So tS7'=rEl^iSS^* kr. /^/^ t.9, ^>-t^^t^o O0l^^-rru,£:^^Z^ ^^^ "^-Z^Z--?— «y i THE LAND OF LORNE; OR, A POET'S ADVENTURES IIST THE SCOTTISH HEBRIDES, INCLUDING THE CRUISE OF THE "TERN" TO THE OUTER HEBRIDES. BY ROBERT BUCHANAN. T^VO 'VOLXJTvlKS IN" ONK, NEW YORK: FRANCIS B. FELT & CO., 91 MERCER STREET. 1871. S^ TO f fr gogal fiigbrngs THE PRINCESS LOUISE THESE PICTUEES OF HER FUTURE HOME IN THE HEBRIDES ARE (■WITH HER ROYAL HIGHNESS* EXPRESS PERMISSION^ INSCRIBED, ON THE OCCASION OF HER JIARRIAGE, BY THE AUTHOR. January, 1871. % m THE LAI^D OF LORIO:. " A LAND of rainbows spanning glens wliose walls. Rock-built, are hung with many-colored mists ; Of far-stretched meres, whose salt flood never rests- Of tuneful caves and playful waterfalls — Of mountains varying momently their crests. Proud be this land ! whose poorest huts are halls Where Fancy entertains becoming guests. While native song the heroic past recalls." Wordsworth, PREFATORY JNOTE. A SMALL portion of the " Cruise of the Tern " has appeared in print before, though in a very imperfect shape ; all the rest of the present work is now pub- lished for the first time. The pictures of life and scenery, such as they are, speak for themselves, and appeal more or less to everybody ; but the narrative of the Tern's cruise may have a special interest for yachtsmen, as showing what a very small craft can do with proper management. The Tern, I believe, was the smallest craft of the kind that ever ventured round the point of Ardnamurchan, and thence to Ultima Thule, or the Outer Hebrides ; but there is no reason whatever why other tiny yachts should 8 PREFATOEY NOTE. not follow Bilit, and venture out to the wilds. To any sportsman desirous of such an expedition, and able to stand rough accommodation and wild weather, I can promise glorious amusement, just faintly spiced with a delightful sense of danger, sometimes more fanciful than real, frequently much more real than fanciful. K. B. COl^TEl^TS. PICTURES OF LORNE AND THE ISLES. CHAPTER I. TTRST GLIMPSE OF IiORNE. TAOM. The "White House on the Hill — The Land of Lome — First Impres- sions of Oban — The Celtic Workmen — Maclean, Mactavish, and Duncan of the Pipes — The Lords of Lome and their Descendants^ Battle between Bruce and John of Lome — Dunollie Castle — Glori- fication of Mist and Bain — An Autumn Afternoon — Old Castles — Dunstafihage, 17 CHAPTER n. PICTtJBES IKIiAND. The Seasons — Cuckoos — Bummer Days — Autumn — Winter — Moor- land Lochs — The Fir Wood — The Moors and the Sea — Farm-houses and Ci'ofters" Huts— Traces of former Cultivation on the Hills — The Ruined Saeters — Graveyard at Dunstafifnage — The Island of Inis- haJl, . 40 10 CONTENTS. CHAl^TER IIL THE HEAKT OF LORNE. PAOE. Loch Awe and its Ancient Legend— Summer Days on the Lake — The Legend of Fraoch Elian— Kilchurn Castle— Effects of Moonhght and of Storm— View from Glenara— The Pools of Cladich— Duncan Ban of the Songs— His Coire Cheathaich— His Mairi Ban Og, and Last Adieu to the Hills— Songs of the Cliildren of the Mist — The Pass of Awe — The Ascent of Ben Cruachan, 53 CHAPTER rV. SPORTS ON THE MOORS AND LOCHS. Grouse and Black-gamo Shooting — A September Day on the Moors — The Grouso-Shooter—Peat-Bogs— Arrival of Snipe and Woodcock- Mountain Lochs and other Haunts of Wild Fowl— False and True Sportsmen, . • 79 CHAPTER V. THE FIRTH OP LORNE. The Ocean Queen, or Coffin — Shon Macnab's Race with "the Barber" — Lachlan FinUy — From Crinan to the Dorus Mhor— Hebridcan Tides— Scarba — The Gulf of Corrj'vreckan — Its Horrors and Perils — Luing and the Small Isles — The Open Firth — Easdale and its Quarriers — Tombs at the Door — Miseries of Calm — Gylon Castle and the Island of Kerrera— King Haco's Invasion of the Hebrides— A Puff from the Southeast — The Island of Mull — Johnson and Bos- well in the Hebrides- ARun to Tobermorj- — Loch Sunart— A Rainy Day— Ardtoraish Castle— Anchored between Wind and Tide — Night on the Firth— Troubles of Darkness— Farewell to the Ocean Queen — Arrival of the Tern 89 CONTENTS. H CHAPTER VL THE "TKItN's" FIBST FLIGHT. PAOE. Tbo Tern Afloat— Off Ardnamm-chan — First Glimpses of the Isles — The Cuchullin Hills— General Eeflections— Flashing Forward— The Partv on Board— The Scaur of Eig— Rum— Birds of the Ocean- Muck— Sunset on the Waters— Loch Scrcsort, Rum— The Gaelic Skipper— The Widow— A Climb among the Peaks— View of the Western Ocean from Rum — The Tei'ii. Weighing Anchor — Kilmory Bay— First View of Cauua — At Anchor, 121 CHAPTER YTL CANNA AND ITS PEOPLE. The Laird of Canna— His Kingly Power— Prosperity of the State — The Island— The Old Tower— Canna in Storm and in Cahn— The Milking— Twilight— A Poem by David Gray— Hauntg of the Ocean Birds— Whispers from the Sea— The Canna People— The Quiet Life — The Graveyard on the Hill-side, 139 CHAPTER VIIL EiKADH OF Canna, ' ... 155 i 12 CONTENTS. THE CRUISE OF THE "TERN." CHAPTER IX. NIGHT ON THE MINCH, TAQB. Gloomy Prophecies — Terrors of tlic Jlincli — The Vildng — Hamish Shaw, the Pilot — Leaving Canna Harbor — Pictures of Skye and the Cnchiillins — Remarks on Sir Walter Scott and his Poems — Afloat on the Minch — the I'ar-olf Isles — Twilight — Ilamish Shaw at the Helm — Summer Night — Talk about Ghosts and Supersti- tions—The Evil Eye— The Death-Cry— Wind Rising— Wind and Mist — Water Snakes — Midnight — The Strange Ship — Peep o' Day — The Red Buoy — Anchorage in Loch Boisdale, . ... 189 CHAPTER X. THE FISHERS OF THE LONG ISLAND. Loch Boisdale — The Tern at Anchor — The Inn and the Population — Rain — Boisdale in the Herring Season — Fishing-boats and Camps — A Niglit in a West-Country Smack— Herring-gutters — Habits of East-Country Fishermen, 210 CON-JENl-S. 13 CHAPTER XI. GlilMPSES OF THE OUTER HEBRIDES. PAGB. First GlimpH«> — Ttie Uista and Benbccula— Tlieir Miserable Aspects — Hamish Bhaw — Solemnity of the People — Brighter Glimpses— The Western Coast of the Island — Winter Storm — The Sound of Harris — The Norwegian Skipper — The Fjords — Kelp-burners — View fi'om Kenneth Hill, Loch Boisdalc — A Sunset — The Lagoons — Characteristics of the People — Civilized and Uncivilized — Miserable Dwellings — Comfortable Attire — Their Superstitions and Deep Spir- itual Life, 229 CHAPTEK Xn. SPORT IN THE \VTIiDS, The Sportsmen and their Dogs — The Hunter's Badge — ^The Weap- ons — Shooting in the Fjords — Eiders, Cormorants, Curlews — Duck- shooting near Loch Boisdale — The Tbvi at Anchor in Loch lluport — Stai-vation — Wild-Goose Shooting on Loch Bee — The Shepherd's Gilts — Goose Shooting on Loch Phlogibeg — The Melancholy Loch — Breeding Places of the Wild Fowl — Eain-Storm—" Bonnie Kil- tncay" — Short Rations — The Passing Ship — Red Door, Salmon, and Eagles — Corbies and Ravens — Seal Shooting in the Maddy Fjords — lit^tlection on Wild Sports in General, 25^ 14 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIII. COASTING SKYE. PAGE. Effects of Cruising on Yacht and Yoyagers— Recrossiug the Minch— Northwest Coast of Skye— Becalmed off Loch Snizort— Midnight — Lights of Heaven and Ocean — Dawn— Columns of the North Coast — The Quirang — Scenery of the Northeast Coast — The Stonn — Portree Harbor, 291 CHAPTER XIV. THE SAGA OF HACO THE KING. I. — KING ALEXANDER'S DREAM AND DEATH, II. — KING HACO GATHERS HIS HOST, . III. — SAILING OP THE GREAT FLEET, . IV. — KING HACO'S SAILING SOUTHWARD, 306 303 310 312 V. — THE king's FLEET MEETS WITH A GREAT STORM, . 314 VI. — THE BATTLE OP LARGS, 316 VII. — KING HACO SAILS NORTHWARD, 319 VIII. — KING HACO'S SICKNESS, 322 IX. — KING HACO'S DEATH AND BURIAL, . . . .324 CHAPTER XV. GLEN SLIGACHAN AND THE CUCHULLINS. Sconser and Shgachan — Party and Guide — Dawn on the Cuchulhns — Scuir-na-Gilleau— A Rhapsody on Geology— Fire and Ico— The Path along the Glen— Hart-o'-Corry— Ben Blaven— A Monologue on Ossian — Schneider and the Red Deer — First Glimpse of the "Corryofthe Water"— LochanDhu 327 CONTENTS. 15 CHAPTER XVI. COKKUISK ; OIJ, THE COKKY OF THE WATEK. PAGE. Tho Lone Water — The Region of Twiliglit — Blocs Pe?-c/ies— Hamish Shaw's Views — The Cavo of the Ghost — Tho Dunvegan Pilot's Story— Echoes, Mists and Shadows— Squalls in Loch Scavaig- A Highlander's Ideas of Beauty — Camping out in tho Corry — A Stormy Dawn— The Fishermen and the Strange Harbor — Loch Scavaig — Tho Spar Cave — Camasunary, 354 CHAPTER XVIL Epilogue; The "Tebn's" Lasx Fliohx, 382 THE LAND OF LORNE. CHAPTER I. FIRST GLIMPSE OF LORNE. The Wliite House on the Hill — The Land of Lome — First Impressions of Oban — The Celtic Workmen — Maclean, Mactavish, and Duncan of the Pipes — The Lords of Lome and their Descondants — Battle between Briico and John of Lome — Dunollie Castle — Glorification of Mist and Rain — An Autumn Afternoon — Old Castles — Dunstaffnage. When the Wanderer (as the writer purposes to call himself in these pages, in order to get rid of the perk- ish and impertinent iirst person singular) first came to dwell in Lome, and roamed, as is his wont, up hill and down dale from dawn to sunset, he soon grew weary of a landscape which seemed tame and color- less, of hills that, with one or two magnificent excep- tions, seemed cold and unpicturesque. It was the springtime, moreover, and such a springtime ! Day after day the rain descended, sometimes in a dreary " smurr," at others in a moaning torrent, and when the clouds did part, the sun looked through with a dismal and fitful stare, like a face swollen with weeping. The conies were frisking everywhere, fancying it al- ways twilight. The mountain loch overflowed its banks, while far beneath the surface the buds of the 4 18 THE LAND OF LOllNE. yellow lily were wildly struggliniij upward, and the overfed burns roared day and night. Wherever one went, the fanner scowled, and the gamekeeper shook his head. Lome seemed as weary as the Uists, loeary but not eerie^ and so without f^iscination. In a kind of dovecote perched on a hill, far from human habita- tion, the Wanderer dwelt and watched, while the gloomy gillie came and went, and the dogs howled from the rain-drenched kennel. The weasel bred at the very door, in some obscure corner of a drain, and the young weasels used to come fearlessly out on Sunday morning and play in the rain. Two hundred yards above the house was a mountain tarn, on the shores of which a desolate couple of teal were trying hard to hatch a brood ; and all around the miserable grouse and grayhens were sitting like stones, drenched on their eggs, hoping against hope. In the far dis- tance, over a dreary sweep of marshes and pools, lay the little town of Oban, looking, when the mists cleared away a little, exactly like the wood-cuts of the Gity of Destruction in popular editions of the " Pil- grim's Progress." Now and then, too, the figure of a certain genial Edinburgh Professor, with long white hair and flowing plaid, might be seen toiling upward to Doubting Castle, exactly like Christian on his pil- grimage, but carrying, instead of a bundle on his back, the whole of Homer's hexameters in his brain, set to such popular tunes as "John Brown," and " Are ye sleepin', Maggie?" Few others had courage to climb so high, in weather so inclement ; and, won- derful to add, the professor did not in the least share the new-comer's melancholy, but roundly vowed in FIIIBT GLIMPSE OF LOllNE. 10 good Doric that there was no sweeter spot in all the world than tlie " bonnie land of Lome." The AVanderer was for a time skeptical ; but, as the days lengthened, and his eyes accommodated themselves to the new prospect, his skepticism changed into faith, his faith into enthusiasm, his enthusiasm into perfect love and passionate enjoy- ment. The truth is, that Lome, even in the summer sea- son, does not captivate at first sight, does not galvanize the senses with beauty and brightly stimulate the imagination. Glencoe lies beyond it, and Morven just skirts it, and the only great mountain is Crua- clian. There is no portion of the landscape which may be described as " grand," in the same sense that Glen Sligachan and Glencoe are grand ; no sheet of water solemnly beautiful as Corruisk ; no strange laajoons like those of the sea-surrounded Uist and Benbecula ; for Lome is fair and gentle, a green pas- toral land, where the sheep bleat from a thousand hills, and the gray homestead stands in the midst of its own green fields, and the snug macadamized roads ramify in all directions to and from the tiny capital on the seaside, with the country carts bearing produce, the drouthy farmer trotting home at all hours on his sure-footed nag, and the stage-coach, swift and gay, wakening up the echoes in summer-time with the guard's cheery horn. There is greenness everywhere, even where the scenery is most wild — fine slopes ot pasture alternating with the heather ; and, though want and squalor and uncleanness are to be found here, as in all other parts of the Highlands, comfort- i 20 THE LAND OF LORNE. able houses abound. Standing on one of tlie high hills above Oban, you see unfolded before you, as in a map, the whole of Lome proper, with Ben Crua- chan in the far distance, closing the scene to the east- ward, towering over the whole prospect in supreme height and beauty, and cutting the gray sky with his two red and rocky cones. At his feet, but invisible to you, sleeps Loch Awe, a mighty fresh-water lake, communicating, through a turbulent river, with the sea. Looking northward, taking the beautifully- wooded promontory of Dunollie for a foreground, you behold the great firth of Lome, with the green flat island of Lismore extended at the feet of the moun- tain region of JMorven, and the waters creeping in- land, southward of the Glencoe range, to forai, first, the long, narrow arm of Loch Etive, which stretches many miles inland close past the base of Cruachan ; and, second, the winding basin of Loch Crei*an, which separates Lome from Glencoe. Yonder, to the west, straight across the firth, lies Mull, separated from Morven by its gloomy Sound. Southward, the view is closed by a range of unshapely hills, very green in color and unpicturosque in form, at the feet of which, but invisible, is Loch Feochan, another arm of the sea, and beyond the mouth of this loch stretches the seaboard, with numberless outlying islets, as far as the lightliouse of Easdale and the island of Scar- ba. Between the landmarks thus slightly indicated stretches the district of Lome, some forty miles in length and fifteen in breadth; and, seen in clear, brifht weather, free from the shadow of the rain-cloud, its innumerable green slopes and cultivated hollows FIRST GLIMPSE OF LORN^. 