i
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 FREDERIC THOMAS BLANCHARD
 
 PICTURESQUE 
 
 SCOTTISH SCENERY 
 
 FROM 
 
 ORIGINAL DRAWINGS BY T. L KOWBOTHAM 
 
 MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN WATER-COLORS 
 
 WITH 
 
 iral, anb grscriptibe flotcs 
 
 COMPILED BY 
 
 THE REV. W. J. LOFTIE, B.A., F.S.A. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "A CENTURY OF BIBLES," "THE LATIN YEAR," ETC., ETC. 
 
 gorfe: 
 
 SCRIBNER, WELFORD, & ARMSTRONG, BROADWAY 
 
 LONDON: MARCUS WARD & CO. 
 1875
 
 DA 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LlNLITHGOW, . . . . . . 9 
 
 LOCH LEVEN, . . . . . . . .26 
 
 DOUNE CASTLE, . . . . . 44 
 
 LOCH KATRINE, . . . . . . .57 
 
 KILCHURN CASTLE, ....... 72 
 
 BEN NEVIS, ... .91 
 
 CHROMOGRAPHS. 
 
 LINLITHGOW PALACE, .... Frontispiece. 
 
 LOCHLEVEN CASTLE, . . . . . .27 
 
 DOUNE CASTLE STIRLING IN THE DISTANCE, . . . 45 
 
 LOCH KATRINE, . . . . . . .56 
 
 KILCHURN CASTLE, LOCH AWE, ..... 73 
 
 Do. Do. (WOODCUT PERFECT CALM), . . 78 
 
 BEN NEVIS, FROM BANNAVIE, ..... 90 
 
 1001276
 
 HE hereditary ill-fortune which pursued all the 
 Scottish kings of the House of Stuart, seems 
 to have doubled its fury when the crown fell to 
 a woman. Mary, Queen of Scotland or, as she 
 is usually called, Queen of Scots was unfortunate 
 in all the chief events of her life. Her birth was 
 looked upon as a calamity by her parents and her 
 people ; and, as it took place in the old palace of 
 Linlithgow, the name has become closely connected in our 
 minds with hers, and very interesting to all who sympathise in 
 sufferings which, however well they may have been deserved, 
 were undoubtedly of the most severe character, and perhaps quite 
 sufficient to satisfy the sternest judges of her conduct. 
 
 It was on Friday, the 8th December, 1542. Her father, who 
 lay upon his death-bed at Falkland, cried out bitterly when he 
 heard the news, and prophesied the extinction of his race. The 
 crown of Scotland came, he said, with a woman into his family, 
 and it would go with one. His words were true so far only as they 
 related to his own immediate branch of the Stuarts. James the
 
 10 Linlithgow. 
 
 First of England and Sixth of Scotland, who was the son of Mary 
 by her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, carried on 
 the old name, and was the ancestor of three kings and two more 
 queens before the kingdoms they had so persistently misgoverned 
 could bear with their tyranny any longer. The House of Hanover 
 is descended from Queen Mary, but there have been several female 
 links in the line of succession, and the male line of the House of 
 Stuart was itself extinguished at the death of Henry, called the 
 Cardinal of York, in 1808. 
 
 Six days after the birth of his daughter, on Thursday, the 14th 
 of December, James the Fifth breathed his last, in disgrace with his 
 subjects for the humiliating defeat of Sol way Moss where he had 
 been beaten by the soldiers of his uncle, Henry VIII. of England 
 and leaving his kingdom in confusion to be governed by a regent 
 during her long minority. The first six years of the youthful 
 queen's life were passed in Scotland, chiefly at Linlithgow and 
 Stirling; but in 1548 she was sent to the court of France, where 
 she married the Dauphin, afterwards Francis II., and, as his widow, 
 returned to Scotland in 1561 ; and though very few of the chief 
 events of her troubled reign took place at Linlithgow, she occasion- 
 ally resided there until her unfortunate marriage with Bothwell, 
 and the flight into England to which it led. 
 
 It was in 
 
 "Old Linlithgow's crowded town" 
 
 that the Eegent Murray, the half-brother of Queen Mary, was 
 murdered by Hamilton of Bothwell-haugh in 1570. The story, in 
 its legendary form, has been told by Scott in his wild ballad of 
 " Cadzow Castle," but perhaps the following careful narrative from
 
 Linlithgow. 11 
 
 the " Life of Mary, Queen of Scots/' by M. Mignet, may be accep- 
 table as an impartial account of the deed. M. Mignet is singularly 
 free from prejudice in his history, and may be very much depended 
 on for truthfulness. 
 
 " James Hamilton of Bothwell-haugh had sworn a deadly 
 hatred to the Eegent. Taken prisoner at the battle of Langside, 
 he had recovered his liberty by the arrangement made at Glasgow 
 on the 13th of March, 1569, by the Regent and the Duke of 
 Chatelherault. But he had been stripped of all his property. 
 He resolved to slay the Regent, to whom he 
 attributed the desolation of his household. Several times he at- 
 tempted to effect his purpose, but without success ; his hatred, 
 encouraged by the Hamiltons, eagerly sought an opportunity for 
 punishing the author of his ruin, and laying low the oppressor of 
 his party. This opportunity ere long presented itself. 
 
 " The Regent was on his way from Stirling to Edinburgh, and 
 intended to pass through Linlithgow. In the High Street of this 
 last-named town, the Archbishop of St. Andrews, uncle of Both- 
 well-haugh, possessed a house, in front of which Murray and his 
 cavalcade would necessarily pass. This house was placed at the 
 disposal of Bothwell-haugh, who made every preparation for the 
 unfailing performance of the act of vengeance which he had con- 
 cocted with the Hamiltons. He took his station in a small room 
 or wooden gallery, which commanded a full view of the street. To 
 prevent his heavy footsteps being heard, for he was booted and 
 spurred, he placed a feather-bed on the floor ; to secure against any 
 chance observation of his shadow, which, had the sun broke out, 
 might have caught the eye, he hung up a black cloth on the oppo-
 
 12 Linlithgow. 
 
 site wall ; and having barricaded the door in front, he had a swift 
 horse ready saddled in the stable at the back. Even here his pre- 
 parations did not stop ; for observing that the gate in the wall 
 which enclosed the garden was too low to admit a man on horse- 
 back, he removed the lintel-stone, and, returning to his chamber, 
 cut, in the wooden panel immediately below the lattice window 
 where he watched, a hole just sufficient to admit the barrel of 
 his caliver. Having taken these precautions, he loaded the piece 
 with four bullets, and calmly awaited his victim. 
 
 " Murray had spent the night in a house in the neighbourhood. 
 Rumours had reached him of the danger by which he was threatened. 
 One of his friends' had even persuaded him to avoid the High 
 Street, and pass round by the back of the town. But the crowd, 
 pressing round him, rendered it impossible for him to do so ; and 
 he rode onwards through Linlithgow, with calm courage, amidst 
 the acclamations of the populace. He proceeded at a slow pace 
 along the High Street till he reached the Archbishop's house. He 
 was thus exposed to the fire of the assassin, who, taking deliberate 
 aim, discharged his caliver. The Regent, shot right through the 
 lower part of his body, fell mortally wounded. At this sight, 
 the crowd rushed towards the house from whence the shot had 
 been fired. But while they were endeavouring to break down 
 the door, Bothwell-haugh, escaping at the back, had mounted 
 his horse, and fled at full speed in the direction of Hamilton 
 Castle." 
 
 It is a fact, as the apologists of Mary must regret to remember, 
 that she was so pleased with this atrocious murder that slie con- 
 ferred a pension on the murderer. Hamilton eventually escaped to
 
 Linlithgow. 13 
 
 France, where he lived for many years. During the contest 
 between the Huguenots and the court party of Catherine de Medici, 
 the mother of Charles IX., Bothwell-haugh was applied to as a 
 desperado ready for any crime, it being hoped he would give his 
 help to a plan for the murder of Coligny ; but he considered the 
 proposal an insult. He had slain a man in Scotland, he said, from 
 whom he had suffered a mortal injury ; but the world could not 
 tempt him to conspire against one who had in no way harmed him. 
 This story, which Scott repeats, is worthy of notice as a typical 
 example of the strict ideas of honour cherished among people who 
 would hesitate at no crime if personal and revengeful feelings were 
 concerned. Unfortunately for the world, such false ideas of honour 
 are by no means extinct. 
 
 The leaders of all parties in Scotland seem to have been relieved 
 by the death of Murray. He had kept a heavy hand upon the 
 lawlessness of the country. The border forays were quickly re- 
 sumed ; while, within the kingdom, successive attempts were made 
 for the supreme power by men whose bloodthirsty violence disgraced 
 every faction alternately. Even the village children, we are told, 
 sided with Mary or her son, and fought as Queen's men or King's 
 men with sticks and stones, and even with more deadly weapons. 
 But we must return to the history of Linlithgow. 
 
