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Title: Our Western Hills: How to reach them; And the Views from their Summits

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[Illustration:

OUR WESTERN HILLS,
AND WHAT MAY
BE SEEN FROM
THEIR SUMMITS

BY
A GLASGOW
PEDESTRIAN.

ONE SHILLING

GLASGOW
MORISON BROTHERS
99 BUCHANAN STREET]




Our Western Hills.


Uniform with this Volume.

One Shilling: Cloth, 1s. 6d.

THE ELDER AT THE PLATE. A Collection of Anecdotes and Incidents
    relating to Church Door Collections. By Nicholas Dickson.

THE KIRK BEADLE. A Collection of Anecdotes and Incidents
    relating to the Minister’s Man. By Nicholas Dickson.

ANECDOTES AND REMINISCENCES OF GEORGE GILFILLAN. By David Macrae.

LITERARY COINCIDENCES, A BOOKSTALL BARGAIN, AND OTHER PAPERS. By
    W. A. Clouston.

PERSONAL ADVENTURES BY A DETECTIVE. Pages from Note Books of
    Lieut. A. Carmichael, Glasgow Detective Department.




OUR WESTERN HILLS:
How to reach them;
And the Views from their Summits.

By
A Glasgow Pedestrian.

Glasgow:
Morison Brothers,
1892.




To JAMES R. MANNERS, Esq.


        My dear Mr. MANNERS,

Among many ways in which a holiday, or a Saturday afternoon, can be
profitably and enjoyably spent by those members of the community whom
the late Dr. Andrew Wynter designated as “our working bees,” there
should be none more attractive than a climb to the top of some of our
highest western hills. The following pages, which are respectfully
dedicated to you who suggested them, make no pretence to fine writing
or original matter, but are simply a short and, I trust, readable
guide to those who care to make a journey to the hilltops which they
attempt to describe. The hills that find a place in these pages are
accessible to all who are capable of average physical endurance, and
the account of what may be seen from their tops and in their immediate
neighbourhood may help to add to the pleasurable emotions that are
certain to arise from a visit to them. We certainly miss at home the
solemn and almost unearthly look of the Alps, but our Scottish hills
have a greater variety in colour, size, and shape, and many of them
have historical and antiquarian associations which help to make them
the more interesting to those who climb them. It is astonishing,
considering what a wealth of mountain scenery we have in Scotland,
that their cult should have been so late and should still be so scanty.
There are those who are nothing if they are not practical, and who
see in a mountain or a range of hills little more than so many acres
or tons of waste soil, which would have had a much greater economic
value if it could be levelled down in some way. We can scarcely hope
to interest such; but people are getting more alive to the value and
significance of mountains, and are beginning to feel that if there be
healthy power anywhere on earth for the wasted body, or the sorrowing
soul, or larger thoughts of God and of ourselves, they are to be found
on the top of some lofty hill. Who can long be sick at heart with the
glory of hill and dale and sky about him? and who frail of step with
his nostrils full of the scent of varied nature, and his tread on the
springy heather? Indeed, it has been truly said that “the mountains
in their nearness, and yet remoteness, in the poetry and romance that
gather round them, in their simplicity and purity, in the aspirations
they kindle, and in the manifold and yet often occult services which
they render to humanity, are to the world what religion is to life.”
These articles have been written in the midst of an active and busy
life, and have been prepared for publication so hurriedly as to make it
impossible that they should be free from mistakes. They will, however,
to some small extent help and interest those who have not fuller and
better guides.




CONTENTS.


                                                                PAGE

LOUDON HILL,                                                       1

TINTO,                                                            10

CAIRNTABLE,                                                       19

BALLAGIOCH,                                                       29

KAIM HILL,                                                        37

GOATFELL,                                                         48

THE EARL’S SEAT,                                                  57

DUNMYAT,                                                          67

BEN DONICH,                                                       76

BEN VENUE,                                                        84

THE COBBLER,                                                      95

BEN LOMOND,                                                      107

MOUNT MISERY,                                                    118

BEN LEDI,                                                        130

THE MEIKLE BEN,                                                  142




OUR WESTERN HILLS.




LOUDON HILL.


There is hardly any excursion within a few miles of Glasgow that
combines more of what is pleasing in history, poetry and patriotism,
and varied scenery of the sweetest kind than a trip to Loudon Hill.
Either the South-Western or the Joint Line, from St. Enoch, takes the
traveller to Kilmarnock, or “Old Killie,” as it is pettingly called by
the Kilmarnockians, a place that is suggestive of St. Marnock in the
eighth century, Burns at the end of last century, and bonnets in the
present. The line now takes him past Galston, where there is to be had
a view of the well-trimmed hedges, characteristic of the roads on the
Loudon estate, and the plantations of magnificent trees, which from
their age—at least a century—tell that Scotland had proprietors fond
of planting before the time of Dr. Johnson. And here is to be seen,
rising among the greenery of “Loudon’s bonnie woods and braes,” which
Tannahill sings so sweetly of, the palatial-looking towers of Loudon
Castle, that has been not inaptly called the Windsor of Scotland. It
is said that here were signed the Articles of Union between England
and Scotland, beneath the branches of a gigantic yew tree, which yew
tree is also memorable from the fact—for this at least is a fact—that
James, second Earl of Loudon, addressed letters to it, when secretly
communicating with his lady during the period of his banishment—“To the
Gudewife, at the Old Yew Tree, Loudon, Scotland.”

The old churchyard of Loudon nestles in a quiet nook by the wayside,
which has been the burying-place for nearly 400 years of the Loudon
family, a family which, in its first Earl, Chancellor Loudon, and
oftener than once since, has done good service to the cause of liberty.
Here also lie the remains of the gifted but unfortunate Lady Flora
Hastings, who is said to have died of a broken heart on account of a
cruel and unfounded slander raised against her by one of the ladies of
the bedchamber of H.R.H. the Duchess of Kent.

The traveller by the train which reaches Newmilns at one o’clock will
get the help of a brake (if so inclined) as far as Darvel.

It was doubtful weather when we started, and the leaden clouds drove
over the sky in heavy masses, “one long drift of rugged gloom”—but it
is a waste of time to pay any attention to the weather in this country,
one has only to go on and take its buffets and its rewards “with equal
thanks.” Presently there appeared a bit of blue sky no larger than
one’s hand, not even enough to make the Highlandman’s well-known nether
garment, which soon spread over the heavens, and in the course of a
few minutes the sun’s beams straggled though the lovely green foliage,
making golden patches among the roadside flowers, and the wild ferns,
and causing the long grass to sparkle as if all the diamonds of Brazil
had been scattered over it.

The distance from Darvel to Loudon Hill is three miles, although
it seems much less to the traveller, from his having such a clear
view of its rugged and well-defined outline straight before him. The
hill springs up suddenly from the surrounding level, and it looks
higher than it is. At Loudon Hill Inn, 2½ miles from Darvel, a road
to the left over the Irvine, which is here a mere burn, leads to the
hill, which is easily accessible in more senses than one. From the
large number of excursionists that visit this hill, it would not be
surprising to hear that the farmers in the neighbourhood preferred
that it should be less free to the public. But the Earl of Loudon,
though not possessing the ground round about, is the proprietor of the
hill, and makes the public welcome to visit a place so memorable and
picturesque. The unpleasant and unfortunately too-much-resorted-to
“Notice to Trespassers” finds no place here, and we can only say that
if there were more of his disposition in the country the relations
between high and low would be much more friendly than they are at
present. Of course there is another side to the question—this, namely,
that landowners are frequently tempted to put up prohibitory notices
because of the deplorable fact that a certain section of the public do
not show a sufficient regard for the rights of property.

The hedges look beautiful, hung as they are with garlands of the
milk-white thorn; and those who care for a study of silver and blue may
have it now. The silver—the drifted snow of the water crowfoot, the wee
crimson-tipped daisy, and the pendent snowballs of the wild cherry. Of
the blue—patches of wild hyacinth, with just shade enough for varying
tones from the purple spikes of the unfolding bells in the deeper shade
to where the sunshine ripples on paler blue, in charming contrast
to the new spring grass. The summit is reached from the western
side, there being a pathway through the trees, and, though a little
toilsome, the ascent is more than repaid by a most extensive prospect.

The hill is round, conical, and of romantic appearance, formed of
columnar trap, and part of an extensive trap-dike which is said to
trouble the whole coalfield of Ayrshire in a north-westerly and
south-easterly direction, having its beginning in the vicinity of
Greenock. Looking north and east and south, there is little within
the first 8 or 9 miles but a wide expanse of moorland, that, with the
exception of one or two spots on which farmhouses stand, seems to
stretch for miles. About a mile to the north-east is the schoolhouse
of Drumclog, and a small monument marking the spot where Claverhouse
and his dragoons were routed by the Covenanters under Hamilton, Burley,
Cleland, and Hackston, on June 1st, 1679, a Sabbath morning. In this
affair Claverhouse lost his cornet and about a score of his troopers,
while the Covenanters lost only four men. This whole district, being
quite inaccessible to cavalry, was a favourite place for the holding
of conventicles. The locality, as well as the engagement itself, are
described in “Old Mortality,” and by Allan Cunningham in his poem, “The
Discomfiture of the Godless at Drumclog.”

A little to the north of Drumclog the Irvine rises in what at the time
of the battle was a mere moss, but the rivulet is now conveyed in a
straight line through an artificial ditch, and inclining to the west is
joined by the Hairschaw Burn, and flows past the south side of the hill
in a deep ravine. At one time trout were readily got here; but a lime
work at the junction of the Hairschaw and the Irvine, according to an
old angler, “seems to have hurt the health of the fish, for they have
never been seen since it was started.” It has sometimes been a question
whether the parish got its name from the hill or from the valley; but
as Loudon or Loddam means marshy ground, and as not long ago the Irvine
flooded the whole valley, it is probable that the parish was named
after the valley. The banking of the river and tile-draining make the
name no longer appropriate; but the memory of the marshy ground is kept
alive in the “Waterhaughs,” a farm not far off on the Galston side of
the river. About a quarter of a mile to the south of the hill, on the
summit of a precipitous bank overhanging the old public road, there is
a small turf redoubt, about twenty yards in length, called Wallace’s
Cairn, to mark the spot where some of his men were buried after the
battle which took place in the narrow gorge below. At this place, which
is the watershed for the Clyde and the Irvine, in a narrow pass, down
which the winds come in grand style, and which is therefore called the
Windy Hass or Wizen (Gullet), Wallace and a small band of warriors lay
in ambush, attacked and defeated a rich English envoy from Carlisle to
the garrison at Ayr, although they were only 700 against 3000. A large
quantity of booty was got, and, according to Blind Harry, “a hundred
dead in the field were leaved there.”

While to the north, south, and east there is nothing but moor, with
an occasional hill to relieve the monotony; to the west there is a
landscape of unrivalled beauty. In the foreground there is the fertile
valley of the Irvine, dividing Galston on the south from Loudon on the
north, and Kyle from Cunningham, a vista of little less than 20 miles
in length.

This picture includes such details as these:—First, there is the hamlet
of Priestland; beyond which, close to Darvel, the Irvine is joined by
the Glen Water, supposed to be the scene of Pollock’s popular tale of
“Helen of the Glen,” up which also there are the remains of a British
fort, one of those round forts which are always to be found in the
track of the Roman invaders, which had been surrounded by a ditch,
and had a bridge and a gate. Then there are Darvel and Newmilns, with
their prosperous lace factories and their looms. On the south side
there are the beautiful plantations on the Lanfine Estate, almost
rivalling “Loudon’s bonnie woods and braes” on the north side, both
contributing to give a rich appearance to the landscape, and taking
away the barrenness which once characterized this now lovely valley.
Still farther off there are to be seen Hurlford and its smoke,
Kilmarnock and its Burns memorial, Dundonald Hill, the Firth of Clyde,
and the rugged heights of Arran. In the north-west there are the hills
above Dalry, Kilbirnie, and Lochwinnoch, hiding the heights of Cowal;
in the north there is the lion-like Ben Lomond, to the right of which
there is a view of Ben Venue, Ben Ledi being shut out by the high
ground at Avonmuir, 5 or 6 miles in front of us. Farther east there
is an occasional peep of the eastern part of the Campsie range, and a
full view of the Ochils. Due east Strathaven, 9 miles off, is plainly
seen, and the high ground near Carluke still farther away. In the near
south-east we have the Avon flowing away from us to the Clyde, and the
hills in which it takes its rise, and behind which Cairntable rises,
some 12 or 13 miles away. Due south there is Distinkhorn, only some
6 miles distant, and behind it in the dim distance are the hills of
Galloway. This is not by any means a bad view for a hill only 600 feet
above the level of the surrounding country; according to an old saying,
“One may go farther and fare worse.”

Then, around its foot, as we saw on our way up, there is much that
will please botanists. We passed here quite a small battalion of them,
each with the symbol of his order—a vasculum. Here are to be seen dark
red spikes of fumitory, which Shakespeare calls “rank fumitory,” from
its abundance, a sign of waste ground. It is a pretty little flower.
The flowers bruised in milk is a favourite village cosmetic. Among
the nettles is borage, a plant whose azure-blue blossoms and little
white rims at the centre figure so prominently in Titian’s picture of
the “Last Supper of our Lord,” and which has called forth the warmest
praise of Mr. Ruskin. At one time every country garden had its plant
of borage. It was used for quite a variety of purposes, and like many
a good but plain individual, it is better than its ragged appearance
would lead us to imagine. You need not be at all surprised if a cock
pheasant steps out proudly from the thicket, or if a squirrel darts
up a tree, or a rabbit comes out of the brackens to see what you are
after, or a partridge should alight on the stump of some tree that has
seen better days.

A walk back to Darvel for the coach to Newmilns station will enable the
traveller to reach Glasgow early in the evening.




TINTO.


If any one wishes for perfect quiet, and to be well out of the way of
smoke and bustle, of duns and other visitors—in fact, has a particular
desire to find within 40 miles of Glasgow a place which, for all
practical purposes, shall be to him or to her the world’s end—let
him make up his mind to spend a day on the top of that well-known
yet comparatively little climbed hill, Tinto. And for this purpose
let him take a return ticket and follow us to Symington—and there is
Tinto, or the Hill of Fire, before his view. There can be no mistake
as to what we have come out to see. There is not much to distract our
attention from the object we have in view, nothing near of a like kind
to compete with it. There it stands, like a large self-contained house,
all others at a respectable distance from it, not to be mistaken with
any other—nay, as destitute of relations as Melchisedeck, a great
porphyritic hill, dominating like a king over the Upper Ward. After
leaving the station, a quarter of a mile to the south, there is a
camp still to be seen covering half an acre. This takes us back in
thought to that old Simon Liscard, who, in the days of Malcolm the
Fourth or William the Lion, got this district as a territory, and
called the settlement Symon’s Town, abbreviated into Symontown, and
again corrupted or improved, according to the individual taste, into
Symington.

The sky becomes overcast, but we are not to be deterred by the muster
of the elements, and we step out valiantly in the face of a rising
wind, and also in the face of an interminable procession of rough
looking cattle, feeling that there is a little credit in being “jolly,”
as Mark Tapley would put it, under such circumstances. In spite of the
gloomy aspect of clouds there is something hopeful in the strength of
the wind, and soon they begin to draw off, and by the time we are a
little on our way the old battle has been waged and won, and we are
glad to take off any superfluous clothing as the sun throws off the
last porous film, and looks down on us with a cheery smile. The soil
here is not of the very richest. It reminds us of the saying in regard
to the Carse of Gowrie, which must have had for its author some one who
was foiled in his battle with the strong clay—“It greets a’ winter, and
girns a’ summer.” But for all that there are some good fields of grain
to be met with amidst the wide extended breadth of pasture land, and an
occasional flock and herd furnish an element of life which adds to the
interest.

