Chapter III: Part 3

We have still another quarter of an hour’s walk before us; meanwhile, however, now that we have got on firmer ground, we sit down on a rock that feels as hot as if it could frizzle a fish, and are amply rewarded. We see the large half of Loch Long, with its villas and cottages, its patches of cultivated land, Douglas and Carrick Piers, the bare hillside of Ben Cruach, with an occasional patch of wood, and the road to St. Catherine’s, which at this elevation looks like the road between Glen Rosa and Shiskin as seen from Brodick Bay, more like a piece of “string” than anything else. When the cairn is reached we feel as if we not only deserved but could enjoy a substantial sandwich, and are thankful that this necessary proceeding need not seriously interfere with our enjoyment of the special feast for which we had come up so high. The five nearest counties—Argyll, Stirling, Perth, Dumbarton, and Renfrew—and Arran with its rugged peaks, all contribute to the view. The scenery is everywhere of the most awful, the wildest, and most extensive. The weather is at its best, and every peak, and scaur, and wrinkle are visible to the naked eye. Below us to the left, winding under Ben Lochain, Ben Bheula, and Ben Cruach, is Loch Goil, flashing back the blue sky, and holding the sun-softened lines of the great hills in its bosom. To the north-west we can see the greatest of all those lochs that do so much to adorn, and draw tourists to, the west coast of Scotland, and which even from a commercial point of view is not without its value as our “great herring pond.” We do not see it all, nor what we see of it continuously, but in two long reaches, the one near the top and the one much lower down, the one over Hell’s Glen and the other over Loch Eck. Beyond Inveraray and its conical hill of Duniquoich, and rather to the north end of it, we see in two distinct places Loch Awe, which is now getting to be as famous for a tourist route as it used to be and still is as a fishing ground. And over it Ben Cruachan lifts its majestic head 3689 feet high. In the north-east we catch a glimpse of the narrow ends of Loch Long, under the “Cobbler,” and of Loch Lomond, the biggest thing of its kind in Britain, through the neck of ground between Arrochar and Tarbet. Loch Long itself is of no small size, stretching all the way from Strone Point on to Arrochar, and running right alongside of half the length of Dumbartonshire. In the south-east we have in sight Gareloch, and the Clyde herself in a great variety of places, washing the coasts of Renfrew, Cowal, Bute, Arran, and the Big and Wee Cumbraes. But pausing, we give ourselves over to reflection.

How utterly insignificant one feels on the summit of a hill like this, and in the overpowering presence of those still higher hills. The mountains all around seem to open up steep passes that lead away to still higher hills in the distance. There is Glencroe going down between Donich and Ben Arthur, and the road which was made by the 98th Regiment about a hundred years ago. Then there is the dark glen between Ben Bheula and Ben Lochain, down which pour the waters of the Lettermay Burn, which come out of the little tarn, Curra Lochain. Beyond Loch Lomond there proudly stands Ben Lomond, lifting its head 3192 feet high, and dominating all the loch of that name. The peaks that overlook Loch Long prevent us seeing the best parts of Loch Lomond, but we see themselves, and in doing so feel the force of the sarcasm which has named them “The Duke of Argyll’s Bowling Green.” Time would fail to speak of the immense number of high hills that are to be seen away to the north, the first of which may be said to be Ben Lui, near which is the source of the Tay, and a good remnant of the old Caledonian Forest. But between Glen Orchy and Loch Tay one can see Ben Chaluim, Ben More, Stobinain, Ben Heskernich, Meal Girdy, Ben Lawers, Sheechaillin; and when it is remembered that the very lowest of those Grampian monarchs is several hundred feet higher than Ben Lomond, it will not require a very lively imagination to conceive what a panorama this comparatively little hill of Donich affords us. It is even said that in certain favourable conditions of the atmosphere the mountains of Mull can be seen away to the north-west.