 In our endeavour to detail the more interesting events of which 
 it was the scene, we have omitted to notice some memorable pas- 
 sages of earlier date. On the site afterwards covered by the palace 
 stood a fort occupied by King Edward the First of England during 
 his invasion of Scotland. It must have been a mere embankment 
 with out-buildings, for we are told that the king, sleeping on the
 
 14 Linlithgow. 
 
 ground and in the open air within the fort, was trodden upon by 
 his horse, and much injured. 
 
 James the Fourth of Scotland, who was slain at Flodden by the 
 army of his brother-in-law, Henry the Eighth, resided much at Lin- 
 lithgow, and added to the building. In Marmion (Canto Fourth, 
 xv.-xvii.), Sir Walter Scott thus narrates a legend of this unfor- 
 tunate king : 
 
 " Of all the palaces so fair, 
 
 Built for the royal dwelling, 
 In Scotland, far beyond compare 
 
 Linlithgow is excelling ; 
 And in its park, in jovial June, 
 How sweet the merry linnet's tune 
 How blithe the blackbird's lay ! 
 The wild-buck bells from ferny brake, 
 The coot dives merry on the lake, 
 The saddest heart might pleasure take 
 
 To see all nature gay. 
 But June is to our Sovereign dear 
 The heaviest month in all the year : 
 Too well his cause of grief you know, 
 June saw his father's overthrow. 
 Woe to the traitors, who could bring 
 The princely boy against his King ! 
 Still in his conscience burns the sting. 
 In offices as strict as Lent 
 "King James's June is ever spent 
 
 " When last this ruthful month was come, 
 And in Linlithgow's holy dome 
 
 The "King, as wont, was praying ; 
 While for his royal father's soul 
 The chaunters sung, the bells did toll, 
 
 The Bishop mass was saying
 
 Linlithgow. 15 
 
 For now the year brought round again 
 The day the luckless king was slain 
 
 In Katharine's aisle the monarch knelt, 
 
 With sackcloth-shirt, and iron helt, 
 And eyes with sorrow streaming ; 
 
 Around him, in their stalls of state, 
 
 The Thistle's Knight-Companions sate, 
 Their banners o'er them beaming. 
 
 I too was there, and, sooth to tell, 
 
 Bedeafened with the jangling knell, 
 
 Was watching where the sunbeams fell, 
 Through the stained casement gleaming ; 
 
 But, while I marked what next befel, 
 
 It seemed as I were dreaming. 
 Stepped from the crowd a ghostly wight, 
 In azure gown, with cincture white ; 
 His forehead bald, his head was bare, 
 Down hung at length his yellow hair. 
 Now, mock me not, when, good my lord, 
 I pledge to you my knightly word, 
 That, when I saw his placid grace, 
 His simple majesty of face, 
 His solemn bearing, and his pace 
 
 So stately gliding on, 
 Seemed to me ne'er did limner paint 
 So just an image of the Saint, 
 Who propped the Virgin in her faint, 
 
 The loved Apostle John. 
 
 " He stepped before the Monarch's chair, 
 And stood with rustic plainness there, 
 
 And little reverence made ; 
 Nor head, nor body, bowed nor bent, 
 But on the desk his arm he leant, 
 
 And words like these he said,
 
 16 Linlithgaw. 
 
 In a low voice, but never tone 
 
 So thrilled through vein, and nerve, and bone : 
 
 'My mother sent me from afar, 
 Sir King, to warn thee not to war, 
 
 Woe waits on thine array ; 
 If war thou wilt, of woman fair, 
 Her witching wiles and wanton snare, 
 James Stuart, doubly warned, beware : 
 
 God keep thee as He may ! ' 
 The wondering Monarch seemed to seek 
 
 For answer, and found none ; 
 And when he raised his head to speak, 
 
 The monitor was gone. 
 The Marshal and myself had cast 
 To stop him as he outward past ; 
 But, lighter than the whirlwind blast, 
 
 He vanished from our eyes, 
 Like sunbeam on the billow cast, 
 
 That glances but, and dies." 
 
 After the death of James at Flodden many such stories were 
 commonly reported, as were others that the King had escaped, and 
 would one day return. His son, the father of Queen Mary, suc- 
 ceeded him as James the Fifth at the early age of two years. 
 
 The name of Linlithgow is linked with that of another unfortu- 
 nate monarch. To her is owing much of the picturesque appear- 
 ance of one of the loveliest ruins in Germany. Elizabeth, Queen 
 of Bohemia, daughter of James the First of England and Sixth of 
 Scotland, passed her early days at this place, and perhaps remem- 
 bered her Scottish home when the new palace on the banks of the 
 Moselle was planned and built. Many travellers have remarked on 
 the resemblance which undoubtedly exists between the courtyard
 
 Linlithgow. 17 
 
 of Heidelberg and that of Linlithgow. But much of this similarity 
 may also be accounted for by the period of their erection, and by 
 the beauty of the situation of both. The earlier building contains 
 many marks of a transitional style of architecture, being of that 
 latest form of Gothic which ran by insensible degrees into the semi- 
 classical type which we call Elizabethan. Both, too, were eventu- 
 ally destroyed by fire, though Linlithgow survived until 1746, 
 when it was burnt during the rebellion of the Young Pretender. It 
 did not, however, owe its destruction to the rebels. After the 
 battle of Falkirk, the troops of General Hawley, who had been de- 
 feated by Prince Charles, retreated first to Linlithgow, which is 
 only distant some five or six miles from the moor on which the 
 fight took place ; and having spent the night there, they burnt it 
 lest it should shelter the pursuing enemy. Sir Walter Scott thus 
 narrates the circumstances of the battle : 
 
 "The Highland army, lying before Stirling, were regularly 
 apprized of the movements of the enemy. Upon the 13th of 
 January, Lord George Murray, who lay at Falkirk, obtained intel- 
 ligence that the people of the neighbouring town of Linlithgow 
 had received orders from Edinburgh to prepare provisions and 
 forage for a body of troops who were instantly to advance in that 
 direction. Lord George, made aware of Hawley 's intention, re- 
 solved to move with a sufficient force and disappoint these measures, 
 by destroying or carrying off the provisions which should be col- 
 lected in obedience to the requisition. 
 
 " The Jacobite general marched to Linlithgow, accordingly, 
 with the three MacDonald regiments, those of Appin and of Cluny, 
 and the horse commanded by Elcho and Pitsligo. Parties of the
 
 18 Linlithgow. 
 
 cavalry were despatched to patrol on the road to Edinburgh for 
 intelligence. About noon, the patrolling party sent back informa- 
 tion that they perceived a small body of dragoons, being the 
 advance of General Huske's division, which, as I have stated, 
 marched from Edinburgh that morning. Lord George sent orders 
 to the patrol to drive the dragoons who had shown themselves 
 back upon the main body, if they had one, and not to retire until 
 they saw themselves in danger of being overpowered. In the 
 meantime, he drew up the infantry in line of battle in front of the 
 town of Linlithgow. Lord Elcho, according to his orders, drove 
 back the advanced party of horse upon a detachment of sixty 
 dragoons, and then forced the whole to retire upon a village in 
 which there were masses both of horse and foot. Having thus 
 reconnoitred close up to the main body of the enemy, Lord Elcho 
 sent to acquaint Lord George Murray what force he had in his 
 front, so far as he could discern, and received orders to retreat, 
 leaving a small corps of observation. It was not Lord George's 
 purpose to engage an enemy whose strength, obviously consider- 
 able, was unknown to him ; he therefore determined to remain in 
 Linlithgow until the enemy arrived very near the town, and then 
 to make his retreat in good order. This object he accomplished 
 accordingly ; and, on his repassing the bridge, there was so little 
 distance betwixt the advanced guard of General Huske's division 
 and the rear guard of Lord George Murray's, that abusive language 
 was exchanged between them, though without any actual violence. 
 Lord George continued his retreat to Falkirk, where he halted for 
 that night. On the next day, he again retreated to the villages in 
 the vicinity of Bannockburn, where he learned that General Huske,
 
 Linlithgow. 19 
 
 with half the Government army, had arrived at Falkirk, and that 
 General Hawley had also arrived there on the 16th, with the 
 second division ; that, besides his regular troops, he was joined by 
 1000 Highlanders, followers of the Argyle family, and that they 
 seemed determined upon battle. 
 
 " Upon the 15th and 16th of January, the Chevalier, leaving 
 1000 or 1200 men under Gordon of Glenbucket, to protect the 
 trenches and continue the blockade of Stirling Castle, drew up his 
 men in a plain about a mile to the east of Bannockburn, expecting 
 an attack. 
 
 " Hawley at length caught the alarm. He suddenly appeared 
 in front of the camp, and, ordering the whole line to advance, 
 placed himself at the head of three regiments of dragoons, drew 
 his sword, and led them at a rapid pace up the hill called Falkirk 
 moor, trusting by a rapid movement to anticipate the Highlanders, 
 who were pressing on towards the same point from the opposite 
 side of the eminence. 
 
 " When Hawley set off with his three regiments of dragoons, the 
 infantry of the King's army followed in line of battle, having six 
 battalions in the first line, and the same number in the second. 
 Howard's regiment marched in the rear, and formed a small body 
 of reserve. 
 