21 oetoken at a glance its peaceful character. Tliere is, we repeat, greenness everywhere, save on the tops of the highest hills — greenness in the valleys and on the hillsides — greenness of emerald brightness on the edges of the sea — greenness on the misty marshes. The purple heather is plentiful, too, its deep tints glorifying the scene from its pastoral monotony, ])ut seldom tyrannizing over the landscape. Abundant, also, are the signs of temporal prosperity — the wreaths of smoke arising everywhere from humble dwellings ; the sheep and cattle crying on the hills ; the fishing- boats and trading- vessels scattered on the firth ; the flocks of cattle and horses being driven on set days to the grass-market at Oban. This same town of Oban, prettily situated along the skirts of a pleasant bay, and boasting a resident population of some two thousand inhabitants, has been fitly enough designated the " key of the Highlands ;" since, from its quaint quay, composed of the hulk of an old wreck, the splendid fleet of Highland steamers start for all parts of the western coast and adjacent islands. In summer-time a few visitors occupy the neat villas which ornament the western slopes above the town, and innumerable tourists, ever coming and going to the shai-p ringing of the steamboat bell, lend quite a festive appearance to the little main street. As a tourist, the Wanderer first made the acquaint- ance of Oban and its people, and resided among them for some weeks, during which time there was a general conspiracy on the part of everybody to reduce him to bankruptcy; extortionate boatmen, grasping small tradesmen, greedy car-drivel's, all regarding 22 ,THE LAND OF LOKNE. him as a lawful victim. He was lonely, and the gentle people toolv him in ; he was helpless, and they did for him ; until at last he fled, vowing never to visit the place again. Fate, stronger than human will, interposed, and he became the tenant of the White House on the Hill. He arrived in the fallow season, before the swift boats begin to bring their stock of festive travelers, and found Oban plunged in funereal gloom — the tradesmen melancholy, the boat- men sad and unsuspicious, the hotel-waiters depressed and servile, instead of brisk and patronizing. The grand waiter at the Great Western Hotel, one whom to see was to reverence, whose faintest smile was an honor, and who conferred a life-long obligation when he condescended to pour out your champagne, still lingered in the south, and the lesser waiters of the lesser hotels lingered afar with the great man. All was sad and weary, and, at first, all looks were cold. But speedily the Wanderer discovered that the peo- ple of Oban regarded him with grateful affection. He was the firet man who, for no other reason than sheer love of silence and picturesqueness, had come to reside among them " out of the season." In a few weeks, he not only discovered that the extortioners of his former visit were no such harpies after all, but poor devils, anxious to get hay while the sun shone. He found that these same extortioners were the merest scum of the town, the veriest froth, under- neath which there existed the sediment of the real population, which, for many mysterious reasons, no mere tourist is ever suffered to behold. He found around him most of the Highland virtues — gentleness,. FIRST GLIMPGE OF LOllNE. 23 • hospitality, spirituality. No hand was stretched out to rob him now. Wherever he went there was a kind word from the men, and a courtesy from the women. The poor pale faces brightened, and he saw the sweet spirit looking forth with that deep inner hunger which is ever marked on the Celtic physiognomy. Every day deepened his interest and increased his satisfac- tion, lie knew now that he had come to a place where life ran fresh, and simple, and, to a great ex- tent, unpolluted. Not to make the picture tender, let him add that he soon discovered for himself — what every one else discovers, sooner or later — that the majority of the town population was hopelessly lazy. There was no surplus energy anywhere, but there were some individ- uals who, for sheer unhesitating, imblushing, whole- sale indolence, were certainly unapproachable on this side of Jamaica. It so happened that the Wanderer wanted a new wing added to tlie White House, and it was arranged with a " contractor," one Angus Maclean, that it should be erected at a trifling ex- pense within three weeks. A week passed, during which Angus Maclean occupied himself in abstruse meditation, coming two or three times to the spot, dreamily chewing stalks of grass, and measuring im- aginary walls with a rule. Then, all of a sudden, one morning, a load of stones was deposited at the door, and the workmen arrived — ^men of all ages and all temperaments, from the clean, methodic mason to the wild, hirsute hodsman. In other parts of the world houses are built silently, not so in Lome ; the babble of Gaelic was incessant. The work crept on, surely 24 THE LAND OF LORNE. if slowly, relieved by intervals of Gaelic melody and political debate, during which all labor ceased. An- gus Maclean came and went, and, of course, it was sometimes necessary to advise with him as to details ; and great was his delight whenever he could beguile the Wanderer into a discussion as to the shape of a window or the size of a door, for the conversation w;is sure to drift into general topics, such as the Irish Land question or the literature of the Highlands, and the laborers would suspend their toil and cluster round to listen while Angus ex])lained his " views." In a little more than a month, the masonry was com- pleted, and the carpenter's assistance necessary. A week passed, and no carpenter came. Summoned to council, Angus Maclean explained that the carpenter would be up " the first thing in the morning." Two days afterward, he did appear, and it was at once ap- parent that, compared with him, all the other inhabit- ants of Oban were models of human energy. With him came a lazy boy, with sleep-dust in his round blobs of eyes. The caqjenter's name was Donald Mactavish — " a fine man," as the contractor explained, " tho' he takes a drap." The first day, Donald Mac- tavish smoked half a dozen pipes, and sawed a board. The next day, he didn't appear — " it was that showery, and I was afraid of catching the cold ;" but the lazy boy came up, and went to sleep in the unfinished wing. The third day, Donald appeared at noon, looking very pale and shaky. Thus matters proceed- ed. Sometimes a fair day's work was secured, and Donald was so triumphant at his own energy that he disappeared the following morning altogether. Some FIRST GLIMPSE OF LORNE. 25 times Donald was unwell; sometimes it was "o'er showery " Teai*s and entreaties made no impression on Mactavish, and he took his own time. Then the slater appeared, with a somewhat brisker stylo of workmanship. Finally, a moody plasterer strolled that way, and promised to whitewash the walls " when he came back frae Mull," whither he was going on business. To cut a long story short, the new wing to the White House was complete in three months, whereas the same number of hands miccht have fin- ished it with perfect ease in a fortnight. Thus far, we have given only the dark side of the picture. Turning to the bright side, we herewith re- cord our vow that, whenever we build again, we will seek the aid of those same workmen from Lome. Why, the Wanderer has all his life lived among wise men, or men who deemed themselves wise, among great book-makers, among brilliant minstrels, but for sheer unmitigated enjoyment, give him the talk of those Celts — ^flaming radicals every one of them, so radical, forsooth, as to have about equal belief in Mr. Glad- stone and Mr. Disraeli. They had their own notions of freedom, political and social. "Sell my vote?" quoth Angus ; " to be sure, I'd sell my vote !" And he would thereupon most fiercely expound his convic- tions, and give as good a reason for not voting at all as the best of those clever gentlemen who laugh at political representation. At heart, too, Angus was a Fenian, though not in the bad and bloodthirsty sense. Donald Mactavish, on the other hand, was of a gentle nature, inclined to acquiesce in all himian arrange- ment, 80 long as he got his pipe and his glass, and was ■1 26 THE LAND OF LOBNE. not hurried al>out his work. With playful humor, he would " draw out" the fiery Angus for the Wanderer's benefit. Then the two would come suddenly to war about the relative merits of certain obscure Gaelic poets, and would rain quotations at each other until they grew hoarse. They had both the profoundest contempt for English literature and the English lan- guage, as compared with their beloved G-aelic. They were both full of old legends and quaint Highland stories. The workmen, too, were in their own way as interesting — ^fine natural bits of humanity, full of in- telligence and quiet affection Noteworthy among them was old Duncan Campbell, who had in his younger days been piper in a Highland regiment, and who now, advanced in years, worked hard all day as a hodsman, and nightly — clean, washed, and shaven — played to him.=;elf on the beloved pipes, till over- powered with sleep. Duncan was simply delicious. More than once he brought up the pipes and played on the hillsides, while the workmen danced. These pipes were more to him than bread and meat. As he played them, his face became glorified. Ilis skill was not great, and his tunes had a strange monotony about them, but they gave to his soul a joy passing the glory of battle or the love of women. lie was never too weary for them in the evening, though the day's work had been ever so hard and long. Great was his pride and joy that day, when the house was finished, and, \vith pipes playing and ribbons flying, he headed the gleeful workmen as they marched away to the town. From that day forward the White House on the FIIIST GLIMPSE OF LORNE. 2^ Hill remained silent in the solitude. Though the fiumincr season came, and with it the stream of tour- ists and -visitors, the Wanderer abode undisturbed. Far off he saw tlie white gleam of the little town across the long stretch of field and marsh, but he sel- dom bent his footsteps thither, save when constrained by urgent business, ^N^evertheless, faces came and went, and bright scenic glimpses rose and passed, while day after day he found his love deepening for the Land of Lome. In a certain sense, the whole Hebrides are the Land of Lome, Skye as much so as Kerrera, Coll and Tiree and Kum as much as Appin and Awe, Loch Scavaig, and Loch Eishart as much so as Lochs Feochan and Etive. The family house of Lome began with a son of Somer- led, Thane of Argyll and Lord of the Isles, who worried and bullied the Scottish king, Malcolm, until slain in battlo at Renfrew. By a daughter of Olaus, King of Man, Somerled had two sons, Ronald and Dougall, the first of whom was the ancestor of the Lords of the Isles, or Macronalds^ and the second of whom be- queathed his surname to the Lords of Lome, or Mac- dougalls. Dougall got for his birthright certain main- land territories in Argyllshire, now known as the three districts of Lome, but his name and fame stretched far further and embraced many of the isles. He resided in the stronghold of Dunstaffnage, with all the power and more than the glory of a petty prince. Thenceforward, the Macdougalls of Lome Increased and multiplied. At the time when Ilaco invaded the west (12G3) they were great and prosper- ous, and fierce in forays against the Cailean Mor, or 28 TJdE LAND OF LORNE. Knight of Loch Awe, from whom comes the ducal lioiise of Argyll. For year after year the Macdougall of Lome fought against the dominion of Bruce, wlio had sh\in the Ked Comyn, Lome's father-in-law, in the Dominican church at Dumfries; wherefore Bruce, when his power rose in Scotland, marched into Argyllshire to lay waste the country. John of Lome, son of the chieftain, was posted with his clansmen in the Pass of Awe, a wild and narrow pathway, passing on helow the verge of Ben Cruachan, and surrounded hy precipices to all appearance inaccessible. The military skill of Bruce, however, enabled him to ob- tain possession of the heights above, whence his archers discharged a fatal volley of arrows on the dis- comfited men of Argyll, who were routed with great slaughter — John, their leader, just managing to escape by means of his boats on the lake. After this victory, Bruce " harried " Argyllshire, and besieging Dunstaffnage Castle, on the west shore of Lome, re- duced it by fire and sword, and placed in it agamson and governor of his own. Alaster, the chieftain, at last 8uV)mitted, but John, still rebellious, escaped to England. When the wars between the Bruce and Baliol factions again broke out in the reign of David II., the Macdougalk, with their hereditary enmity to the house of Bruce, were again upon the losing side. I)avid II., and his successor, stripped them of the greater part of their territories, and in 1434 one Rob- ert Stuart was appointed to administer their lands under the title of Seneschal of Lome. In spite of all this terrible adversity, the Macdougal Is still continued to exist, oven to floiirish in a private way. They FIRST GLIMPSE OF LORNE. 29 retained the Castle of Dunollie, witli the titles of chieftainship over the clan. But in the year 1715. the irrepressible blood burst forth again, and the Mac- dougall of the period, having joined the insurrection, found himself mulcted of his estate. Thirty years afterward, however, it was restored to the family, whom sad experience had rendered quiescent during the rebellion of that period. The present representa- tive, a quiet major in the army, eats the Queen's bread, and preserves the family glory in a modest, un- assuming way. He has a modern house and farm close to the ruins of Dunollie, the ancient stronghold of his race. These same ruins of Dunollie stand on the very point of the promontory to the northwest of Oban, and form one of the finest foregrounds possible for all the scenery of the Frith. There is no old castle in Scotland quite so beautifully situated. On days of glassy calm, every feature of it is mirrored in the sea, with browns and grays that ravish the artistic eye. There is not too much of it left ; just a wall or two, lichen-covered and finely broken. Seen from a dis- tance, it is always a perfect piece of color, iu fit keep- ing with the dim and doubtful sky; but in late autumn, when the woods of the promontory have all their glory — fir-trees of deep black green, intermixed with russet and golden birches — Dunollie is something to watch for hours and wonder at. The day is dark, but a strong silvern light is in the air, a light in which all the blue pliadows deepen ; while far off in the west, over green Kerrera, is one long streak of faint violet, above wliich gather strongly - defined 4 30 THE LAND OF LOUNE clouds in a brooding slate-colored mass. On Biicli a day — and such days are numberless in the Highland autumn — the silvern light strikes strong on Dunoliie, bringing out every line and tint of the noble ruin, while the sea beneath, with the merest shadow of the cold, faint wind upon it, shifts its tints like a sword- blade in the light, from soft steel-gray to deep, slum- brous blue. It only wants Morven in the background, dimly purple with dark, plum-colored stains, and the swathes of white mist folded round the high peaks, to complete the perfect picture. The visitor to the west coast of Scotland is, doubt- less, often disappointed by the absenceof bright colors and brilliant contrasts, such as he has been accus- tomed to in Italy and in Switzerland, and he goes away too often with a malediction on the mist and the rain, and an under-murmur of contempt for Scottish scenery, such as poor Montalembert sadly expressed in his life of the Saint of lona. But what many chance visitors despise becomes to the living resident a constant source of joy. Those infinitely varied grays — those melting, melodious, dimmest of browns — those silvery gleams through the fine neutral tint of cloud ! One gets to like strong sunlight least ; it dwarfs the mountains so, and destroys the beautiful distance. Dark, dreamy days, with the clouds clear and high, and the wind hushed ; or wild days, mth the dark heavens blowing past like the rush of a sea, and the shadows driving like mad things over the long grass and the marshy pool ; or sad days of rain, with dim, pathetic glimpses of the white and weeping orb; or nights of the round moon, when the air