Abbotsferry is just above Abbotsford, and is crossed in a small row-boat. The river here is of considerable width and quite rapid. The boat was kept on the other side; so I hallooed to a man engaged in thatching a rick of oats to come and ferry me over. Without descending from the ladder, he called to some one in the cottage, when, to my surprise, a well-dressed young woman, in rather flowing dress, red jacket, and with her hair tastefully done up in a net a-la-mode, made her appearance. Descending to the river, she folded up her gown, and, settling herself to the oars, “pushed her light shallop from the shore” with the grace of The Lady of the Lake. In a few minutes she ran the prow upon the pebbled beach at my feet, and I took my seat at the other end of the boat. She did it all so naturally, and without any other flush upon her pleasant face than that of the exercise of rowing, that I felt quite easy myself and checked the expression of regret I was on the point of uttering for putting her to such service. A few questions convinced me it was her regular employment, especially when her father was busy. I could not help asking her if she had ever read “The Lady of the Lake,” but found that neither that romance nor any other had ever invested her river experience with any sensibility except of a cheerful duty. She was going to do the whole for a penny, her usual charge, but I declined to take back any change for the piece of silver I gave to her, intimating that I regarded it cheap at that to be rowed over a river by such hands.
Almost opposite to Abbotsford I passed one of the best farming establishments I had seen in Scotland. I was particularly struck with a feature which will hereafter distinguish the steddings or farm buildings in Great Britain. Steam has already accomplished many changes, and among others one that could hardly have been anticipated when it was first applied to common uses. It has virtually turned the threshing-floor out of doors. Grain growing has become completely out-of-door work, from seeding to sending to market. The day of building two-story barns for storing and threshing wheat, barley and oats is over, I am persuaded, in this country. A quadrangle of slate-roofed cow-sheds, for housing horses and cattle, will displace the old-fashioned barns, each with its rood of roof. This I saw on crossing the Tweed was quite new, and may serve as a model of the housing that will come into vogue rapidly. One familiar with New England in the “old meeting-house” time would call this establishment a hollow square of horse-sheds, without a break or crevice at the angles.
I reached Galashiels about 5 p.m., and stopped an hour for tea. This is a vigorous and thrifty town, that makes a profitable and useful business of the manufacture of tweeds, tartans and shawls. It is situated on the banks of the Gala, a little, rapid, shallow river that joins the Tweed about a mile below. After tea I resumed my walk, but owing to the confused direction of the landlady, took the wrong side of the river, and diverged westward toward Peebles. I had made three miles or more in this direction before I found out my mistake, so was obliged to return to Galashiels, where I concluded to spend the night, after another involuntary excursion more unsatisfactory than my walk around Sheffield, inasmuch as I had to travel over the same road twice for the whole distance. Thus the three mistakes thus far made have cost me twenty miles of extra footing. The next morning I set out in good season, determined to reach Edinburgh, if possible, by night.
Followed the Gala Water, as it is called here, just as if it were a placid lake or land-locked bay, though it is a tortuous and swift-running stream. The scenery was still picturesque, in some places very grand and romantic. There was one great amphitheatre just before reaching the village of Stow which was peculiarly interesting. It was a great bowl full of earth’s glory up to the very rim. The circular wall was embossed with the best patterns and colors of vegetation. The hills of every tournure showed each in a fir setting, looking, with their sloping fields of grain, like inverted goblets of gold vined with emerald leafwork. In the valley a reaping machine was at work with its peculiar chatter and clatter, and men and women were following in its wake, gathering up and binding the grain as it fell and clearing the way for the next round. Up and down these hills frequently runs a stripe of Scotch firs or larches a few rods wide; here and there they resemble those geometrical figures often seen in gardens and pleasure grounds. The sun peeping out of the clouds, and flooding these features with a sudden, transient river of light, gives them a glow and glory that would delight the artist. After a long walk through such scenery, I reached, late in the evening, Auld Reekie, a favorite home-name which the modern Athenians love to give to Edinburgh. Being anxious to push on and complete my journey as soon as practicable, I only remained in the celebrated Scotch metropolis one night, taking staff early next morning, and holding northward towards the Highlands.