When we find ourselves on the main road we make for a reddish small
quarry on the hillside to the south of us. We reach it by a short cut
past the front of the first thatched house we come to, and then turn
to the left for about five minutes’ walk on the Stirling and Carlisle
road. When we get to the top of the quarry there is a very good path
that leads all the way to the summit. As there is no omnibus that runs
to the top, we zigzag it in our own way. Now we make a false step; we
are finding our way over some troublesome stones, and often a huge mass
of bright flesh-coloured felstone. Like all other felstone hills, such
as the Pentlands and North Berwick Law, it is worn into smooth conical
eminences, usually coated with turf, which, when broken here and there
along the slopes, allows a long stream of angular rubbish to crumble
from the rock, and slide down the hill. We are for ever mistaking the
top, thinking we are at it, when, behold, there it is, as if farther
off than ever. And so on we go, up and down, over the elastic heather,
enjoying the ever-widening horizon, till at last we reach the very
summit, 2312 feet above the level of the sea, but not much more than
1700 feet vertically from its base. It stands on the mutual border of
the parishes of Carmichael, Wiston, Symington, and Covington, and forms
a sort of vanguard to the Southern Highlands. We could see parts of
sixteen different counties from it, including Hartfell and Queensberry
Hill in the south, Cairntable in the south-west, the peaks of Arran in
the west, and the Bass Rock in the north-east.

Looking to the south and east, and not at all far away, we have hill
range upon hill range. They are neither very grand, nor rugged—they
might almost be termed bleak and bare; and yet they have a beauty all
their own. With few exceptions they are wanting in vegetation, and
although to one accustomed to the rugged grandeur and rich variety of
the northern Highlands, they may seem tame and uninteresting, there is
a charm in their peaceful slopes and rounded summits which is not to be
found in the stern beauty of their northern neighbours. “Their beauty
is not revealed at first sight; it grows on the eye, which never tires
of gazing on their grassy slopes and watching the ever-changing play of
light and shade.”

On a clear day the hills in the north of England, and even the north
coast of Ireland, can be easily seen. We did not see them ourselves,
but _we have seen a man who has seen them_. We could see the infant
Clyde, made up of several streams, all rapid, noisy, and wildly
frolicsome, differing as much from the broad, calm, useful river at
Glasgow as the most capering and crowing baby differs from the gravest
sage. We could see it almost from the place where it takes its rise
near the sources of the Tweed and the Annan, and could follow it
winding like a silver thread along the bottom of a narrow dell, down to
a broad and splendid band of crystal through a diversified country, now
washing the skirt of a romantically situated Roman camp, now through
pleasant pastures and charming corn lands, and now skirting the base of
Tinto in a sweep so great and circuitous that a distance of more than
20 miles is run between points which in a straight line are not farther
apart than 7½ miles. We only lose sight of it when, after tumbling over
Cora Linn, it runs down beyond Lanark into what might well be said to
be at once the most beautiful and fruitful valley in Scotland.

Looking to the east in the direction of the self-important town of
Biggar (who has not heard the ancient joke of the district, London’s
big, but Biggar’s Biggar?), it was interesting to see the Clyde
approaching in that direction within 7 miles of the Tweed. Between the
two streams there lies, of course, the watershed of the country, the
drainage flowing on the one side into the Atlantic, and on the other
into the North Sea. And yet, instead of a range or a hill, the space
between the two rivers is simply the broad, flat valley of Biggar, so
little above the level of the Clyde that it would not cost much labour
to send it across into the Tweed.

And there are some members, possibly of a Glasgow Angling Club, one or
two of them up to the knees in the Clyde in the pursuit of what they
can get, even though it should be but a nibble. No more peaceful scene
could be found for one who wants to get away from the cares of his
ordinary daily life. I am content merely to be a reader of Walton’s
books, which are like those that Horace had in his mind when he said
that to read them was a medicine against ambitions and desires.

Looking west, we have on our left hand the united parishes of Wiston
and Roberton, with the Garf finding its way into the Clyde. We have now
time after feasting our eyes in every direction to think of the hill
itself. It is a wondrous mixture of volcanic product, a perfect museum
of minerals—overlapping a huge mass of transition rocks. It probably
bubbled into being in a series of red-hot upheavals at an epoch when
all that which is now the low country of Lanarkshire was a muddy,
torrid sea. It was much frequented by our heathen ancestors for their
sanguinary Druidical rites, and perhaps blazed often with both their
fires of idolatrous worship and their signal fires of war; for its name
signifies “the Hill of Fire.”

There is ancient precedent for the building of a cairn to commemorate
any striking event. It is a favourite Scripture method of memorial, and
has been much practised in our own Highlands. But as we stand by the
side of the immense cairn which crowns Tinto, and which is understood
to be equal to about 300 cart loads, we could not help feeling
sympathy for our poor forefathers, who are said to have carried them
up piecemeal through a series of ages, in the way of penance, from a
famous Roman Catholic church which was situated in a little glen at the
north-east skirt of the mountain, and we could not help saying that
“the former times were” not “better than these.” We found that we had
to pay for our splendid position by being exposed all through our stay
on the summit to a stiff south-west wind, which reminded us of the
popular rhyme—

    But tho’ a lassie were e’er sae black,
      Let her ha’e the penny siller,
    Set her up on Tinto tap,
      The wind wad blaw a man till her.

On the “tap,” too, there is a “kist,” or large block of granite, with
a hole in one side, said to have been caused by the grasp of Wallace’s
thumb on the evening before his victory at Boghall, Biggar; just as
Quothquand, a hill a little to the north-east, is crowned with a large
stone known as Wallace’s chair, and popularly believed to have been his
seat at a council held the same evening. The “kist” on the top of Tinto
is the subject of another curious rhyme, which Mr. Robert Chambers
thinks is intended as a mockery of human strength, for it is certainly
impossible to lift the lid and drink off the contents of the hollow—

    On Tintock tap there is a mist,
    And in that mist there is a kist,
    And in the kist there is a caup,
    And in the caup there is a drap;
    Tak’ up the caup, drink off the drap,
    And set the caup on Tintock tap.

This old world rhyme is finely moralised by Dr. John Brown in his
“Jeems the Door-keeper.” We have been here when the sunset has died
away upon the hill, like the “watch fires of departing angels,” and
from the undergrowth about the neighbouring river blackbird and ousel
sent forth their liquid pipings. The cuckoos that all day long had been
calling to each other across the fields, were now with a more restful
“chuck! chuck! chu, chu-chu,” flitting, like gray flakes, from coppice
to coppice, preparatory to settling for the night. The blackcock’s
challenge could still be heard from the lower ground, and from the
hillside came the silvery “whorl-whorl-whorl” of the grouse. Such
sounds can be heard far off in the stillness of the dusk.

Tinto has not much to boast of in the way of antiquities; but perhaps
enough has been said to lead some of our readers to go and “do” Tinto
for themselves; if so, we can only hope that they may enjoy it as much
as we did. It only requires six hours in all, and the remembrance of
the travel will be even pleasanter than the travel itself, for in the
remembrance the little drawbacks are all forgot, and the absence of
care and the blue sky, and the bright sun, &c., &c., remain.




CAIRNTABLE.


We remember reading, some years ago, in _Punch_, a paragraph headed
“Strange Insanity,” and stating that a respectable tradesman in the
City, in pursuit of a holiday, had positively thrown himself into a
cab, driven off to the Eastern Counties Railway Station at Shoreditch,
and had taken a ticket for Great Yarmouth. It is perhaps equally an act
of “strange insanity” in this year of grace and desirable excursions
for anyone to go to Muirkirk on a similar errand, for the line to
Muirkirk—like that of the “Great Eastern,” as the Eastern Counties is
now called—is not managed, to say the least, with the same expedition
that, as a rule, pervades the Caledonian system. But if anyone wishes
to see Cairntable, he must make up his mind to take a ticket for
Muirkirk. Soon after leaving Glasgow the whole valley of the Clyde
opens up to us, which is still beautiful in spite of its desecration
by coalmasters. We can sympathise with the English cyclist who, having
read the “Scottish Chiefs” before beginning his tour through Scotland,
had his mind full of the beauties and traditions of the neighbourhood,
but was disappointed to see the air thick with smoke, while far and
near tall chimneys vomited flame and steam. And this continues more or
less all the way till we reach the ore lands and blast furnaces of our
Scotch pig-iron kings, the Bairds.

As the village is to the north of the station, and Cairntable to the
south, it will save time, if there is no need to pay a visit to the
Black Bull or the Eglinton Arms, at once to take to the hill. On
leaving the station on the south-side, turn to the left 300 yards or
so, and follow a little stream a short distance beyond a lade which is
in connection with the iron-work, and you will find in the second bend
of the stream a curious phenomenon in the shape of a boiling (bubbling)
well; the water rising up so strongly as to make the sand appear to
boil over. After taking a drink, make through the moor for the middle
of the wall to the left, which follow, keeping close to it. After the
wall has been passed keep straight on till well up the shoulder of the
hill; make then, through the heather, in a south-easterly direction for
the nearest small cairn. After passing this keep in the same direction
among some large stones, which were probably meant to commemorate
some event, at the time considered sufficiently important, but the
knowledge of which is now gone, as there are no distinguishing marks
or hieroglyphs to be found on them. They are too small to have been
used in Druidical worship, as some have supposed. And now you reach a
very good footpath. From this the ascent is easy, the path being strewn
here and there with small bits of breccia or pudding rock, which enters
largely into the composition of Cairntable. Here are to be found small
pieces of quartz minutely mixed with sandstone, and nearly as hard as
granite. It formerly supplied for many a long year the millstones used
in the parish for grinding oats.

The summit is reached in about an hour and a half, 1944 feet above the
level of the sea, crowned with two immense piles of stones, and there
is great need for some tradition to account for these, as in the case
of the perhaps still larger cairn on the sister hill of Tinto. Would
the members of the Antiquarian or Archæological Society please make a
notice of this, and tell us if they were not meant to commemorate the
defeat of some Annandale thieves who used to infest the district?

Before beginning to take in the surroundings we recall to our mind
that at the end of the twelfth century all around us was a forest, as
we learn from a charter granted to the monks of Melrose by the Grand
Steward of Scotland; and that this was so is abundantly plain from the
names of many of the farms, from the trees found in the moss (entire
hazel nuts being also found in it), and from small clumps and detached
trees of birch and mountain ash still to be seen on the braes and by
the side of the ravines.

And looking over this wide and uneven surface, sometimes rising into
considerable eminences, covered with dark heather, and presenting
nothing either grand or striking except its bleakness and sterility,
we cannot help thinking that this wholesale destruction of trees
is a thing much to be regretted from every point of view. It sadly
spoils the scenery, it deprives the district of their shelter, and
their prostrate trunks, by obstructing the water and assisting in the
formation of moss earth, prove injurious to the climate. From the
general altitude of the district fogs are frequent, rain is abundant,
and the climate cold, so that it might be said of it, as it is said of
Greenock and Arrochar, which are also hydropathic, that “it doesn’t
always rain, it sometimes snaws.” And yet it does not appear as if the
evaporation from the moss were injurious to the health.

Looking to the south we have a perfect tableland of small mountains,
the Leadhills range being a little to the east, those near Sanquhar
due south, and those near Dalmellington to the west, Blackcraig and
Enoch’s Hill being prominent between. Behind a small cairn to the west
of the two greater ones there is a very fine spring, the waters of
which, falling into the valley below, divide into two little streams.
The one part, under the name of the Garpel, runs into the Firth of
Clyde at Ayr, through the channel of the water of Ayr; the other, the
Duneaton, runs to the Clyde at Abingdon, and joins its long-lost sister
waters in the Firth, which we can see where we stand, after a most
interesting and no doubt useful course of more than 100 miles. Looking
east and north, we see the outline of the Lowther range, the southern
Grampians, with Culter Fell, Tinto, and over Tinto the Pentlands.

Our solitude is all the more apparent by a curlew and a plover which
circle round and round uttering most piteous cries, as if to say, “What
strange being are you? Have you come here to rob us of the early worm?”
One of the hunting spiders settles down beside us. It spins no web, and
depends on its power of leaping to catch its prey, and to watch its
movements is quite a study. It is a good fighter, and will fight the
garden spider, though it is larger than itself. It may not be generally
known that spiders have been worn in nut-shells and goose-quills round
the neck to drive disease and the devil away. But we will pass from
such a subject, for most people hold it in aversion, from the “little
Miss Muffit,” who “sat on a tuffit,” to the cleanly housewife.

In front of us we have Hairschaw Hill to the right, then Blackhill and
Middle Law, and between the latter two the road to Strathaven is seen
to wind, and we recall the long walk from and to Glasgow which Edward
Irving and Carlyle took one day, when the one was the popular assistant
to Dr. Chalmers, and the other had not yet been able to do anything to
show the stuff of which he was made. Looking north is the little and
now almost extinct mining village of Glenbuck, with its two artificial
lochs, the only sheets of water in the parish, constructed in 1802 to
supply the works of James Finlay & Co., at Catrine, covering between
them 120 acres. The Water of Ayr (smooth water) rises out of these, and
flows before our eyes through the village of Muirkirk, a small stream,
and then among holms and haughs through an open moor till joined by a
little stream which rises near Priesthill, and by “the haunted Garpel”
it becomes a large body of water. Still farther north, over Blackhill,
is Priesthill, where on the 1st of May, 1685, John Brown, of saintly
memory, whose house was always open to the benighted stranger or to
the persecuted in the days of the Covenant, was shot before the eyes of
his wife, by the bloody Claverhouse, his very soldiers refusing to do
the deed. It will be long before Scotland will forget the noble answer
of his wife to the brutal remark of his murderer, “What do ye think of
your husband now?” “I always thought much of him, but now more than
ever.” Close by at the farm of High Priesthill, during a thunderstorm,
about forty years ago, a waterspout fell, washing away some 30 acres of
the land.

Looking up the valley of the Douglas Water, which takes its rise at
the foot of Cairntable, on the north-east side, we see the policies
of Douglas Castle, the seat of the Earl of Home, and the “Castle
Dangerous” of Sir Walter Scott; and we recall to our minds that we
have in it a name intimately connected with the most splendid period
of Scottish history. It is an open question still whether the family
gave the name to the parish, or _vice versa_. The favourite tradition,
however, is that about 767 Donald Bain the Fair took the field against
the King. He was nearly victorious, when a person, with his sons and
followers, flew to the help of the King and routed Donald, who was
himself slain. The King thus rescued inquired to whom he owed his
deliverance, when one of the officers said, “Sholto Douglasse” (there
is the dark man). The King, in gratitude, gave him a tract of land
and the surname Douglas, which was given to the domain and the river
also. This appears to have some confirmation from the fact that Sholto
is still a kind of hereditary prænomen among various branches of the
Douglas family.

Turning to the west, and looking down the valley of the Ayr Water, we
have in sight not only Aird’s Moss, a large moss extending several
miles in all directions, but the monument also erected on it, about
a quarter of a mile off the Cumnock Road, to the memory of one of
Scotland’s worthiest sons, Richard Cameron. The utter desolation of the
spot gives it a melancholy interest, and nothing fair is to be seen but
Heaven above, the hope of which sustained the heart of the Covenanters
in their skirmish with the dragoons there in 1686. The heather and the
long grass bear no trace of the blood which must once have stained
them; but no true patriot will readily forget such scenes as those.
Not far off is the birthplace of Dr. John Black, a former minister of
Coylton, the author of a “Life of Tasso,” and of a learned work called
“Palaico Romaica,” in which he endeavoured to prove, but with more
ability than success, that the New Testament was originally written in
Latin, from which the Greek version was a translation.