throbs with FIRST GLIMPSE OP LORNE. »l strange electric liglit, and the hill is mirrored dark as ebony in the glittering sheet of the locli ; or nights of the Aurora and the lunar rainbow — on days and nijlhts like those is the Land of Lome beheld in its glory. Even during those superb sunsets, for which its coasts are famed — sunsets of fire divine, with all the tints of the prism — only west and east kindle to great brightness ; while the landscape between reflects the glorious light dimly and gently, interposiDg mists and vapors, with dreamy shadows of the hills. These bright moments are exceptional ; yet is it quite fair to say so when, a dozen times during the rainy day, the heart of the grayness bursts open, and the rain- bow issues forth in complete semi-circle, glittering in glorious evanescence, with its dim ghost fluttering faintly above it on the dark heavens ? " My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky !" The Iris comes and goes, and is, indeed, like the sun- light, " a glorious birth " wherever it appears ; but for rainbows of all degrees of beauty, from the superb arch of delicately-defined hues that spans a complete land- scape for minutes together to the delicate, dying thing that flutters for a moment on the skirt of the storm- cloud, and dies to the sudden sob of the rain, the Wanderer knows no corner of the earth to equal Lome and the adjacent isles. Two qualities are necessary to the enjoyment of these things. The first quality is quiescence, or brooding-power — the patient faculty of waiting while images are impressing themselves upon you, of relin- quishing your energetic identity and becoming a sort A 31! THE LAND OF LORNE. of human tarn or mirror. If you want to be " shocked," galvanized, so to speak, you must go else- wliere, say to Chimborazo or the North Pole. The second quality necessary is (to be Hibernian) not al- together a quality, but the acquired conviction that rain is beautiful and mist poetical, and that to be wet through twice or thrice a day is not undesirable. In point of fact, for actual " downpours " of water, the Highlands are not much worse than the rest of Great Britain, but the changes are more sudden and incalcu- lable. To abide indoors on account of wet or lowering weather may do very well in Surrey, but it will not do in Lome ; for if you want to see the finest natural effects — if you want to get the best sport on land and water — if you want to do in Lome as Lome does — you must think no more of rain there tlian you do of dust in the city. Abolish waterproofs, which were invent- ed by the devil; away with umbrellas, which were devised for old women, and are only tolerable when Leech's pretty girls are smiling under them ; don a suit of thick tweed, sucb as any cotter weaves, cut a stick from the nearest blackthorn bush, and sally forth in all weathers. Let your boots be just easy enough to let the water " out " when it has managed to get " in," and you will be quite comfortable. Those wlio tell you that a damp coat and a wet shoe mean dan- ger to your health are only talking nonsense. Tight v/aterproof boots and macintoshes are more fatal things than cold and rani. Let it not be gathered from what we have said that the climate of Lome is bad, and the rain unceas- ing. On the contrary, there are, nearly every year, FfUST C>I;IMrSE OF T,Oi;NE. SM long intervals of dronght, glaring Biimmor clays, when the landscape " winks through the heat," and the sea ifc like molten gold. What we mean to convey is, that some of the finest natural elfacts are vaporous, and occur only when rain is falling or impending, and that it is pitiful in a strong man to miss these from fear of a wet skin. As we write, in the late autumn season, there is little to complain of on the score of wet. We have not had a drop of rain for a fortnight. The days have been bright and short, and the nights starry and briglit, with frequent flashes of the aurora. It if the gloaming of the year — " To ruspet brown The heather faded. On the treeless hill, O'er-rusted with the red decaying bracken. The Bheep crawl slow." This is the brooding hush that precedes the stormy, wintry season, and all is inexpressibly beautiful. The wind blows chill and keen from the north, breaking the steel-gray waters of the firth into crisp-wliito waves ; and, though it is late afternoon, the western sky hangs dark and chill over the mountains of Mull, while the east is softly bright, with clouds tinted to a faint crimson. There is no bri tive foe. Dunollie shows to most advantao-e at a distance, iis a part of the landscape. The ruins consist only of a portion of the keep, which is overgrown with ivy. But the view from the promontory is very grand, and close at hand there is the Dog-Stone {Claeh-a^-choin), a luige mass of conglomerate rock rising up from the shore, and identified as the stake to which the £rreat Fenian king {Uigh na Feinne) used to tie his dog Bran. Bran ! Fingal ! At the very names, how the whole prospect changes! The ruins on each liead- land grow poor and insignificant, and in the large shadows of the older heroes the small chieftains dis- appear. The eyes turn to Morven and the " sound- ing halls of Selma," and, for the moment, all other associations are forgotten.* From Dunollie to Dunstaifnage is only a few miles' walk, and it is one to be undertaken by all visitors to Oban. The road winds through low hills of thynu; and heather, past green slopes where sheep bleat and cattle low, skirting pleasant belts of woodland, and occasionally fields of waving com, and passes on by * For remarks on the Ossianic poetry, eee Vol. II . the chapter on Glen Sligachan. I'lllST GLIMPSE or LOIINE. 37 the side of Loch Etive to the Pass of Awe ; but leav- ing it some distance before it reaches tlie loch, you nmst strike along tlie seashore to the promontory, or istlimus, on which stands DunstafTnage — a large square ruin, not very picturesque when so approached, though commanding a magnificent view. The cus- todian, who shows visitors over the castle, is a solemn young Celt, a gardener, who has quite a pretty little orchard adjoining his cottage. If you press him, he will give you the history of Dunstafihage in a narra- tive fully as interesting, and nearly as reliable, as any tale of fixiry-land, but distrust him, and turn to the guide-book, an extract from which we give below. ''^ * According to the Pictisli chronicles, Kenneth MacAlpine transferred the seat of government from Dunstaffnage to Fortc- viot, in Perthshire, in 843. As the Norwegians began to make inroads iipon the western coast of Scotland about this time. Dr. Jamieson thinks it highly probable that, on being deserted by its royal possessors, Dunstaffnage became a stronghold of the Norse invaders. For several centuries the place is lost sight of in the national annals, and only reappears during the eventful reign of Robert Bruce, who took possession of it after his victory over the Lord of Lome in the Pass of Awe. At that time it belonged to Alexander of Argyll, father of John, Jjordof Lome. Old charters show that the castle and lands of Dunstaffnage were, in 1430, granted to Dugal, son of Colin, Knight of Loch Awe, the ancestor of the family in whose possession, as " Captains of Dunstaffnage," it has remained to the present day. The existing representative of the family is Sir Donald Campbell, Bart., of Dunstaffnage. As a stronghold of the clan Campbell, Dunstaffnage was maintained down to the rebellions in 1715 and 1745, when it was garrisoned by the royal forces. The old castle is said to have been disman- tled by iire, in 1715. The nominal hereditary keeper of the castle is the Duke of Argyll. The castle is built in a quadrangular form, 87 feet square with- 38 THE LAND OF LORNE, Perliaps, instead of engaging the faculties with doubtful tradition, it is wise to reserve the guide- book till you reach your home or inn, and to spend the whole time of your visit in looking at the sur- rounding prospect. Round the isles beneath the promontory, the tide boils ominously, setting in to- ward Conn el Ferry, a mile distant, where Loch Etive suddenly narrows itself from the breadth of a mile to that of two hundred yards, causing the waters to rush in or out, at flood or ebb, with the velocity of a tor- rent shooting to the fall. If the wind is down, you can hear a deep sound, just as Sir "Walter describes it : " The ragiug Of Connel witli his rocks engaging ; " for the narrow passage is blocked by a ledge of rock, " awash" at half tide, causing a tremendous overfall, the roaring surge of which is audible for miles. Seen from here, Cruachan seems to have quite altered his pos- ition — surrounded by the great " Shepherds," he casts his gigantic shadow over the head of Loch Etive, and seems in close proximity to the Glencoe range. Turning westward, you look right across the great waters of Loch Liimhe, and see the long green island in the walls, with round towers at three of the angles. The height of the walls is G6 feet, and their thickness d feet. The walls outside measure 270 feet ; and the circumference of the rock on wliich the castle stands is 300 feet. The entrance sea M ard is l)y a staircase, but it is probable that in ancient times it was by a drawbridge. A brass guu is preserved on the battle- ments bearing the date of 1700, showing that it is not a wrecked trophy of a ship of the Spanish Armada (1588), as is usually re- ported. FII18T GblMl'SK OF LOllNE. :?^ of Lismoro, or the Great Garden, stretching snake- like at the feet of the mountains of Morven ; and, fol- lowing the chain of these mountains northward, where thej begin to grow dim in height and distance, tracing the mighty outlines of Kingairloch and Ard- gower, you may catch a glimpse, dim to very dreami- ness — a vague, momentary glimpse, which leaves you doubtful if you look on hill or cloud — of the monarch of Scottish mountains — Ben Kevia. A 40 THE LAND OF LORNE. CHAPTER II. PICTITRES INLAND Tho Season — Cuckoos — Summer Daj-s — Autimin - Winter — Moorland Lochs — Tlio i.''ii-Woocl — The Moors and the Sea — Farm-tiouscs and Crofters' Huts — Traces of former Cultivation on the Hills — The Piuined Saetcrs — Graveyard at DunstaHuage — Tho Island of Inishail. This is a mai'veloiis land, a scene of beauty, ever changing, and giving fresh cause for joy and wonder. Every year deepens the charm. One never tires of Cruachan and the " Shepherds," or of Dunollie and Morven, or of the far-off gHmpses of the sea There are no two days alike. Last year, it seemed that every possible effect of sun and shadow had presented itself; and now not a week passes without producing some scenic loveliness which comes like a revelation. But the charm is moral as well as aesthetic. The landscape would be nothing without its human faces. Humanity does not obtrude itself in this solitude, but it IS none the less present, consecrating the whole scene with its mysterious and spiritual associations. As the year passes there is always something new to attract one who loves Nature. * AVhcn the winds ol March have blown themselves faint, and the April heaven has ceased weeping, there comes a rich sunny day, and all at once the cuckoo is heard telling his name to all the hills. IS'ever was such a place ior PICTUllES INLAND. 41 cuckoos in the world. The cry comes from every tult of wood, from every hillside, from every projecting era":. The bird himself, so far from courtinii' retire- ment, flutters across your path at every step, attended invariably by half a dozen excited small birds ; alighting a few yards off, crouches down for a mo- ment between his slate-colored wings; and finally, rising again, crosses your path with his sovereign cry— " O blithe new-comer, I have heard, I hear thee, and rejoice !" Then, as if at a given signal, the trout leaps a foot into the air from the glassy loch, the buds of the water-lily float to the surface, the lambs bleat from the green and heathery slopes, the rooks caw from the distant rookery, the cock-grouse screams from the distant hill-top, and the blackthorn begins to blossom over the nut-brown pools of the burn. Pleasant days follow, days of high white clouds and fresh winds whose wings are full of warm dew. AVherever you wander over the hills, you see the lambs leaping, and again and again it is your lot to rescue a poor little one from the deep pool, or stee]> ditch, which he has vainly sought to leap in follow- ing liis mother. If you are a sportsman you rejoice, for there is not a hawk to be seen anywhere, and the weasel and the foumart have not yet begun to prome- nade the mountains. About this time more rain falls, preliminary to a burst of fine summer weather, and innumerable glow-worms light their lamps in the marshes. At last, the golden days come, and all things are busy with their young. Frequently, in the 42 THE LAND OF LORNE. midsummer, tliere is a drought for weeks together. Day after day the sky is cloudless and blue ; the mountain lake sinks lower and lower, till it seems about to dry up entirely ; the mountain brooks dwin- dle to mere silver threads for the water-ousel to fly by, and the young game often die for the lack of water; while afar off, with every red vein distinct in the burning light, without a drop of vapor to moisten his scorching crags, stands Ben Cruachan. By this time the hills are assuming their glory — the mysterious bracken has shot up all in a night, to cover them with a green carpet between the knolls of heather, the liclien is penciling the crags with most delicate silver, pui*ple, and gold, and in all the valleys there are stretches of light yellow corn and deep green patches of foliage. The corn-crake has come, and his cry fills the valleys. Walking on the edge of the corn-field you put up the partridges — fourteen cheepers the size of a thrush, and the old pair to lead them. From the edge of the peat-bog the old cock-grouse rises, and if you are sharp you may see the young following the old hen through the deep heather close by. The snipe drums in the marsh. The hawk, having brought out his young among the crags of Kerrera, is hovering still as stone over the edge of the hill. Then, perchance, just at the end of July, there is a gale from the south, blowing for two days black as Erebus with cloud and rain ; then going up into the northwest and blowing for one day with little or no rain ; and dying away at last with a cold puff from the north. All at once, as it were, the sharp sound of firing is echoed from hill to hill ; and nCTUims INLAND, 43 on every mouiitiiu you see the sporUman climbing with his dog ranging above and before him, the keeper following, and the gillie lagging far behind. It \.