Seeing Europe with Famous Authors Volume II Part 7

THE SCOTCH HIGHLANDS [Footnote: From "Notes on England." Published by Henry Holt & Co.]

BY HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE

On the slopes the violet heaths are spread like a silken carpet under the scanty firs. Higher still are large patches of evergreen wood, and, as soon as the mountain is approached, a brown circle of barren eminences may be discerned toward the horizon. At the end of an hour the desert begins; the climate is inimical to life, even to that of plants.

A tarn, the tint of burned topaz, lies coldly and sadly between stony slopes whereon a few tufts of fern and heather grow here and there. Half a league higher is a second tarn, which appears still more dismal in the rising mist. Around, patches of snow are sprinkled on the peaks, and these descending in rivulets produce mora.s.ses. The small country ponies, with a sure instinct, surmount the bog, and we arrive at an elevation whence the eye, as far as it can reach, embraces nothing but an amphitheater of desolate, yet green summits; owing to the destruction of timber, everything else has perished; a scene of ruined nature is far more melancholy a spectacle than any human ruins. On our return across the lake, a bag-piper played his instrument. The music is strange and wild, its effects harmonizing with the aspect of the bubbling streams, veined with striking or somber reflections. The same simple note, a kind of dance music, runs through the whole piece in an incorrect and odd manner, and continually recurs, but it is always harsh and rough; it might be likened to an orange shriveled with the cold and rendered bitter.

These are the Highlands. From Braemar to Perth we journey through them for many long miles. It is always a solitude; sometimes five or six valleys in succession are wholly bare, and one may travel for an hour without seeing a tree; then for another hour it is rare merely to see in the distance a wretched twisted birchen-tree, which is dying or dead. It would be some compensation if the rock were naked, and exhibited its mineral structure in all its fulness and ruggedness. But these mountains, of no great elevation, are but bosses with flabby outlines, they have fallen to pieces, and are stone heaps, resembling the remains of a quarry. In winter, torrents of water uproot the heather, leaving on the slopes a leprous, whitened scar, badly tinted by the too feeble sun.

The summits are truncated, and want boldness. Patches of miserable verdure seam their sides and mark the oozing of springs; the remainder is covered with brownish heather. Below, at the very bottom, a torrent obstructed by stones, struggles along its channel, or lingers in stagnant pools. One sometimes discerns a hovel, with a stunted cow. The gray, low-lying sky, completes the impression of lugubrious monotony.

Our conveyance ascends the last mountain. At length we see a steep declivity, a great rocky wall; but it is unique. We descend again, and enter a habitable tract. Cultivation occurs first on the lower parts, then on the slopes; the declivities are wooded, and then entire mountains; forests of firs spread their somber mantle over the crests; fields of oats and barley extend on all sides; we perceive pretty clumps of trees, houses surrounded by gardens and flowers, and then culture of all descriptions upon the lessening hills, here and there a park and a modern mansion. The sun bursts forth and shines merrily, but without heat; the fertile plain expands, abounding in promises of convenience and pleasure, and we enter Perth thinking about the historical narrations of Sir Walter Scott, and the contrast between the mountain and the plain, the revilings and scornings interchanged between the inhabitants of the Highlands and the Lowlands.

BEN LOMOND AND THE HIGHLAND LAKES [Footnote: From "Views Afoot."

Published by G. P. Putnam's Sons.]

BY BAYARD TAYLOR

It was indeed a glorious walk from Dumbarton to Loch Lomond through this enchanting valley. The air was mild and clear; a few light clouds occasionally crossing the sun chequered the hills with sun and shade. I have as yet seen nothing that in pastoral beauty can compare with its gla.s.sy winding stream, its mossy old woods and guarding hills and the ivy-grown, castellated towers embosomed in its forests or standing on the banks of the Leven--the purest of rivers. At the little village called Renton is a monument to Smollett, but the inhabitants seem to neglect his memory, as one of the tablets on the pedestal is broken and half fallen away. Farther up the vale a farmer showed us an old mansion in the midst of a group of trees on the banks of the Leven which he said belonged to Smollett--or Roderick Random, as he called him. Two or three old pear trees were still standing where the garden had formerly been, under which he was accustomed to play in his childhood.

