A Companion and Useful Guide to the Beauties of Scotland/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X.
The day, after I returned to my friends at Fort Augustus, was very bad; I therefore did not dare face a storm over Corryarraick, but remained quietly at the fort. A fortunate day's rest for the poor horses, who had been sadly off at Fort William, and dreadfully fatigued by the rough road from thence, after a sleepless night; there being at Fort William scarcely any thing for the poor beasts to eat, and nothing to lie down upon. The fare for man, at either of the inns there, is not much better than for horses; but as I had my own bedding, and some food and wine with me, I was very independant of their accommodations.
As we were sitting at breakfast with the good Governor at Fort Augustus, an Oxonian sent in his name, begging leave to see the fort. He had permission, and was invited to breakfast: he was a very genteel young man, and gave us some account of his tour, which had not been quite so fortunate as mine. He left England, one of a large party: their new coach had broken down several times before they got to Glasgow, where it was sold for a song; and two chaises taken instead, which had also broken down; and I think overturned: at last, however, they all arrived safe at Dalwhinie, an inn I have before mentioned, where were collected, from the different branches of the roads, travellers to the amount of near thirty. Every room in that little inn was stuffed brim-full, with standing beds, boxed beds, and shake-downs. A shake-down is a bed put upon the floor or carpet, and there prepared to sleep upon. At Dalwhinie, the road to Fort Augustus over Corryarraick, branches from the great Inverness road. None of this young gentleman's party dared to encounter that road, except himself and servant, on horseback; the rest went on to Inverness by the great road. The day he crossed Corryarraick was a contiued violent rain and storm of wind, which gave it the appearance of wild desolation, beyond any thing he could describe; and the whole of the road itself, he said, was rough, dangerous, and dreadful, even for a horse. The steep and black mountains, and the roaring torrents, rendered every step his horse took, frightful; and when he attained the summit of the zig-zag up Corryarraick, he thought the horses, himself, man and all would be carried away, he knew not whither; so strong was the blast, so hard the rain, and so very thick the mist: and as for cold, it stupified him. He thought it almost a miracle to escape unhurt from such horrid wastes, roaring torrents, unwholesome vapour, and frightful fogs; drenched from top to toe, frozen with cold, and half dead with fatigue. He said he had heard people had gone that pass in a carriage, but he was sure it was impossible. The governor's family assured him it was done frequently; and turning to me, said, "here is one who means to do so to-morrow, in a chaise."—The gentleman stared, and added, "then I must alter my journal, for I thought it impossible." A young lady present said, she had crossed the mountain on horseback in winter, when snow was on the ground; but it was hazardous. Many, by imprudence, have there lost their lives in winter; and some indeed from fatigue and cold; particularly one poor woman, attending on a marching troop, carrying an infant in her arms. At the top of the mountain she sunk, and would not be persuaded to be removed, nor suffer the child to be taken from her. She fell asleep, and the people who were sent the next morning from the fort to seek for her, found her sitting against a stone, nearly covered with snow. The woman was quite dead; but the infant at her breast, being entirely covered with snow, was not absolutely lifeless. It was carried to the fort, where the governor's lady (from whom I had the sad tale) restored it to life; but it did not recover the perfect use of its limbs for many weeks, so much were they frozen. Soldiers too, in their march, have often perished there, by imprudently drinking quantities of spirits at the inn on the Moor, thinking thereby to keep out the cold; but alas! it was the sure way to destruction.
