"At two o'clock p.m. we set out to climb the mountain, still keeping in sight of the river. In a few minutes we came to the foot of a cataract, whose height we found to be one thousand feet, and which contained about a fourth part of the water of which the Garchary was now composed. In about half an hour after, we perceived that the cataract came from a lake in the ridge of the mountain of Cairn Toul, and that the summit of the mountain was another thousand feet above the loch, which is called Loch na Youn, or the Blue Lake. A short time after we saw the Dee (here called the Garchary from this rocky bed, which signifies in Gaelic the rugged quarry) tumbling in great majesty over the mountain down another cataract; or as we afterwards found it, a chain of natural cascades, above thirteen hundred feet high. It was in flood at this time from the melting of the snow, and the late rains; and what was most remarkable, an arch of snow covered the narrow glen from which it tumbled over the rocks. We approached so near to the cataract as to know that there was no other lake or stream; and then we had to climb among huge rocks, varying from one to ten tons, and to catch hold of the stones or fragments that projected, while we ascended in an angle of seventy or eighty degrees. A little before four o'clock we got to the top of the mountain, which I knew to be Brae Riach, or the speckled mountain. Here we found the highest well, which we afterwards learned was called Well Dee, and other five copious fountains, which make a considerable stream before they fall over the precipice. We sat down completely exhausted, at four o'clock P.M. and drank of the highest well, which we found to be four thousand and sixty feet above the level of the sea; and whose fountain was only thirty-five degrees of heat on the 17th of July, or three degrees above the freezing point. We mixed some good whisky with this water, and recruited our strength [9]
We must not bid farewell to this mountain desert without asking attention to a peculiar feature in the hills connected with a disastrous history. In many places the declivities are seamed with trenches some forty or fifty feet deep, appearing as if they were made by a gigantic plough-share which, instead of sand, casts up huge masses of rock on either side, in parallel mounds, like the morains of a glacier. There are many of these furrows on the side of Ben Muich Dhui, nearest to the Dee. Though we had long noticed them, it was not until we happened to be in that district, immediately after the great floods of 1829, that we were forcibly told of the peculiar cause of this appearance. The old furrows were as they had been before—the stones, gray, weather-beaten, and covered with lichen, while heather and wildflowers grew in the interstices. But among them were new scaurs, still like fresh wounds, with the stones showing the sharpness of late fracture, and no herbage covering the blood-red colour of the sand. It was clear from the venerable appearance of the older scaurs, that only at long intervals do the elements produce this formidable effect—at least many years had passed since the last instance before 1829 had occurred. The theory of the phenomenon appeared to be pretty simple. Each spring is a sort of stone cistern, which, through its peculiar duct, sends forth to one part of the surface of the earth the water it receives from another. If, through inordinately heavy falls of rain, there be a great volume of water pressing on the entrance tubes, the expansive force of the water in the cistern increases in that accumulating ratio which is practically exemplified in the hydraulic press, and the whole mass of water bursts forth from the side of the mountain, as if it were a staved barrel, rending rocks, and scattering their shattered fragments around like dust. Hence we may presume arose these fierce pulsations which made the rivers descend wave on wave. What a sight, to have been remembered and thought on ever after, would it have been, had one been present in this workshop of the storm while the work was going on!
Now, reader, before we have done, let us confess that there are many elements that we like to meet with in such things, wherein this little contribution to the knowledge of British local scenery is deficient. Fain would we have given it a more hospitable tone, telling of the excellent cookery at this inn, and the good wines at the next, and the general civility experienced at the third; but we cast ourselves, O generous reader! on your mercy. How could we describe the comforts and luxuries of inns, in a place where there is not a single house—a place which, like the Irish milestone, is "fifteen miles from inny where"?
As to the frequented methods of approach towards the border of the wilderness which we have taken under our especial patronage, we profess not to discuss them, leaving the public in the very competent hands of the Messrs Anderson, whose "Guide to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland" is, in relation to the inhabited districts, and the usual tourists' routes, all-sufficient for its purpose.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Edinburgh New Philosophic Journal, 1831, p. 165.
[8] New Statistical Account of Scotland—Banffshire, p. 298.
[9] Dr Skene Keith's Surrey of Aberdeenshire, p. 644.