At the head of Leven Vale we set off in the steamer "Watch-Witch" over the crystal waters of Loch Lomond, pa.s.sing Inch Murrin, the deer-park of the Duke of Montrose, and Inch Caillaeh,

"where gray pines wave Their shadows o'er Clan Alpine's grave."

Under the clear sky and golden light of the declining sun we entered the Highlands, and heard on every side names we had learned long ago in the lays of Scott. Here was Glen Fruin and Bannochar, Ross Dhu and the pa.s.s of Beal-ma-na. Farther still we pa.s.sed Rob Roy's rock, where the lake is locked in by lofty mountains. The cone-like peak of Ben Lomond rises far above on the right, Ben Voirlich stands in front, and the jagged crest of Ben Arthur looks over the shoulder of the western hills....

When we arose in the morning, at four o'clock, to return with the boat, the sun was already shining upon the westward hills; scarcely a cloud was in the sky and the air was pure and cool. To our great delight, Ben Lomond was unshrouded, and we were told that a more favorable day for the ascent had not occurred for two months. We left the boat at Rowardennan, an inn, at the southern base of Ben Lomond. After breakfasting on Loch Lomond trout I stole out to the sh.o.r.e while my companions were preparing for the ascent, and made a hasty sketch of the lake.

We proposed descending on the northern side and crossing the Highlands to Loch Katrine; tho it was represented as difficult and dangerous by the guide who wished to accompany us, we determined to run the risk of being enveloped in a cloud on the summit, and so set out alone, the path appearing plain before us. We had no difficulty in following it up the lesser heights, around the base. It wound on over rock and bog, among the heather and broom with which the mountain is covered, sometimes running up a steep acclivity and then winding zigzag round a rocky ascent. The rains two days before had made the bogs damp and muddy; but, with this exception, we had little trouble for some time.

Ben Lomond is a doubly-formed mountain. For about three-fourths of the way there is a continued ascent, when it is suddenly terminated by a large barren plain, from one end of which the summit shoots up abruptly, forming at the north side a precipice five hundred feet high. As we approached the summit of the first part of the mountain the way became very steep and toilsome, but the prospect, which had before been only on the south side, began to open on the east, and we saw suddenly spread out below us the vale of Monteith, with "far Loch Ard and Aberfoil" in the center and the huge front of Ben Venue filling up the picture.

Taking courage from this, we hurried on. The heather had become stunted and dwarfish, and the ground was covered with short brown gra.s.s. The mountain-sheep which we saw looking at us from the rock above had worn so many paths along the side that we could not tell which to take, but pushed on in the direction of the summit, till, thinking it must be near at hand, we found a mile and a half of plain before us, with the top of Ben Lomond at the farther end. The plain was full of wet moss crossed in all directions by deep ravines or gullies worn in it by the mountain-rains, and the wind swept across with a tempest-like force.

I met near the base a young gentleman from Edinburgh who had left Rowardennan before us, and we commenced ascending together. It was hard work, but neither liked to stop; so we climbed up to the first resting-place, and found the path leading along the brink of a precipice. We soon attained the summit, and, climbing up a little mound of earth and stones, I saw the half of Scotland at a glance. The clouds hung just above the mountain-tops, which rose all around like the waves of a mightly sea. On every side, near and far, stood their misty summits, but Ben Lomond was the monarch of them all. Loch Lomond lay unrolled under my feet like a beautiful map; just opposite, Loch Long thrust its head from between the feet of crowded hills to catch a glimpse of the giant. We could see from Ben Nevis to Ayr--from Edinburgh to Staffa. Stirling and Edinburgh castles would have been visible but that the clouds hung low in the valley of the Forth and hid them from our sight.

