Nether Lochaber / The Natural History, Legends, and Folk-lore of the West Highlands

by Rev. Alexander Stewart

CHAPTER LX.

A Trip to Glasgow—Kelvin Grove Museum—Highland Association—A run to Rothesay—Rothesay Aquarium.

Favoured by the most splendid Christmas weather [January 1878], piercingly cold, indeed, but beautifully bright and clear, a run from Lochaber to Clydesdale on an agreeable errand is exceedingly enjoyable. Our first day in Glasgow was devoted to the Kelvin Grove Museum, which we had now an opportunity, for the first time, of examining thoroughly and at leisure, and with which, as the reader may believe, we were very much delighted. On handing our card to Mr. Paton, the curator, we were received by himself and his assistant, Mr. Campbell—the latter, of course, a Highlander—in the friendliest manner; and a couple of hours were very pleasantly and profitably spent in examining a really curious and valuable collection, so admirably catalogued and arranged, that we believe we saw and minutely studied everything to be seen as leisurely and satisfactorily as was possible in the time at our disposal. Our friend Mr. Snowie, of Inverness, had written us before leaving home that he was sending some contributions to the museum, of which he begged us to undertake the formal delivery, and see properly placed; and this of course we had much pleasure in doing. These contributions are a valuable acquisition to the museum, and are as follows:—(1.) Hoopoe (Upupa epops, Linn.), a female, in fine plumage, and admirably set up. This bird was captured by the boys at the Inverness Reformatory School, and dying, notwithstanding it received all the attention and kindly care that could be bestowed upon it, it passed into Mr. Snowie’s hands. (2.) Wild cat, stuffed, an excellent specimen, with very prominent markings, trapped at Fasnakyle, on The Chisholm’s estate. (3.) A white blackbird, and an albino bunting, both shot by Mr. T. B. Snowie near Inverness. (4.) Snipe and other marsh-bird skins, shot by the same. (5.) Two small hares preserved in a bottle; taken out of an unusually large-sized female shot at Dochfour in September 1875; a very interesting preparation. (6.) Head of otter, trapped on the River Peffer in 1876. (7.) Owl (Strix flammea, Linn.), shot in October 1877 by Mr. T. B. Snowie. (8.) Egg of golden eagle; this last, perhaps, the most welcome gift of all, as eagles’ eggs are now become so rare as readily to command prices ranging from £5 to £10 each. Attached to the museum proper there is a fresh-water aquarium. In one of the tanks, in which several fine pike are “interned,” we noticed that one of the largest, who advanced to the front of the tank, in order to examine as closely as possible a slip of paper which we were trailing along the glass by way of bait, had his muzzle, more particularly the anterior part of the upper jaw, seriously disfigured by a fungoid growth of jelly-like appearance; and calling the curator’s attention to the fact, we made the remark that the poor pike seemed too seriously diseased to live long. We were surprised when told that the fish was none the worse for his fungoid moustache; that it had been long in that way, and that all that was needed was an occasional cleansing of the muzzle, as you would wipe away a clot of jelly that had accidentally fallen on your knife-handle at dessert, and the fish then seemed all right enough until it grew again to such a size as to be an inconvenience.

Leaving the museum, we had but barely sufficient time for dress and dinner before proceeding to take the chair at the Gathering of the Clans in the City Hall, and a very splendid and enthusiastic gathering it was. From floor to ceiling the huge building was crammed, and as we took our seat and bowed in acknowledgment of the truly Highland welcome that greeted us in the shape of round upon round of loud and lusty cheers, we could not help feeling a little nervous and out of sorts in realising the fact that we were for the moment “the observed of all observers,” and, by the kind partiality of the Highlanders of Glasgow, made to occupy a position of which any one might well be proud. We were soon at our ease, however, and found no difficulty in discharging our duties in connection with a meeting which was from first to last, and in all its belongings, a great success. The dancing was excellent; the singing could hardly have been better; while the pipe music was of itself well worth going a much longer distance to hear than that which separates Nether Lochaber from the City Hall of Glasgow. No other living man, perhaps, can play reels and strathspeys as Donald Macphee can play them; and we do not think we ever heard anything more admirably played than was Malcolm Macpherson’s port mòr or piobaireachd proper, Fhuair mi pòg’s laimh mo righ, composed at Holyrood in 1745 by Ewen Macdhomhnuil Bhuidhe, a Macmillan from Glendessary and piper to Lochiel, on seeing his chief kiss Charles Edward’s hand at a levee held in the palace of his ancestors by that Prince a day or two after the victory at Gladsmuir. Macpherson played this piobaireachd so exquisitely that some of us felt our eyes grow moist, and were in no wise ashamed of it, long ere he had reached the difficult but beautifully managed fingering of the concluding urlar. We have always had a warm regard for James Boswell, Johnson’s biographer, for this amongst other reasons, that, on his own confession, music frequently affected him as it affected many of us on this occasion. “Sir,” growled Johnson, “I should never hear it if it made me such a fool.” But then a man, however great, cannot be everything; and Johnson was not only not a Scotchman, but the very antipodes of a Scotchman—he was an Englishman, proud and prejudiced, and deaf and dead as a stone to the charms of music, whether vocal or instrumental. When at Sleat, in Skye, many years afterwards, he made the confession that “he knew a drum from a trumpet, and a bagpipe from a guitar, which was about the extent of his knowledge of music.” We parted with our friends of the Highland Association on the best terms; they were good-natured enough to say that they were pleased with us; we certainly had every reason to be pleased with them.

