrow.’
‘O, would you not? Then yonder’s some rock that needs to be broken
away. Can you wield a pick?’
‘I wass never usin’ a pick, whatefer.’
‘Well, my man, I don’t know anything I can give you to do.’
[Sidenote: LIGHT LABOUR]
So Donald went away crestfallen. But being of an observing turn of
mind, he walked along the rails, noting the work of each gang of
labourers, until he came to a signal-box, wherein he saw a man seated,
who came out now and then, waved a flag, and then resumed his seat.
This appeared to Donald to be an occupation entirely after his own
heart. He made enquiry of the man, ascertained his hours and his
rate of pay, and returned to the contractor, who, when he saw him,
good-naturedly asked:
‘What, back again, Donald? Have you found out what you can do?’
‘’Deed, I have, sir. I would just like to get auchteen shullins a week,
and to do that’--holding out his arm and gently waving the stick he had
in his hand.
A desire to select the lightest part of the work, however, is not
peculiar to the Celtic nature, but comes out, strongly enough,
sometimes, in the Lowlands, as was illustrated by the proposal of a
quarryman to share the labour with a comrade. ‘If ye ram, Jamie,’ said
he, ‘I’ll pech’; that is, if his friend would work the heavy iron
sledge-hammer, he himself would give the puff or pant with which the
workmen accompany each stroke they make.
The unpunctuality of the railways, the dirtiness of the carriages on
branch lines, and the frequent incivility of the officials are only too
familiar to all who have to travel much upon the system of at least one
of the Scottish companies. A worthy countryman who had come from the
north-east side of the kingdom by train to Cowlairs, was told that the
next stoppage would be Glasgow. He at once began to get all his little
packages ready, and remarked to a fellow-passenger, ‘I’m sailin’ for
China this week, but I’m thinkin’ I’m by the warst o’ the journey noo.’
It must be confessed, however, that the railway officials often have
their forbearance sorely tested, especially in the large mining
districts, where the roughness and violence of the mob of passengers
can sometimes hardly be held in check, and where the temptation to
retaliate after the same fashion may be difficult to resist. Having
also to be on the watch for dishonesty, they are apt to develop a
suspiciousness which sometimes, though perhaps needlessly, exasperates
the honest traveller. Occasionally their sagacity is scarcely a match
for the knavery of a dishonest Scot. Thus, a man, when the ticket
collector came round, was fumbling in all his pockets for his ticket,
until the official, losing patience, said he would come back for it.
When he returned, noticing that the man had the ticket between his
lips, he indignantly snatched it away. Whereupon a fellow-passenger
remarked, ‘You must be singularly absent-minded not to remember that
you had put your ticket in your mouth.’ ‘No sae absent-minded as ye wad
think,’ was the answer; ‘I was jist rubbin’ oot the auld date wi’ my
tongue.’
[Sidenote: STEAMBOATS ON WEST COAST]
Perhaps the most striking evidence of the effect of increased
facilities for locomotion and traffic upon the habits of the population
is presented by the western coast of the country, or the region usually
spoken of as the West Highlands and Islands. Few parts of Britain are
now more familiar to the summer tourist than the steamboat tracks
through that region. Every year thousands of holiday-makers are carried
rapidly and comfortably in swift and capacious vessels through that
archipelago of mountainous land and blue sea. They have, as it were,
a vast panorama unrolled before them, which changes in aspect and
interest at every mile of their progress. For the most part, however,
they obtain and carry away with them merely a kind of general and
superficial impression of the scenery, though the memory of it may
remain indelibly fixed among their most delightful experiences of
travel. They can have little or no conception of the interior of those
islands or of the glens and straths of the mainland, still less of
the inhabitants and their ways and customs. Nor, as they are borne
pleasantly along past headland and cliff, can they adequately realise
what the conditions of travel were before the days of commodious
passenger-steamers.
[Sidenote: DAVID HUTCHESON’S SERVICES]
When Johnson and Boswell landed in Skye in the year 1773, there was
not a road in the whole island practicable for a wheeled carriage.
Locomotion, when not afoot, was either on horseback or by boat. The
inland bridle-tracks lay among loose boulders, over rough, bare
rock, or across stretches of soft and sometimes treacherous bog. The
boats were often leaky, the oars and rowlocks unsound, the boatmen
unskilful; while the weather, even in summer, is often boisterous
enough to make the navigation of the sea-lochs and sounds difficult or
impossible for small craft. And such continued to be the conditions in
which the social life of the West Highlands was carried on long after
Johnson’s time. During the first thirty or more years of last century
the voyage from the Clyde to Skye was made in sailing packets, and
generally took from ten to fifteen days. It was not until steamboats
began to ply along the coast that the scattered islands were brought
into closer touch with each other and with the Lowlands. To the memory
of David Hutcheson, who organised the steamboat service among the
Western Highlands and Islands, Scotland owes a debt of gratitude.
