In returning by the top of the hill that rises above the pass to the south, I passed a great perched block, fifteen feet long and ten feet high, a standing witness of the Ice Age. An old hill fort on the head of this ridge, formed by a strong enclosing wall, was an unexpected sight in such a retired region, indicating more inhabitants in the old days. It commands an unsurpassed prospect over the whole lake country below, westwards to the open Minch with the dim Uists in the far horizon.
Descending, I caught the old road to Loch Broom, which crosses the Bealloch from Letterewe on Loch Maree, and which led me straight to the boat.
After embarking, we pulled till just under the front of Craig an Dubh Loch, a precipice above a thousand feet high, whose remarkable whiteness had arrested the eye from the first. This is caused by the presence of the pale granite, called pegmatite, which runs over the face of the cliff in serpentine lines and masses, expanding and contracting, and stretching in tongue-like extensions to the summit, where it is again broadly developed. This curious granite gives the cliff the general aspect of the precipices of Cape Wrath or Skye, with their volcanic intrusions and contortions, as figured by Macculloch and Nicol.
The upper part of the Fionn Loch glen narrows into a steep close corrie, occupied by the waters of the Dubh Loch, and a higher green cul de sac, with its mountain streamlet, enclosed by Craig an Dubh Loch on the right, and the Maiden and her rugged companions to the left or north. The Dubh Loch is a dark, deep pool, grand in a scenic and most interesting in a geological view. It forms a marked contrast to the expansive and brighter Fionn Loch, of which, nevertheless, it is merely an alpine chamber; and the contrasted names given by the old Celts to two parts of the same water, the "white" and the "black," are as true as they are descriptive. Their general aspect shows this sufficiently, but when viewed from any of the neighbouring hills, the truth of the description is more evident. The Dubh Loch always bears a dark look if not a sullen frown, even in a calm, looking then like a pavement of black Galway marble.
The Dubh Loch forms a well-curved crescent, its concave side being occupied by Craig an Dubh Loch. Crossing the causeway between the lakes, the traveller should ascend the steep rocky hill, called Carn na Paite, some three hundred feet high, which is isolated from the mountains beyond by a deep valley. Its top commands a wonderful view of the whole alpine scene, and enables you to see the steep silent corrie at the head of the Dubh Loch, and thus complete your survey. The scenery from this central point of vantage is very grand, being wild, desolate, and imposing, unusually stern in character and colouring, and as lonely and separate from the world as Manfred or the most misanthropic could desire.
When we left the Dubh Loch, a fierce thunder shower burst, the big drops being sent sharply into the lake like hail, with a pellet-like force and high upward rebound of water. Viewed through this wonderful screen of rain and mist, the great mountains became mere flat shadows. Then it changed to a misty gauze, returned again and again to a black obliterating denseness, and then cleared off till the hill-tops held the upper clouds like volcanic smoke from active craters, the whole scene passing through many grand and beautiful phases from thundery rain to sunshine. It was a splendid exhibition of the scene in its alpine aspects, and completed the pictures of the varied day.
In the middle of the falling rain we picked up our artists, drenched, but delighted, though with unfinished canvas. The wet prevented a visit to some of the islands in this part of the loch which we wished to see, the haunts of some of our rarer birds that still linger in this wild Highland loch. In Eilean a Chuillin, on the north side, a heronry is said to have been destroyed by golden eagles from the rocks on Beinn Aridh Charr, one of the accused being poisoned in consequence. In Eilean nan Corr-sgreach, that is the "heron's isle," the largest heronry perhaps in the country still flourishes on stumpy crooked birch and holly trees, the flapping wings of the birds being visible through the mist. On another island close by this one, the very rare goosander used recently to build, Mr Mackenzie being the first discoverer of its nest in Scotland. On another islet close by the opposite shore the white-tailed eagle nested more than twenty years ago. On Eilean Molach, near the pier, the black-throated diver still exists. The peregrine falcon then haunted the scene, having its eyrie on the cliffs of Beinn Aridh Charr, and one flew over our heads, chased close to his nest by two angry curlews; but he has, it seems, now deserted the place. Other still rarer species yet linger in this retired spot.
It is devoutly to be hoped that they will long continue to do it honour, guarded by the proprietors, and all good and true men. Happily none are allowed on the lake unless under the care of sanctioned boatmen; and the whole has now been forested. These means of protection, we trust, will preserve these rare creatures as a beauty and a boast for generations to come. In this connexion, nothing shows the defects of the moral and æsthetic training of our people more than the prevalent desire, in even the so-called cultivated classes, to destroy such unusual visitants, some of them harmless. If individual kindliness and sense will not do it, public indignation and penal enactment should be invoked for their preservation.
Our artist and his wife returned by carriage to comfort and shelter. Wishing to see more we crossed the rough country, covered with boulders, lakes and bogs, that lies between this and Loch Ewe. We were disappointed at not reaching Loch an Iasgair, that is the "loch of the fisher or osprey." This rare and interesting bird seems now to have quite deserted this alpine region, though once abundant both here and in the islands of Loch Maree. We visited, however, an immense block of gneiss not far from the loch, borne hither in glacial times, twenty feet long, ten broad, and fifteen high, with steep inaccessible sides, crowned by two feet of moss, and adorned with grass, heather and bushes. Forty years ago a pair of marten cats committed such havoc amongst the lambs that they were watched and followed, but they were always lost sight of just when their lair was thought to be reached. Both dogs and men were long at fault, till a pair of sharper eyes one day observed the clever martens leap to the top of our boulder in two bounds. That was, of course, the end of their history, of the Martens of Castle Marten, as they were called by my friend; for they were followed, and themselves and their young exterminated. This big block is but one of countless others of all sizes scattered over this rude mossy territory, in which they form a special feature; their glacial history being further corroborated by the abundant, well rounded, polished, and striated roches moutonnées, here so abundantly scattered between the hills and the sea.
Reaching an eminence which commanded the whole of the Fionn Loch and its enclosing peaks, the last look we had of it revealed it in a bright, pearly light, exquisitely fresh after the rain, its now smooth surface reflecting a silvery sheen in the descending sun, and showing the appropriateness of its name, the "fair lake."