In the face of the Black Rock, on the northern end, is a cave, hidden by a mass of ivy, about twenty yards above the water, and almost inaccessible. The hardy and sure-footed Highlander, John Mackenzie,—who was the last post-runner from Dingwall to Gairloch, and was called Iain Mor am Post ([Part II., chap. x.]),—succeeded in entering this cave, and reported that twelve men might sit in it. The cave is called in Gaelic Uamh gu do roghiann, or "the cave for your choice," a name supposed to refer to some love story now forgotten.
The steamer proceeds alongside the slopes and below the crags of Tollie. The highest point of this range is 1123 feet in height. Some forty years ago a sad event occurred on the side of Craig Tollie. Heather burning, which is carried on in the months of March and April every year, in the interests alike of grouse and sheep, was in hand, and a newly engaged fox-hunter or trapper was assisting. Smothered by the smoke and overtaken by a sudden rush of flame, he was burned to death. Grand effects, as if blazing lava were pouring down the hillsides, are often witnessed during the annual seasons of heather-burning.
Stepping on to Tollie pier, we have completed the tour of Loch Maree, and again enter the carriage or "machine," which returns to Gairloch by the way we came.
Chapter XIV.
The Fionn Loch and its Dubh Loch.
By William Jolly.
There is no royal road to learning, and there is no "royal route" to our finest scenery. The common tourist, like the sheep, meekly follows the beaten tracks, missing the better bits, which only the hardier and more adventurous pedestrian finds, like the more independent goat. There are a hundred nooks of rarest beauty and wildest grandeur hidden away in our mountainous land, far from the sheep runs of coaches and hotels, and their mere enumeration would be longer than a Gaelic song or a Highland sermon.
One of these nooks may be found not far from Loch Maree. Immediately to the north of the lake stretches one of the least frequented tracts in broad Scotland,—the region that surrounds the beautiful, many-islanded, salt-water Loch Gruinard. Here, right across the high range which skirts the north shore of Loch Maree from Beinn Aridh Charr to Slioch, lies the Fionn Loch, with its upper chamber, the Dubh Loch. Fionn Loch—that is "the fair lake"—is so called from its contrast to its darker portion, the Dubh or "black" Loch. Its name contains the word that has become classical in the famous name of the heroic Fingal, "the fair stranger" of some interpreters; and in the less known but real name of the equally famous Flora Macdonald, Fionnghal, "the fair one."
The Fionn Loch may be reached by the hardier climber by crossing Loch Maree from Talladale, and dropping down on it through the pass behind Letterewe. But the easier, and in a scenic point of view better, way is to go from Gairloch or Poolewe by the good road which runs to its very shores. From Gairloch the way is unusually fine, commanding one of the best views of the queen of Scottish lakes, from the very spot rendered famous by Horatio Macculloch's great picture; passing the sweet sea gulf of Loch Ewe, and skirting the picturesque banks of the swift-flowing Ewe, which carries the waters of the great lake to the ocean. Leaving this clear stream you enter on a wild heathery region, till lately trodden only by the firm foot of the hunter or the pedestrian in search of game or the picturesque. You soon catch a view of Loch Kernsary, holding its prehistoric artificial island, and of its knots of trees, a pretty picture, with Loch Ewe looking like a lake, and the sea in the distance. You soon leave the Torridon sandstone and enter on the ancient barrenness of the Hebridean gneiss, covered by innumerable erratic blocks, the representatives of the Arctic era when ancient Caledonia was a Greenland and Fionn Loch was swathed in ice. From an eminence on a spur of the Rowan Tree Hill, you at last look down on Loch Fionn. It is a large sheet of fresh water, seven miles in length, enclosed within winding shores, diversified by islands, and surrounded by a magnificent range of mountains, which stand about it on every side but the one next the sea. In fine weather it forms a splendid mirror set in a fretted frame of alpine carving, seldom surpassed for wild and picturesque beauty. In storm it becomes a furious sea of crested waves, under driving rain, rolling mist, and howling winds. These descend with uncommon strength from frowning mountains, which guard a scene then almost as wild, dark, and grand as Coruisk itself. From its character and surroundings the lake assumes either aspect with equal ease.