We were astir betimes next morning, in order to fulfil an engagement undertaken at the request of some naturalist friends in London—a visit, namely, to the Aquarium at Rothesay, an admirably conducted institution, one of the best in the kingdom. We expected to see a great deal that could not well fail to interest us, and we did see a great deal that pleased us very much indeed; the best proof of which is that after several hours’ wandering from tank to tank, it was with a sigh of regret that our attention was called to the fact that it was already time for us to put up our note-book and find our way as quickly as possible to the pier, if we would overtake the Mountaineer for Greenock, in order to reach Glasgow again that evening. Of all the tanks, that which we lingered longest before, perhaps, was that set apart for sea anemones, of which the collection is exceedingly curious and interesting. All the specimens seemed perfectly healthy and well-to-do, though, owing to the fact that the afternoon had now become wet and dull, they were disinclined to display their beauties in full. In another of the tanks, of which the most distinguished inhabitant is a conger eel of a large size, we were much amused with the conduct of a seven or eight pound cod, that seemed as if he would willingly have spoken to us if he could. As soon as he became aware of our presence, he came sailing out of a dark recess behind a rocky promontory—a sort of Mull of Kintyre in miniature—which is his usual howf, and advancing straight to the front of the tank, put his nose to the glass, wagging his tail, and staring at us with an expression of countenance so queer and comical, that it made us laugh outright. “Well, Nether Lochaber, my boy,” he seemed inclined to say, “how are you? This is all very fine, but on the word of a cod, believe me that I’d far rather be cruising about the shores and shallows of Loch Linnhe, down yonder in your own neighbourhood, than be confined here from year’s end to year’s end, to be stared at by a lot of people who may pretend some interest in me from a purely scientific point of view, but who, between ourselves, if the truth were known, never see me but they straightway think of how I should be boiled and served with sauce. Only the other day, for instance, a lady visitor from Glasgow asked one of the attendants what he thought might be my weight, and if he was of opinion that a cod out of an aquarium tank would be quite as good eating as one direct from the sea? When I hear talk of that kind, it hurts my feelings, I can tell you.” All this, and a great deal more, we fancied the cod would have said if he could; and as we tapped the glass at his nose and bade him a friendly good-bye, we almost persuaded ourselves that he responded with a knowing wink, as with a single sweep of his tail he put about and joined the conger in a brisk constitutional round and athwart the tank—a tank so crystal clear, and clean and comfortable, as indeed are all the tanks, that the inmates, abundantly and regularly fed, ought to be happy enough, were it not that, like Sterne’s starling, they probably find the great drawback on their happiness in the fact that after all they are prisoners, that they can’t get out. We were much delighted with the seal-house and its lively and intelligent occupants. The shape of a seal’s head is sufficient to convince the most careless observer that it must contain a great deal of brains; while its full and lively eye bespeaks a high and active order of intelligence. Those at present in the Rothesay Aquarium, three in number, are most interesting animals, and almost as tame as lapdogs. It so happened that we entered their house at a time when they were exceedingly active and lively, for they were well aware that a large basket, which had just been carried to the side of their tank, contained fresh fish of some kind or other for their dinner; and they raced and leaped about in eager expectation of the treat, for they were evidently hungry—always a good sign of an aquarium inmate. The fish consisted of small flounders; and the agility and graceful ease of the motions of these seals, as they dived and dashed after a fish, which, while they were begging dog-like before us at one end of the tank, we suddenly tossed to the other end, was so admirable that we continued a long time to play at a sort of pitch-and-toss game that was quite as agreeable to them as it could possibly be interesting to us. We only ceased our part of the performance when we thought that for the time they must have had enough, the seal being probably as liable to indigestion as the result of a surfeit as is any other animal. When, however, they found that they had nothing more to expect from us, they showed their intelligence and nous by at once commencing to climb out of their tank, at the very spot, too, where it was easiest of accomplishment, on the side on which they knew the fish-basket was placed. What could they now be after? was the question we asked ourselves. One after another they got out and waddled along the pavement, awkwardly indeed, but as quickly as they could, past us, keeping their big and beautiful eyes steadily fixed on ours, till they reached the basket, and in a moment each had seized a fish, with which he instantly tumbled heels-over-head into the tank again at the point nearest him, evidently afraid that we might try and intercept him, and deprive him of a bonne bouche, which all of them seemed perfectly well somehow to understand they had no right to take in such reiving fashion. We noticed that when we threw a fish into the tank, and one of them got hold of it, the other two endeavoured to snatch it from him, and for the moment there was a wild tumult and tumble, in which the water was lashed into foam. In this, however, as far as we could judge, there was no manifestation of anything like anger, or the slightest attempt to hurt or injure each other. It was more like the rough and tumble play of children after a ball, or something of that sort, which all may strongly desire to possess, but which only one can have for the moment.

