Scottish Loch Scenery Part 1

Scottish Loch Scenery.

by Thomas A. Croal.

LOCHMABEN.

The visitor to Scotland, entering from the south, has not far to travel before he reaches one of the loveliest lowland scenes the country possesses. The very ancient burgh of Lochmaben lies on a branch line a little distance from Lockerbie junction, and, apart from its picturesque surroundings, the old place presents attractions of its own. It dates from very early times, and its burghers are known, even to this day, as 'the king's kindly tenants.' Many of the retainers of Robert the Bruce, to whom and whose ancestors the castle belonged, having obtained rights of property in one or other of the 'four towns of Lochmaben,' under a tenancy direct from the Crown, hence forming virtually a proprietary interest.

In Burns's _Five Carlines_, the burgh is called 'Marjory o' the mony lochs,' from the numerous sheets of water around, of which our view shows the largest and finest. This is known as the Castle Loch, and covers about two hundred acres. Although not surrounded by the high mountains and bolder scenery found further north in Scotland, this loch presents a scene of great beauty, having fine verdant hills surrounding it, and being itself clothed on every sh.o.r.e with beautiful woodland scenery.

The ruined castle shown in the view occupies a prominent position upon a heart-shaped peninsula. The visitor will find little but bare and ma.s.sive walls to tell him of the extent of this fortress, once covering sixteen acres in extent, and forming the chief stronghold in the south-west of Scotland. For many years after the castle fell into ruin it is said the king's tenants used it as a quarry for building stones, and Chambers, in his _Picture of Scotland_, speaks of one honest burgher who then 'warmed his toes beside a pair of fine jambs procured in Bruce's castle.' From the appearance of the ground, it is evident the neck of the peninsula could be put under water for defensive purposes, having both an outer and an inner defence of this kind, besides one or more intermediate fosses that speak of the same use. The present is not believed to be the original castle built by the Lords of Annandale, but a subsequent erection of the thirteenth century. The days of warlike lords and border forays are over for the Castle of Lochmaben, and now it is to be regarded merely as a splendid addition to the picturesque attractions of this very charming district. Boats may be hired for a row or sail over the placid bosom of the loch, and on a fine autumn evening no more delightful pleasure could be got.

Besides its other attractions, Lochmaben presents a peculiar fact in natural history, for in its waters are found--in addition to other fish--the vendace, a species of fish found in no other loch. It is popularly but erroneously called a fresh-water herring, for it belongs to the family of _coregonus_, one of the salmonidae. This rare fish takes no lure, and thus can only be netted, and the fis.h.i.+ng for it in the Castle Loch is limited to one day in the year, in July, when the vendace club meet, fish, and dine. The Mill Loch, another and lesser of those surrounding the burgh, also contains vendace, which are fished for one day in August. The Castle Loch measures a mile long by three quarters broad, the Mill Loch is half a mile by quarter of a mile, and the other waters are the Kirk-Loch, Hightae Loch, &c.

LOCH DOON.

Although intimately a.s.sociated with those scenes to which Burns so plaintively puts the question

'Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair?'

and although it 'pours a' its floods' under that ancient brig where Tam O' Shanter had such a narrow escape, Loch Doon is far from the immediate land of Burns, lying remote in a wild and solitary mountain region. The loch is, however, within four miles of Dalmellington station, and as there is excellent fis.h.i.+ng, coaches frequently carry the disciples of Walton, as well as searchers after the picturesque, to this quiet, outlying place. Loch Doon is eight miles in length, and irregular in form, the lower limb of the Loch, from which the river Doon issues, lying to the right as shown in our view. The hills on the south are in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, and the loch, forming, over its whole length, the boundary between that county and Ayrs.h.i.+re, is surrounded with pastoral mountains.

At the head of the loch, at its southern end, lies an island on which the remains of an ancient castle are seen. This building, the main feature of which is an octagonal peel or tower formed of large square stones, is only vaguely traceable in history, and at one time belonged to Edward Bruce, brother of Robert the Bruce. Rather more than half a century ago, several canoes were found in the loch near this island, each boat formed from the stem of a single oak tree, the trunk being hollowed out, and the ends finished off in form like a fis.h.i.+ng-coble.

Common repute gives to such boats an antiquity of eight or nine centuries, but no absolute date can be a.s.signed to them. They belong to what has been called by an eminent Scottish archaeologist, non-historic man. Whether they are also pre-historic may be matter of dispute.

The river Doon, for a portion of its course immediately after leaving the loch, presents some very remarkable features. The gully through which it flows gives the appearance of high cliffs rent asunder by some fierce cataclysm to give pa.s.sage to its waters. The walk along this ravine is singularly striking, the rocks seeming at every turn to close in so as to bar further progress, and when the river is full after a wet season the spectacle is not without elements of terror.