All these accounts did not deter me from going over the pass: I wished to see it, and I had come back from Fort William on purpose. Mr. Baillie of Dochfour, had once in his life crossed Corryarraick; and there met with a difficulty from his horses not standing to their collars when going up the zig-zag; and notwithstanding every effort, they could not, for a great length of time, be made to stir an inch; but I was going down the zig-zag, Mr. Baillie went up it: nevertheless his kind consideration induced him to write to his friend, the Governor of Fort Augustus, to desire him, if needful, to send some of his invalids up the hill with me. My postillion had been over the pass in May: he said, though the road was bad and rough, he could drive me over it with safety; and if I could get a pair of horses to put to those I had to help to draw us up the hill, it would be of far more use than the assistance of all the invalids in the fort. I followed his advice. The smith carefully examined the carriage, put all right that was wrong, and the morning looking tolerable, at eight o'clock I took leave of my good friends in the fort, and drove to the inn, where they added two plough horses, harnessed with ropes, to mine. The road over Corryarraick, quits the Fort William road about a mile and half from the inn; and immediately begins to wind amongst, and up the district of mountains to the south-east of Fort Augustus. Not a foot of level ground was to be seen for nine long miles; nothing but ups and downs till I reached the summit of Corryarraick. My head was continually out of the chaise window, gazing at the scene I was leaving below; a scene not to be described. Nothing but the eye can convey to the mind an adequate idea of it. When I entered into the bosom of the mountains, which perhaps would for ever hide that view from my bodily eyes, I really felt my spirits sink; the road became rough, but not in the least alarming: all the pain I felt was for my poor horses, on whom it bore hard, notwithstanding the pair before them. The first seven miles of ascent are not positively on the sides of Corryarraick; but of other mountains nearly equal in height. It is not till after the crossing the bridge over the river Tarff, at the hollow, called in Galic Laga-ne-viene, the hollow of milk, that the base of Corryarrick begins. All these mountains afford fine pasture for sheep, and are at present nothing but sheep-farms; though formerly both black cattle and sheep were raised on them. There being some wood hanging about the broken banks of the Tarff, the descent to the bridge is very pretty; but in crossing it, and mounting the narrow steep way on the opposite side, I preferred the safety of my own legs to a reliance on the horses. At about four miles of the ascent from Fort Augustus, the ploughman-driver informed us, that five Edinburgh gentlemen had that morning gone up so far that road, in order to cross Corryarraick; but they became so terrified with what they saw before them, and what they dreaded to meet with, from the account of the young Oxonian, that they fairly, from fear, turned about and took the road to Fort William. This, however, did not alarm me. I saw nothing to hurt any body but the horses; and they being assisted, I trusted all would go well.—From the base of Corryarraick to its summit, the road lies on a broad side of it. The ascent is to be sure very long and steep, but not excessively so; nor does the hill sweep from the road very precipitately to a stream below, which is at a considerable distance from it. The mountain on the left rises high; and on each side of the passing track, is a stony rough pasture, mixed with rushes, and a black boggy-looking heath down to the stream; on the other side of which, the mountains have the same hue as that I was ascending. Not a shrub, or bush to be seen, nor trace of a house, except two or three huts at Laga-ne-viene; so that the scene at all times, and in all weathers, must be black and dreary. Long poles are driven into the ground, by the edge of the road, at stated distances, all the way up the ascent; and also down the zig-zag on the other side, in order to mark the track, in the season of snow. Just at the winding to attain the summit, there is a degree of precipice, but neither perpendicular nor very dangerous, unless for a phaeton in a high wind; as one was actually blown from thence, and turned over and over, down the mountain, the year before I saw Corryarraick. Having arrived at the top, where there is a small plain, of perhaps half a mile, I got out of the chaise, that I might be a judge of the climate there. It was certainly cold enough for my great coat; but I became neither torpid nor frozen. I discharged my plough horses, and began to examine the surprising scene all around me, I had been before on many high mountains, whence I had seen lakes, plains, and far distant objects; but the view from Corryarraick is totally different. No lakes, no glens, no plains; all is a boundless space (except by the sky) of a rough ocean of mountains; whose tops seem to wave, one beyond the other, to the distant sea in the west; and on every other side, as far as the eye can reach. Fortunately, when I was thus high, the day was tolerably clear, but not being bright, the whole scene was cold and dismal;—it was uncommon;—it was astonishing, but not at all terrific. My mind was raised to a state of awe and seriousness, that led to the great Creator of all; and I almost forgot I belonged