Enough has been said to tempt anyone that has the time, the lung power, and a mind capable of being attracted and pleased with the grand in Nature. But it is not merely the grand that is to be met with. There is no more delightful spot in summer than a bare hillside. On the broad slopes of purple heather, with dark hills in the distance, one suddenly comes upon all kinds of life and beauty. Here is some wild game, which darts or flies away at your approach. Poor as the pasture is, no Eastern carpet ever glowed with half the colour of those flowing slopes. As we come farther down we light upon a little troop of stonechats—five young birds and their parents—on the branches of a hawthorn. They are a lively lot, and the clear “chat, chat” of the old birds is one of the few sounds of life upon the hill. It was perhaps this note that disturbed a pair of partridges from their resting-place. They leap a little way into the air, but instead of flying off they settle down again and crane their necks above the grass. We are told that some animals, now rare, are not quite unknown on the hillside, such as the otter, the wild cat, and the fox. Still, any of these are not likely to disturb the casual visitor. The only thing that can be regarded as the least uncanny that came under our notice was the presence in the burn, not a great way up, of an eel.

The natives, we are told, but will not vouch for the truth of it, have a horror of eels almost as great as of the adders that are to be met with on the sunny side of the burn, but which will not hurt you if you do not hurt them. The natives, however, show them scant mercy. But the perfume of flowers and leaves and heather, the singing of birds, and the sweeps of wooded braes throw one into a poetical turn of mind that begets a dreamy content in which nothing either great or small is overlooked.

If you have a turn for botany you may find here, in the course of your ascent or descent, specimens of the tufted vetch and the lady’s mantle and one of the saxifrages, loosestrife, a specific which used to be laid in the cradles of children to make them of a peaceable temperament. The dog mercury is also here, which dogs resort to and eat as a medicine, and many another specimen too numerous to detail. And if your experience be the same as ours, you will also have the advantage of a singing competition between a homely thrush and some other bird, in which the thrush, with his louder, more continuous, and more varied song, bore away the palm. It was amusing to see how the rival songsters continued, evidently now listening to each other, and continuing “long with spiteful energy of sweet sounds.” But the shadows will soon begin to lengthen and lie another way, and we may make a straight road for Lochgoilhead.

BEN VENUE.

Who that has read “Rob Roy” would not wish to make a pilgrimage to the clachan of Aberfoyle, where visitors can see for themselves the historic coulter of the “Bailie,” still red-hot, hanging on a tree in front of the hotel? It will be remembered that this implement did no little damage to the Highlandman’s plaid, and led to the very important question, when the articles of agreement were being decided on in the inn, after the fracas—“But who’s to pay for ma new plaid?” And who that has read of Roderick Dhu and Fitz-James would not wish to go to the top of Ben Venue? Well, all this can be done in one short day from Glasgow, and at a very small outlay of money; and with my reader’s leave I will act as his cicerone, in case he should wish to visit a district which is more visited and better known by the world at large than any other in Scotland.

Take a return ticket to Aberfoyle by the North British, and if money is a consideration, do it on a Saturday. If walking is no consideration to you, if you can walk six miles over a hill and then climb two, up a safe but very and continuously steep mountain, start, after you have had a look around and at the old brig, up the road to the east of the hill. Take the old road, with its short cuts as often as you can, and you will be well on your way before the coach, which has to walk the half of the way, will overtake you.

