The ascending road now tends to the right. Near its extreme height an improvement in the line of the road was effected about 1874. The original piece of road is visible a little above to the right. It is a pity some other Gairloch roads are not similarly improved.
At the head of the watershed, 804 feet above the sea-level, we enter Glen Dochartie, a truly wild Highland glen. Its stern character is greatly relieved by the exquisite distant view of Loch Maree, half-way down which, at a distance of about twelve miles from the spectator, Isle Maree may easily be discerned. There used to be a very good well just below the road at the head of the glen; the water still flows at the place, but the well is covered by the new road; this was formerly a favourite trysting-place of the Gairloch and Loch Broom men when they went out to lie in wait for the Lochaber cattle-lifters. Glen Dochartie, and the Great Black Corrie in Glen Torridon, were the entrances to Gairloch from the south and east. (See stories in [Part I., chap. xiii.]) Glen Dochartie has many attractions, especially in the great variety of colouring on both sides. Perhaps it is best seen on the return journey by this route. On the right is Carn a Ghlinne (1770 feet), and on the left Bidein Clann Raonaild (1529 feet). There are remains of ancient ironworks near the head and at the foot of the glen ([Part I., chap. xx]). We travel rapidly down the glen, passing at the foot of it, to the right, the farm of Bruachaig. Shortly before finishing this stage Meall a Ghuibhais and Beinn Eighe (or Eay), come into view, the latter being perhaps the most effective mountain, from an artistic point of view, in the kingdom. Leaving the Kenlochewe shooting-lodge to the right, and crossing the bridge over the River Garbh, we pull up at the hotel at
Kenlochewe.
The name of this place is in Gaelic Ceann-loch-iu. It signifies the head of Loch Ewe, by which name Loch Maree was called in the seventeenth century. Hugh Miller, in that interesting book "My Schools and Schoolmasters," says:—"The name—that of an old farm which stretches out along the head or upper end of Loch Maree—has a remarkable etymology; it means simply the head of Loch Ewe, the salt-water loch into which the waters of Loch Maree empty themselves, by a river little more than a mile in length, and whose present head is some sixteen or twenty miles distant from the farm which bears its name. Ere that last elevation of the land, however, to which our country owes the level marginal strip that stretches between the present coast line and the ancient one, the sea must have found its way to the old farm. Loch Maree, a name of mediæval origin, would then have existed as a prolongation of the marine Loch Ewe, and Kenlochewe would have actually been what the compound words signify,—the head of Loch Ewe. There seems to be reason for holding that ere the latest elevation of the land took place in our island, it had received its first human inhabitants,—rude savages, who employed tools and weapons of stone, and fashioned canoes out of single logs of wood. Are we to accept etymologies such as the instanced one—and there are several such in the Highlands—as good in evidence that these aboriginal savages were of the Celtic race, and that Gaelic was spoken in Scotland at a time when its strips of grassy links, and the sites of many of its seaport towns, such as Leith, Greenock, Musselburgh, and Cromarty, existed as oozy sea-beaches, covered twice every day by the waters of the ocean?"
Kenlochewe is a thoroughly Highland village, with its shooting-lodge, hotel, church, school, smithy, and not far away the old burial-ground of Culinellan. The village is beautifully placed, near the head of the level strath which spreads south-eastward from the head of Loch Maree. It comes in for a good deal of rain, being the centre at which four glens meet, viz., Glen Cruaidh Choillie (often erroneously called Glen Logan), Glen Dochartie, Glen Torridon, and the great glen of Loch Maree. The shooting-lodge is surrounded by a well-grown plantation; and other younger plantations are growing up near the village. The hotel is exceedingly comfortable, and visitors staying here have the privilege of fishing in the upper parts of Loch Maree. As the hotel is not large, rooms should be engaged beforehand. In Pennant's "Tour" (see [Appendix B]) is his account of the accommodation he found at Kenlochewe; read it, and be thankful for the luxuries of the present well-kept house. The neat little church was erected in 1878 by public subscription; it belongs to the Free Church, but has not a regularly settled minister. There was in old days a church or place of worship at or near Kenlochewe. There is a large grove of tall ash trees in the Culinellan burial-ground, and a colony of rooks nests annually in them. Several of the stories and traditions given in [Part I]. refer to Kenlochewe or its neighbourhood. A little to the north of the Kenlochewe Free church is the hillock called Cnoc a Chrochadair, or "the hangman's hill," where some of the M'Leods are said to have been hung (see [page 45]). Below the Culinellan burial-ground is the ford on the river called Athnan Ceann, or "the ford of the heads." The story relating the origin of this name is given on page 13. Kenlochewe is a favourite resort of artists, who find many subjects in the neighbourhood. Beinn Eighe, and the more distant Liathgach,—both in Glen Torridon,—are superb mountains, and they are best seen from Kenlochewe or near it.
There are two modes of reaching Gairloch from Kenlochewe. One, described in the next chapter, is by the county road past Grudidh bridge, Talladale, Slatadale, and the Falls of Kerry to the Gairloch Hotel. The other is to take the steamer from Ru Nohar, down Loch Maree to Tollie pier, and to proceed thence by road to Gairloch, as described in [Part IV., chap. xiii]. The mail, which, as has been said, is worked by Mr M'Iver, of Achnasheen, is not at present in connection with the steamer. Mr Hornsby, of the Gairloch Hotel, by previous communication, or Mrs Macdonald, of the Kenlochewe Hotel, so far as regards those who are staying in her house, will arrange for the conveyance of passengers and luggage to the steamer at Ru Nohar pier, which is two miles from Kenlochewe Hotel. In the busiest part of the tourist season there is a large conveyance awaiting the arrival of the mid-day train at Achnasheen, to carry to Ru Nohar those who wish to avail themselves of the steamer route.