In making the descent by the same route as that by which we reached
the summit, we see Loudon Hill taking a sly peep at us over the top of
the town; we think of the time not so long ago when there was not a
building save the kirk in the muir, in the vicinity of the now thriving
town, and of Lord Dundonald’s unfortunate coal tar manufacturing
experience here. The adoption of copper for sheathing the vessels of
the navy ruined the speculation, and the Earl lost heavily by it.

Coming down once more to the level ground, a good walker, who is also
a painstaking hunter of flowers, will not go unrewarded. All along
our course there are the yellow blossoms of the buttercup family on
the harder ground, daisies in the meadows, on the moor the bluebells
hanging their delicate heads, each appearing a little lonely and pale;
and there are also the exquisite waxlike blossoms of the bilberry,
growing quite abundantly, and looking quite as beautiful as any of the
rare heaths of the conservatory.

We find our way to the station through and among some wrought-out lime
quarries, the roughness of our route now reminding us of what must have
been the state of the road to Sorn, a little further down the valley,
when travelled on by one of our Scottish kings on his way from Glasgow,
and which he found to be so disagreeable that he said, if he wished
to “give the devil a job,” he would send him to Sorn in winter. What
thoughts crowd upon us as we review the work of the last hour or two
on our homeward journey; thoughts as to the probable, or established
history of rock and plant, of mountain and moor! And what an insight
do we gain into our ignorance as we have to acknowledge that to many
of the problems we must subscribe ourselves “agnostic,” or without
knowledge. In two and a half hours we reach the well-paved streets of
Glasgow.




BALLAGIOCH.


Given those three things, a good day, a liking for a walk over a
Scottish moor, and a small bag over the shoulder well filled with
eatables, could one do better than set out to make the acquaintance
of this comparatively unknown hill? The most interesting route, and
the most direct, leaving the least work for the pedestrian, is by the
Caledonian Railway, from the Central, to Clarkston Toll. From there
we avail ourselves of a coach to Eaglesham (kirk hamlet), not knowing
what the necessities of the day may be. In doing so, our mind goes back
to the time when Professor John Wilson (Christopher North) as a boy
spent some of his happiest days hereabout on the banks of the Earn, and
somewhat farther back to the time when the Romans had a village near
to the Sheddings of Busby. On arriving at Eaglesham we make for its
highest point, and there find the road that leads to Ballagioch, some
2½ miles off. On the left there are three reservoirs, the Picketlaw,
the mid dam, and the high dam—the last a broad sheet of water which
used to drive the wheel of the village cotton mill. On the right, about
100 yards from the village, we pass the road that leads to Moorhouse,
the birthplace of Robert Pollock, the author of “The Course of Time.”

A mile from the village of Eaglesham the road begins to rise. And
here we are reminded that if the early summer is the time of hope, it
is the time of strife as well. For here is, first, a dead mole; and
secondly, a couple of living larks. The mole and a brother of his had
been fighting for a wife; he had been wounded, his body ripped up, and
a part of his entrails eaten by the conqueror. The larks, a couple of
male birds, were now fighting, and the weaker was being worsted; and if
he had stuck to his guns as did the mole he would in all probability
have met with the mole’s fate. Halfway up the ascent on the left is the
road to Lochgoin, but we keep on the highway to Kilmarnock. As we near
the top we leave behind us, at the height of 800 feet above the level
of the sea, almost every sign of cultivation, and enter upon the moor,
in which the villagers have the right of casting peats and pasturing
a single cow. When we have reached the summit nearly another mile of
table-land lies before us, and Ballagioch is close upon us on the
right. The hill rises before us to the height of perhaps 200 feet from
the road, but our Ordnance map tells us that it is 1094 from the level
of the sea. This, however, is no great height for a Scottish hill, and
therefore we require no “guide, philosopher, and friend” to show us the
way to the top; we simply need to remember the short but pithy address
of the Highland officer to his men in the face of the foe, “There’s the
enemy, gentlemen, up and at them.”

Though the hill is not very high, yet with the exception of Misty
Law, near Lochwinnoch, and the Hill of Staik, on the borders of
Lochwinnoch, Largs, and Kilbirnie, it is the highest eminence in the
county of Renfrew. It is principally composed of the trap rock, which
is prevalent in the district, but several specimens of barytes have
been found in its vicinity, and a species of stone which bears extreme
heat without cracking, and has therefore been found to be well adapted
for the construction of furnaces and ovens. It is also said to contain
silver and lead ores, but if so, there is no outward appearance to show
that this is correct.

The prospect from the summit, however, more than repays any
disappointment which we may have on this score. It commands a most
extensive and beautiful series of landscapes, embracing many counties
within its scope. On the one hand are the moors of Fenwick, formerly
called New Kilmarnock, with its memories of William Guthrie, its first
minister (1644), author of “The Christian’s Great Interest,” and from
whom the parish takes its chief fame. Beyond are the fertile woods and
fields of Ayrshire, with Loudon Hill, near which the battle of Drumclog
was fought, and an extensive sweep of the Ayrshire coast, with the
lonely and conical Ailsa Craig and the jagged peaks of Arran in the
distance. On a clear day the view in this direction commands the land
of Burns. On the other hand, we have in sight the grand valley of the
Clyde, with Glasgow and Paisley, and many other towns and villages in
its capacious bosom, while away in the dim distance we have a perfect
wilderness of mountain-tops. A little to the south and west is the farm
of Greenfields, with 1000 acres—somewhat of a misnomer, however, for
all around is a waste of peat. As we pass the farmhouse we see a herd
of lowing cattle, and hear the song of chanticleer in the farmyard.
And as we move along we come upon a fresh upheaval of earth, the work
of Master Mole, and still more frequently upon the burrow of a rabbit,
with tufts of downy fur strewing the neighbourhood. Near this there is
a road that leads to lonely but historically and otherwise interesting
Lochgoin, where John Howie wrote the “Scots Worthies,” where there
are still to be seen many things which will rejoice the heart of the
Christian patriot and the antiquary.

The loch itself is of little consequence, being entirely artificial,
and was first formed in 1828 to supply the mills at Kilmarnock with
water; but a little beyond, a few yards into the parish of Fenwick,
is the venerable house which has been the abode of the Howie family
for so many centuries (since 1178), and where they still retain all
the primitive, pious, and pastoral habits which distinguished their
Waldensian ancestry. This house during the times of persecution
frequently afforded an asylum to those who, for conscience sake, were
obliged to flee from their homes, to men like Cargill, Peden, Richard
Cameron, and Captain Paton, which rendered it so obnoxious that it was
twelve times plundered, and the inmates forced to take refuge in the
barren moors around. Indeed, standing on Ballagioch we can see the
homes of not a few who can trace their connection with ancestors who
suffered in the “killing times.”

And not far off, at the farm of Duntan, between where we stand and
Lochgoin, on the east bank of a stream which goes past the farm,
there is a rocky precipice, in the front of which there is a small
aperture capable of holding three or four in a stooping position.
One person can scarcely enter on hands and feet at a time. Tradition
tells us that two Covenanters, chased by dragoons, plunged through
the stream in flood, scaled the rock, and hid. The troopers did not
venture to follow them, but fired into the cave and went off, probably
believing that their intended victims had found a tomb instead of a
hiding place. Immediately to the south of us there is Binend Loch, a
large sheet of water covering about 50 acres, which would be a perfect
paradise for the patrons of the roaring game if it were only a little
nearer the haunts of civilisation. A little beyond this is what we in
Scotland happily call the watershed—a term that of late years physical
geographers have appropriated as expressive of a meaning which no
single term in English had conveyed.

All around us the ground is mossy, and intersected with sheep drains.
Here and there the fresh cuttings disclose trees embedded in the
moss, telling of a time when this now treeless country must have been
covered with waving forests. The trees are generally hazel, and often
they have a foot or several feet of moss beneath them, showing that
the moss must have existed anterior to the hazel. It is only when we
come to the bottom of the moss that we find the oak and the pine, the
remains of the ancient Caledonian forests. We come down on the north
side of the hill, and find not far from the farm of Lochcraig the coal
measures cropping out, and in the blocks of shale that rise up through
the moss are to be found abundance of specimens of the strange flora
of the Carboniferous age, the _Sigillaria_, so remarkable for their
beautifully sculptured stems, and their not less singular roots, so
long described as _Stigmaria_ by the fossil botanist.

In course of this walk it is easy to make quite a large botanical
collection. You may have the _Geum urbanum_ with its small yellow
flower and fragrant root with scent of cloves. This was formerly used
as a tonic for consumption and ague, and being infused was often used
by ladies for the complexion, and for the removal of freckles. Then
there is the blue meadow or cranesbill, _Geranium pratense_, and herb
Robert, _Geranium Robertianum_, and the sweet vernal grass and the
wood mellica. There is also the moschatel, or musk crowfoot, so called
from its musky fragrance, and the wood spurge, and ground ivy, a plant
which, when dry, has a pleasant odour, and which in country places is
sometimes still made into tea, and supposed to be good for coughs and
colds. We give these only as a few specimens to whet the appetite of
those who carry a vasculum and rejoice in a herbarium.

On leaving Ballagioch, for the sake of variety, we shape our course
north-west in the direction of Moorhouse, and soon, after crossing
the Earn, reach the Kilmarnock road. The railway has shorn this
road of all its former glory, when fifteen packhorses could be seen
regularly travelling between Glasgow and the west country, and when
the Kilmarnock carrier drove along it his six milk-white ponies of
diminutive size, but possessed of much mettle. Our walk to Clarkston
_via_ Mearns is much about the same length as the route we took from
Clarkston to Ballagioch _via_ Eaglesham, and at last we reach the city
somewhat tired, yet highly delighted with our day’s outing.




KAIM HILL.


Now that everybody is out of town, on Saturday at least, and every
place in the guide book is as well known as the Trongate or Jamaica
Street, it is something to discover a hill everybody has not been to
the top of, and which is not in Black or Murray. Such a hill is that
which stands between Fairlie and Kilbirnie, overlooking Fairlie Roads
(that is, the Clyde between Fairlie and the Greater Cumbrae) on the
one side, and the valley of the Garnock on the other. It is best to
make the ascent from Fairlie, which can be reached either by Wemyss Bay
from the Central, or by Ardrossan from St. Enoch’s. At the south or
far end of the railway platform a path will be found, on crossing the
line, which leads to the farm of Southannan. There the road to the left
should be taken, across a nicely wooded burn, which should be followed
up till a wall is reached; which wall should be followed till we come
to the heathery ground. From that the course is, without any track,
in a somewhat south-westerly direction, now over a tiny stream, now
through a stretch of heather, and now past the side of some large old
red sandstone or piece of trap, perhaps 20 feet long, which are the
chief rocks of this hill range.

The upward journey is a thing not to be forgotten, for the foliage is
wonderful, and every step we take almost reveals some new beauty. The
watercourses, swollen with rains that have come rushing down the green
and rocky slopes, are broadening and deepening. There is plenty of
life also in the woods and on the moor. The grouse are not at all in
evidence, and we miss their whirr and cry so pleasant to hear. But the
robins sing where there are branches on which they can perch, and the
rabbits are running races among the ferns.

When what seems the summit has been attained, the view will be found
to be very fine to the north; but it will also be found that there is
still a higher height a little farther back, over softer ground, from
which an all-round prospect can be had. “Kaim” is applied to any ridge
of ground, either moundish or mountainous, with enough of sharpness
and zigzag in its outline to give it some resemblance to a cock’s
comb, and is frequently so used in Scotland; but there can be none of
those hills so called which can possibly boast of a finer outlook
than this one above Fairlie, which seems to be the meeting-place of
all the hills that rise in the parishes of Kilbirnie, Lochwinnoch, and
Dalry, and which hem in the parish of Largs so curiously from all the
cultivated land to the north, east, and south-east as to have produced
the proverbial expression, “Out of the world, into Largs.”

In a north-easterly direction may be seen the thriving town of Beith,
and the high ground behind it, forming part of the watershed between
the basin of the Clyde and the river systems of Ayrshire. Due east is
the valley of the Garnock, the beauty of which is somewhat marred by a
variety of coal and iron works, whose bings of shale and other refuse
are considerably higher than any Dutch hills that we have seen. But
they are suggestive of the spirit of the age, industry and enterprise,
and of the great change that has come over the district since it was
the abode of princes. For Dalry, it should be remembered, means “the
king’s field” or “vale,” and those holms on the river’s side were at
one time the king’s domain. Not far over from where we stand is old
Blair House, whose family charter dates from William the Lion; and on
the estate of Blair, on a precipitous bank of limestone, in a romantic
glen, there is to be seen one of the greatest curiosities in Ayrshire,
a cave 40 feet above the bed of the stream, and covered by 30 feet of
rock and earth. In former times people believed it to be tenanted by
elves, aerial genii, and hence the name it now goes by, “Elf Ho.” It
was frequently occupied in later times by a nobler class of tenants,
the Covenanters, in the time of Charles II. This would make an
excursion by itself. And in visiting it we would have awakened in our
hearts feelings of veneration and pride for those who fought the battle
of religious freedom for us. It is only by visiting such dens of the
earth that we can realise in some measure the hardships they endured,
and how greatly we should esteem the precious heritage handed down to
us by them.

Away to the left is the parish of Lochwinnoch, with its ancient castle
of Barr, which is said to have been built by men who wrought at a
penny a day; and of which it is also said that at one time, when being
besieged, and when the garrison was about to surrender from want of
provisions, one of them threw over the heel of a skim-milk kebbock, all
that remained of their stock, and that the besiegers, taking this as a
mark of abundance raised the siege and departed. And not so far away to
the left, 2 miles to the north of the village of Kilbirnie, are the
ruins of Glengarnock Castle, built some 700 years ago. Tradition tells
us that it was once occupied by Hardy Knute, the hero of the fine old
ballad of that name. It is now the resort of picnickers for purposes of
innocent amusement; but also, sad to tell, of the neighbouring farmers,
who make it a kind of quarry for stone dykes and similar purposes.

Looking north we have Ben Lomond and the frontier masses of the
Perthshire Grampians, and the serrated ridge of Cowal and the Loch Eck
district. Due west we have the hills around the Kyles of Bute and the
coast of Cantyre, and Goatfell, with Innellan, Toward, Loch Striven,
the Kyles, the lovely Bute, with Mount Stuart and Kilchattan Bay, and
the two Cumbraes, with the far-extended Millport and its reminiscence
of the former parish minister who magnified his bishopric and prayed
for “the adjacent islands of Great Britain and Ireland.” The view more
immediately below us, including the beautifully-shaped Knock Hill,
with the still more beautiful half-moon Bay of Largs and the town
in its bosom, and the braes rising in gentle slope all around, and
the Roads of Fairlie, which, with the tide so far out, and the wind
rippling the surface of the water, seems to us to resemble a curling
pond (the ripples having the appearance of little drifts of snow here
and there), all go to constitute as lovely a prospect as can be had
anywhere on the West Coast. It will be interesting to remember here
that if at this place the water is narrow, it is correspondingly deep
to make up for it; and that, as Geikie in one of his books shows us,
if the land all over Scotland could be raised a few feet, it would
add about 150 miles to the size of the country away to the west of
Ardnamurchan, and dry up considerably the Firth of Clyde, but that
there would still be deep water between Fairlie and the Greater Cumbrae.

