03.05. Scottish Lakes and Mountains

Chapter 5 Glasgow.

-- The Necropolis -- Loch Lomond -- On the Top of Ben Lomond -- The Guide’s Conversation -- The Pony and Guide Lunch together on the Edge of a Precipice -- Inversnaid – A Visit to the Cave of Rob Roy. In Glasgow there is little to arrest the progress of the traveler. These things may be said of it, that it is the great ship-building city of Great Britain: It has a chimney almost as high as Washington’s Monument, and it possesses an ancient cathedral built in the twelfth century. To me the most striking sight in Glasgow is the Necropolis. On a lofty, conical-shaped hill the cemetery of the city has been located. The tombstones cover the hillsides, tier upon tier, and rank upon rank, like a white-robed army. The hill fairly bristles and glistens with marble slabs and monuments to the very summit, and upon the apex of the eminence towers high above all the monument of John Knox. When, at a distance, you look at the marble-clothed hill, it seems to the hasty glance a part of the city; but a second look reveals it to be the city of the dead. It is I striking and solemnly impressive sight. I toiled up the spiral ascent to the top, and sat down to rest and think under the shadow of the monument of Knox. Next to a church, give me a cemetery in which to read, and meditate, and pray. In Glasgow and the town of Ayr, I saw for the first time of my life barefooted white women on the streets; and I saw numbers, of them. Verily I can see a new light on that sweet couplet: "Will you go to the Indies, my Mary, And leave Old Scotia’s shore?"

Another spectacle that impressed me more agreeably in the two cities mentioned above, was the way that women carry their babies. The mother wraps, her shawl about herself and child in such a way as to make a nest for the little one in front. The shawl is not pinned, but in some ingenious way it is passed in and under itself so as to be self-confined, while it holds the babe securely. The strain is, transferred thus from the arm to the back, and the woman walks erect as an arrow. Moreover, the folding of the wrap has, to my eye, all the lines of grace, while the baby, snug and comfortable, looks out serene and smiling on the world. The Indian mother straps her child on her back, and goes bent forward along the road. The present matron of America hangs her child on one arm, and goes around inclining to one side, like the leaning Tower of Pisa, or like a bow when tightly strung. The Scottish mother is ahead of the females of ancient and modern America. From Glasgow it is twenty miles by rail to Loch Lomond. We passed the historic ruins of Dumbarton Castle on the way. As we drew near the queen of Scotland’s lakes, happening to glance from my car window, I saw looming up before me, high in the heavens, a purple mass of beauty and majesty in the form of Ben Lomond. I recognized the mountain instantly from pictures I had seen. An hundred tourists, myself among them, took a steamer at the southern end of the lake.

Now, although the boat had abundance of seats, and we were all on deck, and there was nothing to keep everybody from seeing, behold! as soon as the steamer started, every living soul stood on their feet, and kept there as long as I was with them. Drawn by the beauty of the scenery, hungry to see all, "they would not down." The lake is twenty-five miles long, with a varying width of from one to five miles. A dozen wood-crowned islands dot, or rather gem, the southern part of the loch. The green-clad hills slope in graceful lines to the shore for the first three or four miles; then suddenly the mountains, in towering majesty, surround it, clothed in robes of royal purple, and with clouds resting on their heads as crowns. At Rowardennan, halfway up the lake, I left the great body of tourists, and disembarked at the foot of Ben Lomond, in order to ascend to the summit. It takes two to three hours to ascend, and one and a half to descend. Procuring a guide and pony, I sallied forth and up. And up it was. A dozen times I thought I saw the top, and as often another, and bolder and higher swell of the mountain greeted me. The path runs zigzag all the way to overcome the steepness. Halfway up a covey of grouse flew from the heather at our feet, and went skimming down the mountainside. A few sheep scattered about were hard to be distinguished at first sight from boulders of limestone, which cling here to the face of the mountain in great profusion. The sheep seemed surprised to see us, and, after a swift, startled look, scampered off amid the rocks. As we toiled upward the guide and I entered into conversation. He informed me that his wages was ten shillings a week. Think of it! -- two dollars and a half a week, in which he is required frequently to climb to the top of Ben Lomond.

"Have you a family?" I asked.

"Yes; a wife and six children."

Again the song comes up: "Will you go to the Indies, my Mary," etc.

I then begged him to ride, and let me walk some; but he wouldn’t hear to it. After a little he told me that a few days before he had piloted a lady and gentleman up, and that the gentleman rode and the lady walked all the way.

"What!" I exclaimed, and then added, "They must have been husband and wife!" The guide was not certain.

"Was the man from America?"

He thought he was.

"What excuse did he offer for riding, and allowing the lady to walk and climb a distance of five miles?"

"He said he wanted to keep his feet dry!"

Here I collapsed. I fell into a fit of musing about that precious man, with those blessed feet of his, that lasted a mile. I finally emerged from a brown study with the conclusion that he was already dry through and through. Heart dry, soul dry, the whole life and man dead and barren and dry. The sensation of steadily rising higher and higher is peculiar. As you notice that the horizon is expanding, that the houses beneath you are getting smaller, and the clouds nearer, there is a combination of thrills that pass through the heart that leave a vivid and everlasting memory. Finally we reached the top -- guide, pony, and myself. What a view! Some one says you can see half of Scotland from this peak. The summit is about twenty-five feet square, and level almost as a table. On the northern side the mountain falls away in a sharp, precipitous descent to the valleys beneath you. The pony walked to the edge of this side and began cropping the grass. (I was not on him then!) The guide sat on the same little plot of grass, and began eating his lunch of bread and cheese, with his legs dangling over the precipice, while he meditatively looked towards the North Pole.

