BEN MACDHUI.
THE HIGHLAND DEE.
The Source: Larig and Garchary Burns—In the Heart of the Cairngorm Mountains—Ben Macdhui and Braeriach—“A Fery Falgar Place”—A Highland Legend—The Linn of Dee—Byron’s Narrow Escape—The Floods of 1829—Lochnagar and Mary Duff—Influence of the Dee on Byron—Braemar and the Rising of ’15—Corriemulzie and its Linn—Balmoral—The “Birks” of Abergeldie—Their Transplantation by Burns—What is Collimankie?—Ballater: The Slaying of “Brave Brackley”—Craigendarroch—The Reel of Tullich and the Origin Thereof—The Legend of St. Nathdan—Mythological Parallels—The Muich—Morven: The Centre of Highland Song and Legend—Birse—Lunphanan Wood—The Battle of Corrichie—Queen Mary and Sir John Gordon—At Aberdeen.
Among the streams that meet together in the wild south-west of Aberdeenshire to form the Dee, it is not easy to decide which is chief, or where is the fountain, far up the dark mountain-side, where this parent rill has birth. Dismissing minor pretenders, we can at once state that the original is either the Larig or the Garchary Burn. The first is more in the main line of the river, whilst it has also more water; the second rises higher up, and has a longer course before it reaches the meeting-place. Popularly, the source of the stream is a place about the beginning of the Larig, called the Wells of Dee. Here Nature has built a reservoir perfect in every part. The water escapes from this fountain-head in considerable volume, so that it forms a quite satisfactory source, which we may well adopt. Here, then, our journey commences among
“The grizzly cliffs that guard
The infant rills of Highland Dee.”
We are in the very heart of the Cairngorm Mountains, confronted on every side by all that is most savage and grand in nature—frowning precipices, mist-covered heights, sullen black lochs, an almost total absence of vegetation, an almost unbroken solitude. Here rise Ben Macdhui, Braeriach, and Cairntoul, whose streams, running down—often hurled down—their weather-beaten sides, rapidly increase the volume of our river. Braeriach fronts Ben Macdhui on the other side of the infant Dee. It presents to the view a huge line of precipices, dark and sombre, save when the hand of Winter, powdering them with snow, changes them to masses of glittering white. Even at a good distance away you hear the splash and dash of innumerable waterfalls, caused by the burns leaping the cliffs. If you venture to wander among those wilds you must know your ground well, for however bright the day may be one hour, the next you may be shrouded in mist, or drenched with rain, or battered by hail. The mist, indeed, is rarely absent. You see it clinging round the heights and moving restlessly up and down the hillside like some uneasy and malignant spirit. As you walk you are startled at a huge figure striding along. It requires an effort to recognise a mist-picture of yourself—a sort of Scotch Spectre of the Brocken.
It was of these wild regions that an old Highlander once remarked to Hill Burton that it was “a fery fulgar place, and not fit for a young shentleman to go to at all.” Let us not scorn the ingenuous native; Virgil has said, in the Eclogues (much more elegantly, ’tis true), very much the same thing about very much the same kind of scenery. All our way by Dee will not be among views like this. Indeed, at the mouth are scenes of rich fertility. It is on the fat meadows near Aberdeen that a portion of those innumerable flocks and droves are raised which have so great a reputation in the London market. These are the two extremes, but between them there is every variety of Highland scenery. He who has seen the banks of Dee has seen, as in an epitome or abridgment, all that the north of Scotland has to show. In the midst of variety one thing is constant, whatever landscape you may be passing through: you always have the great hill masses on the horizon. Thus the Dee is a typical Highland river. Even with the sternest parts soft touches are interwoven. Thus take the Lui, which, rising in Ben Macdhui, falls into the Dee at an early point of its course. The lower part of Glen Lui is remarkable for its gentle beauty. The grass is smooth as a lawn, the water of the burn which moves gently along is transparently clear, the regular slope is covered with weeping birches. The perfect solitude of this sweet valley has its own charm, though it be the charm of melancholy. Higher up, nearer Ben Macdhui, in Glen Lui Beg, the scenery is wilder, and the water dashes down more swiftly, as if it longed to be away from its wild source. We must go with it, and bid farewell to Ben Macdhui and the sources of Dee. And for farewell, here is a mountain legend.
