Footsteps of Dr. Johnson (Scotland)/Chapter 11

by George Birkbeck Norman Hill

Inverness to Anoch (August 30-31).

At Inverness Johnson bade farewell to post-chaises, which had brought him in comfort all the way from London. "This day," writes Boswell, "we were: to begin our equitation, as I said; for I would needs make a word too. We might have taken a chaise to Fort Augustus, but had we not hired horses at Inverness we should not have found them afterwards. We had three horses for Dr. Johnson, myself, and Joseph, and one which carried our portmanteaus, and two Highlanders who walked along with us." They took but little baggage, and soon found the advantage of their moderation "in climbing crags and treading bogs. How often," continues Johnson. "a man that has pleased himself at home with his own resolution, will in the hour of darkness and fatigue be content to leave behind him everything but himself."
DUNGARDIE, A VITRIFIED FORT NEAR FOYERS. After leaving the Fort they were "to enter upon a country upon which perhaps no wheel had ever rolled." In the Commercial Map of Scotland, published by J. Knox in 1784, there is not a single road marked in any one of the Hebrides. After long wanderings, and the lapse of almost seven weeks, "Johnson's heart was cheered by the sight of a road marked with cart-wheels as on the mainland, a thing which we had not seen for a long time. It gave us a pleasure similar to that which a traveller feels when, whilst wandering on what he fears is a desert island, he perceives the print of human feet." It was in pleasant weather that they began their ride. "The day though bright was not hot. On the left were high and steep rocks shaded with birch and covered with fern or heath. On the right the limpid waters of Loch Ness were beating their bank and waving their surface by a gentle agitation." In one part of the way, adds Johnson, "we had trees on both sides for perhaps half a mile. Such a length of shade, perhaps, Scotland cannot show in any other place." Boswell, though he thought Fleet Street more delightful than Tempe, nevertheless felt the cheering powers of this delightful day. "The scene" he found "as sequestered and agreeably wild

Loch Ness.

as could be desired." Pennant, who had been there four years earlier, describes the scenery as "most romantic and beautiful."^[1] Wesley thought the neighbourhood of Inverness one of the pleasantest countries he had ever seen.^[2] In striking contrast with the enjoyment of these four travellers are the feelings of those who a few years before had seen the spot when the alarms of war were still fresh. "On each side of Loch Ness," writes Ray, "is a ridge of most terrible barren woody mountains. You travel along the banks through a road made by blowing up monstrous rocks, which in many place's hang declining over passengers and higher than houses, so that 'tis frightful to pass by them."^[3] A Volunteer describes the mountains "as high and frightful as the Alps in Spain; so we had nothing pleasant to behold but the sky."^[4]

Our travellers halted for dinner at the General's Hut, a small public-house nearly eighteen miles from Inverness.^[5] Here, says Johnson, Wade had lodged "while he superintended the works upon the road." I have seen it stated in a guide-book that on its site is built the Foyer's Hotel, but this is a mistake. In the Map of the Kings Roads made by General Wade, dated 1746, "the General Hutt" (sic) is marked just where the road takes a sudden

MAP OF FOYERS.

bend to the south, a short distance after which it passes the church of Burlassig. Dr. Garnett, who travelled through the Highlands at the end of the century, says that "the present public-house, which is still called the General's Hut, is very near the place where Wade had a small house, which was afterwards used as an inn. It commands a delightful view up the lake." The change of site must have been made, it would seem, between his visit and Johnson's.

FOYERS

The old inn was on the north-east or Inverness side of the church, whereas the Foyers Hotel is a little distance beyond it to the south-west. It is a pity that the ambition of landlords has not allowed the old name to remain. It was the only thing I found wanting in this comfortable hotel. Sir Walter Scott was surprised that "when these roads were made there was no care taken for inns. The King's House and the General's Hut are miserable places," he adds, "but the project and plans were purely military."^[6] Johnson, however, was not dissatisfied with his entertainment. "We found," he says, "the house not ill-stocked with provisions. We had eggs and bacon, and mutton, with wine, rum, and whisky. I had water." The little church hard by Boswell describes as "the meanest parish kirk I ever saw. It is a shame it should be on a high road." It might have been pleaded, perhaps, as an alleviation of its disgrace, that the high road had come to it and that it had not come to the high road. His reproach seems to have had some effect, for it has been removed to another place. The ruins, however, still remain. A middle-aged woman who dwells in the neighbourhood told me that "there was an old man living when she first came, who said he did not mind when it was a church, but his father did."