The development of this service has been the gradual evolution of
some seventy years. Half a century ago it was far from having reached
its present state of advancement. There were then no steamers up the
West Coast to Skye and the Outer Hebrides, save those which carried
cargo and came round the Mull of Cantyre. During the herring season,
and about the times of the cattle-markets, the irregularities and
discomfort of these vessels can hardly be exaggerated. When the decks
were already loaded perhaps with odoriferous barrels of herring,
and when it seemed impossible that they could hold anything more,
the vessel might have to make a long detour to the head of some
mountain-girdled sea-loch to fetch away a flock of sheep, or a herd of
Highland cattle. At most of the places of call there were no piers.
Passengers had accordingly to disembark in small boats, sometimes at
a considerable distance from high-water mark, to which, perhaps in
the middle of the night, they scrambled across sea-weed and slippery
shingle.
As a steamboat called at each place in summer only once, in later
years twice, in a week, and in winter only once in a fortnight, the
day of its arrival was eagerly looked forward to by the population, in
expectation of the supplies of all kinds, as well as the letters and
newspapers, which it brought from the south. You never could be sure at
what hour of the day or night it might make its appearance, and if you
expected friends to arrive by it, or if you proposed yourself to take
a passage in it, you needed to be on the watch, perhaps for many weary
hours. In fine weather, this detention was endurable enough; but in the
frequent storms of wind and rain, much patience and some strength of
constitution were needed to withstand the effects of the exposure. The
desirability of having waiting-rooms or places of shelter of any kind
is even yet not fully realised by the Celtic mind.
[Sidenote: ‘SOMETIMES SOONER, WHILES EARLIER’]
The native islander, however, seemed never to feel, or at least would
never acknowledge these various inconveniences. It was so great a boon
to have the steamers at all, and he had now got so used to them that
he could not imagine a state of things different from that to which he
had grown accustomed. Nor would he willingly allow any imperfections
in David Hutcheson’s arrangements, on which he depended for all his
connection with the outer world. I remember a crofter in the island of
Eigg, who, when asked when the steamer would arrive, replied at once,
‘Weel, she’ll be comin’ sometimes sooner, and whiles earlier, and
sometimes before that again.’ The idea of lateness was a reproach which
he would not acknowledge.
William Black, the novelist, used to tell of an English clergyman
who, having breakfasted and paid his bill at Tobermory, was anxious
for the arrival of the steamboat that was to take him north. He made
his way to the pier, and walked up and down there for a time, but
could see no sign of the vessel. At last, accosting a Highlander, who,
leaning against a wall, was smoking a cutty-pipe, he asked him when the
Skye steamer would call. Out came the pipe, followed by the laconic
answer, ‘That’s her smoke,’ and the speaker pointed in the direction
of the Sound of Mull. The traveller for a time could observe nothing
to indicate the expected vessel, but at last noticed a streak of dark
smoke rising against the Morven Hills on the far side of the island
that guards the front of the little bay of Tobermory. When at last the
steamer itself rounded the point and came fully into sight, it seemed
to the clergyman a much smaller vessel than he had supposed it would
be, and he remarked to the Highlander, ‘That the Skye steamer! that
boat will surely never get to Skye.’ The pipe was whisked out again to
make way for the indignant reply, ‘She’ll be in Skye this afternoon,
if nothin’ happens to Skye.’ The order of nature might conceivably go
wrong, but Hutcheson’s arrangements could be absolutely depended upon.
[Sidenote: WEST-COAST STEAMBOATS]
The captains of these steamers were personages of some consequence on
the west coast. Usually skilful pilots and agreeable men, they came to
be on familiar terms with the lairds and farmers all along their route,
whom they were always glad to oblige and from whom they received in
return many tangible proofs of recognition and good-will. At the end
of a visit which I had been paying to friends on the south coast of
Mull, the captain, to whom my kind host had previously written, brought
his vessel a little out of his way in order to pick me up. The shore
being full of rocks and reefs, my boat had to pull some distance out to
the steamer, so that the tourist passengers had time to gratify their
curiosity by crowding to one side to see the cause of this unusual
stoppage. When the boat came alongside its cargo was transhipped in the
following order: first a letter for the captain, next a live sheep,
then a portmanteau, and lastly myself. There were many inquisitive
glances at the scantiness of my flock, but the sheep had been sent as
a present from my host to the captain, in recognition of some little
services which he had lately been rendering to the family.