-i the twelfth of August. Thenceforth, for two montlis at least, there are broiling days, interspersed with storms and showers, and the firing continues more or less from dawn to sunset. Day after day, as the autumn advances, the tint of the hills is getting deeper and richer, and by Octo- "ber, when the beech-leaf yellows and the oak-leaf reddens, the dim purples and the deep greens of the heather ai'e perfect. Of all seasons in Lome the late autumn is, ])erhaps, the most beautiful. The sea has a deeper hue, the sky a mellower light. There are long days of northerly wind, when every crag looks perfect, wrought in gray and gold and silvered with moss, when the high clouds turn luminous at the ed'T^es, when a thin film of hoar-frost gleams over the grass and heather, when the light burns rosy and faint over all the hills, from Morven to Cruachan, for liours before the sun goes down. Out of the ditch at the roadside flaps the mallard, as you pass in the gloaming, and, standing by the side of the small mountain loch, you see the flock of teal rise, wheel thrice, and settle. The hills are desolate, for the sheep are being smeared. There is a feeling of frost in the air, and Ben Cruachan has a crown of snow. When dead of winter comes, how wondrous look the hills in their white robes ! The round red ball of the sun looks through the frosty steam. The far-off firth gleams strange and ghostly, with a sense of mys- terious distance. The mountain loch is a sheet of 44 THE LAND OF LORNE. blue, on which you may disport in perfect solitude from mom to night, with the hills white on all sides, eave where the broken snow shows the red-rusted leaves of tlio withered bracken. A deathly stillnet^s and a death-like beauty reign everywhere, and few living things are discernible, save the hare plunging heavily out of her form in the snow, or the rabbit scuttling off in a snowy spray, or the small birds pip- ing disconsolate on the trees and dykes. Then Peter, the tame rook, brings three or four of his wild rela- tions to the back door of the White House, and they stand aloof with their heads cocked on one side, while he explains their position, and suggests that they, be- ing hard-working rooks who never stooped to beg when a living could be got in the fields, well deserve to be assisted. Then comes the thaw. As the sun rises, the sunny sides of the hills are seen marked with great black stains and winding veins, and there is a sound in the air as of many waters. The moun- tain brook leaps, swollen, over the still clinging ice, the loch rises a foot above its still frozen crust, and a damp steam rises into the air. The wind goes round into the west, great vapors blow over from the Atlan- tic, and there are violent storms. Such is a mere glimpse of the seasons, as they pass in this pastoral land of Lome ; but what pen or pencil could do justice to their evei--changing Nvonders? Wherever one wanders, on hill or in valley, tiiere is somethins to fascinate and deliirht. Those moorlai.d lochs, for example 1 Those deep pure pools of dew distilled from the very heart of the mountains — changing as the season clianges — ^lying blue as steel PICTURES INLAND. 4.> in the bright clear light, or tiirninp: to rich mellow brown in the times of flood. On all of them the water-lily blows, creeping up magically from the under-world, and covering the whole surface with white, green, and gold — its broad and well-oiled leaves floating dry in delicious softness in the sum- mer sun, and its milk-white cups opening wider and wider, while the dragon-fly settles and sucks honey from their golden hearts, llow exquisitely the hills are mirrored, the images only a shade darker than the heights above ! Perhaps there is a faint breeze blowing, leaving here and there large flakes of glassy calm, which it refuses to touch for some mysterious reason, and tlie edges of which — just where wind and calm meet — gleam the color of golden fringe. Often in midsummer, however, the loch almost dries up in its bed ; and innumerable flies — veritable gad- flies with stings — make the brink of the water un- pleasant, and chase one over the hills. In such weather there is nothing for it but to make off to the fir-woods, and there to dream away the summer's day, with the bell-shaped flowers around you in one gleaming sheet, " Blue as a little patch of fallen sky," and the primroses fringing the tree-roots with pallid beauty that whitens in the shadow. The wood is delicious ; not too dark and cold, but fresh and scented, with open spaces of green sward and level sunshine. The fir predominates, dark and enduring in its loveliness ; but there are dwarf oaks, too, with twisted limbs and thick branches, and the moimtain 46 THE LAND OF LORNE. ash is there, with its innumerable beads of crimson coral, and the fluttering aspen, and the birch, whose stem is penciled with threads of frosty silver, and the thorns snowed over with delicate blossoms. But, of course, the great glory of Lome is the open moor, where the heather blows from one end of the year to the other. There is something sea-like in the moor, with its long free stretch for miles and miles, its great rolling hills, its lovely solitude, broken only by the cry of sheep and the scream of birds. Lakes and water-lilies are to be found far south. There are richer woods in Kent than any in the Highlands. But the moors of the western coast of Scotland stand alone, and the moors of Lome are finest of all. Nowhere in the world, perhaps, does nature present a scene of greater beauty than that you may behold, with the smell of thyme about your feet, and the mountain bee humming in your ears, from any of the sea-commanding heights of Lome. Turn which way you will, the glorious moors stretch before you ; wave after wave of purple heather, broken only by the white farm with its golden fields, and the mountain loch high up among the hills; while the arms of the sea steal winding, now visible, now invisible, on every side, and the far-off firth, with its gleaming sail, stretches from the white lighthouse of Lismore far south to the Isla and its purple caves. Then the clouds! White and high, they drift ovcrliead, " Slow traversing the blue ethereal field," and you can watch their shadows moving on the moor PICTUllES INLAND. 47 for miles and miles, just as if it were the sea ! Nor is the scene baiTen of such little touches as make Eng- lish landscape sweet. There are bees humming every- where, and skylarks singing, and the blackbird whist- ling wherever there is a bush, and the swift wren darting in and out of the stone dykes, like a swift- winced insect. There are flowers too — little unob- trusive things, flowers of the heath — primroses, tormen- til, bog-asphodel, and many others. But nothing is purchased at the expense of freedom. All is fresh and free as the sea. After familiarity with the moor, you turn from the macadamized road with disgust, and will not even visit the woods till the fear of a sun- stroke compels you. Did we compare the moor to the sea ? Yes ; but you yourself are like an inhabit- ant thereof ; not a mere sailor on the surface, but a real haunter of the deep. What hours of indolence in the daep heather, so long as the golden weather lasts! The white farm-house in the center of its yellow glebe does not altogether suit tlie great free landscape, but from a distance it serves as a foil to bring out the rocks and heather. Sweeter far is the crofter's little hut, so like the moor itself that you only recognize it by the blue wreath of peat-smoke issuing from its rude chimney. It is built of rough stones and clods, thatched with straw and heather, and paven with clay. Over its outer walls crawls a gorgeous trellis-work of moss and lichen, richer than all the carpets of Persia ; and its roof is purple, green, and gold, such as no king ever saw in the tapestry of his chamber. This may seem a wild description of what tourists would regard as a wretched hut, fit only for a pig to live in ; but 48 THE LAND OF LORNE. find a painter with a soul for color, and ask hhn. "Why, the very dirty children who stand at the door, shading their sunburnt faces to look at the passer-by, have tints in their naked skins and on their raerired kilts such as would fill a Titian's heart with joy. Here and there the hut is displaced to give place to a priggish cottage, with whitewashed walls and slate roofs ; but the crofters, to do them justice, rather shun the kind innovation, and prefer their old tenements. Step into the hut for a light to your pipe, and look around you. The place is full of delicious peat-smoke, which at first blinds you, and then, as your eyes ac- custom themselves to it, clears away, to show you the old grandfather bending over the flame, the wife stir- ring the great black pot, and the cocks and hens perched all around on the beams and rafters. He who fears foul smells need not be afraid to enter here. Peat-smoke is the great purifier. It makes all smell sweet, and warms every cranny of the poor place with its genial breath. The pieces of arable land are few, compared to the long stretches of moorland. The large farms have many acres of growing grain, and most of the little crofts have a tiny patch attached to them, from which they manage to grow a little corn and a few turnips and potatoes. But wherever you wander over the moors, you will see piteous little glimpses of former cultivation — the furrow-marks which have existed for generations. Wherever there is a bit of likely ground on the hill- side, be sure that it has been plowed, or rather dug with the spade. Standing on any one of the great PICTURES INLAND. 49 heights, you Bce on cverj buIo of you tho green slopes marked with the old ridges ; and yon remember that Lornc in former days was a thickly jwpnlated district. AVe have heard it stated, and even by bo high an au- thority as the Duke of Argyll, tliat these marks do not necessarily indicate a higher degree of jjrosperity than exists in the same district at present, We are not so sure of that. Nor may the husbandry have been so rude ; since the spade must have gone deep to leave its traces so long ; and busy hands can do much, even to supply the want of irrigation. Attached to some of the existing crofts, which work entirely by hand-lal)or and till the most unlikely ground, we have seen some of the best bits of crop in the district. Be that as it may, the fact remains that once upon a time these hills of heather swarmed with crofts, and were covered with little fields of grain. Hemote, too, among the hills, in the most lonely situations, distant by long stretches of bog and moor- land from any habitation, you will find here and there, if you wander so far, a ruin in the midst of green slopes and heathery bournes. This is the ruin of the old Shieling, which, in former days, so resound- ed with mirth and souii;. " Oil, sad is tlie sliieling. Gone are its joya !" as Robb Gunn sings in the Gaelic. Hither, ere sheep-farming was invented, came the household of the peasant in the summer-time, with sheep and cat- tle ; and here, while the men returned to look after matters at home, the women and young people abode 3 50 THE LAND OF LORNE. for weeks, tending the young l;inil)s and kids, watch- ing the inilch-cow, and making butter and clieese that were rich with the succulent juices of the surrounding herbage. Then the milk-pan foamed, the distaff went, the children leaped for joy with the lambs, and in the evening the girls tried charms, and learned love-songs, and listened to the tales of their elders with dreamy eyes. Better still, there was real love-making to be had ; for some of the men remained, generally unmar- ried ones, and others came and went ; and, somehow, in those long summer nights, it was pleasant to sit out in a flood of moonlight, and whisper, and perhaps kiss, while the lambs bleated from the pens, and the silent hills slept shadowy in the mystic light. Ko wonder that Gaelic literature abounds in " Shieling songs," and that most of these are ditties of love ! The shieling was rudely built, as a mere temporary resi- dence, but it was snug enough when the peat-bog was handy. In the wilds of the Long Island it is still used in the old manner, and the Wanderer has many a time crept into it for shelter when shooting wild fowl. The Norwegian saeter is precisely the same as the Scottish shieling, and still, as every traveler knows, flourishes in all its glory. We are no melancholy mourner of the past ; rather a sanguine believer in progress and the future ; but alas! whenever we look on the lonely ruins among the hills, we feel inclined to sing a dirge. The " Big Bed in the Wilderness," as the Gaelic bard named the saeter and pasture, is empty now — empty and silent — and the children that shouted in it are buried in all quarters of the earth ; aye, and many had reason PICTURES INLAND. 51 to curse the crwoltj of luuu ere tliey died, for they were driven fortli jicross the watei-s from all that they loved. Some lived on, to see the change darker and darker, and then were carried on handy-spokes, in the old Scottish fashion, to the grave. Many a long sum- mer day could we spend in meditation over the places where they sleep. Highland churchyards are invariably beautiful and pathetic, but there are two in Lome of perfect and supreme loveliness. Adjoining the ancient stronghold of Dunstaffnao-e, Avhich we have described in a former chapter, there is a fir-plantation fringing the promontory and over- looking the boiling tides at the mouth of Loch Etive ; and in the heart of the plantation are the ruins of an old chapel, the four roofless walls of which still stand.* The ivy clings round the moldering walls, and the square space is filled with tombs and graves, long grass and weeds. Many dead lie there — dead that are now literally dust, and dead that only fell to sleep during the last generation. The old flat tombs, with their quaint-carved figures and worn-out inscriptions, were originally used to mark the graves of ancient chiefs and their families ; but now they do duty as the gravestones of fishermen and herdsmen. Whole families of poor folk, who lived and died with the * The original building, measuring only twenty-four yards by eiglit, is deformed by a modern addition at the east end, obscuring the altar window, which appears to have been very graceful, being in the early English style, with banded shafts and the dog-tooth ornament. Under the window a triple tablet extends round the cliapel. 52 THE LAND OF LORNE. wash of the sea in their ears, rest together here with the sea-spray on their graves. At all seasons, even on the hottest summer day, there is a chill exhalation here, a feeling as of the touch of damp marble. Tlie trees around snare the golden light, and twine it in and out of their dark branches till it is turned to faint silver threads. Flowers grow at the tree-roots, even in the grassy interstices between the graves ; and fresh flowers are thrown regularly on the large marble tomb closed in at the eastern side of the ruin, the last meet- ing-place of the Campbells of Dunstaffnage. Still more lovely is Inishail. It is a little island in the center of Loch Awe — the great fresh-water lake stretching for miles at the base of Ben Cruachan. At one extremity there is the ruins of a convent of Cis- tercian nuns ; at the other, the old burial-place whither the dead are brought over water to this day. Low and silent, the isle floats upon the mighty loch, with its little load of dead. Once in a year, in the summer- time, the sky falls, and lies in one sheet of delicious blue-bells over the island, so that it looks a blest place indeed ; one soft azure stain on the loch, in the long dreamy days, when the water is a glassy mirror; and the adjoining Black Isles cast their wooded reflections deep, deep down into the crystal gulf on which they swim. In the old days, the dead-boat would move slowly hither to the melancholy music of the bagpipes, echoing faint and far over the water ; and still, at loi2g intervals, it comes, but without the old weird music. THE HEART OF LORNE. 