But on the other hand, if money is no consideration and walking is, you can get a ride over and back for the reasonable sum of six shillings, by the new coach road recently and well (in a double sense) made by no less a person than his Grace of Montrose. Before reaching the summit you have the slate quarries, giving employment to about 100 men, on your left, and after passing the summit you have the Gloomy Glen, and Loch Drunkie, with which it communicates, on your right. Here also you get an instalment of the land of the mountain and the flood, and as you see Ben Venue now towering in its lonely greatness to the left, apparently much higher, though nearly 500 feet less than Ben Ledi in front of you, a little to the left, you begin to wish you could drive right up. A few steps further and you are in sight of “the Lake of the Level Plain,” with “bold Ben A’an” standing aloof to the north. Even the rude mountains seem to wear a gentler look as they meet the pure gaze of “lovely Loch Achray,” and the place is a very sanctuary of sweet and quiet influences. The ascent is best made by leaving the coach road at Achray House, before coming to the wooden bridge on the Teith as it is about to fall into Loch Achray. Pass through the offices of Mr. Thomson, to whose family we Glasgow people are indebted for so large and so cheap a park as we have at Camphill, go across the burn coming down Glen Reoch, and keep on the grass-grown cart road, with the Teith on your right, till near the sluice between Loch Katrine and the burn which is its overflow. This overflow is not now so large as before we in Glasgow began to make such a pull on Loch Katrine. Here, on the left, you will see a clump of eight or ten trees, chiefly birch, with a mountain stream to the right of it, and there is the place where you should begin your climb, keeping this little stream on your right, keeping near to it for guidance, refreshment, and to cool your fevered brow. When you have reached the first beginnings of the tiny stream, keep to the right under the shade of a great rock, at the far end of it turn to the left, make for the ridge before you, and when you have reached it, the last and pleasantest part of the climb is now to the right, amid largish rocks, which make the approach to the summit something like the burying-place of giants, and, strange to say, it is all covered over with “ladies mantles.” On the way up specimens may be gathered, if you are that way inclined, of the Burnet saxifrage, moneywort, and marjoram; also, of the juniper and yew, the fruit of the latter being exceedingly beautiful with its bright red waxen cup holding the seed.

The height of Ben Venue, “the little mountain” (as compared with Ben Lomond), is 2393 feet above the sea level, and the ascent can be easily made in two and a half hours. I have done it in an hour and forty-five minutes from Achray House, but this was without a rest, which I could not advise anyone to repeat. You are now looking down on the world-famed Trossachs. It has been well said that the scenery around the Trossachs “beggars all description,” a phrase more forcible than elegant; still it is true, and only a Scott could do it justice. The whole district has been immortalised by him; but forcible as are his descriptions, they do no more than justice to the original, which has been touched by nature’s fingers with loveliness of no common kind. There is such an assembly of rude and wild grandeur as fills the mind with the most sublime conceptions. It is as if a whole mountain had been torn in pieces and had fallen down by a great convulsion of the earth, and the huge fragments of rocks and rocky wooded hill lie scattered about in confusion for several miles along the side of Loch Katrine. Black and bluff headlands of rock dip down into the unfathomable water, or, to speak more exactly, into a loch which was found recently to be 75 fathoms deep, and which on account of its depth scarcely ever freezes. Then there are deep retiring bays, there are beaches covered with white sand, and grave rugged cliffs with wood which seems as if it grew out of the solid rock.

Nothing could well be more wild and desolate than the top of Ben Venue. You may be there and not hear or have heard anything, not even the melody of birds, or the bleating of sheep, or the cry of a shepherd, or the barking of his dog, since you heard the whirr of the partridge in the valley below. At one time the eagle was to be seen here sitting in lonely majesty or sailing through the air, but it is now banished. The heron, however, still stalks among the reeds on the side of the lake in search of his prey, and the wild ducks still gambol on the water, or dive beneath the surface. You look down on the most romantic part of the lake, with the Otter Island, and the “Rob Roy” sailing into the picturesque pier which is hidden by the western end of “Roderick Dhu’s lookout,” where nature is shown to best advantage, where mountains and rocks, which appear to have been thrown around in the rudest forms, are covered with trees and shrubs that give variety and grace and beauty to the scenery.

There are some who connect the word Katrine with Cateran, the wild and lawless freebooters who infested its shores; but it is called Ketturn, or Keturin, by the natives; and the latter part of the word when thus pronounced is like the name of many a place in the Highlands whose appearance is specially wild and savage. For example, we have in Inverness-shire Loch Urn or Urrin, which means the Lake of Hell; and in Cowal Glen Urrin, or Hell’s Glen. The loch is the receptacle of a hundred streams, which after rain foam down their rugged sides as white as “the snowy charger’s tail,” and after falling into Loch Achray, and from that into Vennachar, it finds its way, under the name of the Teith, into the Forth 3 miles from Stirling.