All around, the region abounds with lochs, Loch Doon being the largest. Excepting as regards the branch line of railway leading to Dalmellington, the entire district lies apart and silent, a region of hills, occasionally, as in Merrick (2704 feet) and Cairnsmore of Carsphairn (2612 feet), rising to the dignity of mountains, and wholly given up to pastoral uses, except where the iron works around Dalmellington suggest that this upward district touches the border of that mineral wealth which exists so abundantly a little further north.

THE GREY MARE'S TAIL.

While this is not the highest waterfall in Scotland--for the inaccessible Falls of Glomak far exceed all others--the Grey Mare's Tail ranks as one of the most striking. We find amongst the hills at the north-west corner of Annandale, the waters of 'dark Loch Skene,'

which find no outlet save over this breakneck descent. Far down in the vale below lies the watering-place of Moffat, famous for its sulphureous springs, clear, cool, and medicinal. Coaches leave this town daily during the season to reach the other side of the hills, and ten miles distant from Moffat this splendid natural phenomenon is seen. The coach, in the slow ascent to the higher level, gives the visitor ample time to find, on foot, the best vantage points from which to see the fall.

When the stream is small, the 'tail' falls off to thin threads of spray, dashed into films of prismatic beauty as they rush from rock to rock. But in spate, the effect comes out in all its grandeur,

'White as the snowy charger's tail,'

and the appropriateness of the name bestowed on the waterfall evidences itself. The entire fall is above two hundred feet at one leap, over a dark rugged precipice, closed in on every side with sharp rocks, and suggesting to the mind ideas of much terror and sublimity.

Attempts have been made to scale the face of the fall, occasionally with fatal results, and the imagination can create, even if the eyes cannot see, the fluttering of morsels of clothing that are pointed out by the guide as horrible memorials of such foolhardy attempts. In this wild region were enacted some of the terrible scenes of the Covenanters' persecution. Away in those grim solitudes, 'hunted like a partridge upon the mountains,' the dauntless upholder of the right of private judgment would betake himself, a.s.sociating with others of like determination. On the 'Watch Hill' opposite Birkhill, the persecuted people set sentinels to signal the approach of Claverhouse or his men, while away in a cave, near a wild waterfall called Dobb's Linn, they held their proscribed services, and here on one occasion the 'b.l.o.o.d.y Clavers' shot four men, whose graves were marked in Ettrick kirkyard not many years ago. The wild desolation of this scene befits the dark and terrible incidents of which, at this period, it was the scene. The farmhouse of Bodsbeck lies on the road between Moffat and the waterfall, and has been rendered famous in literature through James Hogg, the 'Ettrick Shepherd's' story of the _Brownie of Bodsbeck_, a tale dealing with incidents of the persecution of the Covenanters.

From Moffat can be reached in a different direction some notable hills and ravines, amongst which may be named Hartfell, and Queensberry Hill, from the summit of both of which magnificent panoramas of scenery are opened to view. A remarkable scene is that of the Earl of Annandale's Beef Tub, otherwise called 'The Devil's Beef Tub,' a vast semicircle of precipitous rock, down in the bosom of which many beeves, perhaps driven from other mens' lands, could be hidden away.

ST. MARY'S LOCH.

There is no native of Scotland who does not wax poetical when St.

Mary's Loch is named. Round it and the district of which it is the crown and glory there centres more of legend, ballad, poem and sentiment than is to be found anywhere else, and in good sooth it is only necessary to visit the place to realize the halo of love and admiration which has been thrown around it. Then it is also the centre of a famous angling district, and in 'Tibbie s.h.i.+el's' the 'contemplative man,' when his day of enjoyment is done, will find a tidy bed, and eke some jovial companion, who will make the evening hilarious as the day has been exhilarating. If the tourist has visited the _Grey Mare's Tail_, described in the preceding chapter, the same coach that has brought him from Moffat will bring him on to this scene of singular pastoral beauty.

St. Mary's Loch presents sufficient s.p.a.ce to make up a fine landscape, and is not too large to be taken in at one glance. In its still beauty it has its chief charm:--

'You see that all is loneliness, And silence aids--though the steep hills Send to the lake a thousand rills, In summer tide, so soft they weep, The sound but lulls the ear to sleep.

Your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude, So stilly is the solitude.'

The square keep seen in the foreground is Dryhope Tower, the home of 'Mary Scott, the Flower of Yarrow.' Here we at once plunge into the old ballad and foray, for she married Wat of Harden, a famed Border freebooter, and to name him is to let loose a flood of reminiscences, legends, and family histories, on which the s.p.a.ce at command here will not permit us to enter.