to this world, till the postillion reminded me it was time to re-enter the carriage. When I came to the beginning of the zig-zag, the sun began to shine; and to the southwest, above the rest of the mountain ocean's waves, I saw Ben Nivis, which I distinguished from the other mountains; it being rendered conspicuous by the sun shining upon its white patches of snow. At the commencement of the zig-zag I got out of the carriage, and walked down at my leisure; amusing myself by picking up curious stones and pebbles in the channels made by the torrents, which cross the road at every five or ten yards. Round the base of the mountain, at some distance from the zig-zag, is a stream, into which the other torrents dash; leaving behind them, broad channels of smooth round stones, washed from the higher parts. The road is so cut up by these violent torrents, from the top of the zig-zag to the entrance on the plain, that for four or five miles, scarcely ten yards can be found free of them; which is, indeed, sufficient to pull a slight carriage to pieces.—Allen led the horses, and the wheels being dragged, he came quietly and safely to the bottom of that extraordinary pass. I will do my best to describe its appearance, from the approach to it from Garvimore. I will take my station upon a narrow shelf, cut on the side of a mountain, rising high on the right, of grey stone, partially covered with very coarse verdure. To the left is a precipice of no great depth, or danger, down to a small rough space of heath, bog, and rushes; scattered over with stones, and reaching to the stream coming from the base of Corryarraick: on the other side of that stream, rise mountains of a dark hue, bare, and wildly jumbled together. In front stands the broad side of Corryarraick, sweeping almost perpendicularly to the right and left; every where rough and bare, except patches of rushes and coarse grass, growing about the springs. At the summit a zig-zag road begins, about twelve feet broad; and from one angle of the zig-zag to another, about thrice the length of a carriage and pair of horses; the guide poles continuing to point out the track, should the road be by any means rendered invisible or obscured.
On each side the zig-zag are innumerable springs and marshy places, with thickly scattered loose stones, and fragments of rocks, brought from the heights by violent rushing waters in hard rains. I can easily conceive this to be a frightful pass in a flood; when torrents at every step must threaten destruction to the traveller, and the natural desolation of the place rendered terrific by the additional gloom of rain, hurricanes of wind, and the frightful night of such mists as frequently obscure, and hide Alpine districts. I had none of these alarming difficulties to encounter; the day was sufficiently dry for walking, and the mountain torrents were all hushed, by a cessation of rain for twenty-four hours. I had heard and read so much of the horrors of this pass that, I confess, I was disappointed at its tameness. At the same time I made great allowance for the difference of appearance in a very bad day, and a tolerable one. I had read, that the Spey river, at Corryarraick, spreads horrid devastation, tearing away every thing before it, and also thence takes its source, which is not quite correct; for the torrents which issue from Corryarraick, are only trifling tributaries to the noble Spey river, which has its beginning in Loch Spey, far to the south-west of Corryarraick, in that part of Badenoch leading to Fort William, from Garvimore; and when I reached the plain, I met it quietly gliding through the vale, and issuing smoothly from the opening between the vast ranges of hills leading to Loch Spey. Whatever fury the river Spey acquires before it finishes its course, it does not shew it till many a mile below Garvimore: for when I left its banks, eight miles below the inn on that Moor, it was gliding away towards the huge mountains near the bridge of Spey, just as quietly as at the first moment I saw it. The tearing waters about Corryarraick, are in fact, no more than copious springs, incessantly flowing from that mountain; and in great rains swelling to furious cataracts, carry every thing before them, to the stream which conveys them to the Spey in the valley.
At the foot of the zig-zag, I looked up the mountain of Corryarraick with astonishment, to think, that by a distance of only a mile and a half, I had descended an eminence that was full nine miles to climb on the other side. I longed, but I longed in vain, for the effect of a moving zig-zag, such as was described by my friend Major Barry. One part of the 24th regiment, in which he served in the year 1746, was, on a fine sun shining day, marching from Fort Augustus over Corryarraick. The officers, to add to the uncommoness of the scene, ordered the men to walk one by one down the zig-zag; and the baggage and women to bring up the rear on horseback. What an extraordinary appearance in such a desert! To see a military moving zig-zag of almost two miles; their arms glittering in the summer sun beams, shining full upon them, and their officers at the bottom admiring the sight. I had not the pleasure of seeing a living being there, except the men and horses with the chaise, slowly creeping down the curious ridge: but in my mind's eye, I saw the Major's troops; I beheld their arms glitter; the women mounted, bringing up the rear; and he himself by my side, in raptures at the effect of their plan.