At the base of the mountain you have Coir-nan-Uriskin, the cave of the Goblins (best got at by a boat from the Trossachs Pier), a place rendered venerable by Highland tradition and superstition, overlooking the lake in solemn grandeur. It is a deep circular hole of at least 600 yards in length at the top, gradually narrowing towards the bottom, surrounded on all sides with steep rocks, and overshaded with birch trees which shut out the sun. On the south and west it is bordered by the shoulder of the hill to the height of 500 feet; and on the east the rocks appear to have fallen down, scattering the whole slope with fragments, that shelter the fox, the wild cat, and the badger. It is said that the solemn and staid meetings of the Urisks, from whom it got its name, and who are supposed to be scattered all over the Highlands, were held here. “Those,” according to Dr. Graham, “were a kind of lubberly supernaturals, who, like the brownie, perform the drudgery of the farm, and it was believed that many of the families of the Highlands had one of them attached to it.” Sir Walter Scott tells us that tradition has ascribed to the Urisk a figure between a goat and a man; in short, however much the classical reader may be startled, precisely that of the “Grecian satyr.” Behind the precipitous ground above this cave, at a height of about 800 feet, is the magnificent glen, overhung with birch trees, called Bealach-nam-Bo, or, the Pass of the Cattle, through which the animals carried away in a foray in the Lowlands were driven to the shelter of the Trossachs (rough places). It looks like an avenue from our nether world to another and a higher sphere. Not far from the cave is the island to which one of Cromwell’s soldiers swam to get a boat, and met his doom in the manner described in the “Lady of the Lake,” at the hand of a woman. With one sweep of her dirk the Highland amazon is said to have severed his head from his body.

Opposite you is the steep and pyramidal mount Ben A’an, 1851 feet high, with the Trossachs Hotel at its left base, which is built on a spot called Anacheanoch-rochan, a name unpronounceable by any but a Celtic tongue. A little farther on, at the end of the lovely Achray (the Loch of the Level Field), is the Brig of Turk (the Brig of the Boar), where Fitz-James discovered that he had outstripped all his followers. Behind that you have the Forest of Glenfinlas, once a royal forest; and behind that rises Ben Ledi (the Hill of God) to 2875 feet. Farther on you have Loch Vennachar (the Lake of the Fair Valley), with its islands, and the Ford of Coilantogle at the far end of it, to which Roderick promised to lead the king in safety, and where the fight took place—“the Gael above, Fitz-James below.” Still further off is Callander, looking bright and fair under the influence of Old Sol, and nestling at the base of Uam-Var. Looking south, you have immediately before you Glen Reoch and Ben Reoch (the Brandered or Striped Glen and Ben). Over this you see the long, flat, and fertile carse of the Forth, with the Kippen and Gargunnock hills on its south, and Stirling Castle, and Dunmyat above Menstrie, and even Ben Cleugh above Tillicoultry. Due south you can see Buchlyvie, a much more hospitable place now than it must have been found to be by the writer of the ancient ballad, who described it as a

toon
Where there’s neither horse meat, nor
Man’s meat, nor a chair to sit doon.

Farther south is the Strathblane and Kilpatrick hills, while to the west and south you have, notwithstanding that the mighty Ben Lomond is now in front of you, a good view of the hills near the foot of Loch Lomond, and around Loch Eck and Loch Goil. Due west you have the Duke of Argyll’s Bowling Green, made up of such tidy little mountains as the Cobbler and his two neighbours to the right of him—Ben More and Ben Vane—both a little higher in life than himself, he being only a cobbler. In the north you see Ben More (3845 feet high), to the west of it Ben Lui (3708), and away in the far west Ben Cruachan (3611), and many others too numerous to mention.

If you have read the “Lady of the Lake,” as all should do who propose to make this excursion, you will have been able to follow “the windings of the chase,” and to have taken a mental picture of a district which, before the days of Scott, were almost as unknown to the Lowlander as the interior of Africa, and into which, when they did go, it was with the apprehensions of Andrew Fairservice, “that to gang into Rob Roy’s country is a mere tempting of providence.”