... At a cottage on the farm of Coman, we procured some oatcakes and milk for dinner from an old Scotch woman who pointed out the direction of Loch Katrine, six miles distant; there was no road, nor, indeed, a solitary dwelling between. The hills were bare of trees, covered with scraggy bushes and rough heath, which in some places was so thick we could scarcely drag our feet through. Added to this, the ground was covered with a kind of moss that retained the moisture like a sponge; so that our boots ere long became thoroughly soaked. Several considerable streams were rushing down the side, and many of the wild breed of black Highland cattle were grazing around. After climbing up and down one or two heights, occasionally startling the moorc.o.c.k and ptarmigan from their heathery coverts, we saw the valley of Loch Con, while in the middle of the plain on the top of the mountain we had ascended was a sheet of water which we took to be Loch Ackill. Two or three wild-fowl swimming on its surface were the only living things in sight. The peaks around shut it out from all view of the world; a single decayed tree leaned over it from a mossy rock which gave the whole scene an air of the most desolate wildness.

From the next mountain we saw Loch Ackill and Loch Katrine below, but a wet and weary descent had yet to be made. I was about throwing off my knapsack on a rock to take a sketch of Loch Katrine, which appeared to be very beautiful from this point, when we discerned a cavalcade of ponies winding along the path from Inversnaid to the head of the lake, and hastened down to take the boat when they should arrive.... As we drew near the eastern end of the lake the scenery became far more beautiful. The Trosachs opened before us. Ben Ledi looked down over the "forehead bare" of Ben An, and as we turned a rocky point Ellen's Isle rose up in front. It is a beautiful little turquoise in the silver setting of Loch Katrine. The northern side alone is accessible, all the others being rocky and perpendicular and thickly grown with trees. We rounded the island to the little bay, bordered by the silver strand, above which is the rock from which Fitz-James wound his horn, and shot under an ancient oak which flung its long gray arms over the water. We here found a flight of rocky steps leading to the top, where stood the bower erected by Lady Willoughby D'Eresby to correspond with Scott's description. Two or three blackened beams are all that remain of it, having been burned down some years ago by the carelessness of a traveler.

The mountains stand all around, like giants, to "sentinel this enchanted land." On leaving the island we saw the Goblin's Cave in the side of Ben Venue, called by the Gaels "Coiran-Uriskin." Near it is Beal-nam-bo--the "Pa.s.s of Cattle"--overhung with gray weeping birch-trees.

Here the boatmen stopt to let us hear the fine echo, and the names of Rob Roy and Roderick Dhu were sent back to us apparently as loud as they were given. The description of Scott is wonderfully exact, tho the forest that feathered o'er the sides of Ben Venue has since been cut down and sold by the Duke of Montrose.

When we reached the end of the lake, it commenced raining, and we hastened on through the pa.s.s of Beal-an-Duine, scarcely taking time to glance at the scenery, till Loch Achray appeared through the trees, and on its banks the ivy-grown front of the inn of Ardcheancrochan--with its unp.r.o.nounceable name.

TO THE HEBRIDES [Footnote: From "A Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D."]

BY JAMES BOSWELL.

My acquaintance, the Reverend Mr. John Macauley, one of the ministers of Inverary, and brother to our good friend at Calder, came to us this morning, and accompanied us to the castle, where I presented Dr. Johnson to the Duke of Argyle. We were shown through the house; and I never shall forget the impression made upon my fancy by some of the ladies'

maids tripping about in neat morning dresses. After seeing for a long time little but rusticity, their lively manner, and gay, inviting appearance, pleased me so much, that I thought for the moment, I could have been a knight-errant for them.

We then got into a low one-horse chair, ordered for us by the duke, in which we drove about the place. Dr. Johnson was much struck by the grandeur and elegance of this princely seat. He thought, however, the castle too low, and wished it had been a story higher. He said, "What I admire here, is the total defiance of expense." I had a particular pride in showing him a great number of fine old trees, to compensate for the nakedness which had made such an impression on him on the eastern coast of Scotland.

When we came in, before dinner, we found the duke and some gentlemen in the hall. Dr. Johnson took much notice of the large collection of arms, which are excellently disposed there. I told what he had said to Sir Alexander Macdonald, of his ancestors not suffering their arms to rust.

"Well," said the doctor, "but let us be glad we live in times when arms may rust. We can sit to-day at his grace's table without any risk of being attacked, and perhaps sitting down again wounded or maimed." The duke placed Dr. Johnson next himself at the table. I was in fine spirits, and tho sensible that I had the misfortune of not being in favor with the d.u.c.h.ess I was not in the least disconcerted, and offered her grace some of the dish that was before me. It must be owned that I was in the right to be quite unconcerned, if I could. I was the Duke of Argyle's guest, and I had no reason to suppose that he adopted the prejudices and resentments of the d.u.c.h.ess of Hamilton....