I have known a number of these captains, and have often been struck
with their quiet dignity and good nature in circumstances that must
have tried their temper and patience. They had much responsibility, and
must often have had anxious moments in foggy or stormy weather. Now
and then a vessel met with an accident, or was even shipwrecked, but
the rarity of such always possible mishaps afforded good proof of the
skilful seamanship with which the Hutcheson fleet was handled. There
was always a heavy traffic in goods. Scores of cases, boxes, barrels,
and parcels of all conceivable shapes and sizes had to be taken on
board and distributed at the various places of call. Live stock had
to be adequately accommodated, and the varying times and direction of
the tides had to be allowed for. Then there was the tourist-traffic,
which, though small in those days compared with what it has now grown
to, required constant care and watchfulness. Not improbably the human
part of his cargo gave a captain more trouble than the rest. The
average tourist is apt to be selfish and unreasonable, ready to find
fault if everything does not go precisely as he wished and expected.
He is usually inquisitive, too, and doubtless asks the same questions
that are put to the captain and seamen of the ship season after season.
He has formed certain anticipations in his own mind of what he is to
see, and when these are not quite realised he wants to know why. A
common hallucination among travellers south of the Tweed clothes every
Highlander in a kilt, and surprise is often expressed that the ‘garb
of old Gaul’ is so seldom seen. The answer of one of David Hutcheson’s
officers should suffice for all who give vent to this surprise: ‘Oh
no, nobody wears the kilt here but fools and Englishmen.’
[Sidenote: TOURISTS ON WEST COAST]
Various anecdotes are in circulation about the passengers and crew of
these western steamboats. One of these narratives, of which different
versions have been told, relates how on a dull, drizzling, and misty
evening, when every attention had to be given to the rather intricate
navigation, a lady began to ask questions of the man at the wheel. He
answered her as briefly as possible for a time; but, as she still plied
him with queries, he at last lost his temper and abruptly desired her
to go to the nether regions. She retired in high dudgeon and sought out
the captain, insisting that the man should be discharged, and that she
would report the matter to Mr. Hutcheson. The captain tried to soothe
her, expressing his own regret at the language that had been used to
her, and assuring her that he would make the man apologise to her for
his conduct. She thereupon went down to the saloon and poured out her
indignation to some of her fellow-passengers. In the midst of her talk,
a man in dripping oilskins and cap in hand appeared at the door, and,
after some hesitation and looking round the company, advanced to the
irate lady and said, ‘Are you the leddy I tellt to gang to hell? Weel,
the captain says ye needna gang yet.’ Such was the apology.
I well remember, when as a lad of eighteen I first visited Skye, that
the steamer carrying the usual miscellaneous cargo in the hold and
on deck, after rounding the Mull had made so many calls, and had so
much luggage and merchandise to discharge at each halt, that it was
past midnight of the second day before we came into Broadford Bay. The
disembarkation was by small-boat, and as we made our way shorewards,
the faces of the oarsmen were at every stroke lit up with the pale,
ghostly light of a phosphorescent sea. The night was dark, but with
the aid of a dim lantern one could mount the rough beach, where I was
met by a son of the Rev. John Mackinnon of Kilbride, with whom I had
come to spend a few weeks. We had a drive of some five miles inland,
enlivened with Gaelic songs which my young friend and his cousin
screamed at the pitch of their voices. At a certain part of the road
they became suddenly silent, or only spoke to each other in whispers.
We were then passing the old graveyard at Kilchrist; but when we
had got to what was judged a safe distance beyond it and its ghosts,
the hilarity began anew, and lasted until we came to our destination
between two and three o’clock in the morning.
[Sidenote: THE TELEGRAPH IN HIGHLANDS]
The introduction of the electric telegraph naturally aroused
much curiosity in the rural population as to how the wires could
carry messages. A West Highlander who had been to Glasgow and was
consequently supposed to have got to the bottom of the mystery, was
asked to explain it. ‘Weel,’ said he, ‘it’s no easy to explain what you
will no be understandin’. But I’ll tell ye what it’s like. If you could
stretch my collie dog frae Oban to Tobermory, an’ if you wass to clap
its head in Oban, an’ it waggit its tail in Tobermory, or if I wass to
tread on its tail in Oban an’ it squaked in Tobermory--that’s what the
telegraph is like.’