Edinburgh has made its mark upon the world and its place among the great centres of the world’s civilization. On the whole, no city in Great Britain, or in Christendom, has ever attained to such well-developed, I will not say angular, but salient individuality. This is deep-featured and ineffaceable. It is, not was. Edinburgh has reared great men prolifically and supplied the world with them, and kept always a good number back for itself to give a shaping to others the world needed. Its prestige is great in the production of such intellects. But it keeps up with the times. It is faithful to its antecedents, and appreciates them at their full value and obligation. It does not lie a-bed until noon because it has got its name up for educating brilliant minds. Its grand old University holds its own among the wranglers of learning. Its High School is proportionately as high as ever, notwithstanding the rapid growth of others of the same purpose. Its pulpit boasts of its old mind-power and moral stature. Its Theology stands iron-cabled, grand and solid as an iceberg in the sea of modern speculation, unsoftened under the patter of the heterodox sentimentalities of human philanthropy. It is growing more and more a City of Palaces. And the palaces are all built for housing the poorest of the poor, the weakest of the weak and the vilest of the vile. These hospitals are the Holyroods of Edinburgh II. They honor it with a renown better than the royal palace of the latter name ever won.
I said Edinburgh the Second. That is correct. There are two towns, the Old and the New; the last about half a century’s age. But the oldest will be the youngest fifty years hence. The hand of a “higher civilization,” with its spirit-level, pick, plane and trowel, is upon it with the grip of a Samson. That hand will tone down its great distinctive individualities and give it the modern uniformity of design, face and feature. All these tall houses, built skyward layer upon layer or flat upon flat, until they show half a dozen stories on one street, and twice that number on the other, are doomed, and they will be done for, one by one in its turn. They probably came in with Queen Mary, and they will go out under the blue-eyed Alexandra. They will be supplanted by the most improved architecture of modern taste and utilitarianism. Edinburgh will be Anglicised and put in the fashionable costume of a progressive age; in the same swallow-tailed coat, figured vest and stovepipe hat worn by London, Liverpool and Manchester. It will not be allowed to wear tweed pantaloons except for one circumstance;—that it is now building its best houses of stone instead of brick.
But there are physical features that will always distinguish Edinburgh from all other cities of the world and which no architectural changes can ever obliterate or deface. There are Arthur’s Seat, Salisbury Crags, the Calton Hill, and the Castle Height, and there they will stand forever—the grandest surroundings and garniture of Nature ever given to any capital or centre of the earth’s populations.
CHAPTER XVII.
LOCH LEVEN-ITS ISLANDCASTLE—STRATHS—PERTH—SALMON-BREEDING—THOUGHTS ON FISH-FARMING—DUNKELD—BLAIR ATHOLL—DUCAL TREE-PLANTER—STRATHSPEY AND ITS SCENERY—THE ROADS—SCOTCH CATTLE AND SHEEP—NIGHT IN A WAYSIDE COTTAGE—ARRIVAL AT INVERNESS.
On Friday, Sept. 11th, I left for the north the morning after my arrival in Edinburgh, hoping to finish my long walk before the rainy season commenced. My old friend and host accompanied me across the Forth, by the Granton Ferry, and walked with me for some distance on the other side; then bidding me God-speed, he returned to the city. The weather was fine, and the farmers were very busy at work. A vast quantity of grain, especially of oats, was cut and ready for carting; but little of it had been ricked in consequence of frequent showers. I noticed that they used a different snath for their scythes here from that common in England. It is in two parts, like the handles of a plough, joining a foot or two above the blade. One is shorter than the other, each having a thole. It is a singular contrivance, but seems to be preferred here to the old English pole. I have never seen yet an American scythe-snath in England or Scotland, although so much of our implemental machinery has been introduced. American manure-forks and hay-forks, axes and augurs you will now find exposed for sale in nearly every considerable town, but one of our beautifully mounted scythes would be a great novelty here.