William to yoke the horse, and was very civil. We grew hungry before we
had travelled many miles, and seeing a large public-house--it was in a
walled court some yards from the road--Coleridge got off the car to
inquire if we could dine there, and was told we could have nothing but
eggs. It was a miserable place, very like a French house; indeed we
observed, in almost every part of Scotland, except Edinburgh, that we
were reminded ten times of France and Germany for once of England.
Saw nothing remarkable after leaving Bothwell, except the first view of
Glasgow, at some miles distance, terminated by the mountains of Loch
Lomond. The suburbs of Glasgow extend very far, houses on each side of
the highway,--all ugly, and the inhabitants dirty. The roads are very
wide; and everything seems to tell of the neighbourhood of a large town.
We were annoyed by carts and dirt, and the road was full of people, who
all noticed our car in one way or other; the children often sent a
hooting after us.
Wearied completely, we at last reached the town, and were glad to walk,
leading the car to the first decent inn, which was luckily not far from
the end of the town. William, who gained most of his road-knowledge from
ostlers, had been informed of this house by the ostler at Hamilton; it
proved quiet and tolerably cheap, a new building--the Saracen's Head. I
shall never forget how glad I was to be landed in a little quiet
back-parlour, for my head was beating with the noise of carts which we
had left, and the wearisomeness of the disagreeable objects near the
highway; but with my first pleasant sensations also came the feeling that
we were not in an English inn--partly from its half-unfurnished
appearance, which is common in Scotland, for in general the deal
wainscots and doors are unpainted, and partly from the dirtiness of the
floors. Having dined, William and I walked to the post-office, and after
much seeking found out a quiet timber-yard wherein to sit down and read
our letter. We then walked a considerable time in the streets, which are
perhaps as handsome as streets can be, which derive no particular effect
from their situation in connexion with natural advantages, such as
rivers, sea, or hills. The Trongate, an old street, is very
picturesque--high houses, with an intermixture of gable fronts towards
the street. The New Town is built of fine stone, in the best style of
the very best London streets at the west end of the town, but, not being
of brick, they are greatly superior. One thing must strike every
stranger in his first walk through Glasgow--an appearance of business and
bustle, but no coaches or gentlemen's carriages; during all the time we
walked in the streets I only saw three carriages, and these were
travelling chaises. I also could not but observe a want of cleanliness
in the appearance of the lower orders of the people, and a dulness in the
dress and outside of the whole mass, as they moved along. We returned to
the inn before it was dark. I had a bad headache, and was tired, and we
all went to bed soon.
* * * * *
_Tuesday_, _August_ 23_d_.--A cold morning. Walked to the
bleaching-ground, {53} a large field bordering on the Clyde, the banks of
which are perfectly flat, and the general face of the country is nearly
so in the neighbourhood of Glasgow. This field, the whole summer
through, is covered with women of all ages, children, and young girls
spreading out their linen, and watching it while it bleaches. The scene
must be very cheerful on a fine day, but it rained when we were there,
and though there was linen spread out in all parts, and great numbers of
women and girls were at work, yet there would have been many more on a
fine day, and they would have appeared happy, instead of stupid and
cheerless. In the middle of the field is a wash-house, whither the
inhabitants of this large town, rich and poor, send or carry their linen
to be washed. There are two very large rooms, with each a cistern in the
middle for hot water; and all round the rooms are benches for the women
to set their tubs upon. Both the rooms were crowded with washers; there
might be a hundred, or two, or even three; for it is not easy to form an
accurate notion of so great a number; however, the rooms were large, and
they were both full. It was amusing to see so many women, arms, head,
and face all in motion, all busy in an ordinary household employment, in
which we are accustomed to see, at the most, only three or four women
employed in one place. The women were very civil. I learnt from them
the regulations of the house; but I have forgotten the particulars. The
substance of them is, that 'so much' is to be paid for each tub of water,
'so much' for a tub, and the privilege of washing for a day, and, 'so
much' to the general overlookers of the linen, when it is left to be
bleached. An old man and woman have this office, who were walking about,
two melancholy figures.