 "At the moment that the Highlanders were pressing up Falkirk 
 moor on the one side, the dragoons, who had advanced briskly, had 
 gained the eminence, and displayed a line of horse occupying about 
 as much ground as one half of the first line of the Chevalier's
 
 20 Linlithgow. 
 
 army. The Highlanders, however, were in high spirits, and their 
 natural ardour was still farther increased at the sight of the enemy. 
 They kept their ranks, and advanced at a prodigious rate towards 
 the ridge occupied by Hawley's three regiments." 
 
 Hawley's men, under his own directions, attacked the rebels. 
 But the cavalry and most of the infantry received a decided check, 
 while three regiments differently commanded were able to hold 
 their ground, and many of the Highlanders fled, imagining the day 
 was lost. Scott sums up the results in the following passage : 
 
 " The advantage, upon the whole, was undeniably with Charles 
 Edward ; but from the want of discipline among the troops he 
 commanded, and the extreme severity of the tempest, it became 
 difficult even to learn the extent of the victory, and impossible to 
 follow it up. The Highlanders were in great disorder. Almost all 
 the second line were mixed and in confusion, the victorious right 
 had no idea, from the darkness of the weather, what had befallen 
 the left, nor were there any mounted generals or aides-de-camp, 
 who might have discovered with certainty what was the position 
 of affairs. In the meantime, the English regiments which had 
 been routed fled down the hill in great confusion, both cavalry and 
 infantry, towards the camp and town of Falkirk." Hawley 
 " caused the tents to be set on fire, and withdrew his confused 
 and dismayed followers to Linlithgow, and from thence the 
 next day retreated to Edinburgh, with his forces in a pitiable 
 state of disarray and perturbation. The Glasgow regiment of 
 volunteers fell into the power of the rebels upon this occasion, 
 and were treated with considerable rigour; for the Highlanders 
 were observed to be uniformly disposed to severity against those
 
 Linlithgow. 21 
 
 voluntary opponents, who, in their opinion, were not, like the 
 regular soldiers, called upon by duty to take part in the contention." 
 Sir Walter thus describes the burning of the ancient palace : 
 "On the night of the 17th, Hawley's disordered troops were 
 quartered in the palace of Linlithgow, and began to make such 
 great fires on the hearths as to endanger the safety of the edifice. A 
 lady of the Livingstone family, who had apartments there, remon- 
 strated with General Hawley, who treated her fears with contempt. 
 * I can run away from fire as fast as you can, General,' answered 
 the high-spirited dame, and with this sarcasm took horse for 
 Edinburgh. Very soon after her departure her apprehensions were 
 realised ; the palace of Linlithgow caught fire, and was burned to 
 the ground. The ruins alone remain to show its former splendour." 
 On the whole, then, this is one of the most interesting ruins re- 
 maining in Scotland. Its proximity to Edinburgh on the one hand 
 and to Stirling on the other brings it constantly into the narrative 
 of events which took place at one town or the other. Although 
 the town is the capital of a county, it is very small, and does not 
 now contain more than four thousand inhabitants. It is, however, 
 full of curious and picturesque buildings, some of them very ancient, 
 the streets being winding and irregular, and abounding in those 
 features which artists prize most highly. The high roofs, the 
 quaint doorways and windows, the clustered chimneys, harmonise 
 well with the great ruin of the royal palace. There is much to 
 admire in the old tower of the county court-house, although the 
 rest of the building is modern and uninteresting. The church, 
 which was founded by King David the First, has been described as 
 the most important specimen of an ancient parochial edifice now
 
 22 Linlithgow. 
 
 remaining in Scotland, both as to dimensions and also as to architec- 
 tural features. The chancel alone, which is octagonal in plan, is 
 used now for Divine service ; but the whole church consists of a 
 nave with aisles and a transept, and is large, wide, and lofty. The 
 tower formerly supported one of those curious spires which are still 
 to be seen at St. Giles's Cathedral in Edinburgh, at Newcastle-on- 
 Tyne, and at St. Dunstan's in the city of London. The south side 
 of the building is much injured in effect by a debased Gothic addi- 
 tion of the 17th century, which blocks up one of the windows. 
 Mr. Fergusson, in his "History of Architecture," speaks with 
 praise of the windows, and especially notes one as a fine specimen 
 of the Scottish flamboyant style. With regard to the beautiful 
 west doorway, he says that it offers a pleasing example of "the 
 half-continental manner in which that feature was usually treated 
 iii Scotland." The window above-mentioned, and several other 
 parts of the church, show strong signs of the foreign influence to 
 which the quaint magnificence of Roslin chapel must be attributed. 
 It was beneath this window, which is in the chapel of St. Catherine, 
 at the extremity of the southern transept, that the apparition 
 already mentioned in a quotation from Marmion took place. A 
 piece of stone-carving, which represents the Betrayal and other 
 scenes from the Passion of our Saviour, should be noticed. It 
 formerly, in all probability, stood above the high altar, but is now 
 in the vestry -room. 
 
 The remains of the palace are entered from the town by a fine 
 castellated gateway built by King James the Fourth. The church 
 stands near the palace, within the enclosure. The gate is flanked 
 by octagonal towers, and over the central arch are the ensigns of
 
 Lmlithgow. 23 
 
 the four great orders of knighthood to which the king belonged. 
 For St. George of England or, as it has been called since the time 
 of King Edward the Sixth, the Order of the Garter is the shield 
 with three lions, which King James's great-grandson was destined to 
 adopt as part of the arms of his double dignity. Beside them is 
 the Lion of Scotland, within the double tressure, for the Order of 
 St. Andrew, which was afterwards revived by his degenerate de- 
 scendant, James the Second of England and Seventh of Scotland, 
 in 1687, and finally re-estd)lished in its present form by Queen 
 Anne in 1703. The third shield is that of St. Philip of Castile 
 and Leon, a Spanish order conferred upon King James by the 
 father and mother of Queen Catharine of Arragon. The fourth is 
 that of a French order, and bears the three fleurs-de-lis. 
 
 There are now no remains of the castle or palace of King David 
 the First. The fort of which we have spoken in connection with 
 Edward the First of England was demolished in 1307, and all that 
 is now to be seen dates since a fire which destroyed the older parts 
 in 1424. The banqueting hall, which was the largest and most 
 important apartment, was 94 feet long, and had a high roof sup- 
 ported by wooden beams, the stone brackets from which they 
 sprung being still visible. A withdrawing-room, called the 
 Audience Chamber, and the principal guard-room beneath are at 
 one end of the hall. A fine range of circular-headed windows 
 lighted the hall in which meetings of the Scottish Parliament 
 generally consisting of only one body, where lords and commons 
 sat together were often held. The private apartments of the 
 Royal family were on the opposite side of the quadrangle. Some 
 of them remain entire, including the bower or boudoir of Queen
 
 24 Linlithgow. 
 
 Margaret, the neglected wife of James the Fourth. It is situated 
 at the top of a tower staircase, and is commemorated in the lines 
 of Sir Walter Scott (Marmion, Canto Firet, xvn.) 
 
 " Xorham is grim and grated close, 
 Henim'd in by battlement and fosse, 
 
 And many a darksome tower ; 
 And better loves my lady bright 
 To sit in liberty and light, 
 
 In fair Queen Margaret's bower." 
 
 In the fifth canto of the same poem, Sir Walter speaks more 
 distinctly of this chamber. After telling of Lady Heron, and of 
 the Queen of France, at whose instigation the king was said to 
 have undertaken the war against England which ended so dis- 
 astrously for himself and so many of his bravest subjects, he goes 
 on 
 
 " And yet the sooth to tell, 
 Nor England's fair, nor France's queen, 
 Were worth one pearl-drop, bright and sheen, 
 
 From Margaret's eyes that fell ; 
 His own Queen Margaret, who, in Lithgow's bower, 
 All lonely sat, and wept the weary hour. 
 The Queen sits lone in Lithgow pile, 
 
 And weeps the weary day. 
 The war against her native soil, 
 Her monarch's risk in battle broil" 
 
 This Queen it was who, being the eldest daughter of Henry the 
 Seventh of England and his wife Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of 
 King Edward the Fourth, became eventually, though not till many 
 years after her own death, the link which united the English and 
 Scottish crowns.
 
 Linlithgow. 25 
 
 There is not much of interest in the other chambers of Linlith- 
 gow Palace, with one exception. This is the room in which Mary 
 Queen of Scots was born; the rest of the older part of the building 
 consists of a chapel and ante-chapel, and a gallery which runs 
 round the whole of the upper storey. On the north side is an 
 addition made by King James the Sixth when he resided here 
 before his accession to the English throne. A beautiful fountain 
 formerly played in the centre of the court, and much of the fine 
 carving with which it was adorned may still be traced. Linlithgow 
 was famous for its fountains, according to the jingling lines, 
 
 " Lithgow for wells, 
 Glasgow for bells, 
 Peebles for clash and lees, 
 Falkirk for beans and peas." 
 