The whole of the way from Garvimore to Dalwhinie is particularly wild; but to my taste, far from ugly, as long as the road keeps by Spey side; but when it turns from that sweet river, nothing is seen but bare mountains, and walls of stone for enclosures, yet I was amused; my mind found wonders to contemplate; for those bare mountains, most of them being full of metals, when the sun-beams gild their huge sides, sparkle like gems; and from the walls on the road side, when I walked up the steep places, I picked numberless pieces of stones, filled (to an ignorant eye) with gold, silver, and all sorts of metallic substances. The stones were so pretty I could not throw them away, though I knew they were neither uncommon, nor, to a mineralogist, worth a straw. The sun was set before I left this secluded Alpine scenery, and nearly dark when I came within sight of Dalwhinie inn.
From Dalwhinie I retraced my steps to Dalnacardoch; it was the 13th of August, a fine bright day. The attendants, and horses of sportsmen, who were come to the Highlands to shoot, enlivened the scene at Dalnacardoch: and as I sat in the carriage writing, the carters as they passed, regaled me with soft, sweet, Galic ditties, that delighted my ear. Nothing can exceed the melody of the Galic tunes, sung by a tolerable voice. The murmuring of the river Garrie also added to the harmony all around me; so that the hour and a half the horses required to rest, seemed to be very short. I was not a little amused with the expressions of the comers and goers, but one of Allen's was quite new to me. A chaise coming from the road I was going, driven by a Perth lad;—Allen hailed him, by saying, "What like is that road?" the answer, "dreadfully hilly!" Which I afterwards found very true. The day was hot, and the sun tinged the distant mountains most beautifully, particularly those of Atholl Forest, and the towering tops of Benygloe. All around me was a world of mountains, with craggy tops, and sides of sheep pasture; mixed with peat moss and heath. The road firm and good; but a constant up and down of long and steep hills, till I came in sight of a small valley, watered by the burn of Eroskie; to which is a descent by a very long zig-zag. The village at the bottom is Trinefour, from which another laborious hill is to climb of above a mile; at the top of which is a terrible rough barren heath. In front, at a considerable distance, is seen the globular top of Schiehallion, with its black rough body spreading; and sweeping, towards the Tumel river below it. The sun shone on the windows of Crossmount at its base, and on the blue slates of Drumachuine, which rendered those houses very conspicuous, though much concealed by wood and pointed rocks. A zig-zag road, over a heath at a great distance, pointed to those habitations; but I missed the track to it, and followed the great road to Tumel Bridge.
The view from the top of the rough moor north of Tumel bridge, is extensive wildness, joined with something of the majestic. To the left, are bare rough hills leading towards Glen Tumel, with a scattered hamlet of the poorest huts, hanging on the declivity of one of them, without even a bush to shelter them: also the small inn at Tumel bridge, with trees that mark the river's course. As the eye turns to the right towards Rannoch, it is amazed at the dark majestic scene of Schiehallion, in the back ground; the wood and pointed rocks of Mount Alexander, and the opening to the lake; which is there concealed from sight, by the stupendous mountains on its north shore.
