SCOTLAND, as the reader knows, is a small country. Its length from north to south is two hundred miles, but east and west the country is very narrow, no part of it being more than forty miles from the sea-coast. This small area is divided into what are known as the “Highlands” and “Lowlands,” the two sections being as unlike in the nature of the soil, the character of the scenery, the habits and industries of the people, as though they were a thousand miles apart. To the historian and tourist the Highlands, occupying the northern, or rather the northwestern, portion of Scotland, is by far the most interesting section. The term, Highlands, however, does not, as many people think, designate a broad, level, elevated table-land. On the contrary, the Highlands of Scotland are a wild, savage world by themselves, composed entirely of hills, morasses, mountains, glens, moors, lakes and rivers.
For the last fifteen days, I have been in the heart of this enchanted land, locked, as it were, in this rock-ribbed region. I have spent the time in walking through the country; rowing on the lochs, or lakes; climbing mountains; threading glens; exploring caves; talking to the people of high and low degree, thus gaining information of every kind and character, both as to the past and present condition of this wild country and its poverty-stricken people. Hard work this. A man walking through the mountains needs a good sole (soul)—spell it as you please. To me, however, the work (I can not call it by any other name half so appropriate) has been as pleasant as it has been difficult, and as profitable as both combined. When I become very tired, and that is no infrequent occurrence, I spread myself out on the soft side of some projecting rock, high on the mountain side, and there, while resting, I alternately feast my eager eyes on the outstretching landscape, or read from books which I have along for that purpose. I read the “History of Scotland,” “Heart of Midlothian,” “Rob Roy,” “The Lady of the Lake,” “The Lay of the Last Minstrel,” and “Marmion.” In this way I have read much of the history, poetry, and fiction of Scotland while on the spot, or in the immediate neighborhood about which it was written. It lends a new charm and gives an additional zest to what one reads, when he can lift his eyes from the book and behold the places and objects mentioned in its glowing pages.
I can never forget my experience of a week ago to-day. I was up at an early hour. The sky was cloudless and the morn calm and quiet. Across the lake stood Ben Lomond in its giant-like proportions. Its brow, grey with eternal snow, looked so inviting that I determined to ascend and sniff the mountain breeze. A friend, where I spent the night, and who knew the difficulties in the way, tried to dissuade me from my purpose; but when I take the bit between my teeth there is no bridle that can stop me. Johnson, who by this time had thoroughly recovered from his maiden effort at climbing mountains, and who is as fleet as a hart and spirited as a gazelle, agreed to accompany me. So, ere the warbler had finished his morning song, and while the dew was yet sparkling bright on the heath, we set out for that towering peak, “where snow and sunshine alone have dared to tread.”
For sixpence, a farmer’s lad rowed us across the loch, landing us at the foot of the mountain whose rocky cliffs and thunder-riven sides we were to climb. Seven hours’ toil brought us to the objective point, and rewarded us with one of the finest, wildest, and most romantic views to be had anywhere this side that deep and yawning gulf which separates time from eternity. I found myself surrounded by a thousand peaks, crags and cliffs, whose heads were white with the accumulated snows of fifty winters, they being of different heights, and of every conceivable shape, size and angle—all having been caused, apparently, by the upheaval of some mighty volcanic eruption of the under world. These iron-belted mountain sides are honey-combed with deep and dark dens, dangerous pits and caves, which once furnished shelter and security to those savage and lawless clans whose sole occupation was arms, and who, under cover of night, often swooped down upon the barns, flocks and herds of the Lowlanders like eagles upon their prey. When once hidden away in those dark recesses, it would take an hundred-eyed devil to discover their whereabouts; and, if discovered, it would require an iron-handed Hercules to rout and discomfit them.
Many of these peaks and cliffs are separated only by narrow and gloomy glens hundreds of feet deep. The glen may be ten, fifteen, or twenty-five feet wide at the bottom, but the rough and irregular sides tower up so high, and come so near closing at the top, that the rocky chasm is dark and gloomy. I have, I think, very little superstition about me; yet I confess that while walking through these silent halls, where the sun has never shone, I felt half inclined to look around me for hissing serpents, for hobgoblins and rats. While in one of these unseemingly—I had almost said unearthly—places, a dreamy, far-away spell came over me. I fell into an absent-minded mood. Just as I reached a dark, horrible-looking place, I paused. I stood still, my eyes resting upon the stone floor; I was thinking about—I do not know what. All at once I heard a furious noise; and, turning suddenly around, I beheld a huge wildcat rushing down the glen, with eyes glaring like balls of fire. By this time he was within five feet of me, and gave the most unearthly yell that I have ever heard. It seemed as if it would rend the very rocks. Every hair on my head was a goose-quill, and they were all on ends. For a moment I was still as death, and pulseless as a statue, while the noise that startled me was rolling, ringing, and reverberating down the glen like the mutterings of distant thunder. As John Bunyan would say, “I departed, and was seen, there no more.”
Having gotten out of the glen, I went back upon Ben Lomond and enjoyed the picture. I said it was a grand sight, and so it was. Turn my eyes as I would, I could see mountain streams fed by melting snow, the water being churned into madness as it leaped from rock to rock, until it was lost in the abyss below. Looking beneath me, I could see several of the Scottish lakes, which were as beautiful as the mountains were grand. I saw Loch Lomond, on whose calm bosom many islands float, winding around like a silver thread among the mountains for twenty miles.
All this made a picture that I can never forget. It is indelibly stamped on the imperishable tablets of memory; and there it will remain, an object of interest and admiration, until the flood-gates of life are shut in eternal rest.
We visited Rob Roy’s cave, the land of the Macgregors, the house in which Helen Macgregor was born, Loch Katrine where Scott wrote “The Lady of the Lake,” and many other places known to history and to song.