68 CIIAl^EU TIT. THE II EAST OF LORNE. Loch Awo and its Ancient Legend— Summer Days on the Lake— The Legend of Fraoch Eilan— Kilchurn Castle — Effects of Moonlight and of Storm— View from Glcnara— The Pools of Cladich— Duncan Ban of the gongs— His Coiro Chcathaich— His Mairi Ban Og, and Last Adieu to the Hills— Songs of tho Children of tho Mist— Tho Pass of Awe— The Ascent of Ben Cruachan. Standing on the island of Inishail. you Bee out- stretched before you one of the loveliest scenes in the world — the whole glorious expanse of Loch Awe, with its wooded and castled isles, the dark mouth of the Pass of Awe, and the towering heights of Ben Crua- chan. This, indeed, may well be named the Heart of Lome ; for out of the mighty sheet of water innu- merable brooks and rivulets stretch like veins to nour- ish all the land. The great mountain towers above, " varying momently his crest," and surveying the out- stretched map of the Hebrides as far north as Canna, and as far south as the headland of Cantyre. The ancient legend of Loch Awe is preserved in the beautiful tale of Bera. In the old dark days, far, far back in time, when there were great heroes on the earth, and great sages to guide their arms, Cruachan stood yonder, as he stands now — " Struggling with the darkness all day long. And visited all night by troops of stars ;" 54 THE LAND OF LORNE. and his scarce accessible lieiolits were covered witli great deer. All went well till there arose on Orua- clian a fatal Well, fulfilling certain melancholy proph- ecy. Bera, the beautiful daughter of Grin an, the last of the sages of old, was charged to keep watch, and daily, as the last rays of the sun sank behind the mountain, to cover the mouth of the well with a mys- tic stone, marked with the strange runes of the sages. But Bera was a great huntress ; and one day, after wandering far in pursuit of a mighty herd of deer, she returned to her seat so tired out that she fell to sleep beside the well. The sun sank, but Bera slept on, and the fatal well remained uncovered. At last, a thunderclap awoke her, and, springing up, she saw the raging of a fearful storm ; and, behold ! the fertile valley beneath herfeet was flooded with a great water, stretching far out of sight in all directions, lashed to fury by the wild wind, and illumed by the lightning. The fatal deed once done, there was no remedy, and Loch Awe remains to this day, mystically fed and feeding, the veritable Heart of Lome. The coach from Inveraray to Oban dashes along the shores of the lake, waters at Dalmally, and so on through the Pass of Awe; and the drive is a glorious one ; but he who would see Loch Awe indeed must live on its banks for weeks, watch it under all aspects of wind and cloud, and navigate its endless creeks and bays in an open boat. Few tourists do linger, save, of course, anglers, who come in spring after the ordi- nary loch-trout, and in autumn after the salrno ferox / but the great lake is full of interest for everybody, with its gorgeous and unapproachable eftects for the THE IIKART OF LOllNE. i>i> painter, its wild old stories for the poet, its castles and cjraveyards for the antiquarian, and its general air of fascination for the idler and lover of beauty. During the Bumnicr drought, Loch Awe is the hot- test place in Lome. The lake sinks in its bed day after day, till numberless hidden rocks begin to jut through the glistering water. No stream breaks the dead silence with its joyous voice, for every stream is dry ; and Ben Cruachan is a sheet of red-lEire, sharply defined at the edges against a sky insufferably blue. At such times a fresh breeze often blows on the sea- board a few miles away, but without creeping inland to the gre it lake, over and around which buzz innu- merable flies of a venomous species, hovering in thou- sands round the cattle and driving the bare-legged herd-boy nearly mad. On the sides of Cruachan the adders swarm, though tlieyare never found elsewhere in Lome. But the scene is one of intoxicating beauty, calling up dreams of far-off Syria and its great lakes closed in by similar hills of stone, that scorch in the sunlight. For days together Loch Awe is a mirror without one speck or flaw, reflecting in its deep bosom the great clear mountains, the wooded islets, the gray castles moldering on their promontories ; every shape and tint of the glorious scene, amid which you wan- der quietly, or rather, being wise, lie quiescent, just sheltered bv the irreen bous^h of a tree, hovering^ " Between the dome above and the dome under. The hills above thee and their ghosts beneath thee !" till life becomes bo flooded with drowsy light that consciousness fades into a mere vacant dream, and all 56 THE LAND OF LORNE. you behold appears beautifully unreal. Delicious it is in such weather to drift from place to place in a boat, slowly pulled by some swarthy IIi<);hlandman, on whose bare head the scorching beams fall harmless, and who, if he knows you well, may now and then break silence with some old tale or snatch of song. Just then the le2;end of Fraoch Eilan M'ill be most ac- ceptable, for you will have no difficulty in believing that Loch Awe is a veritable garden of the Ilesper- ides ; and the boatman will tell you, as he rows round the little island of Fraoch, how there was once on that island an enchanted garden, watched by a dragon ; how the fair Mego longed for the fruit that grew there ; how Fraoch, her lover, vainly endeavoring to gratify the longing of his beloved one, swam the lake and fought the dragon ; and how, alas ! when both Fraoch and the monster fell dead in fight, fair Mego died of unutterable grief. It is a story for the bright days, when the dog-star foams, and up above you the very hills seem to move in great glorified throbs. In your drowsy, semi-conscious state, you fully believe it, and see before you the golden apples dangling, and the golden dragon glaring — all a glitter of gold ; and you dip your kerchief in the water, and bind it round your brows, and dangle your arm up to the shoulder in the cool water, as the boat glides on, suspended above a fathomless abyss of gold and blue. But if Loch Awe can be hot and still, it can also be cold and wild. In windy weather its enormous expanse is as furious as a great arm of the sea, and the squalls plow the water into furrows of snow- white foam. On a dark day it is the blackest of all THE HEART OF LORNE. 57 locLs — a very Acheron. But in any and every wcatlier it preserves Bome kind of beauty, and lias ever-varying attractions for the lover of nature — for every man, indeed, who is moved at all by the great forces of the world. Perhaps the finest point of vantage in the whole loch is Kllchurn Castle; and Kilclmm, though beau- tiful exceedingly in dead-still summer weather, ap- pears to most advantage when the wind is high and the waters w' ild. The ruin stands at the upper end of the lake, on a rock which was originally an island, but is now a sort of peninsula, connected by a flat al- luvial meadow with the higher shore ; and though its stones have been outrageously plundered to supply materials for a church and an inn at Dalmally, though every scrap of wood it ever contained has been pilfered and burnt, enough of the old place still remains to spiritualize the whole landscape ; a few crumbling walls being enough for the purpose in all such cases. Built originally at the time of the Crusades, in 1440, and occupied by a British garrison as late as 1745, Kilchurn still abides, and will abide for many a year to come, if not altogether demolished by the hand of man. Time has dealt gently with it, merely penciling the walls with soft lichens and golden moss ; and so far as time is concerned, it may be a ghost in the moonlight for a thousand years to conne. Of course, Kilchurn is beautiful in moonlight — all old castles are, especially when they stand close upon the water; but the effects of moonlight, although doubtless far more defined than is generally supposed 58 THE LAND OF LORNE. by people who do not study Kature for themselves, belonfij more to the imagination than the eye, if, in- deed, we are not continually moved by moonlight for peculiar physiological reasons, just as lunatics are moved, though in less measure. Fault has been found by Mr. Philip Ilamerton with poets in general, and Sir Walter Scott in particular, because they seem to think that the moon " does not respect local color, but translates everything into black and white ;"* and the same writer describes very amusing- ly how he, after reading Scott's lines about Melrose, and getting into the ruins furtively, his head full of melodious rhyme, discovered that the " ruins gray " were red; and was afterward informed "that the Minstrel was so little in earnest on the subject as never to have taken the trouble to drive over from Abbotsford and see Melrose for himself, as he had so waimly recommended everybody else to see it." Still, Scott was right, and Ilamerton is wrong, in spite of the false epithet "gray;" for what Scott meant to imply was simply that moonlight supplied a certain imaginative mystery ; a weird, silvern glamor, * See some remarks on this subject in Mr. Hamerton'a " Paint- r-r's Camp," an admirable book, in -wliich the attempts to describe natural effects, from a painter's point of view, are almost painful- ly lionest and faithful ; painfully bo, because betraying the dis- satisfaction of an a:'stlietic mind almost convulsed by llio tre- mendous truths of Nature, driven again and again to the de- spairing fear that absolute faithfulness to Nature is impossible, and trying, amidst its despair, to be rational at all hazards, rather than sentimental over the inadequacy of human effort. The re suit is a style curiously blending profound artistic feeling with enormous self-consciousness, and betraying an alarming leaven of t-echnicality, even in the sphere of ideas. THE HEAllT OF LORNE. 59 in which all old ruina become most impressive. For the same reason, " He who would bco Kilcluirn aright Must visit it by pale moonlight," not on account of the effects of color, though many of these, as Mr. ITamerton lias finely shown, are most delicately defined and beautiful, but simply because moonlight is in esse a more emotional light than sun- light. But on some dark day, when Cruachan is black with shadow, and the rain-cloud driving past, when the loch is broken into great waves with crestlike head and hollows as black as ink, and when the wild lines of the rain shoot down in light over the old ruin, Kilchum becomes a spirit ; indeed, the almost human center of the scene. Look which way you will, it is the cynosure. Wild mists cloud the gorges of the Pass of Awe, the wind moans in the blackness of Cruachan, and Kilchurn, with the waves lashing at its feet, stares through the air like a human face, strangely relieved against the dazzling greenness of the meadow which links it to the land. What, in- deed, are all the effects of moonlight to that desolate look of loneliness and woe, mingled with secret strength to resist the elemental strife? " But a mere footstool to yon sovereign lord, Huge Cruachan (a thing that meaner hills Might crush, nor know that it had suffered harm) ; Yet he, not loth, in favor of thy claim To reverence, suspe.nds his own ; submitting All that the God of Nature hath conferred. All that he holds in common with the stars. to THE LAND OF LORNE. To the memorial majcBfy of Time, Impersonated in lliy calm decay!" Truly docs the old ruin remain paramount, while mountains, torrents, lakes, and woods unite to pay it homage. It is the most perfect foreground possible for a mountain picture, forming not only a poetic center of human interest, but a fine scale wherewith to measure the mighty proportions of the hills and the wild expanse of troubled waters. The distance from Inveraray to the banhs of Loch Awe is about sixteen miles, the first fourteen of which are chiefly pleasant because every one of them re- moves you a little farther from Inveraray, that most depressing offish-smelling Highland towns; but about two miles from that lake there is a wretched hut, the owner of which sells — or used to sell until very re- cently — a very good "dram" to the pedestrian, in- spired with which fine spirit he is ready to look with treble rapture on the magnificent view from the top of the hill above Cladich. Ben Cruachan towers to the heavens in all his gigantic beauty, with dark hcatlier-clad flanks and red-tinted crags, and at his feet the great lake stretches broad and deep, studded with grassy and woody islets, which are green as emerald in summer time, and in the winter season dark-red with the withered bracken and fern. In the time of snow this scene becomes strange and im})ress- ing in the extreme. The spectator from the hill has a feeling of being suspended up in the air, and the sense of height and distance conveyed by the great white mountain is almost painful. From the far-olf cone of Cruachan a white smoke of drift-snow rises THE HEART OF LORNE. 61 with tlie wind and blows away against the pale ^rcen of the cloudless sky. The dark-wooded flanks of the mountain contrast with the white snows and dim azure shadows of the bare crags and precipices. If the lake is a dead calm, as is usually the case at such times, the effect is still more mysterious, as every fea- ture of the spectral scene is repeated in a fathomless gulf of crystal clearness. At the foot of the hill is the little inn of Cladich, a cozy nest for anglers and all such peace-loving men ; and close to the inn there is a burn, shaded with trees and ferns, and fringed in spring-time with primroses and blue-bells. Oh ! the pools of Cladich ! the nut-brown pools, clear as amber, fed by little falls foaming as white as snow, and full of tiny trout that dart hither and thither, with dark shadows on the bottom of polished rock ! Many a bath have we taken there of yore, lying for hours like a very fresh- water Triton, clad as Adam, pipe in mouth ; and the friend of our boyhood in the next " bath," limbed like a young fawn, and little thinking of the terrible City by whose breath he died ! To us, as we write, Cladich seemed the sweetest spot in the world, and we could linger on, describing its loveliness, page after page, calling up memories of long summer days on the lake, dreamy musings on the wooded Black Isles, and walks by moonlight among the woods and falls behind the little inn — an inn with linen milky white, and the scent of heather in every room, and sometimes a plate of pansies in fresh water on the table. But to brood over these happy times would be to weary the reader. Away from Cladich ! Away 62 THE LAND OF LOKNE. by tlie road that winds northward along the shores of the lalco, and, after affording a magnificent view of Kilcluirn, reaches the village of Dalmally, a pleas- ant little place, with a good inn, a church, a pictu- resque bridge, and, best of all, a solid etone monu- ment to Duncan Ban, What Burns is to the Lowlands of Scotland, Dun- can Ban is to the Highlands; and more: for Duncan never made a poem, long or short, which was not set to a tune, and he first sang them himself as he wan- dered like a veritable bard of old. Duncan Macln- tyre, better known as Donacha Bun, or Fair-haired Duncan, was born here in Glenorehay in 1724, and he died at Edinburgh in 1812, in the golden days of the " Edinburgh Review." His had been a long life, if not an eventful one. For about forty-five years he dwelt among these hills, haunting " Coire Cheat- haich " at all hours, and composing his mountain music ; and sometimes traveling about the country to collect subscriptions to his poems, dressed in the Highland garb, with a checked bonnet, over which hung a large bushy tail of a wild animal ; a badger's skin, fastened by a belt, in front ; a hanger by his side, and a soldier's wallet strajjped to his shoulders. During these expeditions he was recognized wherc- ever he went by his peculiar appearance. On one occasion, a forward young man asked him, " If it was he that made Ben Dourain ?" "No," replied the old man, " Ben Dourain was made before you or I were born ; but I made a poem in praise of Ben Dourain." " He spoke slowly," writes the recorder of the cir- cumstance, " and seemed to have no high opinion of THE HEART OF LOUNE. O^^ his own poems, and said little of Gaelic poetry ; but said that officeiB in the army told him about the Greek poets, and Pindar was chiefly admired by liim."