While Boswell mentions the mean kirk, with his indifference to natural objects he passes over in silence the celebrated Falls of Fiers or Foyers. He does not even mention the bridge over the river, or the rocks which on three sides of it rise to a great height. Here Johnson's imagination was deeply impressed, for he describes them as "exhibiting a kind of dreadful magnificence; standing like the barriers of nature placed to keep different orders of being in perpetual separation." Dismounting from their horses, "we clambered," he writes, "over very rugged crags, till we came at last to a place where we could overlook the river, and saw a channel torn, as it seems, through black piles of stone, by which the stream is obstructed and broken, till it comes to a very steep descent, of such dreadful depth, that we were naturally inclined to turn aside our eyes. But we visited the place at an unseasonable time, and found it divested of its dignity and terror. Nature never gives everything at once. A long continuance of dry weather, which made the rest of the way easy and delightful, deprived us of the pleasure expected from the Falls of Fiers." This same month Mason, the poet, was complaining that the cascades at Lodore had been "reduced by the dry season to a scanty rill, which took away more than half the beauties of the scene."^[7]

It was dark when our travellers reached "the wretched inn" at Fort Augustus. Happily it was not in it that they were to lodge, for the governor invited them to sleep in his house. Of the fort, the rebels had made a bonfire on April 15, 1746, the day before Culloden, "to celebrate the Duke of Cumberland's birthday."^[8] It had since been rebuilt and greatly strengthened, "being surrounded by two trenches filled with water, and having draw-bridges, strong

INVERMORISTON.

walls, and bastions."^[9] Nothing is left of it. Where rough soldiers once carried things with a high hand, now smooth priests rule. On the site of the old fortifications which bore the second name of the butcher duke has been raised a college and monastery dedicated to St. Benedict. Johnson long remembered the rest which he enjoyed in the governor's hospitable home. Nearly four years later he recorded in his diary: "I passed the night in such sweet uninterrupted sleep as I have not known since I slept at Fort Augustus." The following year, writing to Boswell, he said, "The best night that I have had these twenty years was at Fort Augustus." From

THE MORISTON RIVER

this spot to the sea-shore opposite Skye they had about forty-four miles of highland paths to traverse. This part of their journey they were forced to divide very unequally, as Anoch, the only place where they could find entertainment, was scarcely a third of the way. Crossing the mountains by a road which had been made "with labour that might have broken the perseverance of a Roman legion," early in the afternoon they came "through a wild country" to Glenmorison.^[10] They did not, as the guide-book says, follow the course of the river Moriston from Invermoriston, but joined it some miles higher up, above the fine scenery and the wild tumble of water which are shown in the accompanying sketch. This fact I did not discover till too late. Anoch Johnson describes as "standing in a glen or valley
THE RUINS OF THE HOUSE AT ANOCH. pleasantly watered by a winding river. It consists of three huts, one of which is distinguished by a chimney." It was in the house thus distinguished that they lodged. When I visited this spot last summer, we halted at a farmhouse hard by to rest our horses and take some lunch. We sat on the bank of a dried-up brook, beneath a row of witch-elms. A cuckoo was flying about, resting now and then on the garden wall. "Its two-fold shout" it scarcely uttered, thinking, perhaps, that as it was the month of June, it would be "heard, not regarded." The wind rustled in the leaves, the river, blue beneath a blue sky, ran swiftly by, now under a shady bank, and now round a stony foreland, till it lost itself at last from our sight behind a bend. To the west rose lofty mountains; on the other side of the valley were sloping hills. We lunched on frothing milk, oat-cakes, scones, and butter; the sheep dogs playing around us, and with wistful gaze asking for their share of the feast. We lay on the ground and looked across the little ravine at an old hut that was "distinguished by a chimney." This we all voted, and very likely with truth on our side, was the very place where our travellers had lodged. Talking of "far-off things," of Johnson and the copy of Cocker's Arithmetic which he gave to his landlord's "gentle and pleasing daughter," of her father's library of odd volumes, and of the old hut and the old life, an hour slipped quickly and pleasantly by.