The shops at Glasgow are large, and like London shops, and we passed by
the largest coffee-room I ever saw. You look across the piazza of the
Exchange, and see to the end of the coffee-room, where there is a
circular window, the width of the room. Perhaps there might be thirty
gentlemen sitting on the circular bench of the window, each reading a
newspaper. They had the appearance of figures in a fantoccine, or men
seen at the extremity of the opera-house, diminished into puppets.
I am sorry I did not see the High Church: both William and I were tired,
and it rained very hard after we had left the bleaching-ground; besides,
I am less eager to walk in a large town than anywhere else; so we put it
off, and I have since repented of my irresolution.
Dined, and left Glasgow at about three o'clock, in a heavy rain. We were
obliged to ride through the streets to keep our feet dry, and, in spite
of the rain, every person as we went along stayed his steps to look at
us; indeed, we had the pleasure of spreading smiles from one end of
Glasgow to the other--for we travelled the whole length of the town. A
set of schoolboys, perhaps there might he eight, with satchels over their
shoulders, and, except one or two, without shoes and stockings, yet very
well dressed in jackets and trousers, like gentlemen's children, followed
us in great delight, admiring the car and longing to jump up. At last,
though we were seated, they made several attempts to get on behind; and
they looked so pretty and wild, and at the same time so modest, that we
wished to give them a ride, and there being a little hill near the end of
the town, we got off, and four of them who still remained, the rest
having dropped into their homes by the way, took our places; and indeed I
would have walked two miles willingly, to have had the pleasure of seeing
them so happy. When they were to ride no longer, they scampered away,
laughing and rejoicing. New houses are rising up in great numbers round
Glasgow, citizen-like houses, and new plantations, chiefly of fir; the
fields are frequently enclosed by hedgerows, but there is no richness,
nor any particular beauty for some miles.
The first object that interested us was a gentleman's house upon a green
plain or holm, almost close to the Clyde, sheltered by tall trees, a
quiet modest mansion, and, though white-washed, being an old building,
and no other house near it, or in connexion with it, and standing upon
the level field, which belonged to it, its own domain, the whole scene
together brought to our minds an image of the retiredness and sober
elegance of a nunnery; but this might be owing to the greyness of the
afternoon, and our having come immediately from Glasgow, and through a
country which, till now, had either had a townish taint, or at best
little of rural beauty. While we were looking at the house we overtook a
foot-traveller, who, like many others, began to talk about our car. We
alighted to walk up a hill, and, continuing the conversation, the man
told us, with something like a national pride, that it belonged to a
Scotch Lord, Lord Semple; he added, that a little further on we should
see a much finer prospect, as fine a one as ever we had seen in our
lives. Accordingly, when we came to the top of the hill, it opened upon
us most magnificently. We saw the Clyde, now a stately sea-river,
winding away mile after mile, spotted with boats and ships, each side of
the river hilly, the right populous with single houses and
villages--Dunglass Castle upon a promontory, the whole view terminated by
the rock of Dumbarton, at five or six miles distance, which stands by
itself, without any hills near it, like a sea-rock.
We travelled for some time near the river, passing through clusters of
houses which seemed to owe their existence rather to the wealth of the
river than the land, for the banks were mostly bare, and the soil
appeared poor, even near the water. The left side of the river was
generally uninhabited and moorish, yet there are some beautiful spots:
for instance, a nobleman's house, {56} where the fields and trees were
rich, and, in combination with the river, looked very lovely. As we went
along William and I were reminded of the views upon the Thames in Kent,
which, though greatly superior in richness and softness, are much
inferior in grandeur. Not far from Dumbarton, we passed under some
rocky, copse-covered hills, which were so like some of the hills near
Grasmere that we could have half believed they were the same. Arrived at
Dumbarton before it was dark, having pushed on briskly that we might have
start of a traveller at the inn, who was following us as fast as he could
in a gig. Every front room was full, and we were afraid we should not
have been admitted. They put us into a little parlour, dirty, and
smelling of liquors, the table uncleaned, and not a chair in its place;
we were glad, however, of our sorry accommodations.