* When Duncan Ban was forty-four years of age, he dictated his poems to a clergyman, who wrote them down for publication. For years they had been floating in the poet's mind to music of their own, and many had been carried from mouth to mouth across the Hebrides. They are simple in form as the hills, as sweet and gentle in sound as the mountain brooks, and many are most lengthy and elaborate, just like Ilio-hland tales, not because the subject is great in itself, but because the singer is so in love with it that he could sing about it forever. " Coire Chea- thaich, or the Misty Corri," is the masterpiece, being the description of the great corri in Glenorchay, where Duncan loved to roam. Here it is in English. Not a word is lost, but any Highlandman will toll you that no English could convey the unutterable tenderness and rich music of the original : COIRE CHEATHAICH; ok, THE GLEN OF THE MIST. My beauteous corri ! where cattle wander — My misty corri ! my darling dell ! Mighty, verdant, and covered over With wild flowers tender of the sweetest smell ; Dark is the green of thy grassy clothing, Soft swell thy hillocks most green ajid deep. The cannach blowing, the darnel growing, WTiile the deer troop past to the misty steep. * Mackenzie's " Beauties of Gaelic Poetry." 64 THE LAND OF LOKNE. Fine for wear is thy beauteous mantle, Btrongly woven, and ever-new, With rough grass o'er it, and, brightly gleaming. The grass all spangled with diamond dew ; It's round my corri, my lovely corri. Where rushes thicken and long reeds blow ; Fine were the harvest to any reaper Who through the marsh and the bog could go. Ah, that's fine clothing !— a great robe stretching, A grassy carpet most smooth and green. Painted and fed by the rain f r«ni heaven In hues the bravest that man has seen — 'Twixt here and Taris, I do not fancy A finer raiment can ever be — May it grow forever !— and, late and early. May 1 be here on the knolls to see ! Around Ruadh Awridh what ringlets cluster! Fair, long, and crested, and closely twined. This way and that they are lightly waving. At eveiy breath of the mountain wind. The twisted hemlock, the slanted rye-grass. The juicy moor-grass, can all be found. And the close-set groundsel is greenly growing By the wood where heroes are sleeping sound. In yonder ruin once dwelt MacBhaidi, 'Tis now a desert where winds are shrill ; Yet the well-shaped brown ox is feeding by it Among the stones that bestrew the hill. IIow fine to see, both in light and gloaming, The smooth Clach Fionn so still and deep. And the houseless cattle and calves most peaceful! Cirouped on the brow of the lonely steep. In every nook of the mountain pathway The garlic fiower may be thickly found— And out oi\ the sunny t-lopes around it llau" berries juicy and red and round— THE HEART OF LORNE. 66 The penny-royal and dandelion, The downy cannach together lie — Tliickly they grow from the base of the mountain To the topmost crag of his crest so high. And not a crag but is clad most riclily, For rich and silvern the soft moss clings ; Fine is the moss, most clean and stainless, Hiding the look of unlovely things ; Down in the hollows beneath the summit Where tlie verdure is growing most rich and deep. The little daisies are looking upward. And the yellow primroses often peep. Round every well and every fountain An eyebrow dark of the cress doth cling ; And tlie sorrel sour gathers in clusters Around the stones whence the waters spring ; With a splash and a plunge and a mountain murmur The gurgling waters from earth upleap. And pause and hasten, and whirl in circles. And rush and loiter, and whirl and creep ! Out of the ocean comes the salmon. Steering with crooked nose he hies. Hither he darts where the waves are boiling — Out he springs at the glistening flies ! How he leaps in the whirling eddies ! With back blue-black, and fins that shine. Spangled with, silver, and speckled over. With white tail tipping his frame so fine 1 Gladsome and grand is the misty corri. And there the hunter hath noble cheer ; The powder blazes, the black lead rattles Into the heart of the dun-brown deer ; And there the hunter's hound so bloody Around the hunter doth leap and play. And madly rushing, most fierce and fearless, Springs at the throat of the stricken prey. 6G THE LAND OF LORNE. Oh, 'twas gladsome to go a-liunting Out in the dew of the sunny morn ! For the great red stag was never wanting. Nor tlie fawn, nor the doe with never a horn. And when rain fell and the night was coming. From the open heath we could svviftly fly, And, finding the shelter of some deep grotto, Couch at ease till the night went by. And sweet it was when the white sun glimmered. Listening under the crag to stand — And hear the moorhen so hoarsely croaking. And the red cock murmuring close at hand ; "WTiile the little wren blew his tiny trumpet. And throw his steam off blithe and strong. While the speckled thrush and the redbreast gaily Lilted together a pleasant song ! Not a singer but joined the chorus, Not a bird in the leaves was still. First the laverock, that famous singer, Led the music with throat so shrill ; From tall tree-branches the blackbird whistled, And the gray bird joined with his sweet " coo-coo ;" Everywhere was the blithesome chorus. Till the glen was murmuring through and througli. Then out of the shelter of every corri Ccme forth the creature whose home is there ; First, proudly stepping, with branching antlers. The snorting red-deer forsook his lair ; Through the sparkling fen he rushed rejoicing. Or gently played by his heart's delight — The hind of the mountain, the sweet brown princess. So fine, so dainty, so staid, so slight! Under the light green branches creeping The brown doe cropt the leaves unseen. While tlie proud buck gravely stared around him And stamped his feet on his couch of green ; THE HEART OE LOIINE. Q*j Smooth and speckled, with soft pink nostrils. With beauteous hiiiid, hiy the tiny kid ; All apart in the dewy rushes, Sleeping unseen in its nest, 'twas hid. My beauteous corri ! my misty corri ! What light feet trod thee in joy and pride, What strong hands gathered thy precious treaaurea. What great hearts leapt on thy craggy side ! Soft and round was the nest they plundered. Where the brindled bee his honey hath — * Tke speckled bee that flies, softly humming. From flower to flower of the lonely strath. There thin-skinned, smooth in clustering bunches. With sweetest kernels as white as cream. From branches green the sweet juice drawing. The nuts were growing beside the stream — And the stream went dancing merrily onward. And the ripe red rowan was on its brim. And gently there in the wind of morning The new-leaved sapling waved soft and slim. And all around the lovely corri The wild birds Sat on theirnests so neat, In deep warm nooks and tufts of heather, Sheltered by knolls from the wind and sleet ; And there from their beds, in the dew of iho morning. Uprose the doe and the stag of ten. And the tall cliffs gleamed, and the morning reddened The Coire Cheathaich — the Misty Glen! One such poem conveys, even in a translation, a bet- ter idea of the writer's mind than whole chapters of expository criticism. How the Highlandman broods over every feature of the darling scene, from the weird "mountain ruin, where a family once dwelt," down to the little wren " flinging off his steam " (a queer and very favorite Gaelic expression) in the sun- shine ! Was a brook ever described better, as it 68 THE LAND OF LORNE. " Pauses and hastens, whirls in circles, Rushes and loiters, and whirls and creeps ?" To Duncan the corri is a perpetual feast. With a painter's eye he hungers over the tints of the moss on the crags, the blue-black back and silver spangles of the salmon, the thin-skinned, smooth-clustered nuts on the green branches, the dark-green eyebrow of cresses round the mountain well ; and to him also all the sounds have maddening sweetness : the moorhen croaking, the thrushes and redbreasts warbling, the whole glen " breathing a choral strain ; " till at last, in one supreme poetic flash, he sees the dun doe and great stag springing up in the dew of a May morn- ing, and the " red light " flaming on every crag of the corri. Ilis was no mere song for beauty's sake ; there was love at the heart of it. To him the corri meant life and freedom, and the fresh air of the world — it meant youth and its memories, passion and its dreams, deep-seated religion and its mystery. The love he put into " Coire Cheathaich" took another form in Mairi Ban Og, which is esteemed the finest love-song in the Gaelic language, and is addressed, not to his sweetheart — not to a passing mistress, such as Burns immortalized — but to his wife ; is, in a word, the epithalamium of Duncan, the Highland forester, on his marriage with Maiy "of the ale-house." Every word is warm as sunshine, but holy and pure. IIo broods over his bride's beauty as he broods over na- ture, missing no detail, blessing the " clerk-given right " which makes the beauty all his own. lie de- scribes the "soft and round maiden with curly hair ; " her " breath sweet as apples growing ; " her " smooth THE HEART OF LORNE. 09 lidded " bine eye ; lier body " as pure and white aa cannach ; " her warm hand, like a lady's; her little foot in its tiglit-iittin<^ shoe ; he tells us how " I\rairi " milks the cattle by the river, with the calves leaping round her ; how she wanders light-footed to the lone mountain shieling; how she sits " sewing bands and plain seams," or " working embroidery," in the cau- dle-light of the cottage, at night; and he adds, with true Highland pride, how she bears in her veins the *' blood of the King and MacCailean," and of the Macdonald " who was chief in Sleat." No love is too deep for her, no gift too great ; and he will kill for her " swans, seals, wild geese, and all birds " — nay, she has but to give the word, and she shall have the antlers of the best deer in the forest. Nothing is more remarkable in this love-song than the sacredness of its passion ; in it Duncan Ban has correctly repre- sented not only his own feelings, but the popular Highland sentiment about marriage. In Lome and Ihe Western Hebrides, the purity of the popular mind on this subject is most remarkable. The Highlander may sometimes err through excess of animal passion, but he is never consciously indecent, and he is utterly innocent of the "gaudriole." Happy years had Duncan Ban in Glenorchay, drinking into his soul every tint of the glorious land- scape, and loving the more the longer he looked. For six years he was sergeant in the Bread albane Fencibles, and when that regiment was disbanded, in 1T99, he procured, by the influence of the Earl of .Ereadalbane, a place in the City Guard of Edinburgh, I '^0 THE LAND OF LORNE. those poor old veterans bo savagely described hy Fer- guson in " Leith Kaces" : " Tlieir etuinps, erst used to filabegp. Are diglit in epatterdaelies, Wliase bailant hides scarce fend tlieir legs Fra weet and weary splashes 0' dirt that day ! " lie was then seventy-five years of age. About this time he composed a quaint, long rhyme, in praise of Dunedin, or Edinburgh ; and the poem, although not one of his inspired productions, is deeply interesting from its quaint touches of wondering realism. The old man, with his sharp hunter's eye, missed nothing, as he wandered in the strange streets. He describes the castle, the battery, the abbey, the houses, " wealthy and great ; " the building of the parliament, where "reasonable gentlemen" administered justice, with free power to " hang the offender up high ; " the swells in the street, with powder in their curled hair, and a " bunch like silk on the top ; " the pretty ladies, with stays to keep them straight and thin, beauty-spots on their faces, strong, tight, and pointed shoes, with (adds the poet) " heels much too high ; " the coaches, and the hard-hoofed horses frisking and prancing, so much finer than any reared on Highland pastures. All this was pleasing for a time, while it had the charm of novelty ; but, doubtless, the heart of the old bard wearied for the hills. Some years after, on the 19th of September, 1802, he visited hi3 heme, and wandered a long day among the scenes he loved bo well, and then and there composed THE HEAIIT OF LORNE. "71 the most beautiful of all his poems — " The Last Fare- well to the Hills." He was then seventy-eight years old. THE LAST ADIEU TO THE HILLS. Yestreen I stood on Ben Dorain, and paced its dark-gray patli ; Was there a lull I did not know — a glen, or grassy strath ? Oh I gladly in the times of old I trod that glorious ground. And the white dawn melted in the sun, and the red-deer cried around. How finely swept the noble deer across the morning hill. While fearless played the fawn and doe beside the running rill ; I heard the olack and red cock crow, and the bellowing of the deer — I think those are the sweetest sounds that man at dawn may hear. Oh ! wildly, as the bright day gleamed, I climbed the mountaiu'a breast. And when I to my home returned, the sun was in the west ; 'Twas health and strength, 'twas life and joy to wander freely there. To drink at the fresh mountain stream, to breathe the mountain air. And oft I'd shelter for a time within some shieling low. And gladly sport in woman's smile, and woman's kindness know. Ah ! 'twas not likely one could feel for long a joy so gay ! The hour of parting came full soon — I sighed, and went away. And now the cankered withering wind has struck my limbs at last ; My teeth are rotten and decayed, my sight is failing fast ; If hither now the chase should come, 'tis little I could do ; Though I were hungering for food, I could not now pursue. But though my locks are hoar and thin, my beard and whiskers white. How often have 1 chased the stag with dogs full swift of flight I And yet, although I could not join the chase if here it came. The thought of it is charming still and sets my heart on flame. "72 THE LAND OF LOKNE. Ah ! much &s I have done of old, how ill could I wend now, By glon, and strath, and rocky path, up to the mountain's browt How ill could I the mierry cup quaff deep in social cheer ! How ill now could I sing a song in the gloaming of the year I Those were the merry days of spring, the thoughtless tintes of youth ; 'Tis Fortune watches over us, and helps our need, forsooth ; Believing that, though poor enough, contentedly I live, For George's daughter, every day, my meat and drink doth give.