 The lake flows close up to the palace, the towers being pic- 
 turesquely reflected in its waters. The German poet, Uhland, 
 must have thought of such a scene when he wrote his affecting 
 ballad, "The Castle by the Sea." Such an event as that shadowed 
 forth in his lines may well have taken place here. The opening 
 lines especially suggest Linlithgow, and the view we give would 
 serve well as an illustration of them : 
 
 " Hast thou seen that castle olden 
 
 That is seated by the sea 1 
 How the purple clouds and golden 
 
 Float above it gloriously 1 
 How its tones are ever blending 
 
 With the clouds that redly glow ; 
 And again are oft descending 
 
 To the waves that roll below."
 
 !L 1 
 
 HERE are two Lochs of this name in Scotland. One of 
 them is an inland bay, or what in Norway would be 
 called a " fiord." It is situated in Argyleshire, and is a 
 continuation of Loch Linnhe, the famous Pass of Glencoe being 
 upon its shores. But our present concern is with the lake of this 
 name in Kinross, which has become famous for the Castle, on an 
 islet, in which took place one of the most romantic passages in all 
 the romantic history of Queen Mary. Loch Leven is only a few miles 
 west of the shore of the Firth of Forth, with which it communicates 
 by a little river, running into the sea near the town of Leven. The 
 whole lake is about eleven miles in circumference, and contains 
 several small islands. That one on which the ruins of the ancient 
 castle stand, is about half-a-mile from the western shore, and not 
 far from the town of Kinross, where there is a railway station, and 
 it is thus easily visited from Edinburgh and Glasgow, and is a place 
 of great interest to every Scottish traveller. 
 
 The so-called "Castle" only consists of a single tower, now 
 fallen into complete decay, and destitute of architectural interest, 
 though two vaulted chambers still exist to attest its former import- 
 ance. It may be worth while briefly to detail the story of Queen 
 Mary's imprisonment within its walls ; and, with this view, we may
 
 .-/*-' X" 
 
 $' * 
 
 "" , f* x i i
 
 Loch Lev en. 29 
 
 take our choice of the story as it is in M. Mignet's admirable History, 
 or in the scarcely less veracious pages of Sir Walter Scott's immortal 
 romance, " The Abbot," where the tale is told with those embellish- 
 ments which he was so well able to supply. To begin with the 
 historian, we read that, in 1567, the marriage of Mary with Both- 
 well, whom she created Duke of Orkney, gave such offence that a 
 powerful league was formed against her by the nobility, among 
 whom the Earls of Argyll, Athol, and Morton, with Kirkaldy, 
 Laird of Grange, were the most prominent. The Queen fled to 
 Dunbar, and, accompanied by Both well, proceeded on the 15th June 
 to Carberry Hill, six miles from Edinburgh, where the confederated 
 lords, with their adherents, met her. After a parley and a short 
 contest, the royal army was disbanded, the Queen and Bothwell 
 being left with only sixty gentlemen and a band of hackbutters. 
 At Mary's request, Bothwell rode away in the direction of Dunbar, 
 having first bidden her farewell, and seen her, as it proved, for the 
 last time. "From this moment," says M. Mignet, "she was a 
 captive in the hands of the confederate lords, who conveyed her at 
 once to Edinburgh." After a few days' delay they determined to 
 commit her to the custody of Lord Lyndsay, Lord Ruthven, and 
 William Douglas of Loch Leven. By virtue of their arrangements, 
 "the unfortunate Queen, during the night of the 16th June, was 
 taken from the palace of her ancestors, mounted on a sorry hackney, 
 and conducted to Loch Leven Castle, by Lyndsay and Ruthven, 
 men of savage manners, even in that age." Scott gives the follow- 
 ing description of Loch Leven in " The Abbot " : 
 
 "The ancient castle, which occupies an island nearly in the 
 centre of the lake, recalled to the page that of Avenel, in which he
 
 30 Loch Leven. 
 
 had been nurtured. But the lake was much larger, and adorned 
 with several islets besides that on which the fortress was situated ; 
 and, instead of being embosomed in hills like that of Avenel, had 
 upon the southern side only a splendid mountainous screen, being 
 the descent of one of the Lomond hills, and on the other was sur- 
 rounded by the extensive and fertile plain of Kinross. Roland 
 Graeme looked with some degree of dismay on the water-girdled 
 fortress, which then, as now, consisted only of one large Donjon- 
 keep, surrounded with a court-yard with two round flanking-towers 
 at the angles, which contained within its circuit some other build- 
 ings of inferior importance. A few old trees clustered together, 
 near the castle, gave some relief to the air of desolate seclusion ; 
 but yet the page, while he gazed upon a building so sequestered, 
 could not but feel for the situation of a captive Princess doomed to 
 dwell there, as well as for his own. I must have been born, he 
 thought, under the star that presides over ladies and lakes of water, 
 for I cannot by any means escape from the service of the one or 
 from dwelling in the other. But if they allow me not the fair 
 freedom of my sport and exercise, they shall find it as hard to 
 confine a wild-drake as a youth who can swim like one." 
 
 The mother of Douglas, who resided at Loch Leven, and 
 whose hard character fitted her particularly for the post of gaoler, 
 is thus described in the same work : 
 
 " The station which the Lady of Lochleven now held as the 
 wife of a man of high rank and interest, and the mother of a lawful 
 family, did not prevent her nourishing a painful sense of degrada- 
 tion, even while she was proud of the talents, the power, and the 
 station of her son, now prime ruler of the State, but still a pledge of
 
 Loch Lev en. 31 
 
 her illicit intercourse. Had James done to her (she said in her 
 secret heart) the justice he owed her, she had seen in her son, as a 
 source of unmixed delight and of unchastened pride, the lawful 
 monarch of Scotland, and one of the ablest who ever swayed the 
 sceptre. The House of Mar, not inferior in antiquity or grandeur 
 to that of Drummond, would then have also boasted a Queen 
 amongst its daughters, and escaped the stain attached to female 
 frailty, even when it had a royal lover for its apology. While such 
 feelings preyed on a bosom naturally proud and severe, they had a 
 corresponding effect on her countenance, where, with the remains 
 of great beauty, were mingled traits indicative of inward discontent 
 and peevish melancholy. It perhaps contributed to increase this 
 habitual temperament, that the Lady Lochleven had adopted un- 
 commonly rigid and severe views of religion, imitating in her ideas 
 of reformed faith the very worst errors of the Catholics, in limiting 
 the benefit of the gospel to those who profess their own specu- 
 lative tenets." 
 
 And Scott's description of the royal prisoner is so graphic that 
 we can hardly omit it here : 
 
 " Her face, her form, have been so deeply impressed upon the 
 imagination, that, even at the distance of nearly three centuries, it 
 is unnecessary to remind the most ignorant and uninformed reader 
 of the striking traits which characterise that remarkable counten- 
 ance, which seems at once to combine our ideas of the majestic, the 
 pleasing, and the brilliant, leaving us to doubt whether they express 
 most happily the queen, the beauty, or the accomplished woman. 
 Who is there, at the very mention of Mary Stuart's name, that has 
 not her countenance before him, familiar as that of the mistress of
 
 32 Loch Leven. 
 
 his youth, or the favourite daughter of his advanced age ? I 
 those who feel themselves compelled to believe all or much of what 
 her enemies laid to her charge, cannot think without a sigh upon a 
 countenance expressive of anything rather than the foul crimes with 
 which she was charged when living, and which still continue to 
 shade, if not to blacken her memory. That brow, so truly open 
 and regal those eye-brows, so regularly graceful, which yet were 
 saved from the charge of regular insipidity by the beautiful effect 
 of the hazel eyes which they over-arched, and which seem to utter 
 a thousand histories the nose, with all its Grecian precision of 
 outline the mouth, so well proportioned, so sweetly formed, as if 
 designed to speak nothing but what was delightful to hear the 
 dimpled chin the stately swanlike neck, form a countenance, the 
 like of which we know not to have existed in any other character 
 moving in that high class of life, where the actresses as well as the 
 actors command general and undivided attention." 
 
 Here, then, Mary remained till the 25th July, when a singular 
 scene took place within the castle. Lyndsay and Melville came 
 from Edinburgh bearing the acts which were to deprive her of her 
 sovereignty. Melville saw her first, and explained to her the designs 
 of the victorious lords. He told her that, on her refusal to sign an 
 abdication, they had determined that a public trial was to be sub- 
 stituted for it, and that her defamation would be certain, and the 
 loss of her crown inevitable ; whilst, on the other hand, being 
 secretly her friend at least so he professed himself he insinuated 
 that any deed signed in captivity, and under fear of her life, would 
 be invalid. Lyndsay next entered, and joined with Melville in 
 persuading the unhappy Queen to sign. Ruthven was soon after-
 
 Loch Leven. 33 
 
 wards introduced, and the scene which followed is thus detailed by 
 Scott : 
 
 "Lord Ruthven had the look and bearing which became a 
 soldier and a statesman, and the martial cast of his form and 
 features procured him the popular epithet of Greysteil, by which he 
 was distinguished by his intimates, after the hero of a metrical 
 romance then generally known. His dress, which was a buff-coat 
 embroidered, had a half-military character, but exhibited nothing 
 of the sordid negligence which distinguished that of Lyndsay. But 
 the son of an ill-fated sire, and the father of a yet more unfortunate 
 family, bore in his look that cast of inauspicious melancholy, by 
 which the physiognomists of that time pretended to distinguish 
 those who were predestined to a violent and unhappy death. 
 