It will be interesting also to think of a time, now more than 600 years
ago, when the natives in those parts looked out on the dragon prows
and raven pennons of the Norwegian galleys, and recognised in them
the shattered remnants of King Haco’s once noble fleet. A friend who
accompanied me on this climb, and who is great in history, showed that
he could speak of the invasion of the Norsemen, and of Scandinavian
mythology and literature by the yard. There was no end to his talk
about their worship of brute force as personified in their god Thor,
the god of thunder, with his hammer, the “mauler” or “smasher,” and
their high appreciation of the Pagan virtues of valour, courageous
endurance of hardships, and indomitable resolution which made them
the terror and scourge of every northern sea and neighbouring coast.
It was interesting, and not without its touch of pathos, to learn
from him that, after their decisive defeat at the battle of Largs,
whilst lying in Lamlash Bay, in whose quiet and land-locked waters
they had gone to refit, Ivan Holm, the old comrade of Haco, died, and
the broken-hearted king himself only reached the Orkneys to die there
six weeks afterwards. It was also interesting to learn from him that a
little farther down yonder, right over Whiting Bay (though the fish of
that name have long ago, like Haco and his fleet, left those waters),
in Glen Eisdale, there is still to be seen what are known as the
“Vikings’ graves,” the resting-place of some of those who took part in
this ill-fated expedition.

And there below us on the left is Hunterston Ho, with the Bay of
Fairlie terminating in the far-projecting headland of Ardneill. And a
little round the corner is Portincross, with its ancient fortalice on
a bare rock stretching out into the sea, above which it is elevated
only a very little. The fort is not only wild and picturesque, but it
is memorable from the many visits paid to it by the first of our Stuart
sovereigns, as is attested by the numerous charters which received his
signature within its venerable walls. A piece of cannon is shown here
as a relic of the Spanish Armada; a vessel having been wrecked on the
coast close by. It is understood that some of the sailors settled in
the district and left families, whose representatives are still known
by their outlandish names and a slight tinge of the dark complexion of
Spain. Following the coast line, the eye takes in the fertile district
of West Kilbride, the ironworks of Stevenston, Ardrossan, Saltcoats,
Troon, the heights of Ayr, and the Carrick Hills. And yonder is Ailsa
Craig standing up sentinel-like out of the blue waters over which are
passing and repassing richly-freighted ships, bearing the merchandise
of all nations.

And there in the foreground, to pass from the stirring times of Haco,
and in striking contrast to them, is the Isle of Lamlash, so fitly
called the Holy Isle. The distance is too great to discern its sea-worn
cave, where St. Molios, the shaved or bald-headed servant of Jesus,
retired to practice a discipline of himself more strict and rigid even
than that of St. Columba, whose disciple he was. From that little Iona
there shone forth the light which diffused a knowledge of Christianity
amongst the formerly Pagan inhabitants of Arran. The day is almost
clear enough to see on the road to Sannox the boulder from behind
which the angry natives dragged forth the last survivor of Cromwell’s
garrison, and meted out to him the rough-and-ready justice of his and
his comrades’ misdeeds; and far above are the rugged granite peaks of
the Hill of Winds.

Before beginning the descent it might be as well to give a passing
look and thought to the Cumbrae Dykes, the most astonishing natural
monuments in the Big Cumbrae. This is the Heatheren Keipel Dyke
(heth’ren caple)—to call it by its old and time-honoured name—and the
Houllon Keipel Dyke, which lifts its lion-like head and shoulders
one-third of a mile ahead of the others. No other name than this did
it have fifty years ago, says Mr. Lytteil (in his “Guide Book to the
Cumbraes”), except the occasional appellation of Deil’s Dyke—a name
which may be regarded as summarising and embodying in one personage
the host of ogres or fabulous demon-giants which are credited, in an
ancient folks’ tale, with the building of the grim-looking structure.
According to the legend the stupendous wall of Heatheren Keipel was
built up to its present height by the fairies, or good elves; seeing
which, the malignant ogres, or swart-elves, set to work and attempted
in the spirit of keen competition to outrival and excel their betters.
The result was a conspicuous failure; so, finding they could do no
better by their work, these same demon giants, in the person of their
chief, fell into a wild rage and kicked half-a-dozen holes through
the stony heart of their own performance. Mr. Lytteil states that
the names _Heatheren_ and _Houllon_, as applied to these two great
Cumbrae dykes, have been discovered, after much study and research,
to contain the very essence of the ancient legend, and to describe
respectively the benevolent sprites or brownies on the one hand, and
the malevolent demons on the other. Heatheren Keipel Dyke, regarded as
a local name, signifies the dyke of the giants’ contest. On the other
hand, Houllon Keipel Dyke, similarly regarded, means the dyke or wall
of the ogre-giants’ contest. The term “keipel”—also written “keppel”
and “caple”—denotes a contest, a competition. The latter of the two
dykes is pretty well known nowadays by the name of the Lion. It may
be added that, in the raising of these huge fabrics, the legendary
builders had a special object in view—which was to carry a bridge over
the waters of the Sound to the shore of the mainland. And, strange to
say, a corresponding mass of black rock, in the form of a great but
much abraded natural dyke, reappears on the sandy flats of the opposite
coast, and bears the name of the Black Rock.

In whatever direction we turn the scenery is of the finest, and is
undisturbed by any manufacturing chimney or coalpit, though I have
heard of a Cockney who wondered “what kind of work can that be on the
top of that ’ill?” when he saw the Holy Isle with its nightcap on. It
is not easy to leave a sight like this, but time and tide wait for
no man, and we have the station below us as constant mentor, and we
make the descent for it, paying in passing a visit to the old Castle
of Fairlie, which, with the glen in which it stands, all visitors to
Fairlie should see. The site is so peculiar that the popular eye has no
difficulty in tracing in it the real residence of Hardy Knute, the hero
of the well-known beautiful ballad of that name. Whether the story is
wholly a fiction seems to be doubted, but it does not follow that it
had no foundation in tradition. We reach the station again three hours
after leaving it, with a strong desire to do something to make this
hilltop better known than it is, for it has only to be seen once to be
a joy for ever. Our friend, with the view of helping in this laudable
endeavour, suggested the following lines:—

    When other lips with other lies
      The guide book’s page shall fill,
    Be sure you kindly advertise
      The name of Kaim’s fair hill.

In another hour and a half we are singing the praises of Kaim to our
home circle.




GOATFELL.


We see that “Cook” is advertising his usual excursions to Switzerland
and Paris in view of the Fair holidays, but, whilst we would not urge
anyone not to go, having been there and enjoyed them, ourselves, to
those who have neither the time nor the money to go any great distance
we would say that we are old enough fashioned to believe that this
“nice little, tight little, island” of our own contains within its
rocky shores as wondrous a combination and as great a variety of
scenery as can be found in any portion of the Continent of Europe twice
its extent and surface. We back Great Britain and Ireland, not omitting
even the adjacent islands of the Great and Little Cumbraes, against
the world for possessing the richest treasures of all that is grand,
beautiful, and lovable in nature. Indeed, none should cross the Channel
till they are tolerably well acquainted with the chief things worth
seeing at home. But, to come to particulars, we back not only this
country against the rest of the world, but we back Scotland against
England and Ireland, and “Arran’s Isle” against the rest of Scotland.
Have you been to Arran? If not, you cannot go to soon; and, as you
must ascend Goatfell, the best thing to do is to steer your course to
Brodick. Everyone will ask you if you have been to the top of Goatfell.
In fact, the question is so universal that, having failed in our first
attempt, we found it advisable whenever we referred afterwards to
having been at Arran to add, “but I did not ascend Goatfell.”

Take the early morning train from the Central or St. Enoch to
Ardrossan, and crossing over to Brodick pull your hat well down on
your head, for, though the captain has a kindly way with him, he’ll
not turn back for any hat that goes overboard. He may only tell you,
as we once heard another skipper tell a man further up the Clyde who
had lost his headpiece, “You shouldn’t travel with a quick boat if you
don’t want to lose your bonnet.” On landing admire the fine sweep of
the bay on to and beyond the big castle among the trees, chief outward
token of the supremacy of the Hamilton family in the past. On passing
the handsome hotel built by the late Duke, and standing in the midst of
its own beautiful and carefully kept grounds, you have time to look on
the face of an old friend, Lord Brougham, a true lithograph written
on stone, on the top of the hills to the left of Goatfell. That row
of houses on the left a little way off the road in the English style
of architecture is “The Alma.” But whether it is so called because
erected during the Crimean War, or because in ancient times there stood
there one of the forts that formed the chain which girdled the whole
coast of the island, deponent sayeth not. The next group of houses is
Invercloy, where, if you have not already a thick staff or Alpine pole,
you may provide yourself with one, and lay aside till your return any
superfluous clothing.

As you pass the Cloyburn it will interest you to know that up the glen
from which it comes is the mansion-house of Kilmichael, the seat of
the Fullarton family, proprietors of Whitefarland and Kilmichael—the
only portions of Arran not owned by the Duke of Hamilton. A little
further up are the remains of an encampment which had been provided
by the islanders for the security of their wives and children on the
alarm of invasion. It was here that Bruce and his followers resided
before taking Brodick Castle. Passing the school-house, examine a
very fine bronze statute of the late Duke in Highland costume, the
workmanship of Marochetti. Here also, at the roadside, is to be seen
a large block of red sandstone set on end, the history of which is
unknown. It is supposed to be one of the many Druidical monuments
and circles to be found on the island; or perhaps it was set up here
to mark the burial-place of some chief, or the spot where one fell
in deadly combat; or perhaps it was meant for something more common
and prosaic—for (Highland) man and beast to scratch themselves upon.
Coming to the cross-road leading to Shiskin and to Corrie, take the
Corrie road over Rosa Burn; but before doing so admire the artistic
manse straight in front, its magnificent position and the liberality
of the Duke in building it at his own expense. The house is as unique
inside as it is outside, and a visit which we recently paid it and its
accomplished occupant will long live in our memory.

At the Rosa Bridge enter the carriage drive to the Castle, and keep on
it till near the gamekeeper’s house; then enter by a small gate on the
left and follow the walk through the wood, which is well stocked with
deer and game, till you come out again on the moor. From the Rosa Burn
to the summit is about 3 miles as the crow flies, but by the windings
of the path it will be at least 4. The highest point is 2800 feet above
the level of the sea at half-tide. The ascent is now more difficult,
the path more abrupt and uneven, following the burn, which runs
through a deep mountain gorge, showing many different kinds of strata
and stone interesting to those who go about with small hammers. At the
mill dam you reach a height of 1200 feet. You may be tempted to strike
across a flat space to the left and mount by the southern shoulder;
but although a shorter cut, it is much steeper and more dangerous than
the usual path which is to the right, and which you should follow till
you reach the sharp ridge of the east shoulder of the mountain. Before
attempting this, the last and most difficult part of the journey, you
will probably think it time to sit down and discuss the contents of
your bag. Tennant’s beer sells at one-and-six the bottle on the Rocky
Mountains; well, this is an exceedingly rocky mountain, yet you can
get “something to drink free, gratis, and for nothing” at anytime
by simply scratching its surface. The path now turns to the left up
the steep ridge among and over huge masses of rock lying in grand
confusion. As you get higher the granite boulders become of immense
size, some of them 20 by 10 feet, toppled on the top of others of all
shapes and sizes, till one wonders how they ever came there, and can
understand what the man meant who said, though his theology might have
been more correct and his language more fitly chosen, “O man, are the
works of God no devilish?” Near the top there is an immense precipice
of granite blocks laid on each other as regular as mason work, which
geologists call a cyclopean wall. Keep to the left till you are clear
of the blocks and are facing a very abrupt steep, put your feet in the
well-worn footprints, and a few minutes of hard toil will land you safe
on the summit of Goatfell.

When we made the ascent it was a very hot day in a very hot week,
each day almost more calm than its predecessor, reminding us of the
sergeant newly arrived in India, who, not much accustomed to such a
warm climate, was always remarking to his commanding officer when he
met him, “Anither het day, kornel.” But he will soon be cooled down
who lingers on this (appropriately termed) “hill of winds.” Therefore,
improve your time in taking a mental photograph of the grand prospect.
Here is a place for learning a lesson in geography; here is a map of
the south-west of Scotland that beats Collins’ all to sticks. On the
north-east you see the two Cumbraes, and behind them Largs, Wemyss Bay,
and the Clyde sparkling with tiny white sails, and the green hills of
Renfrewshire in the background. To the north is the Island of Bute,
and the Kyles, like a silver thread, nearly surrounding it; while Ben
Lomond, Ben Voirlich, and Ben Ledi fill up the distant background.
To the north-west the eye reaches far up Loch Fyne, and round by the
Paps of Jura and Islay and Mull. Looking across Ben Gneiss down to the
Sound of Kilbrannan you see Campbeltown, and over Kintyre, and, if the
day be clear, to the coast of Ireland. Due south you see Wigtonshire
and the lonely Craig of Ailsa, “Paddy’s Milestone,” with Pladda, the
Holy Isle, and Lamlash in the foreground. Looking east, the eye sweeps
round the sunny coast of Ayrshire, taking in Ayr with its tall spire,
Troon, Irvine, and Ardrossan, and inland, the conical Loudon Hill. East
and south-east are the Muirkirk and Cumnock ranges, Cairnsmuir and the
dark mountains between Loch Doon and Loch Trool, several of which are
nearly as high as Goatfell, though, on account of their tangled and
featureless character, they attract little notice.

In the immediate vicinity, and apparently on the same level with
yourself, though really considerably lower, there is probably the most
terrible congregation of jagged mountain ridges to be seen anywhere
in the same compass, and yawning chasms between—all dry, bleak, and
barren in the extreme. Away to the left lies the mighty Glen Sannox,
_i.e._, “the glen of the river trout”—grand and wild and lonely “beyond
the reach of art,” at the foot of which there once stood a chapel
dedicated to St. Michael. Almost at your feet is Glen Rosa, with the
river meandering at the bottom like a silver thread, and the foaming
waterfall of Grabh-alt bounding down the opposite mountain side. We
were slow to leave such a scene, for we felt that we might never see
the like again. At last, with one long soul-satisfying gaze, we bade
farewell to the prospect, which few surely can look upon without a
feeling of awe and a sense of their own insignificance, and which
defies the skill of the painter and engraver.

There are some who make the descent by scrambling down the steep slope
of Glen Rosa; but we had heard that this was a dangerous route, and
that a man-of-war’s man, who, with some shipmates, had previously
made the descent that way under the guidance of a local worthy who
has been up to the top at least once every month in the year, fairly
broke down. We therefore took the advice _Punch_ gave to those about to
marry, “Don’t,” and we didn’t. Come down the way you went up, carefully
observing the track lest you should lose your way and come to grief
among the boulders; once past these you will be out of danger, and will
be able to look around and enjoy the scenery. In coming down you may,
as we did, pass through a herd of deer of close on 150, none of them
putting themselves more about than merely to gaze at us with their
great soft eyes as we pass through their midst. At the kennel turn to
have a look at the old Castle, so often demolished and rebuilt, from
the tower of which Bruce is said to have watched for the fire on the
Turnberry Coast which the faithful Cuthbert was to light, should there
be any hope of striking a blow for Scotland’s freedom. Here also we saw
on our visit a rude deal table, drilled by moths and seasoned with age,
around which the royal exile and his trusty friends were wont to sit
and quaff their wine, drinking revenge to Scotland’s foes. A pleasant
walk will bring you to the road at the old inn, and you are soon at the
pier in time for the steamer.