It looked like he and the pony got up that special tableau to startle the traveler.

I shall carry through eternity with me the memory of the glorious view I obtained at noon, of July 16, from the summit of majestic Ben Lomond. Beneath me, and miles away, lay Loch Lomond, Loch Katrine, Loch Achray, and four other lakes gleaming like burnished silver in the sunlight. Stirling and Edinburgh, fifty miles away, that can easily be seen from this point, were hidden by a falling rain that walled in the eastern view. Southward I could see thirty miles, and no farther, because of a vail of low-hanging clouds. But west and north mountains upon mountains, peak beyond peak, in wild and yet harmonious array, stretched away in the distance, filling the soul with awe and reverence. Great altars of God they seemed to be, with the mist of a perpetual cloud-like incense drifting about their sides, or hovering over their heads. I removed my hat and worshiped God in their company.

While lingering upon the fascinating spot, suddenly four English youths made their appearance, panting from their long, steep ascent. They were from Lancastershire, and viewing Scotland on foot. They remained only a few minutes, evidently coming up merely to say they had been there. Taking the southern side of the mountain -- which, although steep as the roof of a house, yet is less sharp in decline than the others -- taking this side, and utterly ignoring the winding path, they went slipping, sliding and bounding down, followed by a large black dog barking after them in high glee. It looked like they would reach the bottom in fifteen minutes; but evidently they met with difficulties, for on reaching the foot of the mountain, one hour and a half afterward, I discovered that they had just arrived. I sat down with the ruddy-cheeked boy-travelers to dinner in the pretty flower-surrounded hotel at the base of Ben Lomond. The dinner was composed of salmon trout, roast beef and gooseberry pie. My! how those Lancastershire boys did eat. It did me good to watch them. They were a little embarrassed and amused at their own appetites, as I gathered from unmistakable Masonic signals that passed between them. In the afternoon I took another passing steamer and pursued my journey to the head of the lake. I remained over night at Inversnaid, where I landed in order to visit the cave of Rob Roy.

Many of my readers will remember Walter Scott’ s description of this cave in one, and, I believe, two of his works. It derives an added interest from the fact that Robert Bruce lived in concealment in it after his defeat at Dalree. The cave is on the eastern bank of Loch Lomond, one mile above Inversnaid. On leaving the hotel you plunge into the woods at once. The right, or eastern bank of the lake at this point is exceedingly lofty, and in places precipitous. A wild-looking forest covers the sides. Looking up through the boughs of the trees you can see the tall cliffs hundreds of feet above you, crowned with huge masses of gray stone. At some period in the past the cliff above shook its head and shoulders, and sent down great showers of these limestone boulders all along the side surface down to the very water’s edge. The path to the cave, one hundred feet above the level of the lake in some places, and hundreds of feet below the cliffs, winds through the forest, in and around these great rocks, through dense thickets, over musical little waterfalls, and by banks lovely with the tints of myriads of wild flowers. I gathered a handful of these crimson, yellow, purple and white sylvan beauties that charmed my eye that evening, and that must have gladdened the vision of Bruce and his few noble followers when they trod this self-same path to the cave. At last I reached it where the rocks were in wildest confusion, and where the mountains towered highest on the opposite side. Descending fully thirty feet amid the boulders, you turn to the left, walking on a narrow ledge around the jutting shoulder of a great gray mass of granite, and so come to the mouth of the cave. Truly it was a safe place. Fifty or sixty feet above the water, hidden among the rocks, overshadowed and screened by the trees, it would have taken the sharpest of eye s to have found the place. I discovered it by the help of a guide! There is an upper cave, and fifteen feet lower another one, somewhat larger, which I explored, or rather examined, with lucifer matches. It is now not over ten feet square; but was evidently once roomier. Memory was busy in recalling the noble life and achievements of the fugitive king, who had once slept on the cold rocks at my feet. The reader will readily understand why this cave impressed me more than the palatial abodes of royalty today, and how the arch of this gloomy cavern spoke more powerfully to my soul than the parapet of castle and the lofty vaulting of cathedral. Quickly and willingly I bared my head here at the very memory of a great man, which thing I have never felt inclined to do to a merely rich man. That evening, at the Inversnaid Hotel, I sat down with thirty ladies and gentlemen to a dinner consisting of eight courses. I had little appetite, and no sympathy with the social tomfoolery that was going on in connection with the dining-table. My thoughts were at the cave with the Bruce.

I studied their faces, and again thought of him. I noticed their devotion to the bill of fare, and the abundance before them, and thought of the royal fugitive hungry in his cave. I saw that they knew how to eat! I remembered that Bruce knew how to live, and to achieve. I pushed the contrast one step further: The world, I said to myself, has never heard of these wine-drinking human figures before me; but all the nations have heard the thrilling story of Robert Bruce, the man who arose from the cave on the shore of Loch Lomond to be king of Scotland, and the conqueror of the armies of England. The hour of midnight finds me writing. The waves of the beautiful Loch Lomond break in twenty yards of my window. As I look out I can see the forms of Ben Voirlich, Ben Venue, Ben Crois, and other mountains, lifting themselves up in purple grandeur to meet and commune with the stars. Both stars and mountains are reflected in the Lomond mirror. A few miles away are the sites of the thrilling events so graphically narrated in Scott’s "Lady of the Lake," while Wordsworth’s poem of the "Highland Girl" was born by the side of the Inversnaid waterfall, whose murmur and musical beat upon the rocks I can hear as I write.

Under such an encircling panorama of beauty it would seem hard to sleep; but, wearied with two weeks’ journeying, I say good-night to the fair scenes to which I shall soon say good-morning -- "And, wrapping the drapery of my couch About me, lie down to pleasant dreams."

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