When I arrived at the highest point on Mount Alexander, the scene that opened to the west and the east amazed me. I got upon a wall to take in the greatest extent of it: the sun shone finely upon Glen Tumel, stretching below me far to the east; only part of Loch Tumel was in sight, with the river winding towards it; and beautiful mountains hanging over it to the north and south: wood also enriching the glen, and creeping up every sweeping mountain's side, almost to the top. My eye then turned to the west. Rannock presented itself: a space of about twenty miles in length, nearly straight, and about two and a half in breadth. The lake nearly fills fifteen miles of the space; and its shores are beautifully indented by sweeps of mountains, and wooded points of land, running far into the water: some islands also add much to its beauty. The mountains on the north-side are very high; and their steep sides, wherever the crags will permit it, are cultivated; producing barley, oats, and grass, with wood creeping up the rocks where cultivation is denied. On the south of the lake is another ridge of mountains; some of them little inferior to the proud Schiehallion: these mountains are finely covered by extensive woods of firs and birch; even some of the highest crags are thus beautifully clothed. As I advanced towards the town of Kinloch, at the foot of the lake, I passed on a narrow high shelf, hanging over a precipice to the river Tumel, deep below. The road is but just sufficiently wide for a carriage, and no fence whatever on the precipice side of it. On the other hand are mountains to the sky, shivering from their tops, with huge loose pieces of rocks lying from the summits to the bases, ready at the least shock to crush the passenger beneath them. To be in that pass was frightful, and I was glad when the threatening danger was over.
Close to Kinloch is a very curious torrent, which in hard rains must have a very uncommon appearance. It falls between two bare mountains, in an irregular channel, narrow at the top, but spreads, as it descends, on large flat stages of redish smooth stones. I never beheld so singular a cataract; but I did not see it in perfection, there being but little water in it when I walked up its side. Some brush-wood, and a few shrubs and rushes hang about the broken pieces of rocks, forming a kind of irregular weirs, between the broad stages that come, step by step, from the top of the high mountain to the bottom, over which the water, in dry weather, slides in the oddest shapes imaginable; and in a flood, by the violent bounds, from one flat stage to another, the water forms a chain of semicircular spouts all the way down the channel.
At Kinloch, I crossed the Tumel just after it quits Loch Rannoch, over a very good bridge, and then wound round the foot of the lake, and proceeded on its southern margin, by a road truly beautiful; and were it not so rough, it would be a drive of fifteen miles that few can equal. There are two tolerable houses, and several hamlets on the way. One of the houses is a shooting box, belonging to Baron Norton; the other is called Carrie. For the whole distance, there is but a small flat between the ridge of mountains and the lake, sometimes not broader than the road. The great variety in the woods and groves through which the road winds, renders every step picturesque. The Black Wood is an extensive tract of fine firs growing up the sides of the mountains, and covering every crag; and at the bases, tracts of charming elms, mountain ash, oak, ash, birch, and many other sorts of trees intermixed; and by the lake's edge, an abundance of alder, hazel, mountain ash, young oaks, and a great variety of shrubs and small branching wood, all in its true natural state. The shavers and dressers have never laid their frightful hands on that lovely district; it being, to this day, in Nature's sweetest style. The extent of the Black Wood may be imagined, when I say, from a late survey of it, in order to ascertain the number of trees fit for use, it was found that there were in it five hundred thousand, from six inches and a half, to three feet in diameter. What a pity it is there is no water carriage from Rannoch; for were that the case, this fir wood would be a vast treasure to the owner of it. Had I not been in some fear for the carriage, from the roughness of the road, I should have enjoyed the drive through Rannoch amazingly. By and by I came to the bed of a large burn, another Calder burn with respect to its bed of stones, and the entrance into it even worse. Perceiving higher up the burn, a plank laid from bank to bank, I got out of the chaise, and made the best of my way to it. I found it in a very tottering state; but it was better than being in the carriage, for which I trembled, fearing it would be shaken to pieces every jolt it received, in going up and down over the stones in the burn's bed. That burn, in hard rains, rises suddenly to a prodigious height; and when I meant to return, it shut me up for a day, as there was no possibility of getting through it. As I approached the head of the lake, the district of Rannoch appeared to be entirely shut up from the whole world besides, by mountain upon mountain all around, and no means of escape; which indeed is nearly the case, except for Highland men and birds. It is true, there is an outlet to a flat towards Glen Coe, nearly west, by the river Gauer, that winds round some mountains from Loch Lydoch, to empty itself into Loch Rannoch; but this plain is so full of bogs and roughnesses, that none but Highland men can master: it is even dangerous for a shelty (a Highland poney) to go over it. From the west end of Loch Rannoch to King's House in the Black Mount, near to Glen Coe, it is only nine Scotch miles; but it was impossible for me to get to the district called the Black Mount, that way, for the reasons above mentioned; I could only look at it from