* Yestreen I wandered in the glen ; what thoughts were in my head ! There had I walked with friends of yore — where are those dear ones fled ? I looked and looked ; where'er I looked was naught but sheep f sheep I sheep ! A woeful change was in the hill ! World, thy deceit was deep 1 From side to side I turned mine eyes — alas ! my soul was sore — The mountain bloom, the forest's ])ride, the old men were no more. Nay, not one antlered stag was there, nor doe so soft and slight. No bird to fill the hunter's bag — all, all were fled from sight ! Farewell, ye forests of the heath! hills where the bright day gleams ! Farewell, ye grassy dells ! farewell, ye springs and leaping streams! Farewell, ye mighty solitudes, where once I loved to dwell — Scenes of my spring-time and its joys — forever fare you well! After that, Duncan Ban returned to Edinburgh, and remained in the City Guard till about 180G, when, having saved a lew pounds from his wages and the *" George's daughter " was the musket carried by him as a member of the City Guard, and servant of King George. The value of his " meat and drink " was fivcpenco or sixpence a day. THE IIEAUT 01" LOUNK. 73 profits of liis published poems, he was enabled to re- tire and spend his remaining years without toil of any kind. lie was eighty-eight years old when he died, On the IDth of May, 1812, he was buried in the Grey- friars' Burying Ground, Edinlnirgh ; and a few years ago the monument was raised to his memory in Glen- orchay. Ilis fame endures wherever the Gaelic lan- guage is spoken, and his songs are sung all over the civilized world. Without the bitterness and intellect- ual power of Burns, he possessed much of his senti- ment, and all of his personal tenderness ; and as a literary prodigy, who could not even write, he is still more remarkable than Burns. Moreover, the old, simple-hearted forester, with his fresh love of nature, his shrewd insight, and his impassioned speech, seems a far completer human figure than the Ayrshire plowman, who was doubtless a glorious creature, but most obtrusive in his independence. Poor old Duncan was never bitter. The world was wonderful, and he was content to fill his humble place in it. lie had " an independent mind," but was quite friendly to rank and power wherever he saw them ; for, after all, what were they to Coire Cheathaich, with its nat- ural splendors ? What was the finest robe in Dun- edin to the gay clothing on the side of Ben Dorain ! Bm*ns never saw Nature as Duncan Ban saw her ; was never merged into her, so to speak, never became a part of flying cloud and brooding shadows ; rather petted and fondled her like a mistress, with most un- utterable tenderness, but no awe. Burns was the in- tellectual being, man, lord of the earth and all its creatures, their lover till the end, but always their 74 THE LAND OF LORNE. lord ; bitter witli the world, bitter with his own sins ; too proud to gauge ale-barrels, but not too proud to get dead drunk or to debauch women ; hurled down like a torrent by his own sheer force and strength, a divine singer, a shameless satirist, the lover of" Mary in heaven," and the undoubted author of some of the filthiest " suppressed poems " in the " Merry Muses."* Duncan Ban " of the Songs " was a silent man, not specially intellectual, content to hawk his poems about tlie country, and sing them at the fireside, with scarce a touch of satire in his whole nature, with a heart quite pure and fresh to the end, when, as an old man, he bade the hills " farewell forever." In the life of Burns we see the light striking through the Btonn-cloud, lurid, terrific, yet always light from heav- en. In the life of Duncan Ban there is nothing but a gray light of peace and purity, such as broods over the mountains when the winds are laid. Burns was the mightier poet, the grander human soul ; but many who love him best, and cherish his memory most ten- derly, can find a place in their hearts for Duncan Ban as well. As we quit the Highland poet's grave, and follow the highway to the Pass of Awe, there is other music in our ears besides that of " Coire Cheathaich" and the " Last Farewell ;" for did not tlic " Children of the Mist," haunting like mountain deer the secret gorges of Cruachan, utter many a lyrical plaint full of music * The woefullest picture in the worhl is the last portrait of Burns, wliich we regret to sec inserted in Dr. P. II. Waddell's otherwise invaluable edition of the poet's works. This portrait, once seen, haunts the beholder for ever. THE HEART OF LORNE. 75 and heart's agony ? Keaders of tlie " Legend of Mon- trose " and tlie "Lady of the Lake" know now by heart the wrongs of tlie Macgregors, the " clan that was nameless by day;" and Gaelic literature abounds with songs recording the sufierings and threats of the bloody outlawed clans — songs most weird and terri- ble, with frequent glimpses of wild tenderness. One of the best of these is the " Hills of the Mist," the tra- dition concerning which states that tlie singer, after having hidden her hunted kinsmen in a bed within the mountain shieling, sat down on the floor and crooned to herself a song bewailing their non-apjpearance : " Oh, where are my kinsmen ? Oh, where do tliey wander ? I Avatch for them lonely ; I wait and I ponder." And the pursuers, listening outside and noting the terrible agony of her voice (no counterfeit that, for might not the butchers enter at anv moment and de- tect her ruse ?) passed on in the darkness without searching the shieling. The Pass of Awe is very beautiful, the road wind- ing high up among the crags and woods and overlook- ing the wild waters of the river. Close to the bridire which spans the stream took place the famous fight between Bruce's followers and those of John of Lome, when the bodies of the latter, miserably overthrown, choked and rendered bloody the impetuous flood. Along this path walked Mrs. Bethune Baliol, escorted by the exuberant Donald Macleish, on that memorable occasion when she saw the tree, the waterfall, and the solitary human figure — " a female form seated by the stem of the oak, with her head drooping, her hands 1Q THE LAND OF LOIINE. clasped, and a dark-colored mantle drawn over her licad, exactly as Judith is represented in the Syrian medals as seated under her palm-tree."''^ The form of the miserable woman, still as a corpse or a marble statue, haunts the eye of the traveler at every step ; rock, tree, and falling water assume her likeness ; and the ear is filled with her memorable words of grief — " My beautiful ! my brave !" There is no shape of fiction so closely wedded to an actual scene. The Pass of Awe and the Highland Widow are inseparable. The one solitary human soul, in its unutterable dolor, surrounded by somber crags and corries, and water plunging from pool to pool with sullen roar, is more truly regent of the place than all the traditional figures of clansmen and Children of the Mist. Following the road along the Pass of Awe, you reach Tyanuilt, whence the ascent of Ben Cruachan is tolerably easy. Mountain climbing is always glorious, be the view obtained at the highest point ever so un- satisfactory ; for do not pictures arise at every step, beautiful exceedingly, even if no more complex than a silver-lichened boulder half buried in purple heather and resting against the light-blue mountain air ; or a mountain pool fringed with golden mosses and green cresses, with blue sky in it and a small white cloud I'ke a lamb ; or a rowan tree with berries red as coral, sheltering the mossy bank where the robin sits in his nest? He who climbs Cruachan will see not only these small things, but he will behold a series of crag * Scott's " Highland Widow." THE HEART OF LOllNE. 77 pictures of iinapproticliable magnificence — coiTies red and ruffcred, in the dark iissures of wliiclisnow Hnircrs even as late as June, pyramids and minarets of granite glistering in the sunshine through the moisture of their own dew, stained by rain and light into darkly beauti- ful hues, and speckled by iimumerable shadows from the passing clouds. There is a certain danger in roaming among the precipices near the summit, as the hill is subject to sudden mists, sometimes so dense that the pedestrian can scarcely see a foot before him ; but in summer-time, when the heights are clear as amber for days togetlier, the peril is not worth calcu- latiu"". On a fine, clear day, the view from the sum- mit — which is a veritable red ridge or cone, not a fiat table-land like that of some mountains — is very pecu- liar. It can. scarcely be called picturesque, for there is no power in the eye to fix on any one picture ; and^ on the other hand, to liken it to a map of many colors would be conveying a false impression. The effect is more that of a map than of a picture, and more like the sea than either. Tlie spectator loses the delicate sesthetic sense, and feels his whole vision swallowed up in immensity. The mighty waters of Awe brood sheer below him, under the dark abysses of the hill, with the islands like dark spots upon the surface. Away to the eastward rise peaks innumerable, moun- tain beyond mountain, from the moor of Rannoch to Ben Lomond, some dark as night with shadow, others dim as dawn from sheer distance, all floating limitless against a pink horizon and brooded over by a heaven of most delicate blue, fading away into miraculous tints, and filling the spirit with intensest awe ; while "78 THE LAND OF LOKNE. in tlio west is visible the great ocean, stretching armH of shining sheen into the wildlj broken coiist, bright- ening around the isles that sleep upon its breast — Tiree, Coll, Rum, Canna, Skye — and fading into a long vaporous line where the setting sun sinks into the underworld. Turn where it may, the eye ip satis- fied, overcharged. Such another panorama of lake, mountain, and ocean is not to be found in the High- lands. As for Lome, you may now behold it indeed, gleaming with estuaries and lakes — Loch Linnho, the Bay of Oban, and the mighty Firth as far south as Jura, and, northward over the moors, a divine glimpse of the head of Loch Etive, blue and dreamy as a maiden's eyes. The head swims, the eyes dazzle. Are you a god, that you should survey these wonders in such supremacy? Look which way you will, you behold immensity — measureless ranges of mountains, measureless tracts of inland water, the measureless ocean, lighted here and there by humanity in the sliape of some passing sail smaller to view than a sea- bird's wing. For some little time at least the specta- tor feels that spiritual exhaltation which excludes perfect human perception ; he yields to a wave of awful emotion, and bows before it as before God. He can be sestiietic again when he once more descends to the valleys. SPORT ON THE MOO US AND LOCHS. T^ CTTAPTEU W. SPORT OX TIIK MOORS AND LOCHS. Grouso and Black-gamo Shooting — A September Day on the Moors — Tho Grouse-shooter — Peat Bogs — Arrival of Snipo and Woodcock — Moun- tain Lochs and other Haunts of Wild-fowl — False and Tnio Sportsmen. Sport on the moors of Lome is what sport should be — a great deal more like wild-shooting than is gen- erally the case on the great moors of the north. The game is not numerous, but strong, wary, full of health and strength. There is no overcrowding, as on the Perthshire and Aberdeenshire moors. In addition to Argyllshire grouse, bright, rufus-breasted, full-chested, altogether the finest bird to be found in this country, and beyond all measure superior to the smaller-sized and darker-plumaged bird of the eastern moors, there are black -game in abundance, a few partridges, brown and blue hares, a sprinkling of snipe, and a large number of wild-fowl, Koe-deers are plentiful in some districts, but the red-deer is seldom found. The %alino ferox abounds in Loch Awe, and all the rivers afibrd more or less salmon angling, while many of the small mountain lochs are as full of excellent trout as a pond in Surrey is full of sticklebacks. TVe have heard greedy sportsmen, used to wholesale butchery of bird and beast, complain of the barrenness of Lome, and certainly Lome is barren as compared with the 80 . THE LAND OF LORNE. great moors fnrther north ; tliongh it has this one great advantage, tliat it affords excellent sport long after the birds have packed elsewhere, and not a shot is to be had except by driving. In Lome, moreover, the game in no way injures the population — is not numerous enough to ruin the farmer and poor crofter; is not valuable enough to be preserved at the cost of human lives. Any true sportsman will find his appe- tite fully gratified, though not by enormous " bags." All his skill will come into requisition — all his lacul- ties will be duly tested. Yearly, when the 12th of August dawns, the sound of shootino; echoes from hill to hill, over the purple sea of moorland that surrounds the TVTiito House on the Hill ; and the dogs leap eagerly in (ho kennel v/henever their master passes; and overhead, on the top of the knoll, a cock-grouse crows cheerily in the sunshine. But the Wanderer is not to be tempt- ed. The 20t]i of August is time enough to touch grouse in most seasons ; and the black -game should invariably be left in peace till the 1st of September. Of course, where the object is merely to secure a larjie number of birds, the earlier in the season one commences the better; but it is scarcely conceivable how any rational being can find pleasure in butcher- ing a poor bird when it is no bigger than a chicken and a great deal stupider, and when it is as easily liit as a target at thirty yards. Grouse-shooting is poor sport till the birds run well, instead of lying like Btones at the mere sound of a distant footstep, and till they rise on the wing, swift and strong as an old cock, directly after the dog has fairly ennsed them to draw SrOllT ON THE MOOIiS AND LOGlIiS. «1 together and crouch. Black-game shooting on the moors is miiuanly sport. Tlie birds won't got up, and are again and again collared l)y the over-eager dog, and when they do rise, early in the season, why, a boy miglit hit them with a pea-shooter as thty^ dash clumsily away. But black-game shooting at evening fliglit, when the birds are wild beyond measure, and come down in hundreds to feed on the corn sheaves, is quite another sort of sport, worthy of any man with a clear eye and steady nerves. By this time the young cock is getting something like his adult plumage, and is a fair prize, both as an edible and for the sake of his feathers. He is wonderfully wary and keen- sighted when feeding on the ground, but will seldom break his flight. Often on the moors, while lunching in the shade of some woody knoll, we have been dis- turbed by a flock of black-game whizzing past, one after another, a few yards distant, and not altering their course by an inch, even when they perceived their danger and saw some of the advance-guard dropping stone-dead to the flash and report of the gun. On some morning in the month of September, the moor is in all its glory, stretching its mighty billows in all directions in one streak of luxurious purple and glittering green, broken up here and there by great rocks and lichened cra2:s, and all flooded with the lio;ht of the sun. The sportsman sweats and pants, the dogs hang out their tongues and work heavily, un- guided by a breath of wind ; the gillie lies on his stomach and dips his heated face in every burn ; and hy midday you have killed perhaps a couple of brace 82 THE LAND OF LORNE. of birds. Then comes the long delicious siesta hj the brink of some crystal pool of the stream, and (after the lightest possible lunch) the pipe or cigar, in the enjoyment of which you lie on your side in the dry old heather, and watch the small shadows, cast by clouds as white as wool, moving noiselessly and sleepily over the free expanse of the heath — brooding at times as still as stones — at times hasten- ing together like a flock of sheep, with the golden gleam on every side of them. If you are fortunate, about this time there comes a shower; just a sprink- ling for a few minutes, soft as dew on the grass at dawn, scented as a maiden's breath. The moor sparkles, the air feels fresh and free, and when you loosen the dogs, they no longer toil wearily with loll- ing tongues, but work in narrowing runs up the faintest possible breath of wind, draw swift and steady to the deep patch whither the pack have run, and become all in a moment rigid, with fixed eyes and dilating nostrils. Now and again, in such weath- er, the best dog in the world will miss his game, or, running unawares into the thick of them, scat- ter them like chaff. Of course, as is well known, each member of the broken pack will, at the begin- ning of the season, lie like a stone, wherever you mark it down, and sometimes almost suffer you to seize it with your hand. As the day advances, and the heat lessens, the bag increases; and about sunset, when the birds liave left the springy bogs and betaken themselves to the dry knolls of young heather to feed, you will have sport in perfec- tion. SPOUTS ON THE MOORS AND LOCHS. 