 "The terror which the presence of this nobleman impressed on 
 the Queen's mind, arose from the active share he had borne in the 
 slaughter of David Bizzio ; his father having presided at the per- 
 petration of that abominable crime, although so weak from long 
 and wasting illness, that he could not endure the weight of his 
 armour, having arisen from a sick-bed to commit a murther in the 
 presence of his Sovereign. On that occasion his son also had 
 attended and taken an active part. It was little to be wondered at 
 that the Queen, considering her condition when such a deed of 
 horror was acted in her presence, should retain an instinctive terror 
 for the principal actors in the murther." 
 
 After some conversation, Lord Ruthven " proceeded to read a 
 formal instrument, running in the Queen's name, and setting forth 
 that she had been called at an early age to the administration of 
 the crown and realm of Scotland, and had toiled diligently therein,
 
 34 Loch Leven. 
 
 until she was in body and spirit so wearied out and disgusted, that 
 she was unable any longer to endure the travail and pain of State 
 ulluirs ; and that since God blessed her with a fair and hopeful son, 
 she was desirous to ensure to him, even while she yet lived, his suc- 
 cession to the crown, which was his by right of hereditary descent. 
 ' Wherefore/ the instrument proceeded, * we, of the motherly 
 affection we bear to our said son, have renounced and demitted, 
 and by these our letters of free good will renounce and demit, the 
 Crown, government, and guiding of the realm of Scotland, in favour 
 of our said son, that he may succeed to us as native Prince thereof, 
 as much as if we had been removed by decease, and not by our own 
 proper act. And, that this demission of our royal authority may 
 have the more full and solemn effect, and none pretend ignorance, 
 we give, grant, and commit full and free and plain power to our 
 trusty cousins, Lord Lyndsay of the Byres, and William Lord 
 Ruthven, to appear in our name before as many of the nobility, 
 clergy, and burgesses as may be assembled at Stirling, and there, 
 in our name and behalf, publicly, and in their presence, to renounce 
 the Crown, guidance, and government of this our kingdom of 
 Scotland.' " 
 
 The Queen at first absolutely refused her signature to such a 
 document. Euthven behaved with rudeness, and even with violence. 
 He blamed her for all the misfortunes of Scotland in her time ; he 
 vowed that the kingdom could no longer endure her rule ; he insisted 
 on her signature. She asked a few moments for consideration, and 
 the lords left her, but returned shortly ; and " when," to continue 
 the narrative as it is given by Sir Walter, " Lord Ruthven had done 
 speaking, she looked up, stopped short, and threw down the pen.
 
 Loch Lev en. 35 
 
 ' If/ said she, ' I am expected to declare I give away my crown of 
 free will, or otherwise than because I am compelled to renounce it 
 by the threat of worse evils to myself and my subjects, I will not 
 put my name to such an untruth not to gain full possession of 
 England, France, and Scotland, all once my own, in possession or 
 by right.' 
 
 "'Beware, madam,' said Lyndsay, and, snatching hold of the 
 Queen's arm with his own gauntletted hand, he pressed it, in the 
 rudeness of his passion, more closely, perhaps, than he was himself 
 aware of, 'beware how you contend with those who are the 
 stronger, and have the mastery of your fate. 
 
 " He held his grasp on her arm, bending his eyes on her with a 
 stern and intimidating look, till both Ruthven and Melville cried 
 shame ; and Douglas, who had hitherto remained in a state of 
 apparent apathy, had made a stride from the door, as if to interfere. 
 The rude Baron then quitted his hold, disguising the confusion 
 which he really felt, at having indulged his passion to such extent, 
 under a sullen and contemptuous smile. 
 
 " The Queen immediately began, with an expression of pain, to 
 bare the arm which he had grasped, by drawing up the sleeve of 
 her gown, and it appeared that his grasp had left the purple marks 
 of his iron fingers upon her flesh ' My lord/ she said, ' as a knight 
 and gentleman, you might have spared my frail arm so severe a 
 proof that you have the greater strength on your side, and are 
 resolved to use it. But I thank you for it it is the most decisive 
 token of the terms on which this day's business is to rest. I draw 
 you to witness, both lords and ladies,' she said, shewing the marks 
 of the grasp on her arm, 'that I subscribe these instruments in
 
 36 Loch Leven. 
 
 obedience to the sign-manual of my Lord of Lyndsay, which you 
 may see imprinted on mine arm.' 
 
 " Lyndsay would have spoken, but was restrained by his col- 
 league Ruthven, who said to him, ' Peace, my lord. Let the Lady 
 Mary of Scotland ascribe her signature to what she will, it is our 
 business to procure it, and carry it to the Council. Should there 
 be debate hereafter on the manner in which it was adhibited, there 
 will be time enough for it.' 
 
 " Lyndsay was silent accordingly, only muttering within his 
 beard, ' I meant not to hurt her ; but I think women's flesh be as 
 tender as new-fallen snow.' 
 
 "The Queen meanwhile subscribed the rolls of parchment with 
 a hasty indifference, as if they had been matters of slight con- 
 sequence, or of mere formality. When she had performed this 
 painful task, she arose, and having curtsied to the lords, was about 
 to withdraw to her chamber. Ruthven and Sir Robert Melville 
 made, the first a formal reverence, the second an obeisance in which 
 his desire to acknowledge his sympathy was obviously checked by 
 the fear of appearing in the eyes of his colleagues too partial to his 
 former mistress." Lyndsay knelt and asked her pardon, which 
 she granted him with sweetness and dignity ; and so this most 
 singular scene was brought to a close. 
 
 We must pass by another strange scene at Loch Leven, when 
 Murray, the captive Queen's half-brother, visited her, and proceed 
 to the climax of the story. George Douglas, the younger son of 
 the stern guardian of the Castle, had become fascinated by the 
 charms of Mary. On the 25th March, after a winter of captivity, 
 lightened only by the hopes of escape and the excitement of secretly
 
 Loch Leven. 37 
 
 communicating with her friends in the outer world, an attempt was 
 made by this infatuated young man to convey her across the lake. 
 She had entered the boat which was to convey her, when one of the 
 boatmen penetrated her disguise, and fearing the severity of the 
 Laird, in spite of her entreaties, and even her commands, took her 
 back to her prison. After this unsuccessful attempt George Douglas 
 was sent away from the castle, but he did not leave the neighbour- 
 hood. March and April were passed in vain regrets by the Queen, 
 and in active devotion on the part of Douglas, who at length 
 matured a fresh plan for her delivery. A page Little Douglas, 
 as he was called was trusted with the most important part of the 
 design. 
 
 " The keys had, with the wonted ceremonial, been presented to 
 the Lady Lochleven. She stood with her back to the casement, 
 which, like that of the Queen's apartment, commanded a view of 
 Kinross, with the church, which stands at some distance from the 
 town, and nearer to the lake, then connected with the town by 
 straggling cottages. With her back to this casement, then, and 
 her face to the table, on which the keys lay for an instant while 
 she tasted the various dishes which were placed there, stood the 
 Lady of Lochleven, more provokingly intent than usual so at 
 least it seemed to her prisoners upon the huge and heavy bunch 
 of iron, the implements of their restraint. Just when, having 
 finished her ceremony as taster of the Queen's table, she was about 
 to take up the keys, the page, who stood beside her, and had 
 handed her the dishes in succession, looked side-ways to the 
 churchyard, and exclaimed he saw corpse-candles in the church- 
 yard. The Lady of Lochleven was not without a touch, though a
 
 38 Loch Leven. 
 
 slight one, of the superstitions of the time ; the fate of her sons 
 made her alive to omens, and a corpse-light, as it was called, in 
 the family burial-place, boded death. She turned her head towards 
 the casement saw a distant glimmering forgot her charge for 
 one second, and in that second were lost the whole fruits of her 
 former vigilance. The page held the forged keys under his cloak, 
 and with great dexterity exchanged them for the real ones. His 
 utmost address could not prevent a slight clash as he took up the 
 latter bunch. ' Who touches the keys ?' said the Lady ; and while 
 the page answered that the sleeve of his cloak had stirred them, 
 she looked round, possessed herself of the bunch which now 
 occupied the place of the genuine keys, and again turned to gaze 
 at the supposed corpse-candles. 
 
 " ' I hold these gleams,' she said, after a moment's consideration, 
 ' to come, not from the churchyard, but from the hut of the old 
 gardener, Blinkhoolie. I wonder what thrift that churl drives, that 
 of late he hath ever had light in his house till the night grew deep. 
 I thought him an industrious, peaceful man. If he turns resetter of 
 idle companions and night-walkers, the place must be rid of him.' " 
 
 The keys were quickly conveyed to the Queen. The writer 
 proceeds : 
 
 " ' We have but brief time/ said Queen Mary ; ' one of the two 
 lights in the cottage is extinguished that shows the boat is put 
 off.' 
 