the mountain top, and afterwards went eighty miles round to get thither. At the head of Loch Rannoch, or as it is generally called the west end, there is on the north side a shooting box belonging to Sir John Menzies. On the south side is a cluster of huts, called George's Town; and near it the remains of a barrack, but now a shooting box belonging to the chief of the Robertsons'. There is an inn too, but it is only fit for drovers to put up at; also a farm-house, and another cluster of huts, by the side of a very curious mountain cataract. One day I ascended the hill at the back of the farm (not a very easy scramble); but when I had attained the eminence, the distant mountains were a grand prospect, though all between them and me a dismal waste of flat moor, several small lakes, and the winding Gauer flowing from one of them: but beyond the waste, as far as my eye could reach, wonderful mountain beside mountain gratified my never satiated sight for such objects. To the north-west Ben Nivis is seen, with its towering head above the rest of the Bens. Due west, at the end of the Moor, the tremendous mountains in Glen Coe, and about King's house, rise in every sort of form, thence sweeping away to join the ridge on the south-west side of the Black Mount, having its tops lost in the sky; and those tops, what could be seen of them (from the motion of the clouds), varied in shape every instant. The sovereigns of Glen Orchy, with the sharp pointed tops of Cruchan Ben, hanging over Loch Awe, shut up the view to the south-west; and the near Rannoch mountains, bound the sight on the south; the soft round top of Schiehallion, looks down on its neighbours to the east; and the glittering bare crags hanging over Loch Ericht, close the scene to the north.
As I had looked at the head of Loch Ericht, when at Dalwhinie, I was desirous of seeing the southern end of it, near Rannoch. Eight miles was the distance named; but I am sure it is fourteen at least. I was placed upon a shelty, which was led through the Gauer river by an Highlandman, hip deep; but he cared far less for that, than I did for the splashing of my petticoats. As soon as I left the side of the Loch, to mount the river Ericht's side, I could no longer take care of myself; therefore the good Highlandman again became my friendly leader. I stuck as fast to the pummel of the saddle as I could, and thus mounted and descended such places as were sufficient to scare a lowland female out of her wits. At the end of a mile or two we quitted the bank of the river, and every track that had been gone before us, entering on the roughest and most uneven boggy, rocky, watery, black mountain moor, that human being ever explored. It was with the utmost difficulty that the poor little beast could keep upon his legs, though born and bred on such wastes; but there is a sagacity in the shelties not easily credited: if they be left to themselves, they will pick out their way in these horrid places with as much caution and wisdom as a man can. I afterwards met with three German gentlemen who were on their road from the island of Staffa. To get to that island, they had crossed the Isle of Mull upon these little animals. There were four men in that party, and they could procure only one saddle and bridle; the lucky he, to whom this luxury was allotted, soon resigned the use of the bridle; trusting, like the rest of his companions, to the better knowledge and experience of his shelty. They all declared to me, that when left to themselves, those sagacious little beasts, on the most difficult and dangerous moors, would pat a suspicious place with their fore-feet, and try a slippery piece of rock, before they would venture to step upon it; and were continually looking to the right and the left to discover which was the soundest spot; and after a mature examination, would turn this way or that, or take a circuitous route to gain the safest footing. The little shelty that carried me to Loch Ericht was not quite so sagacious; but, upon the whole, he did tolerably well, and I at last arrived at the lake; but such a solitary waste I never before beheld. The lake looks like a broad river, with immense, and most of them bare craggy mountains, rising perpendicularly from it; except here and there alpine wood creeping up their sides, till the shivering stones debar vegetation. On the east bank of this lake, at the south end of it where I embarked, is a prodigiously high, rough, bare mountain, in the hollows of which, as I have before mentioned, poor Charles Stuart concealed himself. On the west side of the lake, opposite to this mountain, is a patch of verdure by a little burn's side, backed by the mountains of Lochaber, and the stony crags of Ben Aulder forest, hanging over the western side of Loch Ericht. On this green plat stands a solitary sheelin (or shepherds hut), in which lives a shepherd, whose employer, at stated times, conveys meal and other provisions to him, by means of the lake; but he and his family never quit this sequestered spot, except to preserve and follow the sheep entrusted to their care. The wind rose too high to permit me to land, otherwise I should have been pleased to have seen such aborigines. The boatmen assured me, there was not a more healthy, or more bony family in the Highland sthan this shepherd's; and what is extraordinary, they can neither speak nor understand Galic; a strong proof of their solitude, and that they have no communication with their neighbours in Rannoch. I think there cannot, in nature, be a more forlorn or desolate place than that about Loch Ericht; but I am glad I saw it; and as I returned from it, and came down towards Rannoch, that district appeared, in comparison, a perfect Paradise. There are between the lakes a great many excessively pretty falls of the river Ericht, which I should have enjoyed, had the road been less dangerous, or I on foot instead of on horseback.
