Enough has been said to tempt anyone that has the time, the lung power, and a mind capable of being attracted and pleased with the grand in Nature. But it is not merely the grand that is to be met with. There is no more delightful spot in summer than a bare hillside. On the broad slopes of purple heather, with dark hills in the distance, one suddenly comes upon all kinds of life and beauty. Here is some wild game, which darts or flies away at your approach. Poor as the pasture is, no Eastern carpet ever glowed with half the colour of those flowing slopes. As we come farther down we light upon a little troop of stonechats—five young birds and their parents—on the branches of a hawthorn. They are a lively lot, and the clear “chat, chat” of the old birds is one of the few sounds of life upon the hill. It was perhaps this note that disturbed a pair of partridges from their resting-place. They leap a little way into the air, but instead of flying off they settle down again and crane their necks above the grass. We are told that some animals, now rare, are not quite unknown on the hillside, such as the otter, the wild cat, and the fox. Still, any of these are not likely to disturb the casual visitor. The only thing that can be regarded as the least uncanny that came under our notice was the presence in the burn, not a great way up, of an eel.
The natives, we are told, but will not vouch for the truth of it, have a horror of eels almost as great as of the adders that are to be met with on the sunny side of the burn, but which will not hurt you if you do not hurt them. The natives, however, show them scant mercy. But the perfume of flowers and leaves and heather, the singing of birds, and the sweeps of wooded braes throw one into a poetical turn of mind that begets a dreamy content in which nothing either great or small is overlooked.
If you have a turn for botany you may find here, in the course of your ascent or descent, specimens of the tufted vetch and the lady’s mantle and one of the saxifrages, loosestrife, a specific which used to be laid in the cradles of children to make them of a peaceable temperament. The dog mercury is also here, which dogs resort to and eat as a medicine, and many another specimen too numerous to detail. And if your experience be the same as ours, you will also have the advantage of a singing competition between a homely thrush and some other bird, in which the thrush, with his louder, more continuous, and more varied song, bore away the palm. It was amusing to see how the rival songsters continued, evidently now listening to each other, and continuing “long with spiteful energy of sweet sounds.” But the shadows will soon begin to lengthen and lie another way, and we may make a straight road for Lochgoilhead.
BEN VENUE.
Who that has read “Rob Roy” would not wish to make a pilgrimage to the clachan of Aberfoyle, where visitors can see for themselves the historic coulter of the “Bailie,” still red-hot, hanging on a tree in front of the hotel? It will be remembered that this implement did no little damage to the Highlandman’s plaid, and led to the very important question, when the articles of agreement were being decided on in the inn, after the fracas—“But who’s to pay for ma new plaid?” And who that has read of Roderick Dhu and Fitz-James would not wish to go to the top of Ben Venue? Well, all this can be done in one short day from Glasgow, and at a very small outlay of money; and with my reader’s leave I will act as his cicerone, in case he should wish to visit a district which is more visited and better known by the world at large than any other in Scotland.
Take a return ticket to Aberfoyle by the North British, and if money is a consideration, do it on a Saturday. If walking is no consideration to you, if you can walk six miles over a hill and then climb two, up a safe but very and continuously steep mountain, start, after you have had a look around and at the old brig, up the road to the east of the hill. Take the old road, with its short cuts as often as you can, and you will be well on your way before the coach, which has to walk the half of the way, will overtake you.
But on the other hand, if money is no consideration and walking is, you can get a ride over and back for the reasonable sum of six shillings, by the new coach road recently and well (in a double sense) made by no less a person than his Grace of Montrose. Before reaching the summit you have the slate quarries, giving employment to about 100 men, on your left, and after passing the summit you have the Gloomy Glen, and Loch Drunkie, with which it communicates, on your right. Here also you get an instalment of the land of the mountain and the flood, and as you see Ben Venue now towering in its lonely greatness to the left, apparently much higher, though nearly 500 feet less than Ben Ledi in front of you, a little to the left, you begin to wish you could drive right up. A few steps further and you are in sight of “the Lake of the Level Plain,” with “bold Ben A’an” standing aloof to the north. Even the rude mountains seem to wear a gentler look as they meet the pure gaze of “lovely Loch Achray,” and the place is a very sanctuary of sweet and quiet influences. The ascent is best made by leaving the coach road at Achray House, before coming to the wooden bridge on the Teith as it is about to fall into Loch Achray. Pass through the offices of Mr. Thomson, to whose family we Glasgow people are indebted for so large and so cheap a park as we have at Camphill, go across the burn coming down Glen Reoch, and keep on the grass-grown cart road, with the Teith on your right, till near the sluice between Loch Katrine and the burn which is its overflow. This overflow is not now so large as before we in Glasgow began to make such a pull on Loch Katrine. Here, on the left, you will see a clump of eight or ten trees, chiefly birch, with a mountain stream to the right of it, and there is the place where you should begin your climb, keeping this little stream on your right, keeping near to it for guidance, refreshment, and to cool your fevered brow. When you have reached the first beginnings of the tiny stream, keep to the right under the shade of a great rock, at the far end of it turn to the left, make for the ridge before you, and when you have reached it, the last and pleasantest part of the climb is now to the right, amid largish rocks, which make the approach to the summit something like the burying-place of giants, and, strange to say, it is all covered over with “ladies mantles.” On the way up specimens may be gathered, if you are that way inclined, of the Burnet saxifrage, moneywort, and marjoram; also, of the juniper and yew, the fruit of the latter being exceedingly beautiful with its bright red waxen cup holding the seed.
The height of Ben Venue, “the little mountain” (as compared with Ben Lomond), is 2393 feet above the sea level, and the ascent can be easily made in two and a half hours. I have done it in an hour and forty-five minutes from Achray House, but this was without a rest, which I could not advise anyone to repeat. You are now looking down on the world-famed Trossachs. It has been well said that the scenery around the Trossachs “beggars all description,” a phrase more forcible than elegant; still it is true, and only a Scott could do it justice. The whole district has been immortalised by him; but forcible as are his descriptions, they do no more than justice to the original, which has been touched by nature’s fingers with loveliness of no common kind. There is such an assembly of rude and wild grandeur as fills the mind with the most sublime conceptions. It is as if a whole mountain had been torn in pieces and had fallen down by a great convulsion of the earth, and the huge fragments of rocks and rocky wooded hill lie scattered about in confusion for several miles along the side of Loch Katrine. Black and bluff headlands of rock dip down into the unfathomable water, or, to speak more exactly, into a loch which was found recently to be 75 fathoms deep, and which on account of its depth scarcely ever freezes. Then there are deep retiring bays, there are beaches covered with white sand, and grave rugged cliffs with wood which seems as if it grew out of the solid rock.