THATCHED HOUSE. As our travellers "passed on through the dreariness of solitude" on their way hither, they had come upon a party of soldiers working on the road, to whom they gave a couple of shillings to spend in drink. "With the true military impatience of coin in their pockets," these men had followed them to the inn, "having marched at least six miles to find the first place where liquor could be bought." There they made merry in the barn. "We went and paid them a visit," writes Boswell; "Dr. Johnson saying, 'Come, let's go and give 'em another shilling a-piece.' We did so, and he was saluted 'My Lord' by all of them." Johnson avows that one cause of his generosity was regard to his and Boswell's safety. "Having never been before in a place so wild and unfrequented, I was glad of their arrival, because I knew that we had made them friends; and to gain still more of their good-will, we went to them when they were carousing in the barn, and added something to our former gift." The money was ill-bestowed. "The poor soldiers got too much liquor. Some of them fought and left blood upon the spot, and cursed whisky next morning." Perhaps Johnson had them in his mind when, a few years later, he said, "Why, sir, a common soldier is usually a very gross man." To the degradation of one of the English regiments which had been stationed in the Highlands, testimony is borne by Wolfe, who on his return from Scotland in 1753, wrote: "If I stay much longer with the regiment I shall be perfectly corrupt; the officers are loose and profligate, and the soldiers are very devils."^[11] Johnson soon found that he had no need of a guard. His host had indeed fought in the Highland army at Culloden, but he was a quiet honest fellow. The account which he gave of the campaign moved Boswell to tears. If he told them the following story which I have found in Henderson's History of the Rebellion, he would have moved also Johnson to anger. A party of the Grants of Glenmorison had joined the Pretender's army at Edinburgh. The laird, who had remained loyal, came, after the battle of Culloden, "with about five hundred of his vassals to Inverness, whence they were sent into the country of the Macintoshes. Hereupon the Grants in the rebellion begged his intercession. He repaired to the Duke of Cumberland, and said, 'Here are a number of men come in with their arms, who would have submitted to none in Britain but to me.' 'No!' answered the duke; 'I'll let them know that they are my father's subjects, and must likewise submit to me.' So he gave orders to embark them with the other prisoners, and they were shipped off to Tilbury Fort."^[12] Smollett tells how great numbers of the miserable captives who were sent to London by sea, being crowded in the holds of the vessels, "perished in the most deplorable manner for want of necessaries, air, and exercise."^[13] If the Grants escaped this fate, very likely they were transported to America.

 

1. Pennant's Tour in Scotland, i. 196.
2. Wesley's Journal, iv. 275.
3. Ray's History of the Rebellion, p. 362.
4. M. Hughes's Plain Narrative, p. 53. Alps, I suppose, he uses as Milton does for lofty mountains in general.
5. In a Survey of the Province of Moray, published at Aberdeen in 1798, on pp. 333-34, the following table is given of the distances along the road which Johnson was following:—"From Inverness to the General's Hut, 17 miles 6 furlongs. From General's Hut to Fort Augustus, 14 miles 2 furlongs. From Fort Augustus to Unach [? Anoch], 9 miles. From Unach to Rattachan, 25 miles 5 furlongs. From Rattachan to Bernera, 9 miles.
6. Croker's Boswell, 8vo, ed. p. 307.
7. Walpole's Letters, v. 501.
8. Kay's History of the Rebellion, p. 325.
9. Ib., p. 362.
10. I adopt Boswell's spelling. Johnson calls it Glenmollison. It is now generally written Glenmoriston.
11. Wright's Life of Wolfe, p. 279.
12. Henderson's History of the Rebellion, p. 122.
13. Smollett's History of England, iii. 183.

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