CHAPTER LXI.

Overland from Balluchulish to Oban on a ‘Pet Day’ in February—Story of Clach Ruric—Castle Stalker: an Old Stronghold of the Stewarts of Appin—James IV.—Charles II.—Magpies—Dun-Mac-Uisneachan.

With all their tendency, in their every reference to the past, to become laudatores temporis acti, the sturdy upholders of the superiority of all that was, in comparison with anything and everything that is, our weather-wise octogenarian friends here are all agreed that so summer-like a February [1878] month they never knew before. It is true that in making this admission they shake their heads sapiently, and hint that no good can come of such an unnatural commingling of the times and seasons. It will be well, they add, if before cuckoo day (mun d’thig latha na cuaig) we haven’t to pay for it all in the shape of storm and cold at a time when these are as unseasonable and out of place as is summer calm and summer sunshine now. It was amusing to see these honest old croakers selecting the coziest nooks air chùl gaoithe’s air aodain gréine, as the Fingalian tale has it,—that is, at the back of the wind and in the face of the sun—and thoroughly enjoying the calm and sunshine at the very moment that they would impress upon us the unnaturalness and unseasonableness of it all. The first fortnight of February was, indeed, wonderfully fine; from the beginning of the month up to the evening of St. Valentine’s Day, more like the close of April or early May than anything usually looked for while the sun is still in Aquarius. Driving overland to Oban on the 11th, and, by the ferries of Ballachulish, Shian, and Connel, a very beautiful drive it is, hardly to be equalled elsewhere even in the West Highlands; the day was so bright, and calm, and clear, that while mavis and merle, and hedge-accenter and chaffinch greeted us from copse and hedgerow with their rich and mellow song, the driver, sitting beside us, couldn’t help observing as we passed by Appin House, “Na ’n robh chuag again a nis, bha ’n samhradh fhein ann!” “If we had but the cuckoo now, it would be summer its very self!” On the beach, a little above high-water mark, just under Appin House, and within an easy stone’s cast of the public road, there is an immense spherical boulder of granite, to which there is attached a curious old story, which invests with additional interest an object deserving enough of attention for its own sake—for the sake, that is, of its huge size and almost perfect spherical form, this latter peculiarity, in the huge solid mass, making it the most remarkable thing of the kind on the mainland, at least of the West Highlands. The story of the Appin House boulder, or Clach Ruric as it is called, is, dropping minor and unessential details, to the following effect:—Long, long ago a Prince of Lochlin or Scandinavia, with a formidable fleet of war galleys, made a descent upon the Hebrides, killing and plundering everywhere with a ruthlessness known only, even in those days of rude lawlessness, to the Vikings of the north. Having thoroughly devastated the islands, Ruric—for such was the Prince’s name—steered for the mainland of Morven, and took up his residence in the castle of Mearnaig, in Glensanda. In this stronghold, the ruins of which still exist, he resolved to pass the winter, with the intention of over-running and plundering the adjoining districts in the spring, and afterwards sailing homewards in the calm of summer seas, for his galleys were so deeply laden with booty that he feared to encounter the turbulence of the North Sea at any other season. In the early spring the cruel Northman was betimes astir, killing and plundering with but little opposition throughout the districts of Kingerloch, Sunart, and Ardgour, to the head of Lochiel. While of his numerous fleet a single galley showed more than a foot and a span (troidh agus rèis were the words of the narrator) of gunwale unsubmerged, Ruric was unsatisfied, and to complete his ill-gotten freight he resolved on the plunder of the opposite district of Appin, the smoke of whose dwellings could be seen, and the lowing of whose numerous herds could be heard (when the summer morning was still and the Linnhe Loch was calm) by the pirate prince from the battlements of the castle of Mearnaig. One morning Ruric anchored his galleys in the Sound of Shuna, and landing, erected his tents on the green knoll now occupied by Appin House. With this spot as his head-quarters, it was his intention to plunder the district north and south of him at his leisure, believing that he would meet with as little opposition here as he had already met with elsewhere. The inhabitants of Appin, however, were partly on their guard, and determined to resist, and if possible chastise, the invader. And first conveying their old men, women, and children, with their flocks and herds, into the fastnesses of the upland glens, they resolved to watch the movements of the Norsemen, ready to fall upon them whenever a favourable opportunity should offer. That same night, as some cattle herds, acting as scouts, were on the hill immediately above the tents of the invaders, one of them directed the attention of his companions to a huge granite boulder with so slight a hold of the hill crest, that, with some little labour, it might be let loose at any time—a terrible messenger of wrath—amongst the tents of the enemy below, whose shouts of laughter at that moment, and snatches of rude song, proved that they had feasted plentifully and had no apprehension of immediate death or danger in any form. After much labour, the herdsmen managed so to dig about and undermine and loosen the boulder in its bed on the hill-face, that, on a given signal, their united strength sufficed to tilt it headlong over the steep, leaping and thundering on its terrible path. The largest trees in its course snapped before the boulder like reeds: when it came into momentary contact with a rock, the sparks flew heavenward as if from an exploded meteor! In a dozen of bounds it reached the tents of the Norsemen, crushing, mangling, grinding into pulp or powder (a pronnadh agus a bruanadh, are the Gaelic words) everything it touched, and finally stopping where it now stands, to be long regarded by the people of the district with a feeling akin to superstitious awe, and to be known by the name of Clach Ruric. In the morning, the Norsemen could only know by the mangled fragments of their bodies that their Prince, with his two sons, and many of those next to him in power, had met with a terrible death. Before the Appin men could gather in sufficient force to attack them, the Norsemen unmoored their galleys, chanting the death-song of their chief as they unmoored, and set sail for Lochlin, never more to trouble the mainland of the West Highlands with their invasions. The venerable seanachie from whom we picked up this tradition, added that Castle Cœfin, or Cyffin, in Lismore, is so called after a Danish prince of that name, who also was connected with Ruric’s expedition, though in what manner he was unable to say.