 " ' They will row very slow,' said the page, ' or kent where 
 depth permits, to avoid noise. To our several gear I will com- 
 municate with the good Father.' 
 
 "At the dead hour of midnight, when all was silent in the
 
 Loch Leven. 39 
 
 castle, the page put the key into the lock of the wicket which 
 opened into the garden, and which was at the bottom of a staircase 
 that descended from the Queen's apartment. ' Now, turn smooth 
 and softly, thou good bolt,' said he, 'if ever oil softened rust!' 
 and his precautions had been so effectual, that the bolt revolved 
 with little or no sound of resistance. He ventured not to cross the 
 threshold, but, exchanging a word with the disguised Abbot, asked 
 if the boat were ready ? 
 
 " ' This half hour/ said the sentinel, ' she lies beneath the wall, 
 too close under the islet to be seen by the warder, but I fear she 
 will hardly escape his notice in putting off again.' 
 
 " ' The darkness,' said the page, ' and our profound silence, may 
 take her off unobserved, as she came in. Hildebrand has the watch 
 on the tower a heavy-headed knave, who holds a can of ale to be 
 the best head-piece upon a night-watch. He sleeps for a wager.' 
 
 " The ladies were then partly led, partly carried, to the side of 
 the lake, where a boat with six rowers attended them, the men 
 crouched along the bottom to secure them from observation. 
 
 " ' Pardon me, madam, if I disobey/ said the intractable young 
 man ; and with one hand lifting in Lady Fleming, he begun 
 himself to push off the boat. 
 
 " She was two fathoms' length from the shore, and the rowers 
 were getting her head round, when Roland Graeme, arriving, 
 bounded from the beach, and attained the boat, overturning 
 Seyton, on whom he lighted. The youth swore a deep but sup- 
 pressed oath, and stopping Graeme as he stepped towards the stern,
 
 40 Loch Leven. 
 
 said, ' Your place is not with high-born dames keep at the head 
 and trim the vessel. Now give way give way. Row, for God 
 and the Queen 1* 
 
 " The rowers obeyed, and began to pull vigorously. 
 
 " The dialogue was here interrupted by a shot or two from one 
 of those small pieces of artillery called falconets, then used in 
 defending castles. The shot was too vague to have any effect, but 
 the broader flash, the deeper sound, the louder return which was 
 made by the midnight echoes of Bennarty, terrified and imposed 
 silence on the liberated prisoners. The boat was alongside of a 
 rude quay or landing-place, running out from a garden of consider- 
 able extent, ere any of them again attempted to speak. They 
 landed, and while the Abbot returned thanks aloud to Heaven, 
 which had thus far favoured their enterprise, Douglas enjoyed the 
 best reward of his desperate undertaking, in conducting the Queen 
 to the house of the gardener. Yet, not unmindful of Roland Graeme, 
 even in that moment of terror and exhaustion, Mary expressly 
 commanded Seyton to give his assistance to Fleming, while 
 Catherine voluntarily, and without bidding, took the arm of the 
 page. Seyton presently resigned Lady Fleming to the care of the 
 Abbot, alleging he must look after their horses ; and his attend- 
 ants, disencumbering themselves of their boat-cloaks, hastened to 
 assist him. 
 
 >..... 
 
 " ' Farewell, Father,' said the Queen. ' When we are once 
 more seated at Holyrood, we will neither forget thee .nor thine 
 injured garden.'
 
 Loch Leven. 41 
 
 " ' Forget us both/ said the Ex-Abbot Boniface, ' and may God 
 be with you/ 
 
 "As they hurried out of the house, they heard the old man 
 talking and muttering to himself, as he hastily drew bolt and bar 
 behind them. 
 
 " ' The revenge of the Douglases will reach the poor old man/ 
 said the Queen. ' God help me, I ruin everyone whom I approach.' 
 
 " ' His safety is cared for/ said Seyton ; ' he must not remain 
 here, but will be privately conducted to a place of greater security. 
 But I would your Grace were in your saddle. To horse ! to horse! ' 
 
 The party of Seyton and of Douglas were increased to about 
 ten by those attendants who had remained with the horses. The 
 Queen and her ladies, with all the rest who came from the boat, 
 were instantly mounted ; and holding aloof from the village, which 
 was already alarmed by the firing from the castle, with Douglas 
 acting as their guide, they soon reached the open ground, and 
 began to ride as fast as was consistent with keeping together in 
 good order." 
 
 M. Mignet thus takes up the narrative : 
 
 " She galloped on till she came to Niddry Castle, Lord Seyton's 
 residence in West Lothian. Here she took a few hours' rest, and 
 the a pursued her journey to the strong fortress of Hamilton, where 
 she was received by the Archbishop of St. Andrews, and Lord 
 Claud Hamilton, the latter of whom had met her on the road with 
 fifty horse. On arriving at this place of safety, she issued an 
 appeal to all her partisans. She despatched Heyburn of Kiccarton, 
 one of Bothwell's servants, to Dunbar, with the hope that the 
 Castle would be delivered to her, and commanded him to proceed
 
 42 Loch Leven. 
 
 afterwards to Denmark and inform his master that she was again 
 at liberty, and would doubtless soon recover her lost authority." 
 
 From the same source we obtain several particulars which do 
 not come out in the novel. Willie Douglas, the page, locked the 
 gate after them as they went out, and threw the keys into the 
 water. In 1805, a boy digging on the sands near Kinross House, 
 when the lake was low during a period of severe drought, found a 
 bunch of keys, five in number, no doubt the very same which 
 figured on this memorable occasion. Other relics were found in 
 
 o 
 
 1821, when Loch Leven was partly drained. Among them was a 
 gilt key, possibly a chamberlain's badge of office, bearing the 
 inscription, Marie Reg. 1565. The Earl of Morton, who is 
 descended from the elder brother of George Douglas, preserves at 
 his seat, Dalmahoy, near Edinburgh, a folding screen made of 
 tapestry, said to have been worked during her imprisonment by 
 Queen Mary and her maids. It is still unfinished as it was left on 
 her escape. There is evidence in her letters to her former chamber- 
 lain, Melville, that she made request for gold and silver thread, 
 silk and needles, suitable for such work. 
 
 Miss Strickland has given a minute description of this screen 
 in her " Lives of the Queens of Scotland." She mentions that it is 
 worked in fine tent-stitch, with coloured wools, upon canvas. It is 
 now arranged in three breadths, measuring in all about twelve 
 yards in length, the whole being surmounted by a border. The 
 design was believed by Sir Walter Scott to represent some 
 incidents of a French or Italian romance, but Miss Strickland 
 identified all the scenes with events in the life of Mary herself. 
 We cannot accept this explanation as at all probable. Among the
 
 Loch Leven. 43 
 
 figures one represents a gentleman in a superb dress, who, seated 
 in an arm-chair, bares his leg, and lays it on a block before him, 
 while two executioners prepare to amputate it. Another figure, 
 several times introduced, is standing by ; and this, Miss Strickland 
 thought, was a picture of the angry Queen Elizabeth, upon whose 
 orders the executioners were supposed to wait. It would not be 
 easy to connect this extraordinary scene with anything that 
 occurred in the lives of Mary or of her equally unfortunate 
 husband. Mary was always fond of embroidery, and many pieces 
 besides this have been attributed to her needle, with more or less 
 show of authenticity. Among them are five pieces, also forming a 
 screen, on which the contest of Eehoboam and Jeroboam is 
 depicted ; a history which Queen Mary might well have laid to 
 heart as she worked it on the canvas. But her chefd'ceuvre seems 
 to have been a Crucifixion, which now belongs to Lord Howard, 
 and which is in one piece, worked in silk It appears to have been 
 presented by Queen Mary's mother, Mary de Guise, to Mary 
 Fitzalan, daughter of Henry, Earl of Arundel, and afterwards 
 Duchess of Norfolk, ancestress of the present possessor. It bears 
 an inscription on the back which is not easily deciphered, but this 
 seems to be the best explanation. 
 
 The escape from Loch Leven was accomplished on the evening 
 of Sunday, the 2nd May, 1568.
 