THE EARL’S SEAT.


A Londoner can get “to Brighton and back for four shillings” in the
height of the season; but we in Glasgow can have a day’s outing
quite as good for half the money, and at any time. It is not “down
the water,” but up to the Earl’s Seat, the highest point in what is
popularly called the Campsie range. Find your way to Strathblane in
the manner most agreeable to your mood. On reaching the station, turn
to the right, past the handsome parish church, the pulpit of which was
long filled by Dr. William Hamilton of astronomical fame, the father of
the still more famous Dr. James Hamilton, of Regent Square, London, and
soon after you will readily find the way up the hillside to the Spout
of Ballagan.

In doing so you can think of the time when the church and lands of
Strathblane were gifted to the hospital of Polmadie, in the parish of
Govan, and how those, with one-half of the lands of “Little Govan,”
seem to have formed the most important endowment of the hospital.
You can think also how the present church occupies the site of the
church that preceded it, and that to the Duntreath family are due many
improvements which have been made in the building in recent years. Much
valuable family history is, we are afraid, slowly decaying among the
weeds and mosses of many a neglected churchyard, but Mr. Guthrie Smith,
in his book on Strathblane, has acted the part of an “Old Mortality” in
this one.

The Spout is a cascade of 70 feet formed by the Blane in its passage to
the valley below, and which, with its surroundings of rock and wood,
presents a scene of the most wild and romantic beauty; the hollow into
which the river plunges being filled up with a vast collection of
gigantic stones piled upon each other, and adorned on its sides with
many alternate strata of various hues.

Anyone can see for himself at a glance at Ballagan the process by which
our mountain glens and gorges are formed—how after a heavy rainfall the
descending waters rush down the watercourses, setting all the boulder
and rock fragments in the bed of the stream in motion. The last of the
old race of the Levenax, or Lennox, had a castle near to and in sight
of this romantic glen, from which fact the range of hills was, and
frequently still is, called the Lennox range, and its highest point
the Earl’s Seat. Ballagan House, which is close at hand, commands a
beautiful view of the fall, and is within hearing of its music, even
when it has not the power to strike a loud note. In flood-time the
Spout is stupendous, and increases its apparent height by covering the
huge masses below so as to vie with the sublimity if not the beauty of
Cora Linn. This may seem to some to be rather strong language, but all
measurement is comparative, and it may be possible to feel that there
is more than prettiness or even grandeur here.

The view, even half way up, is not to be despised, the beauty of
which consists in its “breadth,” as an artist would say. The meadows,
with their green frames of hedges, may be compared to small cabinet
pictures—lovely, but small. This is life-like—a broad cartoon from the
hand of nature. The sward rises and rolls along in undulations like the
slow heave of an ocean wave. Handsome trees of all sorts are scattered
around, under whose ample shade cattle can, and, to judge from the
brown and bare patches around their trunks, evidently do, repose in the
heat of the day. Following up the stream, which in its higher reach is
called the Laggan Burn, we come on two smaller cascades, and after a
pleasant and comparatively easy ascent up the fretted terraces of trap,
reach the summit, 1894 feet above the sea level, 3 miles to the north
of the station we have left, and at the meeting point of Killearn,
Campsie, and Strathblane parishes.

The climb to the top will well repay a visit, as will readily be
believed when we say that the eye embraces a range of scenery extending
all the way from Ben Lomond to Tinto. The prospect before us is of the
most beautiful description; the vast basin of the Clyde from Kilpatrick
to Dechmont lying stretched at our feet, with Glasgow, Paisley, and
many other towns and villages scattered on its breast; while the line
of the horizon is formed by the Gleniffer, Fereneze, and Cathkin braes.
Immediately below us is the valley of the Blane, or Warm River; and
we cannot help acknowledging that Strathblane (the valley of the Warm
River) is a word that is peculiarly descriptive of the valley, which
is sheltered in almost every direction from the violence of the winds.
The probability is that, with part of Campsie (the crooked strath,
according to some), it was at some long-past date a fresh-water loch,
and that subsequently the barriers in the direction of Loch Lomond were
broken down, and the valley drained accordingly. The nature of the soil
contributes to establish this opinion, consisting largely of sand,
gravel, and other comminuted fragments of the neighbouring rocks. The
valley of the Blane, as it winds its way westward from the bare and
desolate conical hill of Dunglass, 400 feet high, on the east, to the
conical and finely wooded hill of Dunquaich, on the west, also 400
feet high, is one of the prettiest in Scotland, quite equal to and not
unlike the drive between Crieff and St. Fillans, which Dr. John Brown,
in his “Horæ Subsecivæ,” calls the finest 13 miles in Scotland.

Looking south we have to the left a view of Lennox Castle, the seat of
a branch of the ancient earldom of Lennox, rebuilt in the boldest style
of Norman architecture, nearly 500 feet above the level of the sea, and
commanding a most extensive and picturesque prospect; and a little to
the west are the gentle undulations of the Craigallion table land, with
the venerable Mugdock Castle, of unascertained antiquity, the scene of
many bacchanalian orgies on the part of the Earl of Middleton and his
associates, who, after the restoration of Charles II., were seeking to
subvert the liberties of their country.

But Mugdock, which to most of us suggests a magnificent water supply,
has a history long anterior to the Restoration period. All the
authorities agree that about the year 750 a great battle was fought
at Maesydauc between the invading Picts under Talargan, one of their
kings, and the Cymric Britons under their king Tendeor. After a bloody
battle, the Picts were defeated and their king slain. Dr. Skene, than
whom there is no higher authority, identifies this battlefield with
the present Mugdock, in the parish of Strathblane. The field of battle
can be traced with but little difficulty. The Cymric army was posted
on the high ground on Craigallion, then part of Mugdock, above and to
the east and west of the Pillar Craig, with outposts stationed on the
lower plateau to the north. There they awaited the Picts, who came up
Strathblane valley through Killearn from the north on their way to the
interior of Cumbria or Strathclyde. Near the top of the Cuilt Brae,
in a line with the Pillar Craig, there is a rock still called Cat
Craig, _i.e._, Cad Craig, meaning the “Battle Rock.” In their efforts
to dislodge the Cymric army, whom they could not leave in their rear,
the Picts, doubtless, had penetrated thus far, and here the battle
began. It was continued all over Blair or Blair’s Hill, _i.e._, “the
Hill of Battle”—the rising ground on Carbeth Guthrie which commands
the valley of the Blane—and Allereoch or Alreoch, _i.e._, “the King’s
Rock,” was certainly so named from being the place where King Talargan
fell when the defeated Picts were being driven back to the north-west.
The standing stones to the south-east of Dungoyach probably mark the
burial-place of Cymric or Pictish warriors who fell in the bloody
battle of Mugdock.

Immediately opposite is Craigmaddie Wood and Moss, with the far-famed
Auld Wives’ Lifts, which are well worthy of a visit themselves, not
only on account of their position and their size, but also of the
uncertainty of their origin. Some regard them as the work of witches,
which is about as good a way of getting out of a difficult as the
Highland minister had, who always said when he came to some knotty
point, “But this is a mystery, my brethren; we will just boldly look
it in the face and then pass on.” Some regard them as the work of
glacial action, and yet others as a gigantic Druidical altar, on which
in some far-off period the dark rites of Pagan worship may have been
celebrated. We tried, but with little success, to give our mind to this
difficult problem, and finding the air “vara halesome”—quite too much
so, indeed—we made short work of some sandwiches, which, fortunately
for us, were thicker than those we get at Lang’s.

Time should be taken to have a look at the prehistoric wall above
Craigbarnet, and also at the great stone, “Clach Arthur,” on the brow
of the hill, said to mark the site of one of King Arthur’s victories.
The remains of the wall are still perfectly visible, and can be traced
as far as the Ballagan Burn. From the height above that burn a good
view is had of the wall running on westward towards Dungoin.

Earl’s Seat is flanked east and west by two hills, and it sends off
from its southern slope not only Ballagan Burn, up which we came, but
Fin Burn, passing down through Fin Glen, a little to the east. We make
this our route homeward, which, though less known than its neighbour
Campsie, or, more correctly, Kirkton Glen, is little inferior in
attraction, and for at least its length, its volume of water, and its
cascade is much superior. As we descend we have time to have a look at
Crichton’s Cairn, immediately above Campsie, so called, according to
one account, in memory of a local Hercules of that name, who, after
taking a wager to carry up a load of meal to the top, succeeded in
doing so, but died immediately after; and according to another, in
memory of a smuggler of that name who was overtaken and killed there
by gaugers. There is still another account of the matter, viz., that
Crichton committed suicide up there by hanging himself. “If this is the
true version, it is one of the most determined cases on record, as the
poor man would require to take the hanging apparatus with him.” Below
the cairn is the well-known Craw Road, between Fintry and Campsie,
by which in 1745 a detachment of Highlanders came south to join the
Chevalier, and a visit to the bend of which is supposed by some to be
“good for the whooping cough.”

Getting to the bottom of Fin Glen, and keeping to the left, we soon
find ourselves in the far-famed Campsie Glen, with its Craigie Linn,
about 50 feet high, and its Jacob’s Ladder. The little churchyard
across the burn is worth a visit with its ruined belfry, its graves of
Bell, the traveller; Muir, the Campsie poet; and Collins, the parish
minister, who was murdered coming home from a meeting of the Glasgow
Presbytery in 1648 by a neighbouring laird who wanted to marry his
wife. The tombstones are chiefly flat, reminding one of the times,
not so long ago, when the graves of the dead were watched during
the night by the parishioners in turn to prevent the eager student
of anatomy stealing the bodies away. In former times funerals were
conducted on different principles from those in fashion to-day. In the
neighbourhood of Campsie when the head of a family died the custom at
one time prevailed of issuing a general invitation to the parishioners
to attend the funeral. The guests were usually accommodated in a barn,
where refreshments, consisting of cake, bread and cheese, ale and
whisky, were served in no stinted way. The proceedings began early
in the forenoon, but the “lifting,” as the removal of the coffin from
the house was popularly styled, did not take place till well on in the
afternoon. As a rule the coffin was carried to the place of interment
on hand-spokes. After a modest refreshment in the adjoining inn, we
make for the station, and reach Glasgow after a most enjoyable outing
of six hours.




DUNMYAT.


We started the other day for the top of Dunmyat, the nearest and most
picturesque peak of the Ochil range. If you have not been on its
summit there is a treat in store for you. We take the train from Queen
Street to Stirling, thence by car to Causewayhead, the most fitting
place from which to begin the pedestrian part of our journey. Taking
the road through the village, up the hill, and keeping to the right,
past the Wallace Monument, we soon find ourselves at the Parish Church
of Logie. We look into the churchyard a little further on, where we
admire the most simple and modest epitaph it was ever our lot to read,
over the grave of General Sir James A. Alexander, lately deceased, “He
tried to do his duty.” Keeping up past the gardener’s house, by a very
pleasant sylvan road, half-grown with grass and self-sown ash and other
trees, we come to the road to Sheriff Muir, about a mile up. We might
have reached this point from the Bridge of Allan (or the Bridge, as it
is locally called), _via_ St. Ann’s Road, but consider that we have
come unquestionably the most picturesque route. Keeping to the right
for a quarter of a mile, we find a gate which admits us to the moor.
Following an easterly north-easterly direction, now through what will
be in autumn a red sea of heather, and now through what is already a
diminutive forest of brackens, over hill and dale, too numerous to
mention, meeting occasionally a sheep or two feeding on the grass
(which seems more fresh and green the higher we go) and apparently
wondering how ever we came there, we reach the summit of Dunmyat, after
a most pleasant walk of two hours from the time we left Causewayhead.

It stands 1375 feet above the sea level, immediately behind another
high hill, which breaks almost sheer down in stupendous rocky cliffs
into the plain between Blairlogie and Menstrie, at Warrock Glen, a
great resort for picnics, where the famous strawberries and cream of
the district are in much request. It is a lovely day, and every little
rocky spur and crevice is seen with such distinctness that one could
imagine only yards instead of miles of space intervening. And, to those
who have time to explore them, how many lovely glens and other natural
beauties are here to be met with! Then, taking a further look, what
a magnificent panorama is here spread for us! Though not so high as
either the King’s Seat, near Dollar, or Bencleugh, near Tillicoultry,
yet from its peculiar position it commands a prospect which for united
gorgeousness and extent is probably not surpassed by any in Britain. We
have under our eye at one time a circular space of a hundred miles in
diameter, comprising nearly one-third of the surface of Scotland and
probably two-thirds of its wealth. On the north the rugged Grampians
rise ridge behind ridge. There they all are, the Bens rising one over
the other in tumbled confusion—the real Highland hills, peaks, and wild
valleys, stormy summits, and dark, dismal clefts, dimly stretching away
to the regions of the setting sun. Nearer hand are the well-wooded
plains of Perthshire, a part of which is concealed by the spurs and
branches of the Ochils themselves. On the west you can distinguish the
summits of Ben More, Ben Ledi, and Ben Lomond, and other smaller hills.
On the south we have the vast and fertile region extending from the
Campsie Hills to the Lammermoor chain, including Edinburgh, Arthur’s
Seat, the Bass Rock, and the Pentland Hills. The Devon, rendered
classic by Scott, a peculiarly winding river, after having made a
complete circuit of the Ochil range, is seen to fall into the Forth
at Cambus, almost directly opposite the spot where it rises, on the
opposite side of the hill. The Forth is seen immediately below in all
its serpentine contortions, and yet clear, luminous, and tranquil as a
mirror, enshrined in the centre of a richly-cultivated country. It will
give you some idea of its wonderful windings to know that it is 7 miles
by road to Alloa and 21 miles by water.

The Forth can here be traced almost from its source in the vicinity
of Loch Ard, the country of Rob Roy, to where it joins the German
Ocean; and the windings in its upper part, with the islets, capes,
and peninsulas which they form, are seen to more advantage here than
from Stirling Castle, and the lower part of the Firth is specked with
little vessels, and perhaps a steamboat, which give life and interest
to the scene. There may be a feeling of disappointment in looking
over to Stirling Castle, that it hardly answers to expectation in the
way of nobility of outline. But there still remains the Royal palace
with its quadrangle quaint and bizarre, adorned, as we know it to be,
with the grotesque statues attributed to the taste of James V., the
“Gudeman of Ballengeich.” The Carse of Stirling, 60 miles in length
and from 10 to 15 in breadth, with decayed and modern mansions, snug
farm houses, hamlets, towns and villages, cornfields and meadows,
float indistinctly on the view, till all seem lost in aerial tints.
Immediately in front of us is the Wallace Monument, a lofty tower of
baronial architecture, 220 feet high, crowning the Abbey Craig, which
of itself is about 400 feet high, near the base of which Wallace
concealed the principal part of his forces before the battle of
Stirling in 1297, which proved so disastrous to the English. If we
are not mistaken the genesis of the tower was as follows:—A monument
to Wallace had been long talked about. In 1818 a gentleman offered
£1000 to erect a monument to the hero on Arthur’s Seat or Salisbury
Crags. Some people have the idea that all the good things should go to
Edinburgh. However, after dragging out a miserable existence for years,
this project fell through. In 1856 a bitter attack on the memory of
Wallace appeared in the _North British Review_. Mr. Brown, the managing
proprietor of the _Glasgow Daily Bulletin_, replied with such telling
effect that a committee was immediately formed for the erection of
a national monument. Glasgow Green was proposed, but it was finally
arranged that it should be built on the Abbey Craig, Stirling, which
has the advantage of overlooking the scene of the memorable battle of
Stirling Bridge. It is one of the finest sites in the country, and one
wonders now how any other place was proposed, as from its commanding
situation it can be seen for miles around, and from the top of it you
have one of the finest views in the country. The eye can behold the
scene of six battles, viz.:—Cambuskenneth, where the battle was fought
between the Scots and the Picts; the battle of Stirling Bridge; the
plains of Bannockburn; the battle of Sauchie Burn, when King James III.
was cruelly murdered in the miller’s cottage; also where the Duke of
Argyll fought the Earl of Mar and the Jacobite clans in 1715. A little
farther south is Cambuskenneth Abbey and Bannockburn, redolent of Bruce
and fighting in the past, and carpets and tartans in the present.