Not far from Clach Ruric, on an island rock in the entrance to the Sound of Shuna, are the ruins of another castle, of a later date, however, and more recent interest than can be attached to the many strongholds of the Viking period perched on the rocks and promontories of this part of the West Highlands. This is Castle Stalker, or, in the language of the district itself, Caisteal-an-Stalcaire, the Castle of the Falconer or Fowler. The small rock-island on which it is built is Sgeir-an-Sgairbh (the sea-rock, or skerry of the cormorant), from very early times the gathering cry at once and rendezvous of the Stewarts of Appin in all their maritime expeditions. Castle Stalker dates from about the beginning of the reign of James IV., for whose convenience and accommodation, when, as frequently happened, he extended his hunting expeditions to this district, it was built. Stewart of Appin, who was a great favourite with the king, was appointed hereditary keeper, and the castle continued in the possession of the family until, about the year 1645, the Mac Ian Stewart of that date, in a moment of drunken folly, made it over to his wily neighbour, Donald Campbell of the Airds, receiving in return the handsome and adequate equivalent of an eight-oared birlinn, or small wherry! Stewart, when sober, would have gladly cancelled so manifestly one-sided a barter-bargain at any sacrifice, but Campbell, having got possession, kept it; while the disgraceful transaction so stung the pride of the Stewarts that they practically deposed the Baothaire (the silly one), as they nicknamed the chief, from his chieftainship, by unanimously electing his cousins of Invernahyle and Ardsheal to be their leaders in the subsequent wars of Montrose. For a short time during Montrose’s ascendancy in the Highlands, and for a longer period towards the close of the reign of Charles II., Castle Stalker was again in the possession of the Stewarts; but at the Revolution the Campbells had it all their own way; they repossessed themselves of the castle, and it has remained theirs ever since. About forty years ago a gentleman of the family of Ailein ’Ic Rob of Appin, who had amassed a considerable fortune in the West Indies, offered the then proprietor a large sum for the bare rock and ruins of Castle Stalker, but the offer was refused.