 F all the strange characters in Scottish history there is 
 scarcely one more uniformly unpleasant than Margaret 
 Tudor, the daughter of our Henry the Seventh, the sister of our 
 Henry the Eighth, and the wife of James the Fourth, who was 
 slain at Flodden. She seems to have combined in a remarkable 
 degree all the less amiable qualities of her father and her brother. 
 Like the first, she was calculating and cruel, covetous and insincere ; 
 like the second, she knew no bounds to the violence of her passions, 
 and was apparently always able to satisfy her conscience as to the 
 justice of any scheme which she wished to gratify. She derived 
 from Edward the Fourth the personal beauty of the Plantagenets, 
 and joining with their haughtiness and their boldness the instability 
 and temper which she inherited from her Welsh ancestors, she 
 became, among the quarrelsome, fierce, uncertain, and revengeful 
 nobles of the northern kingdom, an inciter of quarrels, a leader of 
 the fierce, a by-word for inconstancy, and a cause of feud and 
 bloodshed as long as she lived, and for years after her death. It 
 was her unhappy fate to be at first the wife of a man who was 
 openly unfaithful to her, and to be left under most difficult and 
 trying circumstances without any sincere or disinterested adviser. 
 Her beauty and her misfortunes excite our sympathy, until her errors
 
 Donne Castle. 47 
 
 and her crimes repel us. She is the most interesting figure in the 
 history of Doune Castle, and for that reason, if for no other, we are 
 obliged to devote a little attention to her life. Much of it was 
 passed at Doune, and the Castle, the greater part of which was pro- 
 bably built by her, or in her time, was by her act, but indirectly, 
 conveyed into the possession of the family by which it is still held 
 after the lapse of three hundred and fifty years. 
 
 Doune Castle was built by Murdoch Stewart, second Duke of 
 Albany, nephew of Robert the Third, and Regent of Scotland 
 during the absence in captivity of his cousin King James the First. 
 He was feeble as a ruler, slothful in his own habits, and left to his 
 lawless sons the power of injuring the kingdom by their excesses, 
 and eventually of causing the ruin of their father and his family. 
 King James returned from England in 1424, and, to use the words 
 of Sir Walter Scotfr- 
 
 " The first vengeance of the laws fell upon Murdac, who, with 
 his two sons, was tried and condemned at Stirling for abuse of the 
 King's authority, committed while Murdac was Regent. They 
 were beheaded at the little eminence at Stirling, which is still shown 
 on the Castle HilL The Regent, from that elevated spot, might 
 have a distant view of the magnificent castle of Doune, which he 
 had built for his residence ; and the sons had ample reason to regret 
 their contempt of their father's authority, and to judge the truth of 
 his words, when he said he would bring in one who would rule them 
 all." 
 
 Doune was forfeited to the Crown, and remained part of the 
 Royal estates until 1503, when the marriage of James the Fourth 
 with Margaret Tudor took place, and Doune, with other fair estates,
 
 48 Doune Castle. 
 
 was settled on the bride. Margaret was at this time "an ill- 
 educated girl of fourteen." The king was thirty, and the pair seem 
 to have had from the first little sympathy or affection between 
 them. Miss Strickland says (" Lives of Queens of Scotland," Vol. I., 
 p. 68), " In one taste alone did this dissimilar pair agree, which 
 was in their love for music. The Tudor race had retained their 
 Celtic predilection for that science, and all practically excelled in 
 it. The Royal Stuarts possessed much instrumental skill, together 
 with the inspiration of true poetry. Thus, whatever discrepancies 
 there might have been between James Stuart and Margaret Tudor 
 in age, temper, and talents, they were united in their musical pre- 
 dilections." Their life otherwise seems to have been by no means 
 happy. The Queen had her first son in 1506, but the infant soon 
 died, as did a second ; and the boy who was destined to succeed as 
 King James the Fifth was not born until 1512. On the 9th 
 September, 1513, her husband was killed at the fatal battle of 
 Flodden. Margaret became Regent of Scotland, having just com- 
 pleted her twenty-fourth year. In the following April a second 
 son was born to her, the Duke of Ross. But she had not waited for 
 this event before she commenced to look about her for a second 
 husband. In August she was married to Archibald, Earl of Angus, 
 a boy not yet of age. We have no intention of tracing her history 
 during the remainder of the time in which she was united to Angus ; 
 it does not concern Doune Castle and its destiny ; but in or about 
 1517 she had changed her views respecting him, and had made up 
 her mind to obtain a divorce, and to find another husband. Her 
 sister-in-law, Katherine of Arragon, who was herself destined to 
 experience the fickleness of the Tudor affections, endeavoured in
 
 Doune Castk* 49 
 
 vain to dissuade her from her purpose. Angus had offended her, 
 and, what was more important, she was in love with another. The 
 handsome Duke of Albany, Kegent of Scotland, was the object of 
 her wishes, though he had a wife living at the time. But the 
 divorce was not easily obtained, and several years elapsed before it 
 was pronounced. Meanwhile, two events took place which made a 
 serious difference in her views. She lost her beauty by an attack 
 of small-pox, and she changed her mind about Albany. Towards 
 the end of 1524 she took it into her head to set her affections upon 
 one Henry Stewart, second son of Lord Avondale, the head of a 
 younger branch of the Stewart family. He was lieutenant of her 
 son's body-guard, and she made him Treasurer of Scotland, and, 
 finally, Lord Chancellor. In 1527 the Archbishop of St. Andrews 
 pronounced the divorce, and she lost no time in acting on it. She 
 immediately married Henry Stewart, and after a time he was 
 acknowledged by the King, her son. Miss Strickland writes : 
 " She had now obtained the end for which she had anxiously striven 
 for more than eight years. Her son had acknowledged her divorce 
 by his recognition and favour to her dear Harry Stuart, who was, 
 from a younger brother and needy courtier, raised to high rank, 
 with the fairest barony in Scotland for his inheritance and that of 
 their children. Her inimical husband, Angus, was soon afterwards 
 chased out of the land into exile in England. Angus had im- 
 poverished the Queen by seizing, as her husband, the lands with 
 which she had been richly endowed by the Crown of Scotland on 
 her marriage with James IV. It may be freely inferred that he 
 was forced to yield up his prey, for on his flight to Henry VIII. 
 the young King took possession of his vast property, and divided it
 
 50 Doune Castle. 
 
 amongst those who had aided in the overthrow of the Douglas 
 power. It was not likely that the King forgot to restore his 
 mother to her dower lands. But Henry VIII. treated his sister's 
 divorce from Angus with the utmost contempt, reviled her new 
 spouse, speaking of him disdainfully as 'Lord Muffin/ while he 
 called Angus his dear brother-in-law. Margaret was, however, 
 relieved of the presence of her troublesome spouse for life. She was 
 full of fondness and gratitude to Lord Methven for the assistance 
 he had rendered her son, whom she persuaded to settle on him for 
 life the castellanship of her dower castle of Doune, in the County 
 of Perth. James V. likewise made his new stepfather general of 
 all his artillery, regarding him with constant favour, which he well 
 deserved by his fidelity. Soon after, Lord Methven obtained leave 
 of his sovereign to relinquish Doune Castle in favour of his landless 
 brother, James Stuart, who had served the King faithfully, and 
 even been left for dead at the battle near Linlithgow. James V., 
 with all the generosity of his nature, alienated Doune from the 
 Crown, and settled it on Methven's brother, to the rage and indig- 
 nation of Queen Margaret, who did not mean to lose the income 
 when she settled it on her new spouse. It was a first quarrel 
 between her and her dear Harry Stuart ; but the offence remained 
 brooding in her mind, until it broke out long years afterwards, 
 according to the malicious nature of the Tudor race." 
 
 Thus Doune passed from the Crown to the private family who 
 have held it ever since. Before we detail its subsequent history, it 
 may be interesting to finish that of Queen Margaret. Before many 
 years were past she quarrelled as violently with Henry Stewart, 
 who bore the title of Lord Methven, as ever she had done with
 
 Doune Castle. 51 
 
 Angus, and but for the special interposition of her son, would have 
 obtained a second divorce. Last of all, she repented of her treat- 
 ment of Angus; and in 1541 she died, "asking God mercy that 
 she had offended the said Earl as she had." She was buried at 
 Perth with great magnificence, and left, besides her two husbands, 
 several children behind. Her son, James V., was father of Mary, 
 Queen of Scots, and her daughter, Lady Margaret Douglas, was 
 the mother of Henry, Lord Darnley, the husband of that queen. 
 
 Doune Castle descended peacefully in the Stewart family. Sir 
 James Stewart obtained custody of it on the 14th July, 1528. Sir 
 James Stewart succeeded him, and a third Sir James married the 
 co-heiress of the Eegent Murray or, as it is now usually spelt, 
 Moray and with her obtained the earldom which the family still 
 hold. 
 
 From this time on, its history is not very eventful. Sir Walter 
 Scott (Notes to Waverley) says of it : 
 
 " This noble ruin is dear to my recollection, from associations 
 which have been long and painfully broken. It holds a command- 
 ing station on the banks of the Kiver Teith, and has been one of 
 the largest castles in Scotland. Murdock, Duke of Albany, the 
 founder of this stately pile, was beheaded on the Castle -hill of 
 Stirling, from which he might see the towers of Doune, the monu- 
 ment of his fallen greatness. 
 