While tea was preparing we lolled at our ease, and though the room-window
overlooked the stable-yard, and at our entrance there appeared to be
nothing but gloom and unloveliness, yet while I lay stretched upon the
carriage cushions on three chairs, I discovered a little side peep which
was enough to set the mind at work. It was no more than a smoky vessel
lying at anchor, with its bare masts, a clay hut and the shelving bank of
the river, with a green pasture above. Perhaps you will think that there
is not much in this, as I describe it: it is true; but the effect
produced by these simple objects, as they happened to be combined,
together with the gloom of the evening, was exceedingly wild. Our room
was parted by a slender partition from a large dining-room, in which were
a number of officers and their wives, who, after the first hour, never
ceased singing, dancing, laughing, or loud talking. The ladies sang some
pretty songs, a great relief to us. We went early to bed; but poor
Coleridge could not sleep for the noise at the street door; he lay in the
parlour below stairs. It is no uncommon thing in the best inns of
Scotland to have shutting-up beds in the sitting-rooms.
* * * * *
_Wednesday_, _August_ 24_th_.--As soon as breakfast was over, William and
I walked towards the Castle, a short mile from the town. We overtook two
young men, who, on our asking the road, offered to conduct us, though it
might seem it was not easy to miss our way, for the rock rises singly by
itself from the plain on which the town stands. The rock of Dumbarton is
very grand when you are close to it, but at a little distance, under an
ordinary sky, and in open day, it is not grand, but curiously wild. The
castle and fortifications add little effect to the general view of the
rock, especially since the building of a modern house, which is
white-washed, and consequently jars, wherever it is seen, with the
natural character of the place. There is a path up to the house, but it
being low water we could walk round the rock, which we resolved to do.
On that side next the town green grass grows to a considerable height up
the rock, but wherever the river borders upon it, it is naked stone. I
never saw rock in nobler masses, or more deeply stained by time and
weather; nor is this to be wondered at, for it is in the very eye of
sea-storms and land-storms, of mountain winds and water winds. It is of
all colours, but a rusty yellow predominates. As we walked along, we
could not but look up continually, and the mass above being on every side
so huge, it appeared more wonderful than when we saw the whole together.
We sat down on one of the large stones which lie scattered near the base
of the rock, with sea-weed growing amongst them. Above our heads the
rock was perpendicular for a considerable height, nay, as it seemed, to
the very top, and on the brink of the precipice a few sheep, two of them
rams with twisted horns, stood, as if on the look-out over the wide
country. At the same time we saw a sentinel in his red coat, walking
backwards and forwards between us and the sky, with his firelock over his
shoulder. The sheep, I suppose owing to our being accustomed to see them
in similar situations, appeared to retain their real size, while, on the
contrary, the soldier seemed to be diminished by the distance till he
almost looked like a puppet moved with wires for the pleasure of
children, or an eight years' old drummer in his stiff, manly dress beside
a company of grenadiers. I had never before, perhaps, thought of sheep
and men in soldiers' dresses at the same time, and here they were brought
together in a strange fantastic way. As will be easily conceived, the
fearlessness and stillness of those quiet creatures, on the brow of the
rock, pursuing their natural occupations, contrasted with the restless
and apparently unmeaning motions of the dwarf soldier, added not a little
to the general effect of this place, which is that of wild singularity,
and the whole was aided by a blustering wind and a gloomy sky. Coleridge
joined us, and we went up to the top of the rock.
The road to a considerable height is through a narrow cleft, in which a
flight of steps is hewn; the steps nearly fill the cleft, and on each
side the rocks form a high and irregular wall; it is almost like a long
sloping cavern, only that it is roofed by the sky. We came to the
barracks; soldiers' wives were hanging out linen upon the rails, while
the wind beat about them furiously--there was nothing which it could set
in motion but the garments of the women and the linen upon the rails; the
grass--for we had now come to green grass--was close and smooth, and not
one pile an inch above another, and neither tree nor shrub. The standard
pole stood erect without a flag. The rock has two summits, one much
broader and higher than the other. When we were near to the top of the
lower eminence we had the pleasure of finding a little garden of flowers
and vegetables belonging to the soldiers. There are three distinct and
very noble prospects--the first up the Clyde towards Glasgow--Dunglass
Castle, seen on its promontory--boats, sloops, hills, and many buildings;
the second, down the river to the sea--Greenock and Port-Glasgow, and the
distant mountains at the entrance of Loch Long; and the third extensive
and distant view is up the Leven, which here falls into the Clyde, to the
mountains of Loch Lomond. The distant mountains in all these views were
obscured by mists and dingy clouds, but if the grand outline of any one
of the views can be seen, it is sufficient recompense for the trouble of
climbing the rock of Dumbarton.
