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.