Between the Abbey Craig and the foot of Dunmyat we have the
mansion-house of Airthrey, with its pretty wooded policies and its
artificial lakes. To the immediate north of Dunmyat is Sheriffmuir,
called so, no doubt, from having been one of those plains or moors on
which the wapinschaws, a feat of arms of the Middle Ages, took place
under the inspection of the Sheriffs. It was the scene of a very
sanguinary though indecisive battle during the Rebellion of 1715, on
the same day on which the Pretender’s army surrendered at Preston.
Both armies claimed the victory, and hence the well-known sarcastic
lines—

            There’s some say that we wan,
            And some say that they wan,
        And some say that nane wan at a’, man;
            But ae thing I’m sure,
            That at Sheriffmuir
        A battle there was, that I saw, man;
    And we ran and they ran, and they ran and we ran,
        And we ran, and they ran awa’, man.

It was in connection with this battle that we heard of a Highlander who
had lost at it his “faither and twa brithers, and a gude black belt
that was mair worth than them a’.” Half a mile north of the base of
Dunmyat there is a very fine well, which issues from more than sixty
springs, and bears the name of the Holy Well, and is said to have been
anciently an object of superstitious veneration and crowded resort on
the part of Roman Catholics. And this reminds us that over yonder,
across the wonderful valley that separates this range of hills from its
nearest neighbour, are the Touch Hills, and that there, amid the sweet
air of May, early in the morning of the first Sunday of the month,
crowds used to assemble to drink the water of St. Corbet’s spring, and
believed that by so doing they would secure health for another year.
Old persons were alive about half a century ago who remembered having
in their young days joined the health-seekers on these occasions.

Dunmyat, like the rest of the Ochils, is a rich field to the geologist
and mineralogist. But for this it must be examined where it abuts on
the highway. Its general character, however, is that of a great igneous
mound developing itself in felspar and porphyry, and occasionally in
fine pentagonal columns of basaltic greystone. It is penetrated by
large workable veins of barytes.

Having once more feasted our eyes on the fair prospect, and recalled
to mind those and other historical associations, we proceed to descend
on the east side towards the beautifully wooded glen of Menstrie. This
can be done in less than half the time we took to reach the summit
from Logie. It is as well to proceed for the first 50 or 60 feet with
caution, for the freshness and abundance of the grass is apt to conceal
the steepness of the hill at that part. Crossing a cart track which
leads to a shepherd’s house up the glen of Menstrie, the only house
that is visible looking northward from the summit, and keeping to the
right, we soon reach the first house of the village, which is styled
by the natives “Windsor Castle.” From its elaborate coat of arms, it
seems to have belonged to some noble family, but, _miserabile dictu_,
it is now tenanted by quite a host of the great unwashed. A popular
rhyme assumes some spirit of fairyland to have formerly loved Menstrie
for its rural beauty, but to have been driven away from it by the
introduction of its manufacturing mills, and represents the phantom as
sometimes saying pathetically at dead of night—

    Oh, Alva woods are bonnie,
      Tillicoultry hills are fair,
    But when I think o’ Menstrie,
      It maks my heart ay sair.

But we make for the train, which is just at hand, feeling that we could
willingly take the same journey at least once a year, and in another
hour we are at Queen Street.




AT THE TOP OF BEN DONICH.


Notwithstanding the fact that it had rained for two days previously, we
determined to get to the top of Ben Donich, not that it is very high,
but that its central position affords far-reaching views, such as many
higher hills can lay no claim to. It is in the midst of a network of
inland lochs, and the range of high hills, not to call them mountains,
not a hundred miles away from the better-known “Cobbler.” The ordinary
way to reach it is to take the steamer to Lochgoilhead. When there,
there is a temptation to follow the crowd, in the shape of the
passengers for St. Catherine’s and Inveraray per the coach road, which
is commonly said to be the only road out of Lochgoilhead, and which
was a famous drive in the days of old John Campbell, who with every
crack of his whip delighted to crack a joke at the expense of some
incautiously inquisitive tourist. But we deny ourselves the pleasure of
a view of Inveraray and the beautiful seat of the Macallum More, and a
peep into Hell’s Glen from that end of it; so we turn up between the
grocer’s shop and the Free Church.

The village is no sooner left behind us than we have to put a stout
heart to a steep brae. We soon reach the Donich Burn, with its shoals
and rapids, its large stones and deep pools, which, although specially
dear to the angler, has charms for everybody. We approach cautiously
and watch the trout—how alternately mouth and gills open and close,
keeping up an incessant pumping—as they lie behind stones watching for
luckless flies. Passing over to the other side as at once the quickest
route, and that by which the best views are to be got, we are not very
far up till we can see the hills that hem in Loch Long on all its
sides, standing up weird-like, jagged and fissured, grim and gruesome,
even in fine weather, lending sublime impressiveness to the scene. But
the view is one that should be seen on its own merits, not in one, but
in varying aspects, if it is to be viewed aright.

We felt that if we had been here on either of the two days preceding,
in rain and dripping mist, blurring and blotting out the mountain
tops, we would have had sufficient compensation in the enlarged size
and music of the waterfalls. Even as it was we could see almost every
rift and gully on all the hillsides, flashing with small cataracts,
which twisted and whirled in mid-air as they fell like veils of silvery
gauze. After a day or two’s rain every brawling burn becomes a torrent,
and rushes down the valley with resistless force—leaping from rocky
heights into water-worn cauldrons that roar, and seethe, and eddy
amidst a mist of rebounding spray.

In little more than an hour’s walk from where we cross the burn,
through bog and heather alternately, we get near to what seems the
summit, now sinking an inch or two till we touch the stem of what may
be a pre-Adamite tree slowly turning into peat, and now almost putting
our foot on the tail of a grouse, which first gets a fright, and then
gives its back to us as we startle at the “whirr, whirr,” with which it
hurries off beyond our reach.

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.


Guide-books are but too often blind guides, as they present certain
objects for our admiration, which are accordingly visited and admired,
but leave out all mention even of others of as great, if not greater,
interest. For example, there rises up from the margin of the Queen of
Scottish Lakes, Lomond, at its south end, about 3 miles from Balloch,
a little mount, easy of access even to those who can only afford a
Saturday afternoon to visit it, from which undoubtedly the best view of
the loch is to be obtained. Here, if anywhere on earth, are congregated
the choicest elements of pictorial wealth.

Take a return ticket to Balloch Station (not Balloch Pier); on
arriving cross the Leven by the graceful suspension bridge, keep on
the Kilmaronock road till you come to Haldane’s Mill, so-called from
a former proprietor; then turn to the left, pass Balloch Castle, the
seat of A. D. Brown, Esq., and when arrived at Boturich Castle, R.
Finlay’s, Esq., you will find a path on the right which will lead you,
without any difficulty of a physical kind, to the top, a quarter of a
mile up. It would be as well to ask permission, however, at some of
the officials close by to make the ascent, as, on account of a stupid
vandalism on the part of excursionists, the proprietor has had lately
to become somewhat conservative in his policies.

It is not known how this beautiful spot came to get such an unhappy
name, but unless he had been atrabilious on the day he visited it,
or had been a Southerner, who could not appreciate the beauties of a
Scotch mist, its inventor could neither have had heart nor eye for
the wilder beauties of nature, nor been a lover of the romantic. The
steamer can take you up and down the loch to see its beauties of one
kind and another, and there is not a finer sail in any part of the
three kingdoms; but yet it is only a very faint and limited idea of
its splendid scenery that one can get from the deck of a steamer. To
get anything like an adequate conception of its many beauties you must
ascend one or more of its hilltops. And for such a purpose we would
strongly recommend Mount Misery.

Here, looking towards the head of the loch, it is seen in its greatest
breadth, stretched out like a scroll beneath your feet. Here, also, it
is seen in its greatest length, the eye reaching almost as far up as
to Tarbet. You have a full view of its islands, which in a general way
may be said to be as numerous as its miles in length, from the entrance
of the Falloch to the exit of the Leven, and also of the different
mountain ranges on its east and west banks, which seem to meet at
the top, shutting up the prospect and mingling their bold and broken
outline with the sky. Here, also, you get a view of its many curves and
windings, now seeing it swelling out into a breadth of 7 or 8 miles,
and then compressing itself into the narrow compass of something less
than a mile. You can also understand, as you look at those high hills
at its northern end, how it should sometimes have a depth of 600 feet,
and how, partly from this fact, and from those others, that there are
many shelving rocks at the bottom, and that the latter always run in
one direction (there being no tide), it is rarely that the bodies of
the “drowned” in it are recovered. Here, also, you can see some of its
principal feeders, such as the Fruin, the Finlas, the Luss, and Douglas
on the left, with the Endrick on the right, which, with its other
tributaries, are said to pour in a larger supply of water than the
Leven takes away.

Immediately in front of you is Inchmurrin, the longest of the islands,
fully half-a-mile long, which the Duke of Montrose uses as a deer
park. It is beautifully wooded. Brown seems the most becoming colour
for this season of the year. The summer dies gloriously in leafy places
with such a splendour of beauty that it is difficult to recognise it
as decay. The golden and brown leaves, mingling with the greens that
still retain their colour, are pleasant accompaniments of the season.
But we need not look so far away for autumnal tints. They are all round
us. The golden brown hues of the pheasant hang in every leaf; the
bird itself, wonderfully protected by nature, stands among herbage,
wearing his colours and eyeing the wayfarer as he passes. And what can
look warmer and more comfortable than those brown brackens which are
everywhere? And are they really brown? They look so in the distance,
but near they are yellow as well as brown; and some are a beautiful
bronze, and in sheltered spots the lady ferns are just as green and
fresh as they were in July and early August.

But once more for the loch and its islands. Inchmurrin has at its
west end the ruins of an old castle which was inhabited in former
times by the family of Lennox. The Duchess of Albany resided here
after the execution at Stirling, in 1425, and within sight of their
own castle at Doune, of her husband, father, and two sons, on the
restoration of James First. She herself was for some time confined
in Tantallon Castle, but on her release she resided here. Passing
over the two smaller islands of Creinge and Torinch, you have to the
right Inchcailliach, the largest and probably the most lovely of all,
notable as being the burial-place of the Macgregors. “Upon the halidom
of him that sleeps beneath the grey stone at Inchcailliach!” was a
favourite oath among the members of this warlike clan. Rob Roy used it
when promising the Bailie payment of his money. It is sometimes called
the Nun’s Island, or “the Island of Old Women,” from a nunnery which
once stood there; and when seen from the direction of the Endrick its
outline resembles that of a dead human body, from which it is called
sometimes the corpse of Loch Lomond. To the east of it is the small
island of Clairinch, from which the Clan Buchanan took their slogan or
battle cry, “Clair Inch.” To the west of it is Inchfad, or the Long
Island, close to which, and in a dry season, within wadeable distance
of it, is Darroch Eilan, the general lunching rendezvous. Here, also,
there is a mighty oak, which has sheltered generations of anglers,
and of poachers too, for even to this day the “otter” is here used
in spite of honour or law. To the west of Inchfad is Inchcruin, or
the Round Island, an island which for many years formed an asylum for
insane boarders; it is also the unwilling resort of those who “cannot
take a little without taking too much,” and therefore it has the sadly
significant cognomen of “the Drunken Island.”

To the west of this is Inchmoan, or the Peat Island, which is covered
with moss. It is sometimes called “the Gull Island,” and in the spring
one has to be very careful how he walks, as nests with one, two, or
more eggs are scattered everywhere. To the south-west of this there is
a small island, Inchgalbraith, with a ruin which at one time must have
been a place of considerable strength, but to visit which is sometimes
resented by the jackdaws who have taken possession of it, and, like
the crofters, refuse to quit. North of Inchmoan is the large island
of Inchconachan, or Dog’s Isle, a Colquhoun’s island, covered with
oak and fir, but quite uninhabited. To the west of those two is Inch
Tavannach, or Monks’ Island, so called from its having been the site
of a monastery. This island has also frequently been converted into a
kind of sanatorium for dipsomaniacs, and is celebrated for having many
of our finest British ferns. There is a narrow strait between these
last two, near the northern entrance of which a stone is visible at low
water, from which tradition says that the Gospel used to be preached
to audiences on both islands, and this stone is still called “The
Minister’s Stone.” A little to the north of those is Inch Lonaig, “the
Yew Island,” remarkable for its old yew trees, some of which are said
to have been planted by the Bruces.

Turning now from the loch to its surroundings, from the waterscape
to the many landscapes that as a frame enclose the picture, you have
close at hand the beautifully-wooded conical hill of Duncruin, with
Ross Priory projecting into the loch, a favourite place with Sir
Walter Scott, who wrote “Rob Roy” while living here as the guest of
Mr. Hector Macdonald, an Edinburgh advocate of that time. It is not
difficult, apart from his friendship with the master of the place, to
understand Scott’s attraction to the house. He was keenly alive to the
beauty of woodland and loch; and the district around was teeming with
memories—every glen the home of a romance. We find the influence of
these upon him in some of the most famous episodes in “Rob Roy” and
“The Lady of the Lake.” The Priory has, however, a much sadder story
to tell—that of the betrayal of the Marquis of Tullibardine, eldest
son of the Duke of Athole, who after Culloden took refuge with his
former friend, Buchanan of the Ross. Buchanan, however, betrayed him,
the Marquis hurling out the imprecation as he was taken prisoner,
“There’ll be Murrays on the Braes of Athole when there’s ne’er a
Buchanan at the Ross,” and the prophecy has been fulfilled. Beyond this
we have the fertile valley and the mouth of the Endrick, with Buchanan
House, the seat of the Duke of Montrose. The valley of the Endrick is
celebrated in the old song of “The Gallant Graham” as “Sweet Enerdale,”
stretching far up to the hills at Killearn, which, with its monument to
George Buchanan, “the father of modern Liberalism,” we easily recognise.

Though in his time Lord Privy Seal of Scotland, Moderator of the Kirk,
and tutor to James VI. of Scotland and I. of England, Buchanan openly
advocated tyrannicide, maintaining that “tyrants should be ranked
amongst the most ferocious beasts.” Professor Morley, in his eighth
volume of “English Writers,” has devoted a large space to this great
yet simple-minded man. The picture of the great scholar—the greatest,
perhaps, in the Europe of his day—teaching his serving-man in his
death-chamber “a-b, ab—e-b, eb,” &c., and defying the “British Solomon”
and “all his kin” in the same breath, is surely worthy of the brush of
some one of the numerous artists to whom Scotland has given birth. We
charge nothing for the suggestion.

And there is the steamer on her upward trip going into Balmaha, where
there is the famous pass along which the Highland clans were accustomed
when on the “war path” to direct their march into the Lowlands. Rob Roy
often took this route, and, in the words of Scott—

    Kept our stoutest kernes in awe,
    Even at the Pass of Beal’maha.