The greatest part of the district of Rannoch, (which I describe more particularly than most others, because it is less known, yet well worth seeing) has been for ages in the possession of the chiefs of the Robertson's. In the last rebellion, Robertson of Strowan, the poet, was their chief; a man, at that time, near eighty years of age, his body hale and strong, and his mind in vigour. He was at the battle of Preston Pans; and for his share of booty was allotted the carriage of Sir John Cope, there defeated. Strowan drove it in triumph, as far as he could, towards his district; and when the roads became impassable, he summoned his vassals to carry it into Rannoch. Amongst the other contents of Sir John's chaise, were a number of rolls of brownish stuff, which were concluded to be very valuable specifics for wounds, particularly as they were safely packed in a soldier's carriage, to be ready, as it was thought, in case of accidents. These precious rolls were cried in the streets of Perth, "Wha'll buy Jonny Cope's salve." They were rolls of chocolate.
The long life and actions of Strowan the poet have something so singular accompanying them, that I am tempted, though somewhat foreign to my subject, briefly to name some circumstances. His family were all of them stanch friends to the Kings of Scotland for ages. That is not singular; but it is very singular, that the same man should be engaged in the first and last attempts made to preserve on the throne, at the Revolution in 1689, and to restore to it, in 1745, the race of kings under whom he was born, and to whom he had sworn allegiance. When he first fought in 1689, in the battle of Killycrankie, for the house of Stuart, King James the Second, of England, was then acknowledged by all Scotland as lawful sovereign; and although Strowan was then a minor, and did no more than firmly support the loyal cause, and the then lawful and acknowledged king, by his country; the parliament of Scotland passed sentence of forfeiture against him in the year 1690; and that sentence remained in force all his life. This forfeiture bore hard upon that Strowan; but still more so on his heir. Had Strowan the poet taken up arms, in his old age, against the existing government in 1745, and then have been attainted, the case would be widely different; but having been attainted unjustly by the parliament of Scotland in 1690, and buffeted by adverse fortune all his long life, it was not to be wondered at, that he should be stout in the cause he thought just, to the end of his days.
The poet's habitation in Rannoch was on Mount Alexander, near the river, under the shelter of the high part of that hill, at no great distance from the point, where I got upon the wall at my first approach to Rannoch.—Over his gate he placed the following lines:
"In this small spot, whole Paradise you'll see,
With all its plants, but the forbidden tree.
Here, every sort of animal you'll find
Subdu'd, but woman, who destroy'd mankind:
All kinds of insects too, their shelter take
Within these happy groves, except the snake.
In fine, there's nothing poisonous here enclos'd,
But all is pure, as Heaven at first dispos'd:
Woods, hills, and dales, with milk and corn abound;
Traveller, pull off thy shoes, 'tis holy ground."
He had also inscriptions over the door house, the eating-room, and his bed-room; but when I was there, not a trace of his habitation remained. The natural beauties of Mount Alexander, however, were just as the poet described; "All as pure as Heaven at first dispos'd."