8:3 The signs of a good grouse-shooter are few and un- mistakable, lie must be a steady walker, not so swift as to weary the dogs, not slow enough to fij)oil them, and not given to puffing like a porpoise when climbing the hillside. He must be a good snap shot, ready at any moment to take a chance when it comes, with or without a point ; he must account for two birds out of every pack that rises ; and he should kill his birds, dead. He must be silent, for talking, above all things, spoils sport; sober, for dram-drinkinsr endanjieis both himself and his com- panions ; good-humored, or the keepers and gillies will hate him and spoil his chance whenever they can ; and, above all, humane, never shooting at a bird with the faintest chance of merely wounding it and letting it get away to die. In addition to all this, he must be a man to whom the moor is familiar at all seasons, who knows the haunts of birds in all sorts of weathers, who understands the whole theory of heather-burning, who is as well acquainted with every natural sign as the mountain-shepherd him- self. Most men, of course, leave all things to their keepers, come to their moor on the 12th, and are taken about in due course at the beck and nod of " Donald." Some of those men shoot well ; few of them are worthy of the name of sportsmen. Merely to be able to present a gun and knock down a mark is a feat that any " hedge-popper" can attain. Prac- tical knowledge, loving observation of nature, power of silence, take time to grow ; but they are essential. In addition to them may be mentioned a certain capacity of enduring physical discomfort, without 84 THE LAND OF LORNE. which the grouse-shooter is no better than any pigeon- killer in the suburbs of London. There are no very bad bogs in Lome, though occa- sionally, while grouse-shooting, we have seen a broth- er sportsman disappear almost up to the arm-pits, and dragged him with some difficulty out of the oozy earth and green, slimy subterranean pools. In hot weather, the grouse frequent the parts where the peat is cut and piled, and drink at the black pools in the hollows. At this time, the black-game come there also for the same pm-pose. In a " peat-bog " not fifty yards square, we have put up from twenty to thirty black -game singly, each crouching unseen till fairly run upon by the dog, and consisting of several old hens and their packs of young. They will lie, too, in the queerest holes imaginable, on the sides of ditches. We have seen our setter rigid and moveless over a hole where only a water-rat might be expect- ed to dwell, and where a gray hen was huddled up for the sake of the coolness and shade. The old cock is never to be found in such places. lie broods alone and sulky, in some spot where he can have a free flight out of the way of danger. The most fa- vorite of all places for young black-game in the heat of the day are the deep patches of bracken and fern on the moor, where they can run about with a very forest of greenness above their heads; but they soon learn to prefer the corn-fields, from the fact that the latter combine both food and shelter. Many sports- men greatly annoy the firmer by covertly sending their dogs into the standing com, and shooting the Btartled binls from the edges. This practice is most SPOUT ON THE MOOKS AND L0CII8. 86 repre]icnsl])lc, and slioiild be discountenanced by all true sportsmen. Any tiling that interferes, however Blightly, with the rights of others, should be aban- doned; and the farmer's crop is of infinitely more importance to the world than the shooter's game- bag. But we arc being betrayed into a treatise on grouse-shooting, whereas it is merely our intention to sketch in a general way the possibilities of sport in Lome. As the season advances, tlie birds grow scarcer and scarcer — less and less approachable. A white frost sometimes tames the red grouse, never the black ; and both sooner or later form into great packs, which pass away like a cloud, long ere the sportsman gets within gun-range. A little may be done by dri\dng, but not much. Instead of harassing the grouse late in the season, it is better to turn one's attention to other game. Hares and rabbits abound in many dis- tricts, especially the blue hare, which goes to earth like a cony. About November the local snipe, rein- forced by legions from the north, swarm in all the bogs and marshes, unless it is very wet, when they scatter in every direction over the damp hillsides. One fine night the little "jacks" arrive, sprinkling themselves all over the country, and offering chance after chance, in their peculiar fashion, to blundering sportsmen. Last of all come the woodcocks, two or three at a time — first taking to the deep clumps on the hillside, and afterward selecting winter quarters by the side of the ninlcts that water the hazel-woods. Many of them, however, only rest a few days in ^ THE LAND OF LOliNE. Lome, and then disappear, in all prol)ability winging farther sonth. Those which linger through the whole winter often remain to breed in the spring. The lochs amono; the hills abound in wild-fowl, many of which breed there. There is one small mere, not a mile distant from the White House on the Hill, which we have seen as thickly covered with teal and widgeon as a duckpond in the Zoological Gardens. At such times, however, it is exceedingly difficult to get a shot ; so numerous are the eyes watching, and so easily do the birds take the alarm, that " sitting- shots " are out of the question. The best plan is for the sportsman to place himself in ambush, at one end of the water, send his man to disturb the birds at the other, and trust to chance for a shot flying. If the affair is properly managed, ho may fire five or six times, as fast as he can load ; and perhaps the teal, less waiy than the larger duck, may alight on the water, within a few yards of his ambush. Directly frost comes, the small lochs are abandoned, and the wild-fowl betake themselves to the arms of the sea. In a severe season, when all the fresh-water meres are frozen over, the salt-water lochs afford excellent sport ; the better, in our opinion, because the birds are wild beyond measure, and will test all the shooter's powers of skill and patience. We will not detain the reader by any further enu- meration of the sports of Lome, particularly as our notion of sport is peculiar, and lias nothing in com- mon with the ideas of men who delight in slauirhter. To us, sport is only desirable in so far as it develops all that is best and strongest in a man's physical na- SrORT ON THE MOORS AND L0CH8. 87 ture, tries his powers of sclf-patiencc and endurance, quickens his senses, and increases his knowledge of and reverence for created things. In bo far as it renders him callous to suffering and selfish in his en- joyments, sport is detestable. There are yearly let loose upon the moors of Scotland a set of men who are infinitely less noble than the beasts and birds they murder ; who are brutal without courage, and conceit- ed without dignity ; who degrade all manly sports by their abominable indifference to the rights alike of fellow-men and dumb creatures. Fortunately, all sportsmen in Scotland are not men of this sort ; a few fine-souled gentlemen are sprinkled here and there ; but there is far too much brutal murder on all hands, by beings who take a savage pleasure in the mere slaughter of things as tame as hens and sheep. The true test of a day's sport is not the number of head secured, but the amount of skill and pluck requi- site to secure it! Depend upon it, also, the man who recklessly and wantonly takes away the lives of dumb things merely for the sake of killing, would, if his wretched neck was as secure in one case as in the other, assist with equal pleasure at the massacre of his fellow-men. Many of the men who joined in the in- fernal carnival of murder in India some years ago, and, in so doing, left on this nation a taint which God will sooner or later avenge on our boasted civilization, had firet developed the taste for blood in the pheasant coverts of England and the swarming moors of the north. Wild-fowl shooting on the sea-fjords, otter-hunting on Kerrera, salmon-angling in Loch Awe, sea-fishing 88 THE LAND OP LOBNB, on the firth — any of these might supply matter for a separate chapter, if we were to chronicle one tithe of our experience ; but we are compelled to pass on to more moving matter, only remarking, in conclusion, that, although the lover of battues and wholesale slaughter may find himself better served elsewhere, the true sportsman will never regret a season spent with rod and gun, afloat and ashore, on the lochs and. moors of Lome. THE FlliTU OF LOJiJNE. 89 CHAPTER V. THB FIRTH OF LORNE. The Ocean Queen, or Ooffin — Shon Macnab's Raco with tho Barber — Lachlan Finlay — From Ci-inan to tho Dorus Mhor — Ilcbridoan Tides — Scarba— Tlio Gulf of Con->'\-rcckan — Its Horrors and Perils— Luing and tho Small Isles— Tho Open Firth — Easdalo and its Quan-icrs — Tombs at tho Door — Miseries of Calm — Gylen Castle and tho Island of Kcrrcra — King Haco's Invasion of the Hebrides — A Puff from tho Southeast — Tho Island ot Mull — Johnson and Boswell in tho Hebrides- A Run to Tobermory — Loch Sunart— A Rainy Day — .\rdtomish Castle — Anchored bctwocn Wind and Tide- Night on the Firth— Troubles of Darkness — Farewell to tho Ocean Queen — Arrival of the Tern. The Firth of Lome stretches from Loch Crinan (a spot familiar to every Highland tourist) as far as the entrance to the Sound of Mull ; after passing which, it changes its name to Loch Linnhe, and creeps north- ward, ever narrowing till it reaches Bannavie, and forms the narrow estuary of Loch Eil. Strictly speaking, only the mainland coast as far as Loch Crinan appertains to Lome, but in old times Mull was included, as well as many of the far-off islands. Be that as it may, the Firth of Lome is a glorious sheet of salt water, fed by the mighty tides of the Atlantic, and forming, both on the islands and on the mainland, a line of sea-coast not easily matched for loneliness and beauty. Numerous islands, large and small, stud the waters, forming narrow passages, through which the tide boils with terrific fury. Great heights, grassy and rocky, rise everywhere out of the 00 THE LAND OF LOKNE. sea, casting dark shadows. Everywhere the bhick teetli of the reef threaten the seaman. Innumerable bays and land-locked lakes lie close in the shelter of the coast ; but the anchorages are nearly all bad and dangerous, on account of the submerged rocks and the foul bottom. To see this firtli aright, to enjoyits wondrous scene- ry in a way quite impossible to the ordinary tourist, the Wanderer secured the Ocean Queen^ a small yacht of nine tons, thirty-four feet long, seven and a half feet beam, and drawing precisely six feet of water aft. She was the crankiest vessel ever built by the hand of man, and was speedily known by the nickname of the Coffin. Her mainsail was an enormous sheet of can- vas, though luckily somewhat old and tearable ; and she canned also a gaff-topsail. Her speed, running before the wind, was very great ; and, beating to windward, she managed finely as long as she could carry canvas. She was quite unfit for a dangerous coast like that of Lome, where the storms are sudden and the squalls terrific ; but she had a neat little cabin and snug forecastle, so that she made a toler- able floating-home. Many a fright did the Wanderer get in her. Latterly, he managed to render her pret- ty snug by running in the bowsprit, and sailing her with the foresail only and single-reefed mainsail ; but, from first to last, she was as fickle as an unbroken filly ; her vilest quality of all being her awkwardness in " coming about," even under the most experienced management. Having secured this noble vessel, the Wanderer had to look about for a suitable person to assist him in THE FIIITH OF LOIINE. 91 managing her — no difJicult task, it may be imagined, on a fishing-coast and close to a fishing-town ; but, in good trutli, lie was doomed to a bitter expcrienoLj. After trying several impostors, who betrayed them- selves in a day, he secured the services of Shon Mac- nab, a gigantic Gael, six feet three in his shoes, and about twenty years of age. A fine specimen of the sailor was Shon, with his great red face, flaming whiskers, and huge hands ; and he knew how to move about the boat as well as an east-country fisherman, and was altogether smart at his work, from taking in a reef to climbing up the rigging to set the gaff-topsail. But Shon had two most inevitable faults — he was inordi- nately vain and utterly untruthful. No man knew how to handle a boat but Shon Macnab ; all his townsmen were poor pretenders. No one could pilot a boat on the west coast but Shon ; he knew every rock and shal- low, and every sideway, from the Mull of Cantyre to Cape AVrath. Unfortunately, however, Shon had never been farther from Oban than Ardnamurchan, and his knowledge of the coast consisted of a sort of second-sight — very gratifying to the possessor, but liable to get the confiding owner of a boat into serious trouble. All went well with Slion for a time ; but at last, mad with success, he secretly wagered " the Bar- ber " to race the latter's vessel, an open fore-and-afl boat, very superior in seaworthiness, from Oban round the Lady's Rock and back round Kerrera, a distance of about forty miles. So one day the Wanderer came down to the shore just in time to see the Ocean Queen rounding the Maiden Island on her way to the Lady's Rock, and side by side with her the Barber's boat. It 92 THE LAND OF LORNE. was blowing half a gale of wind, and the Barber soon tnmed back to the bay ; bnt Shon, with a picked crew of Gaels, all wild with whisky, doubtless, still held on his wild caieer; while the Wanderer, climbing the heights above the town, watched his vessel, and ex- pected every minute to see it submerged. A big sea was rolling in the firth, and the little boat, too sorely pressed under canvas, was sadly knocked about. She reached Oban in the afternoon, with only a tear in the mainsail ; but her planks were slightly strained, and she was never as tight after that day. Although Shon begged wildly for pardon, the Wanderer was in- exorable, and sent him about his business. For some little time it seemed as if no tit person would appear to take Shon's place. Several candi- dates appeared, but were rejected on various scores — greediness, dirtiness, stupidity, or old age. At last the Wanderer discerned a small tradesman in the villa