Above this you see Conie Hill, 1175 feet high, with the huge Ben Lomond
in the distance. You can see, standing between Drymen Station and
Kilmaronock Church, Catter House, near which the Lennox family had a
castle, that stood on the Moot Hill, a large artificial mound, where
justice was administered in former times, and on which stood the earl’s
gallows, a necessary appendage to a feudal court, especially on the
borders of the Highlands.

Turning now from the east side of the loch to its west, from what
might be called its Montrose side to its Colquhoun side, we have in
close succession not far off the splendid mansion houses of Cameron,
Auchendennan, Auchenheglish, and Arden. Immediately above Arden is
Glen Fruin (the Glen of Sorrow), coming down from near Garelochhead.
It has the ruins of an ancient castle of the Colquhouns, and it was
here that a fierce conflict took place between the Macgregors and
the Colquhouns in 1602, when the latter were routed with a loss of
200 men, the Macgregors only losing two, one of them, however, being
John, the brother of the chief. It is this battle which is popularly
called “The Field of Lennox.” It is said that the Macgregors also put
to death in cold blood some 80 youths, popularly called “the Students
of Dumbarton,” who had gone out to see the fight. A short time before
this Sir A. Colquhoun had appeared before James the Sixth at Stirling,
and complained of the cruel murders committed by the Macgregors, and to
give emphasis to his complaint he was attended by a considerable number
of women who carried the bloody shirts of their husbands and sons. The
king gave him a commission to repress the crimes and apprehend their
perpetrators, and the battle of Glen Fruin was the result. And this in
its turn led to the king issuing letters of fire and sword against the
Clan Gregor, to the confiscation of their lands. Their clan name was
proscribed by Act of the Privy Council. But the Acts passed against
them were repealed in 1775. Till then, however, the members of the clan
usually took the name of various landed proprietors. Thus, the famous
Rob Roy, who died in 1736, was Campbell, after the family name of his
patron, the Duke of Argyll.

Not far up the glen from Arden there is the hill of Dunfion, which is
said to have been at one time the residence of Fingal, and traces of a
fortress said to have been built by him are still pointed out. Two and
a-half miles farther up you can see Ross Dhu (the black promontory), on
which is the tower of the ancient castle of the Luss family, and their
mausoleum near it; the mansion-house standing on a promontory almost
surrounded by water.

Taking one more soul-filling look up to the mighty Ben, on the side of
the loch, and to the hills at its head, chief among which, and closing
the distant vista, is Ben Voirlich, it is perhaps time to think of the
train, for yonder is the “Queen” coming down the loch. As you begin to
retrace your steps do not forget that standing on this hill you can see
Renton, where Smollett the historian was born; Killearn, where George
Buchanan first saw the light of day; and Garlios, the birthplace of
Napier, the inventor of logarithms—all of whom added a new lustre to
the literature and science of Scotland. Also take a peep at Tillichewan
in its sylvan beauty, and the gentle slopes of the hillside forming
such a picturesque background to it. And in recrossing the bridge it
will help you to pay your second halfpenny with more complacency if
you remember that possibly before the creation of man this valley
was covered with the dashing waves of the Atlantic and German Oceans.
For at that far back period all Scotland was under water except its
highest peaks, which would then be like so many islands in one great
sea. Down the stream a little way is Alexandria, suggestive of the
lost Cleopatra’s Needle in the past and British influence in the
present. And it may surprise you to learn that this grand mouth-filling
name is one of recent date comparatively, and that its former title
was of a more homely kind—namely, “The Grocery,” from a store which
formerly kept the indispensable articles shadowed forth in that word of
unclassical derivation. As you pass it directly in the train you see it
to be now a large and prosperous place, which requires more than one
“Grocery”—a place

    Where cloth’s printed, dyed, and steamed,
    Bleached, tentered, in the water streamed,
    Starched, mangled, calender’d, and beamed,
    And folded very carefully.

You reach Glasgow five hours after leaving the hill, with many pleasant
recollections of your trip to Mount Misery.




BEN LEDI.


The most popular excursion in Scotland, both with ourselves and with
strangers from all parts of the world, is that which takes us to, and
through, the Trossachs. But it is somewhat unfortunate that the idea
exists in the public mind that it is an impossible excursion to any but
rich people on account of its expense. We propose to-day to lead any
who are willing to follow us to one of our Scottish mountains which
more than any other may feel proud of its surroundings, which is, so
to speak, at the very gate of the Trossachs, and to reach and climb
which demands no great expenditure of time or of money although we can
scarcely add strength, for Ben Ledi is not one of the easiest of our
western hills to climb.

And yet it was not till Sir Walter Scott threw the spell of his genius
over this district that it was regarded as anything else than a
desolate, cut-throat country, into which no decent folk could venture.

Our route of course is _via_ Stirling, with its rock and Castle and
history; Dunblane, and its ancient cathedral with memories of good
Bishop Leighton, and its window facing us, which Ruskin has pronounced
the finest of its kind in the country; Doune, with its mills and old
castle, to Callander, lying about 256 feet above the level of the sea,
on the banks of the river Teith. Here we get our first view of the Ben
4½ miles to the north-west, and prepare to take our walk for the day.

When it is remembered that with the exception of the episode at
Stirling Castle, the whole scenes of the _Lady of the Lake_ lie within
the parish which gives its name to and has its centre in the town of
Callander, it will be at once seen that it would be superfluous on our
part to describe the scenery _en route_ to the base of Ben Ledi. The
best guide book here is the _Lady of the Lake_, “every step and every
scene being made classic in the beautiful and vivid word-painting of
that poem.”

The ascent can be best made from Portnanellen about 2¾ miles from
Callander, in the immediate vicinity of Coilantogle Ford. This was
“Clan Alpine’s outmost guard,” the place where Roderick Dhu stood
vantageless before Fitz James; “but it has lost its romance by the
erection of a huge sluice of the Glasgow waterworks.” So thinks a
writer in the latest Ordnance Gazetteer. However, as we make for it,
crossing the Leny, pattering along its stony bed, after it has come
down one of the prettiest passes either in this or any other country,
as we admire the hollies thickly covered with berries, and think what
an added beauty they will have from the first snows of winter, and as
we get a foretaste or two of the mountains and the floods that we are
to see before the day is done, we have neither the time nor the mind to
be disturbed by thoughts of Glasgow and her waterworks.

The best and usual route of ascent can be best learned on the spot
before starting. When a beginning is made the way opens up gradually,
and as we have so much more that is readable to say, we will dispense
with a detailed account of how each of the 3875 feet of the “Mountain
of God” is to be covered.

The Gaelic name read commonly as _beinn-le-dia_ is more correctly
_beinn schleibhte_ or _schleibtean_. According to this latter reading
the Ben is not the “Mountain of God,” but the “Mountain of Mountains,”
or “Mountain girt with sloping Hills.” And this corresponds with its
size and surroundings. It rises from a base of about 11 miles in
circuit; in fact it occupies most of the space between Loch Lubnaig
on the east, Loch Vennachar on the south, and Glenfinlas on the west.
The fact that it has sometimes been called the “Mountain of God” is
not due to the shape or size of the hill itself, but to this, that
Druidical worship lingered on its summit after it had disappeared from
the rest of Scotland.

One of the chief dangers, and one of the principal causes of
discomfort, in climbing Ben Ledi is its liability to mists, and the
number of bogs that surround its base. It is not every stout-legged
counter-jumper who buys a return ticket to Callander, or every pretty
lass who thinks to put colour in her cheeks by the toilsome walk, shall
be allowed to treat the “Mountain of Mountains” with the contempt
begotten of familiarity. They may struggle to the top, only to be
knocked about by “air rending tempests,” or to find that the Ben has
put on the fleecy mantle which the clouds seem ever ready to invest
him with on the shortest notice. They may ascend voluble, expectant,
and dry, but descend much more briskly, sad, sodden, and woefully
disappointed. But even before they get well started, if the weather has
been wet, and they are not careful, they may get occasionally up to the
ankle, and if not, have to struggle at least with some sopping ground.

If, however, a good day is chosen in a dry season, and the mists
should keep away, we can promise you something out of the common run
of things in mountain scenery even in the west of Scotland. It is
said that in many of the towns of Switzerland the best houses were
formerly built with their backs to the Alps as if the view of them
were hateful. The natives, in fact, spoke of the region of ice and
snow as “the evil country.” But those who have made the ascent of Ben
Ledi in the favourable circumstances that I have referred to will
wish not only to set their faces to Ben Ledi, but will be anxious for
another opportunity of enjoying the view from its summit, a view which
commands all the way from the Bass Rock to the Paps of Jura, and from
the Moray Firth to the Lowther Mountains. Loch Vennachar is seen lying
at our feet with its 5 miles of water, and its two islands, one at its
eastern end, and the other, called _Illan-a-Vroin_, or the “island of
lamentation,” further west, and covered with wood. To the south, where
now stands the ruins of an old mill, the Teith flows past. A peep, but
little more, can be had of Invertrossachs House, which was occupied by
the Queen in 1869.

There has been many a visit paid to the summit of Ben Ledi since that
day, but the largest, probably, and certainly the most enthusiastic
party was that which went up to erect the Jubilee Cairn. The loyal
Highlanders and the inhabitants of the classic district embracing Loch
Lubnaig, Loch Vennachar, and Glenfinlas, in answer to a summons, which,
like the “fiery cross,” was carried down the valley of the Teith, and
up the Pass of Leny by the Kirk of St. Bride, erected a cairn on the
top of an older one, which had existed for sometime, but had probably
been blown down by the high winds which sweep across the hills with
great violence. The new cairn, which was erected out of an abundant
supply of building material to be found in the summit, has a base of 14
feet, and its height is equal to its diameter. It is chiefly made up
of great slabs of a slaty sandstone, which had, we understand, to be
dug, in not a few cases, out of the mountain side, in which they were
embedded, in some cases, several feet. At a height of 12 feet the slaty
material was no longer used, and for the next 2 feet, to the summit,
the cairn consists of white quartz, which, when the sun shines upon
it, has a beautiful effect even at some little distance. The fact that
the cairn only took five hours to be “begun, continued, and ended,”
speaks volumes for the number and the diligence of the willing and
loyal workers. And if the cairn is not quite as firm as the “Eddystone
Lighthouse,” it will at least outlive the reign of the next two of our
crowned heads.

But though the jubilee builders were numerous, and although the quartz
on the crown of the cairn can shine and sparkle in the proper given
circumstances, these are as nothing to the concourse of grave Druid
priests who used to worship here, and to the glittering of their
fires far and wide. It is said that at sunset on the night before the
first of May they found their way to this summit ready to welcome the
rising of the God of day with a fire offering, which could be seen
from all parts of the Lowlands of Scotland from the German Ocean to
the Atlantic, and which the superstitious natives took to be kindled
by the hand of God. All private and domestic fires had been put out,
and the country was universally waiting for the first gleam of the new
Bal-tein, or Baal-fire from heaven, for another year.

As we rest behind the Jubilee Cairn to eat our biscuit and cheese, and
get shelter from a stiff north-wester, we again and again look round
in all directions, but the views to be had are at once so grand and
so various that it would only bewilder the reader to go into details,
and we would recommend him to lose no time, but embrace the first
opportunity he has of making the ascent and getting the view himself.
One other reason why we should not go into particulars is that we
have to embrace much of the same prospect that we had on Ben Venue,
although with this difference that we have now a much better view away
to the north.

It is not often that we have a sheet of water on or near the summit
of our Scottish hills; but this is something that Ben Ledi can boast
of. On its shoulder, a little way below us, there is a small and dark
tarn, only a few yards in width, which yet was made the unwilling
witness, nay, worse, participator in a terrible tragedy. The tarn is
called Loch-an-nan-corp—“the small lake of dead bodies,” a name the
origin of which tradition ascribes to the calamity which “once upon a
time,” not to be too particular, overtook a funeral procession there.
Two hundred persons journeying from Glenfinlas to a churchyard on
the pass of Leny, found this lake frozen over and covered with snow,
and attempted to cross it, but the ice gave way and they were all
drowned. An interesting writer in the _Illustrated News_, a year or two
back, a writer who, we are pleased to hear, belongs to Glasgow, says,
writing on this point, “No tablet on that wind-swept moor records the
half-forgotten disaster; only the eerie lapping of the lochlet’s waves
fill the discoverer with strange forebodings, and at dusk, it is said,
the lonely ptarmigan may be seen, like souls of the departed, haunting
the fatal spot.”

Those who, instead of retracing their steps, and coming down again by
Coilantogle, prefer to make for the Pass of Leny, will find at the foot
of the mountain a little mound, close to where the river leaves Loch
Lubnaig, the burying-ground to which the clansmen were carrying their
dead friend. There is now only a low scone wall around this diminutive
grave-yard, but here once stood the small chapel of St. Bride, “which,”
according to Sir Walter Scott, “stood in a small and romantic knoll in
the middle of the valley,” from the Gothic arch of whose doorway, we
read in the _Lady of the Lake_, the happy marriage company were coming
out when Roderick Dhu’s messenger rushed up to the principal one of
the party and thrust into his hands the fiery cross of the Macgregors.
After rounding this knoll we arrive, about a mile farther on, within
sight of Loch Lubnaig, or the “Crooked Lake,” which is some 5 miles
in length, overhung on both sides by rugged hills, and surrounded by
groves of birch, pine, and hazel. We do not know a better position
than the farmhouse of Ardchullary for getting a good view of the loch.
Unless you have provided yourself with a very liberal allowance of the
biscuits and cheese to which we have already referred, you will be
glad to get near to some such kindly and hospitable place. And if you
are a little tired and done up with your day’s travels, additional
interest will attach, in your eyes, to this house, from its having been
the favourite summer quarters of Bruce of Kinnaird, the Abyssinian
traveller, who retired to these solitudes for the purpose of arranging
the materials for the publication of his travels.

The date of our visit to Ben Ledi’s summit was “on or about” the time
when the young grouse begin to lose the number of their covey, and to
learn that every man who treads the moor is not so harmless as the
shepherd, especially when a dog accompanies him. And ever and again we
come across them sitting warily and watchfully among the heather, and
saw them rising far out of gunshot. The grouse, indeed, were now being
deserted for the black game, which, on account of the general lateness
of the grey hen in sitting compared with that of her red sister of the
moor, are allowed a little rest. Of course some men make it a rule to
pull a trigger upon a blackcock how or whenever they can, and some
birds fall to the guns of those who do not know the difference between
heath-fowl and moor-fowl. Most people, indeed, remember the canny reply
of the Scotch keeper to the English sportsman who was out on the moors
for the first time, and had missed what he thought was a grouse. “I
was too soon, Donald, I am afraid,” said the latter. “’Deed, and you
were, sir, eight days too soon; it was an auld blackcock.” We saw over
and again in the course of the day good proof of what we had often
heard that the blackcock is far from a model husband, and anything but
resembles the grouse-cock in his devotion to his mate.

But we must step out on our homeward and southward journey with the
Leny accompanying us in the valley, the road being quite equal, during
its mile or two, to that between Callander and Coilantogle. The river
is low to-day, and runs under banks that are hung with ferns and
lingering foxgloves, with golden rod and harebells, and all the flowers
of the late summer. But in a wet season, when each rivulet along the
mountain side swells into an angry torrent, and from an occasional
cliff “the wild cataract leaps in glory,” it exults in the added
strength of all its hundred turbulent vassals, and rises in its might,
and seething, and struggling, and overflowing its banks, rises and
roars a furious stream.