The soldier who was our guide told us that an old ruin which we came to
at the top of the higher eminence had been a wind-mill--an inconvenient
station, though certainly a glorious place for wind; perhaps if it really
had been a wind-mill it was only for the use of the garrison. We looked
over cannons on the battery-walls, and saw in an open field below the
yeomanry cavalry exercising, while we could hear from the town, which was
full of soldiers, 'Dumbarton's drums beat bonny, O!' Yet while we stood
upon this eminence, rising up so far as it does--inland, and having the
habitual old English feeling of our own security as islanders--we could
not help looking upon the fortress, in spite of its cannon and soldiers,
and the rumours of invasion, as set up against the hostilities of wind
and weather rather than for any other warfare. On our return we were
invited into the guard-room, about half-way down the rock, where we were
shown a large rusty sword, which they called Wallace's Sword, and a trout
boxed up in a well close by, where they said he had been confined for
upwards of thirty years. For the pleasure of the soldiers, who were
anxious that we should see him, we took some pains to spy him out in his
black den, and at last succeeded. It was pleasing to observe how much
interest the poor soldiers--though themselves probably new to the
place--seemed to attach to this antiquated inhabitant of their garrison.
When we had reached the bottom of the rock along the same road by which
we had ascended, we made our way over the rough stones left bare by the
tide, round the bottom of the rock, to the point where we had set off.
This is a wild and melancholy walk on a blustering cloudy day: the naked
bed of the river, scattered over with sea-weed; grey swampy fields on the
other shore; sea-birds flying overhead; the high rock perpendicular and
bare. We came to two very large fragments, which had fallen from the
main rock; Coleridge thought that one of them was as large as
Bowder-Stone, {61} William and I did not; but it is impossible to judge
accurately; we probably, without knowing it, compared them with the whole
mass from which they had fallen, which, from its situation, we consider
as one rock or stone, and there is no object of the kind for comparison
with the Bowder-Stone. When we leave the shore of the Clyde grass begins
to show itself on the rock; go a considerable way--still under the
rock--along a flat field, and pass immediately below the white house,
which wherever seen looks so ugly.
Left Dumbarton at about eleven o'clock. The sky was cheerless and the
air ungenial, which we regretted, as we were going to Loch Lomond, and
wished to greet the first of the Scottish lakes with our cheerfullest and
best feelings. Crossed the Leven at the end of Dumbarton, and, when we
looked behind, had a pleasing view of the town, bridge, and rock; but
when we took in a reach of the river at the distance of perhaps half a
mile, the swamp ground, being so near a town, and not in its natural
wildness, but seemingly half cultivated, with houses here and there, gave
us an idea of extreme poverty of soil, or that the inhabitants were
either indolent or miserable. We had to travel four miles on the banks
of the 'Water of Leven' before we should come to Loch Lomond. Having
expected a grand river from so grand a lake, we were disappointed; for it
appeared to me not to be very much larger than the Emont, and is not near
so beautiful; but we must not forget that the day was cold and gloomy.
Near Dumbarton it is like a river in a flat country, or under the
influence of tides; but a little higher up it resembles one of our
rivers, flowing through a vale of no extreme beauty, though prettily
wooded; the hills on each side not very high, sloping backwards from the
bed of the vale, which is neither very narrow nor very wide; the prospect
terminated by Ben Lomond and other mountains. The vale is populous, but
looks as if it were not inhabited by cultivators of the earth; the houses
are chiefly of stone; often in rows by the river-side; they stand
pleasantly, but have a tradish look, as if they might have been off-sets
from Glasgow. We saw many bleach-yards, but no other symptom of a
manufactory, except something in the houses that was not rural, and a
want of independent comforts. Perhaps if the river had been glittering
in the sun, and the smoke of the cottages rising in distinct volumes
towards the sky, as I have seen in the vale or basin below Pillsden in
Dorsetshire, when every cottage, hidden from the eye, pointed out its
lurking-place by an upright wreath of white smoke, the whole scene might
have excited ideas of perfect cheerfulness.