The old kirk and kirkyard of St. Mary's were not less remarkable than the loch:--

'Lord William was buried in St. Marie's Kirk, Lady Margaret in Marie's Quire, Out o' the lady's grave there grew a red rose And out o' the knight's a brier.'

Thus ends the tale of the _Douglas Tragedy_. Less famous people are buried there, as another voice tells us,

'For though, in feudal strife a foe Hath laid our lady's chapel low, Yet still beneath the hallowed soil The peasant rests him from his toil, And, dying, bids his bones be laid Where erst his simple fathers prayed.'

The river Yarrow flows through St. Mary's Loch, having pa.s.sed through the small Loch o' the Lowes before reaching the larger water, 'Tibbie s.h.i.+el's' lying between the two lochs. Yarrow is well known to every reader of Wordsworth, and we must pa.s.s rapidly over what might be suggested by that single word, so soft in sound, so suggestive of the old-world lore of this magical district. Of every nook and dell, hill and valley, stream and loch, there are stories and songs without end, everywhere

'You hear sweet melodies Attuned to some traditionary tale.'

Heroes and bold outlaws, fair women and sorrowing widows, strifes and plunderings, genealogies and traditions--the Vale of Yarrow and its surrounding hills and streams abound in these. All hushed are they now, and the once warlike burgh of Selkirk is a thriving manufacturing town, but while the 'Flowers o' the Forest' are, in one sense 'a' wede away,' the natural attractiveness of the district remains, with all the stories of byegone times to add to its interest for romantic or poetic minds.

DUDDINGSTON LOCH.

The smallest of all the notable lochs in Scotland, its circ.u.mference being under a mile and a half, Duddingston is nevertheless famous as the resort of curlers and skaters, and for very many years it has been a favourite playground of the citizens of Edinburgh, whenever John Frost holds reign, and the ice is p.r.o.nounced safe by the police. The water is deep, and the loch is fed by several springs far down in its depths, so that it is not a mere touch of frost that will produce practicable ice at that part of the loch just under the rocky knoll overhanging the middle. But when the frost has lasted for two or three days, and the word is pa.s.sed round in the city that 'Duddingston is bearing,' then as if by common consent the city is stirred to wend its way to the loch. Everyone is there, from the arab who has perhaps at no other time a shoe on his feet, and whose sport can only consist of 'keeping the pot boiling' down the long slides that speedily get formed, to grave lawyers, councillors and magistrates, while crowds of the fair s.e.x also don their skates, and anon the surface of the loch gets obscured by the mult.i.tudes of people disporting on the ice. There have been times when Duddingston, like the Thames, has been so strongly frozen that an ox has been roasted upon it, and 'Frost Fair'

is still a tradition amongst old people. But a thickness of five or six inches of ice suffices to make the entire surface safe and solid, and when by the continuance of frost the ice reaches to nigh two feet thick--no uncommon event--then the frosty carnival is at its best.

The village of Duddingston reposes under the wing of Arthur's Seat--the hill shewn in our view--and lies to the right. In the village is the house in which Prince Charles Edward lodged before the battle of Prestonpans. In former times, Duddingston was famous for 'sheep's head' dinners, and its fruit gardens were also a favourite resort in summer. The parish church, seen amidst the bare trees, is of architectural interest because of several portions of Norman work still extant, and also from the fact that at the gate of the churchyard are to be seen the 'jougs', an iron collar used as a pillory, and also a curious relic, a 'loupin' on stane,' placed considerately there so that persons attending church on horseback should reach their saddle with the least trouble. In the comfortable manse, which lies away to the right, there lived for a time the Rev.

John Thomson, one of Scotland's greatest landscape painters, who was minister of the parish, and died there in 1840. The roadway running between the rocky knoll and the main hill is called the 'Windy Gowl,'

and in certain directions of the wind is almost impa.s.sable. The precipitous rocks standing to the left of the hill are known as 'Samson's Ribs,' and consist of basaltic columns of the same formation as Fingal's Cave and the Giant's Causeway. Viewed as we see it from the east end of Duddingston Loch, Arthur's Seat loses the fine leonine form it presents in every other direction. It is a n.o.ble hill, and although little more than eight hundred feet high, its position as a solitary eminence gives it much grandeur of appearance, and the view from its summit is nowhere surpa.s.sed. On a clear day, the eye may wander from the Cheviot Hills on the Border, to the Grampians in the north-west, and while the city of Edinburgh lies spread out below, the varied landscape of the Lothians and the sparkling waters of the Firth of Forth come in to make up a panorama of varied beauty, amply repaying the slight toil of the ascent.

LINLITHGOW LOCH.