The present worthy chief has since begun a house on the same site; and I am persuaded, he has too much taste to destroy, by modern antics, the chaste, the enchanting simplicity, his ancestor has so well described; in whose steps, in point of celibacy, though not in politics, he strictly treads; so that the whole inscription too may be restored, and placed on the present Strowan's gate, which ornament the poet's portal.
Not half a mile below Mount Alexander, is the famous fall of the Tumel river; its noise is heard at a great distance; and it is a stop to the salmon, it being far too high for them to leap. It must be full forty feet high. It is not, to be sure, so lofty as many other falls in Scotland; but few equal it in majestic grandeur, at the time of a great flood; not only on account of the rise of the river, and the prodigious body of water in it, but chiefly for the wild appearance it exhibits, when dashing furiously in all the different forms that can be imagined, over the huge and irregular rocks at the cataract.
There is a very curious well at Mount Alexander, called the Silver Well, from the bright sand in it; and which is inexhaustible; for the well has frequently been cleared to a considerable depth; notwithstanding which it filled, and rose to the usual height, in a short time. Between Mount Alexander and the bridge of Rynachan, on the south side of the river Tumel, are vestiges of a temporary habitation, which, from its Galic name, must have been built for King Robert Bruce, when his affairs being at the lowest ebb, he was received in Rannoch by Duncan of Atholl, ancestor to the Robertson's of Strowan. The exploits of that Duncan, in the wars of those times, are great subjects of the traditional stories of the inhabitants of that country. Robert of Struan, Duncan's descendant, from whom the name of Robertson is derived, did great service to the crown, by seizing the conspirators of the murder of King James the First of Scotland, when they were about to place one of themselves on the throne, to the exclusion of the infant king. In the rebellion in Charles the First's time, the then chief of the Robertson's was of infinite service; and those services were acknowledged by Charles the Second, in a letter to the then chief. Robert of Strowan was, for his services, offered an Earldom, but declined it; alledging, a title could add nothing to his consequence in his own part of the country, where titles of ceremony were neither understood nor relished.
The present chief has a rock-crystal globe, about two inches and a quarter in diameter, which descends from chief to chief. The legend attributes great virtues to it; and the Robertsons' preserve it with care. It is said to have the virtue of curing diseases in the human frame, and in cattle, particularly when elf shot; and at this day, it is sometimes requested, by the superstitious Highland men, to be permitted to dip this globe in water; alledging, that water thus charmed, cures the diseases of their cattle. This stone was found in a very singular manner. The beforementioned Duncan, styled of Atholl, a son of Angus, Lord of the Isles, who was at all times a steady adherent to King Robert Bruce, having gone in pursuit of Macdougal of Lorn, who had made his escape from his confinement on one of the islands (belonging to Duncan) in Loch Rannoch, was obliged to halt, with his followers, at a place near Loch Ericht, and to pass the night there. Next morning, when the standard bearer drew out the staff from the spot where it had been fixed in the ground, it brought up a great deal of earth and small stones, amongst which, the crystal in question was found; and was then called the Stone of the Standard, or Collous, in the Galic language, which name it still retains.
The common language spoken in Rannoch, and throughout the Highlands, is the Galic, or Erse; though most of the inhabitants speak some English; for, except at the small town of Trinefour, between Dalnacardoch and Rannoch, I never, during the course of my peregrination in the Highlands, found any difficulty in getting myself understood.—The iron hook which keeps down the pole of the carriage having been forgotten, Allen did not mention it till we were near Trinefour; we concluded, however, the smith there would set us to rights; but behold, the smith was not at home, and his wife could not understand what we wanted, nor we what she said. I could ask her in Galic where her husband was, but, alas! I could not understand her answer. After bawling to each other a considerable time, and making signs to no effect, until we were tired, we both burst out with laughing; and then went on as well as we could, without the iron hook.
With much pain I turned my back upon the district of Rannoch: particularly as I reflected, that it most probably would be the last, as well as the first time, I should ever visit those parts. It would be a very desirable place to live in, were it not for its great distance from any medical assistance; there being none good nearer than Perth; forty miles from Mount Alexander: and when I was at the west end of the lake, wheat-bread and letters were sent for from Aberfeldie, which is thirty miles.