As we get into Callander again we are passed by the coaches on their
return from Loch Katrine, and when we look at the prancing steeds, the
happy tourists, and last, but not by any means least, the red-coated,
brass-buttoned, and very superior persons who handle the whip and
reins, we have no difficulty in seeing why it is that there should
be in our days a coaching revival, even on routes where there is the
opportunity of travelling by train. There is no more delightful way
of spending a summer day, given sunshine and warmth, than to have a
drive on a well-appointed coach, behind an accomplished whip, and four
“spanking” horses.

We are not at all sorry, however, that this particular outing did
not take that special shape, and although we cannot claim to be the
first to bring the glories and the attractions of Ben Ledi into view,
as Mrs. Murray did in the case of the beauties of the Trossachs, and
who claimed that Sir Walter Scott should have dedicated the _Lady of
the Lake_ to her (although her claim has not generally been allowed),
we feel that we have done something at least to tempt some Glasgow
excursionists to follow us, and climb the hill for themselves.




THE MEIKLE BEN.


It was our Autumn Holiday, and we had decided on a run to one of the
choicest spots which abound within a reasonable distance of Glasgow. Of
course we wanted to do as much as possible, which is not always wise,
especially when there are one or two in the party with different tastes
and different muscular capacities. But having got a general idea of
our plan, we started, leaving that “divinity that shapes our ends” to
give the turn to our holiday which we believed would bring us the best
results.

It was a fine balmy morning, becoming overcast, however, as the train
hurried on to Milton of Campsie, and when we left the station and
started on our way for the Meikle Ben, or Bin, as it is more popularly
called, the rain greeted us a little freely. It may be that some
of our readers have not even heard of the Meikle Ben. In that case
we claim from them a little of the respect and gratitude which all
discoverers are entitled to and as a rule get ungrudgingly. In spite
of an unpretentious and unromantic name, the Meikle Ben is not only
a spot of wonderful beauty, but the approach to the place as well as
its immediate surroundings are decidedly much above the dead level of
topographical mediocrity.

On leaving the station we cross the Glazert, as it travels on to meet
the Kelvin, in a wild rocky channel fretted by the flood of ages. We
take the first road to the right, which runs past Antirmony House,
formerly the seat of Bell, the traveller, and in more recent years the
residence of Mr. C. M. King, a younger brother of the amiable and busy
baronet of Levernholm. A few yards along this road bring us to the
village school, up past the side of which we take, and make as best we
can for the top of a bold brown range now immediately in front of us.

Long before we get halfway to the top of the range we take repeated
opportunities of noticing how sharply and distinctly its outline is
defined against the horizon, and how clearly the scars and wrinkles on
its broad and openly honest face stand out. As we continue our climb up
the braes we notice with pleasure that the lights and shades on their
breast are beautifully intermingled, a sure sign that there will be
little rain to-day. Before we reach the northern slope we take a look
at Antirmony Loch at our feet, a little to the east, one of the finest
sheets of water within 20 miles of Glasgow, and at Glorat House, about
as far to the west, the residence of one of the oldest families in the
county (Sir Charles Stirling).

On reaching the summit we are only some 12 miles or so from the dusty,
drowsy, smoky metropolis, and yet are in what may be called the Lowland
Highlands. We stand upon an eminence of only a few hundred feet above
sea level, and yet the landscape stretched out below is sufficiently
wide and varied to warrant us in thinking that we stand much higher
in the world. Right below us are the little hamlets of Milton and
Birdston, with Kirkintilloch and Lenzie, and their church spires
standing out clear and bright in the glowing sunshine. To the right is
the cosy-looking strath of Campsie, commanded by Lennox Castle, in the
boldest style of Norman architecture. The proprietor is said to be in
the direct succession of the Earls of Lennox, but this is a subject on
which our limited genealogical knowledge forbids us to enlarge.

Away in the south-west we catch a glimpse of Glasgow, cloud-capped and
grey; beyond it are the flats of Renfrew and the surrounding country,
the monotony of which in a clear day is somewhat relieved by the blue
tops of the Paisley and Kilmalcolm hills. Looking across the valley
at our feet we can see the streams trickle like silver threads, and
the sunbeams tremble and play in mingled gleams of green and yellow.
Wonderful hills those old Campsie hills, with what might be called the
Garden of Scotland at their base (for is not this the earliest part of
Scotland, speaking from an agricultural point of view?) and the glory
of God’s sunshine on their brows. Those in city pent, and those whose
days are for the most part spent in the rush and crush of business
could not enjoy an afternoon to more profit and pleasure than up here.
From the summit of these hills, down past the eastern base of the
Meikle Ben a little to the north of us, there is no carriage drive to
the Fintry and Denny Road; but, for all that, the walk does not seem
to be one of any great difficulty, whereas, on the other hand, the way
would be beguiled by scenes of rarest beauty. We have made the stiff
uphill walk or climb to this in a little less than an hour; but the
bracing air, the scenery around us, far and near, and some pleasant
seats on the soft turf have made us forget all fatigue.

We have to dip down a little on the other side before we begin the
ascent of the Ben pure and simple. As we do so we lose sight of
all human habitations, and for a mile or more not even a tree or
shrub is to be seen except the heather. We have heard it said that a
would-be suicide who was anxious to “lay hands on himself” by hanging
up here was frustrated in a very simple fashion. He found it would be
impossible to carry out his horrid purpose in this “heaven-kissing”
locality unless he could manage to throw a coil over the horn of
the moon, a blaeberry bush or a clump of heather being the nearest
approach to a tree which could be found. We begin to wonder why there
is such an extent of land lying waste, and our mind naturally turns to
the poor crofter, or once more to the overcrowded dens in our large
cities. We are ready to exclaim, “Why, here is sufficient land to
sustain thousands of our population, and we have been quite ignorant
of it,” but when we examine the soil we find that the crop it grows
is sufficient for black cattle and sheep, but could not be easily
cultivated for the support of man.

The summit of our hill is not at all difficult now to reach, although,
as the “Gazetteer” tells us, it is 1870 feet high. But we may be said
to have been climbing it ever since we left Milton. And now we see,
what can only be seen when we are close to it, that it is really a
hill of itself. To those who live a few miles to the south, our Ben
appears only a large cairn on the highest point of the front part of
the range. To those up here, or still farther to the north of this, it
seems a considerable independent hill, and to those who live away to
the east and south-east, in the Slamannan direction, it looks as if it
could hold its head almost quite as high as Ben Ledi or Ben Venue. It
is even said to be seen from a great distance in the Lanark direction,
and forms a conspicuous landmark from the Firth of Forth.

We are here in the south-east corner of the parish of Fintry, close to
the meeting point with Campsie and Kilsyth. We can see at a glance that
it is a central summit of the Lennox hills, occupying such a position
as to unite the Fintry, Campsie, and Kilsyth sections of those hills.
On the north-east of it, there is what is called the Little Bin, some
1446 feet high, and on its south-west side the Bin burn runs away to
the north and becomes a head stream of the river Carron.

Standing here, or rather stretching ourselves along the grateful turf,
we are in the very centre of Stirlingshire, and at the source of a
river which nowhere is very large, and yet, than which there is none in
Scotland, and probably few in the whole island, whose banks have been
the stage of so many memorable transactions. When the Roman empire was
in all its glory, and had its eastern frontiers upon the Euphrates,
the banks of the Carron were its boundaries on the north-west; for the
Wall of Antoninus, which was raised to mark the limits of that mighty
empire, stood in the neighbourhood of this river, and ran parallel
to it for many miles. This last fact suggests one of the probable
origins of the word Carron, for there are more than one. The meaning
of the word has been a puzzle to the etymologists. “Even ministers
they ha’e been kenn’d” to arrive at very different conclusions on
this interesting subject. Some derive it from Caraon, which means “a
winding river,” and “The bonny links of Carron Water” are poetically
celebrated. This expresses one feature of the stream which, in former
times, before it had forced a new channel to itself in some places,
and been straightened by human industry in others, made almost as many
serpentine links as the Forth itself.

In the valley below the river runs through the well-known Carron bog,
and for 3½ miles flows in a slow serpentine course over one of the
finest and most fertile tracks of natural meadow in Scotland. The
Carron Company, whose works are at the other end of the river, and in
summer utilise almost all its water, wished at one time to convert this
bog into a great reservoir for their works, but the hay crop was found
to be too valuable, the tract containing upwards of 1000 Scotch acres
in one continued plain, bearing from 130 to 150 stones per acre, which
is all the more valuable from the fact that the artificial crops are
a little precarious from their elevated situation. From the adjoining
heights as many as 20 or 30 different parties of people may be seen
on it in the season making hay, and in the winter again the river
is industriously led over its whole extent to fertilise it for the
following crop.

On the other side of the road from the bog, a little to the west of it,
and close to where the infant Endrick comes down from the Kippen hills,
we have the old castle of Sir John de Grahame of Dundaff, who fell at
the battle of Falkirk. For courage and military skill he was reckoned
next to Wallace, and was commonly called by the great hero himself his
“Right Hand.” The gravestone of Sir John in the churchyard of Falkirk
has the following Latin motto, with a Scotch translation:—

    Mente manuque potens, et vallae fidus Achates,
    Conditur hic Grahmos, bello interfectus ab Anglis.

While some of Cromwell’s troops were stationed in Falkirk, an officer
asked the parochial schoolmaster to translate the Latin. This he did in
the following witty manner:—

    Of mind and courage stout,
      Wallace’s true Achates,
    Here lies Sir John the Graham,
      Felled by the English Baties.

On our left, looking north, we get a sight of what was in former years
called the “Moor Toll,” near to which the Carron rises, which we
ourselves will soon cross in the valley. This veritable “lodge in the
wilderness” has been a welcome sight to many a weary traveller from
either side of the hill on a stormy night, and many a dreary winter day
“Honest Peter,” the carrier, and his horse, were glad when they got
this length.

Hitherto we have only been looking at things within easy reach of us,
but we are not allowed to forget long that we have scenery here which
equals any to be had, it might almost be said, in any part of Scotland.
Looking to the north-west we have a view of country before us

    Where broad extended, far beneath,
    The varied realms of fair Menteith.

The stretch of country lying before us from Port of Menteith round by
Aberfoyle, taking in Fintry, Buchlyvie, Balfron, Gartmore, with the
majestic Ben Lomond and a host of other hills, is a sight not to be
forgotten. Certainly no such beautiful panorama of hill and dale is to
be seen within the same distance from Glasgow.

Probably the most pleasing features in the immediate neighbourhood are
the valley of the Endrick and of the Carron which almost touch each
other at the farm house straight down from us. We see the Endrick on
its way to the famous “Loup of Fintry,” just a little to the west of
Sir John de Graham’s old castle, where it falls over a precipitous rock
of more than 60 feet in height, forming a cataract of great beauty.
In a “loup,” a “spout,” or “fall” of water there is a great variety
of opinion as to what makes it specially remarkable. Some desire a
flood of water, others a silvery veil of falling mist, others would
have grand natural surroundings. The truth is that a cataract, like a
human face, depends a great deal on its surroundings. It is a mistake
to go to a waterfall with a measuring line and judge it by height, and
breadth, and volume alone. There are comparatively trifling cascades,
which, by virtue of their natural position and the sweet and sylvan
scenery of their home, are far more attractive than a vaster flood
of water filling a greater depth amid tame scenic circumstances. Let
our climber make a nearer acquaintance with the “Loup of Fintry,”
either to-day or on some other occasion, and he will see what good
reason the natives have for their praise of Strathendrick. From its
first beginning to its fall into Loch Lomond the Endrick is a thing of
beauty, having in its course many a lovely and picturesque scene.

But the valley of the Carron away to the east is not less interesting
although its interest is of a more historical character. It is
not, however, without an occasional spot of extra loveliness. For
example, a little below where it crosses the Kilsyth and Stirling
(old) Road, 6 miles behind Kilsyth, it rushes over the Spout or Linn
of Auchintilly. In spite of its grand name, which means “field of
the overflowing torrent and pool,” it is little known, as it is in
a most unfrequented valley. We have made the journey right round
by road from Lennoxtown to Kilsyth, a distance of some 19 miles,
without meeting more than two people on the highway, although not so
far removed from the “madding crowd.” This state of matters reminded
us at the time of Dean Ramsay’s story of the English traveller on
the out-of-the-way Scotch road, who asked a stone-breaker whom he
passed, “Does nobody travel on this road at all?” “O yes,” was the
answer, “we’re not that bad. There was a gangrel body yesterday, and
there’s yoursel’ the day.” If we were writing in verse, we would be
obliged to say of this sexasyllabic, significant, mouth-filling, and
loud-sounding name—Auchin-tilly-lin-spout—what Horace says of the
little town in which he lodged a night in his journey from Rome to
Brundusium, _Versu dicere non est_. And yet those banks have been
sung of both by Ossian and Hector M’Neill, the latter, a native of the
shire. M’Neill speaks of it as the classic stream where Fingal fought
and Ossian hymned his heaven-taught lays; and Dyer sings of it as
still seeming responsive to Ossian’s lyre. The ancient ballad of “Gil
Morice” also—the story of which has been formed into the celebrated
tragedy of “Douglas”—represents the mother of the unfortunate young
hero as having “lived on Carron side.” We have no time to discuss the
ornithology of our day’s outing; but we could almost hear the throbbing
of birds’ hearts, which portends a sudden and distant flight. Had we
been down on the banks, either of the Endrick or of the Carron a month
ago, we could have seen the common sandpiper in its old haunts. But now
that September is upon us not one is to be seen. Silently but surely
they have slipped off in the night, and the rivers will not know them
till next April. But the rooks are in abundance admiring their glossy
plumage and symmetry, reminding us of the Scottish aphorism, and
proving its truthfulness, “Aye, you’re a bonny pair, as the craw said
to its ain twa feet.” They are now beginning to assemble in flocks, and
those often deserve the appellation of “a craw’s preaching” from the
flow of noisy eloquence of which at such times they are capable.

As we prepare to retrace our steps we cannot help being again struck by
the vast expanse of land unoccupied by people and so little cultivated.
The one moment we are thankful that there is such a place so near to
Glasgow, and no one with heart so hard as to bar the rambler’s way;
but the next again the stillness becomes oppressive, as when Cockburn
wrote to Jeffrey, “This place is as still as the grave, or even as
Peebles.” Our hill to-day is certainly in the heart of a district about
which the average dweller within 40 miles of Glasgow knows less, we
are persuaded, than he does of some of our colonial possessions. And
yet it is not more than 12 or 13 miles from the city. We can return as
we came, or make for the old Toll House on the road between Fintry and
Campsie, and get the train at Lennoxtown, or we can take a walk along
the ridge of hills for 2 or 3 miles to the east, and make for Gavel
Station, a mile or so on the near side of Kilsyth.




MORISON BROTHERS’ PUBLICATIONS.


THE AULD SCOTCH SANGS

_Arranged and Harmonised by_

SINCLAIR DUNN.


Containing 96 Scotch Songs

WITH PIANOFORTE ACCOMPANIMENT.

_Cloth_, 6s. 6d.; _Cloth (Gilt Edges)_, 7s. 6d.; _Leather_, 10s. 6d.


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       *       *       *       *       *

[Transcriber’s Note—the following changes have been made to this text:

Page 45: repeated word “as” corrected—“regarded as summarising”.

Page 49: to to too—“go too soon”.

Page 115: repeated word “and” corrected—“Inversnaid, and its memories”.

Page 119: breath to breadth—“greatest breadth”.

Page 140: repeated word “between” corrected—“that between Callander”.

In Publisher’s adverts: Avertiser to Advertiser—“Brechin Advertiser”.]







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