The d.u.c.h.ess was very attentive to Dr. Johnson. I know not how a middle state came to be mentioned. Her Grace wished to hear him on that point.

"Madam," said he, "your own relation, Mr. Archibald Campbell, can tell you better about it than I can. He was a bishop of the Nonjuring communion, and wrote a book upon the subject." He engaged to get it for her grace. He afterward gave a full history of Mr. Archibald Campbell, which I am sorry I do not recollect particularly.

He said Mr. Campbell had been bred a violent Whig, but afterward "kept better company, and became a Tory." He said this with a smile, in pleasant allusion, as I thought, to the opposition between his own political principles and those of the duke's clan. He added that Mr.

Campbell, after the revolution, was thrown into jail on account of his tenets; but, on application by letter to the old Lord Townshend, was released; that he always spoke of his lordship with great grat.i.tude, saying, "tho a Whig, he had humanity."

A gentleman in company, after dinner, was desired by the duke to go into another room, for a specimen of curious marble, which his grace wished to show us. He brought a wrong piece, upon which the duke sent him back again. He could not refuse, but, to avoid any appearance of servility, he whistled as he walked out of the room, to show his independence. On my mentioning this afterward to Dr. Johnson, he said, it was a nice trait of character.

Dr. Johnson talked a great deal, and was so entertaining, that Lady Betty Hamilton, after dinner, went and placed her chair close to his, leaned upon the back of it, and listened eagerly. It would have made a fine picture to have drawn the sage and her at this time in their several att.i.tudes. He did not know, all the while, how much he was honored. I told him afterward. I never saw him so gentle and complaisant as this day.

We went to tea. The duke and I walked up and down the drawing room, conversing. The d.u.c.h.ess still continued to show the same marked coldness for me; for which, tho I suffered from it, I made every allowance, considering the very warm part I had taken for Douglas, in the cause in which she thought her son deeply interested. Had not her grace discovered some displeasure toward me, I should have suspected her of insensibility or dissimulation....

He was much pleased with our visit at the castle of Inverary. The Duke of Argyle was exceedingly polite to him, and, upon his complaining of the shelties which he had hitherto ridden being too small for him, his grace told him he should be provided with a good horse to carry him next day.

STAFFA AND IONA [Footnote: From "Visits to Remarkable Places."]

BY WILLIAM HOWITT.

We are bound for the regions of ghosts and fays, mermaids and kelpies, of great sea-snakes, and a hundred other marvels and miracles. To accomplish all this, we have nothing more to do than step on board the steam-packet that lies at the Broomielaw, or great quay at Glasgow. The volume of heavy black smoke, issuing from its nickled chimney, announces that it means to be moving on its way speedily....

Emerging from the Crinan ca.n.a.l, you issue forth into the Sound of Jura, and feel at once that you are in the stern and yet beautiful region of your youthful admiration. There is the heavy swell and the solemn roar of the great Atlantic. You feel the wild winds that sweep over it. You see around you only high and craggy coasts, that are bleak and naked with the lashings of a thousand tempests. All before you, are scattered rocks that emerge from the restless sea, and rocky isles, with patches of the most beautiful greensward, but with scarcely a single tree. The waves are leaping in whiteness against the cliffs, and thousands of sea-birds are floating in long lines on the billows, or skimming past you singly, and diving into the clear hissing waters as they near your vessel. One of the very first objects which arrests your senses is the Coryvreckan, or great whirlpool of the Hebrides, an awful feature in all the poetry and ballads belonging to these regions.

I never visited any part of Great Britain which more completely met my antic.i.p.ated ideas than this. The day was fine, but with a strong breeze.