It is no part of our plan to describe that wilderness of beauty, “all in the Trossachs Glen,” which attracts so many tourists from all parts of the world year after year. But if our hill climber has got any superfluous energy after he has gone up and come down, it would be a pity to be so near the Trossachs without actually seeing the famed and fabled spot.

It is to be hoped that you have brought with you more than the three brown biscuits recommended by Dr. John Brown, because accommodation for man and beast is but scarce in this part of the country, except to those who are not suffering from a depression of trade. The walk or drive over to Aberfoyle in the cool of the evening will enable you to catch the last train, which brings you to the city shortly after eight o’clock. But even if you should miss it, you can telegraph the fact to your friends at home, and resign yourself to the enjoyment of a few extra hours in one of the finest districts in Scotland. It is not given to every one to miss a train, and afterwards be thankful for the mishap, nor to repent openly and honestly for the harsh words which escaped his lips when he saw the tail-end of the guard’s van vanishing down the line. And yet we would not be surprised to learn that such had been your condition in the supposed circumstances. Your gratitude and your repentance might be alike sincere.

THE COBBLER, OR BEN ARTHUR.

It is not known why several of our Scottish hills take their name from the Welsh Prince Arthur, of whom no other trace remains in the country, but it appears that they have been traditionally considered to be places of sovereignty. For example, it is said that that huge mountain at the opening of Glencroe, the naked rocky summit of which is thought to bear some resemblance to a shoemaker at work and bent to draw his thread, and which is therefore called the Cobbler, being at one time considered the most lofty and conspicuous mountain in the domain of the Campbells, had to be climbed by the heir of that chieftainship, who was obliged to seat himself on its loftiest peak, a task of some difficulty and danger, which, if neglected, his lands went to the next relative who was sufficiently adventurous to scale its heights. Though we may not have the bribe of a dukedom to entice us, nor any special need of paying a visit to a shoemaker, yet a climb to the top of this well-known but seldom scaled steep will live in our memories as a most pleasurable toil.

The best plan to adopt in order to “do” it, and return to the common level of Glasgow life in one day, is to take an early train and boat (Queen Street low level) to Tarbet on Loch Lomond; walk or coach it from that through the beautiful pass or valley by which King Haco and his grim, death-dealing warriors in the thirteenth century are understood to have dragged their boats after sailing up Loch Long. This they did with the view of devastating Loch Lomond side and its then populous islands, with a vengeance terrible in its results. Through this peaceful and dreamy glen also marched Robert the Bruce, Scotland’s great deliverer from England’s hated yoke, with his five hundred followers, when making his way to spend the winter in Cantyre. In passing through this cross valley you can see on the hillsides the striations of the glacial age over the watershed from Loch Lomond down into Loch Long.

Keep on the coach or coach road past Arrochar, across the Lyon at the head of Loch Long, a stream which divides Dumbartonshire and Argyllshire, till you come down to a point on the other side of the loch opposite Arrochar. Here—Ardgarton House not being far off, formerly belonging to Mr. Campbell of Armidale, but more lately to Mr. Macgregor, of the Royal Hotel, Edinburgh—there is a burn or mountain stream which rejoices in the name of the “Butter-milk Burn.”

Your course is up the left side of this burn till you come to a hollow place 500 or 600 feet up; cross the burn here, and, avoiding the soft ground as much as possible, keep to the right, and instead of making the old man’s acquaintance too hurriedly, take round to his north side, and you will find him more approachable and will get better on with him. The ascent, though stiff, is not difficult till you reach what may be called the foot of the Cobbler.

The likeness is preserved even in such a detail as this, but the 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.

The descent can be made with great ease, zigzagging it, in one and a half hours; and on no account should you either come down quickly or make short cuts unless you wish to have strained muscles for days to come, which will lessen the pleasant memories of a day you are not likely to forget. As you sail homewards on the loch below, you can sympathise somewhat with the man who had never been beyond the parish of Buchanan, and who, on ascending Ben Lomond, declared that he “never ken’t that the world was sich a big affair till it was a’ spread oot before” him.

MOUNT MISERY.