Here, as on the Nith, and much more than in the Trough of the Clyde, a
great portion of the ground was uncultivated, but the hills being less
wild, the river more stately, and the ground not heaved up so irregularly
and tossed about, the imperfect cultivation was the more to be lamented,
particularly as there were so many houses near the river. In a small
enclosure by the wayside is a pillar erected to the memory of Dr.
Smollett, who was born in a village at a little distance, which we could
see at the same time, and where, I believe, some of the family still
reside. There is a long Latin inscription, which Coleridge translated
for my benefit. The Latin is miserably bad {63}--as Coleridge said, such
as poor Smollett, who was an excellent scholar, would have been ashamed
of.
Before we came to Loch Lomond the vale widened, and became less populous.
We climbed over a wall into a large field to have a better front view of
the lake than from the road. This view is very much like that from Mr.
Clarkson's windows: the mountain in front resembles Hallan; indeed, is
almost the same; but Ben Lomond is not seen standing in such majestic
company as Helvellyn, and the meadows are less beautiful than Ulswater.
The reach of the lake is very magnificent; you see it, as Ulswater is
seen beyond the promontory of Old Church, winding away behind a large
woody island that looks like a promontory. The outlet of the lake--we
had a distinct view of it in the field--is very insignificant. The bulk
of the river is frittered away by small alder bushes, as I recollect; I
do not remember that it was reedy, but the ground had a swampy
appearance; and here the vale spreads out wide and shapeless, as if the
river were born to no inheritance, had no sheltering cradle, no hills of
its own. As we have seen, this does not continue long; it flows through
a distinct, though not a magnificent vale. But, having lost the pastoral
character which it had in the youthful days of Smollett--if the
description in his ode to his native stream be a faithful one--it is less
interesting than it was then.
The road carried us sometimes close to the lake, sometimes at a
considerable distance from it, over moorish grounds, or through
half-cultivated enclosures; we had the lake on our right, which is here
so wide that the opposite hills, not being high, are cast into
insignificance, and we could not distinguish any buildings near the
water, if any there were. It is however always delightful to travel by a
lake of clear waters, if you see nothing else but a very ordinary
country; but we had some beautiful distant views, one in particular, down
the high road, through a vista of over-arching trees; and the near shore
was frequently very pleasing, with its gravel banks, bendings, and small
bays. In one part it was bordered for a considerable way by irregular
groups of forest trees or single stragglers, which, although not large,
seemed old; their branches were stunted and knotty, as if they had been
striving with storms, and had half yielded to them. Under these trees we
had a variety of pleasing views across the lake, and the very rolling
over the road and looking at its smooth and beautiful surface was itself
a pleasure. It was as smooth as a gravel walk, and of the bluish colour
of some of the roads among the lakes of the north of England.
Passed no very remarkable place till we came to Sir James Colquhoun's
house, which stands upon a large, flat, woody peninsula, looking towards
Ben Lomond. There must be many beautiful walks among the copses of the
peninsula, and delicious views over the water; but the general surface of
the country is poor, and looks as if it ought to be rich and well
peopled, for it is not mountainous; nor had we passed any hills which a
Cumbrian would dignify with the name of mountains. There was many a
little plain or gently-sloping hill covered with poor heath or broom
without trees, where one should have liked to see a cottage in a bower of
wood, with its patch of corn and potatoes, and a green field with a hedge
to keep it warm. As we advanced we perceived less of the coldness of
poverty, the hills not having so large a space between them and the lake.
The surface of the hills being in its natural state, is always beautiful;
but where there is only a half cultivated and half peopled soil near the
banks of a lake or river, the idea is forced upon one that they who do
live there have not much of cheerful enjoyment.