The sea was rough; the wild-fowl were flying, scudding, and diving on all hands; and, wherever the eye turned, were craggy islands-mountains of dark heath or bare splintered stone, and green, solitary slopes, where scarcely a tree or a hut was to be discovered; but now and then black cattle might be descried grazing, or flocks of sheep dotted the hill sides. Far as we could look, were naked rocks rising from the sea, that were worn almost into roundness, or scooped into hollows by the eternal action of the stormy waters. Some of them stood in huge arches, like temples of some s.h.a.ggy seaG.o.d, or haunts of sea-fowl--daylight and the waves pa.s.sing freely through them. Everywhere were waves, leaping in snowy foam against these rocks and against the craggy sh.o.r.es. It was a stern wilderness of chafing billows and of resisting stone. The rocks were princ.i.p.ally of dark red granite, and were cracked across and across, as if by the action of fire or frost. Every thing spake to us of the wild tempests that so frequently rage through these seas....

Staffa rose momently in its majesty before us! After all the descriptions which we had read, and the views we had seen of this singular little island, we were struck with delighted astonishment at its aspect. It is, in fact, one great ma.s.s of basaltic columns, bearing on their heads another huge ma.s.s of black stone, here and there covered with green turf. We sailed past the different caves--the Boat Cave and the Cormorant Cave, which are themselves very wonderful; but it was Fingal's Cave that struck us with admiration and awe. To see this magnificent cavern, with its cl.u.s.tered columns on each side, and pointed arch, with the bleak precipices above it, and the sea raging at its base, and dashing and roaring into its gloomy interior, was worth all the voyage. There are no words that can express the sensation it creates. We were taken in the boats on sh.o.r.e at the northeast point, and landed amid a wilderness of basaltic columns thrown into almost all forms and directions. Some were broken, and lay in heaps in the clear green water. Others were piled up erect and abrupt; some were twisted up into tortuous pyramids at a little distance from the sh.o.r.e itself, and through the pa.s.sage which they left, the sea came rushing--all foam, and with the most tremendous roar. Others were bent like so many leaden pipes, and turned their broken extremities toward us.

We advanced along a sort of giant's causeway, the pavement of which was the heads of basaltic columns, all fitting together in the most beautiful symmetry; and, turning round the precipice to our right hand, found ourselves at the entrance of the great cave. The sea was too stormy to allow us to enter it, as is often done in boats, we had therefore to clamber along one of its sides, where a row of columns is broken off, at some distance above the waves, and presents an accessible, but certainly very formidable causeway, by which you may reach the far end. I do not believe that any stranger, if he were there alone, would dare to pa.s.s along that irregular and slippery causeway, and penetrate to the obscure end of the cave; but numbers animate one another to anything. We clambered along this causeway or corridor, now ascending and now descending, as the broken columns required, and soon stood--upward of seventy of us--ranged along its side from one end to the other. Let it be remembered that this splendid sea cave is forty-two feet wide at the entrance; sixty-six feet high from low water; and runs into the rock two hundred and twenty-seven feet. Let it be imagined that at eight or ten feet below us it was paved with the sea, which came rushing and foaming along it, and dashing up against the solid rock at its termination; while the light thrown from the flickering billows quivered in its arched roof above us, and the whole place was filled with the solemn sound of the ocean; and if any one can imagine to himself any situation more sublime, I should like to know what that is.

The roof is composed of the lower ends of basaltic columns, which have yet been so cut away by nature as to give it the aspect of the roof of some gigantic cathedral aisle; and lichens of gold and crimson have gilded and colored it in the richest manner.

It was difficult to forget, as we stood there, that, if any one slipt, he would disappear forever, for the billows in their ebb would sweep him out to the open sea, as it were in a moment. Yet the excitement of the whole group was too evident to rest with any seriousness on such a thought. Some one suddenly fired a gun in the place, and the concussion and reverberated thunders were astounding.

When the first effect was gone off, one general peal of laughter rung through the cave, and then nearly the whole company began to sing "The Sea! the sea!" The captain found it a difficult matter to get his company out of this strange chantry--where they and the wind and waves seemed all going mad together--to embark them again for Iona.

Venerable Iona--how different! and with what different feelings approached! As we drew near, we saw a low bleak sh.o.r.e, backed by naked hills, and at their feet a row of miserable Highland huts, and at separate intervals the ruins of the monastery and church of Ronad, the church of St. Oran and its burying-ground, and lastly, the cathedral....