 " In 1745-6, as stated in the text, a garrison on the part of the 
 Chevalier was put into the castle, then less ruinous than at present. 
 It was commanded by Mr. Stewart of Balloch, as governor for 
 Prince Charles ; he was a man of property near Callander. This 
 castle became at that time the actual scene of a romantic escape
 
 52 Doune Castle. 
 
 made by John Home, the author of Douglas, and some other 
 prisoners, who, having been taken at the battle of Falkirk, were 
 confined there by the insurgents. The poet, who had in his own 
 mind a large stock of that romantic and enthusiastic spirit of 
 adventure which he has described as animating the youthful hero 
 of his drama, devised and undertook the perilous enterprise of 
 escaping from his prison. He inspired his companions with his 
 sentiments, and when every attempt at open force was deemed 
 hopeless, they resolved to twist their bedclothes into ropes, and 
 thus to descend. Four persons, with Home himself, reached the 
 ground in safety. But the rope broke with the fifth, who was a 
 tall, lusty man. The sixth was Thomas Barrow, a brave young 
 Englishman, a particular friend of Home's. Determined to take 
 the risk, even in such unfavourable circumstances, Barrow com- 
 mitted himself to the broken rope, slid down on it as far as it could 
 assist him, and then let himself drop. His friends beneath suc- 
 ceeded in breaking his fall Nevertheless, he dislocated his ancle, 
 and had several of his ribs broken. His companions, however, were 
 able to bear him off in safety. 
 
 " The Highlanders next morning sought for their prisoners with 
 great activity. An old gentleman told the author he remembered 
 seeing the commander, Stewart, 
 
 ' Bloody with spurring, fiery red with haste,' 
 
 riding furiously through the country in quest of the fugitives." 
 A further description is given in the body of the work. In 
 
 Chapter xxxvin. we read of Waverley's visit to Doune after his 
 
 capture, and on his way to Edinburgh : 
 
 " The country around was at once fertile and romantic. Steep
 
 Donne Castle. 53 
 
 banks of wood were broken by corn-fields, which this year presented 
 an abundant harvest, already in a great measure cut down. 
 
 " On the opposite bank of the river, and partly surrounded by 
 a winding of its stream, stood a large and massive castle, the half- 
 ruined turrets of which were already glittering in the first rays of 
 the sun. It was in form an oblong square, of size sufficient to con- 
 tain a large court in the centre. The towers at each angle of the 
 square rose higher than the walls of the building, and were in their 
 turn surmounted by turrets, differing in height, and irregular in 
 shape. Upon one of these a sentinel watched, whose bonnet and 
 plaid, streaming in the wind, declared him to be a Highlander, as 
 a broad white ensign, which floated from another tower, announced 
 that the garrison was held by the insurgent adherents of the House 
 of Stuart. 
 
 " Passing hastily through a small and mean town, where their 
 appearance excited neither surprise nor curiosity in the few peasants 
 whom the labours of the harvest began to summon from their re- 
 pose, the party crossed an ancient and narrow bridge of several 
 arches, and turning to the left, up an avenue of huge old syca- 
 mores, Waverley found himself in front of the gloomy yet 
 picturesque structure which he had admired at a distance. A huge 
 iron-grated door, which formed the exterior defence of the gateway, 
 was already thrown back to receive them ; and a second, heavily 
 constructed of oak, and studded thickly with iron nails, being next 
 opened, admitted them into the interior court-yard. A gentleman 
 dressed in the Highland garb, and having a white cockade in his 
 bonnet, assisted Waverley to dismount from his horse, and with 
 much courtesy bid him welcome to the castle.
 
 54 Doune Castle. 
 
 " The governor for so we must term him having conducted 
 Waverley to a half -ruinous apartment, where, however, there waa 
 a small camp-bed, and having offered him any refreshment which 
 he desired, was then about to leave him. 
 
 " ' Will you not add to your civilities,' said Waverley, after 
 having made the usual acknowledgment, ' by having the kindness 
 to inform me where I am, and whether or not I am to consider 
 myself as a prisoner ? ' 
 
 " ' I am not at liberty to be so explicit upon this subject as I 
 could wish. Briefly, however, you are in the Castle of Doune, in 
 the district of Menteith, and in no danger whatever.' 
 
 " ' And how am I assured of that ?' 
 
 " ' By the honour of Donald Stewart, governor of the garrison, 
 and lieutenant-colonel in the service of his Royal Highness Prince 
 Charles Edward.' So saying, he hastily left the apartment, as if 
 to avoid further discussion. 
 
 " Exhausted by the fatigues of the night, our hero now threw 
 himself upon the bed, and waa in a few minutes fast asleep."
 
 ^ OCH KATRINE possesses a double interest for the visitor. 
 
 J It is the scene of one of the most charming of romances, 
 and of one of the greatest triumphs of modern engineering skill. 
 This combination is not a very happy one. The sight-seer 
 who only goes to Loch Katrine for the sake of the scenery, 
 and cares for nothing more prosaic than an attempt to identify 
 every situation in the Lady of the Lake, must be disappointed in 
 many particulars. He can find nothing which will answer to the 
 G oblin Cave. No tale of real life is connected with the place. The 
 very name which sounds so pretty is in all probability the result of 
 the very bad character the lake once had as the refuge and abode 
 of " caterans," or freebooters. There are several other lakes in 
 Scotland, and even within a short distance of Loch Katrine, which 
 not only equal, but excel it in beauty. Yet such is the subtle 
 charm which Scott has thrown over it, that every turn of the sur- 
 rounding paths, every tree almost, every view, and many things 
 which in another place would be quite destitute of interest, are 
 here invested with a power to touch the imagination and even the 
 heart of thousands. Whatever disappointment we may feel at the 
 place itself is more than compensated by the pleasure to be derived 
 in a fresh reading of Scott's delightful poem. When we have seen 
 the locality it describes, we return with renewed admiration to the
 
 58 Loch Katrine. 
 
 Lady of the Lake, and acknowledging the power of his spell, find 
 more and more cause of amazement at the wonderful genius of the 
 Wizard of the North. The poetry of Scott may not be of the 
 highest kind ; it may not abound in flights of sublimity, nor even 
 reach the rugged strength of Burns ; but it has one quality which 
 must always as long, that is, as our language exists render it a 
 cause of pleasure to all English-speaking and English-reading 
 people it is true to nature, and it is simple. A child may enjoy 
 Marmion or the Lord of the Isles, while of the Lady of the Lake 
 it is hardly too much to say that it created Loch Katrine. 
 
 But to practical people, and also, indeed, to many who love 
 poetry as well, Loch Katrine is the centre of another kind of 
 interest. Near the southern shore a row of shafts rising from the 
 water's edge mark the commencement of the famous aqueduct by 
 which Glasgow, thirty -four miles distant, is supplied with water. 
 Seventy millions of gallons are daily conducted from Loch Katrine 
 by means of piping and tunnelling ; and the lake, instead of losing 
 by the withdrawal of such a vast quantity of water, is in reality 
 improved, the level being now, owing to the care taken in penning 
 in the mountain streams, more than five feet higher than before the 
 opening of the works. Loch Katrine is four hundred and fifty feet 
 above the sea, and the fall of the water on its way to Glasgow is 
 thus sufficient for all purposes to which it may be turned. It is 
 difficult not to see in this great and really philanthropical under- 
 taking a matter for reflection, and even for surprise, as great as any 
 which the scenery alone can afford ; and before proceeding to 
 describe the lake, under the guidance of the poet, we may pause to 
 look with the engineer at this remarkable and successful triumph of
 
 Loch Katrine. 59 
 
 his art. In a communication to the compiler of Murray's Hand- 
 look for Scotland, Sir George Airy has given an account of the 
 Glasgow waterworks, from which we venture to quote the following 
 passages : 
 
 " The singularity which perhaps will first occur to the reader is 
 that a portion of the waters which, in the course of nature, reached 
 the sea by the eastern estuary of the Forth, is now turned to the 
 supply of the great city on the western estuary of the Clyde. This 
 has arisen from two circumstances. First, that Loch Katrine, the 
 highest of the reservoirs of water supplying the Forth (by its con- 
 fluent the Teith), is far west ; secondly, that the elevation of Loch 
 Katrine is considerable. But for the latter circumstance, it would 
 have been difficult to convey the water of Loch Katrine over the 
 high ground which divides the basins of the Forth and the Clyde ; 
 and it was apparently to facilitate this, that the water of Loch 
 Katrine is now dammed to a height about five feet above its natural 
 elevation. 
 
 " Though the Teith, of which Loch Katrine is the head, is an 
 affluent of the Forth, yet their upper basins, being separated by 
 hilly ground, must be considered as on different rivers. The basin 
 of the Forth, whose head is in Ben Lomond, lies between that of 
 the Teith and that of the Clyde. To gain the basin of the Forth, 
 it was necessary to pierce the hills bounding the south side of Loch 
 Katrine. In passing by boat along the lake, from the Trossachs to 
 the landing-pier of Stronachlachar, the tourist will remark, on the 
 left hand, a little more than a mile before reaching the pier, the 
 entrance-woi-ks of the water-conduit. They may be visited by a
 
 60 Loch Katrine. 
 
 road from Stronachlachar. They consist of the usual defences 
 against the entrance of extraneous matter, and gates and sluices for 
 regulating the influx of water ; well worthy of examination, but 
 requiring no special notice here. The watercourse immediately 
 pierces the hill by a tunnel about a mile long (the air-shafts of 
 which can be seen from the lake), and opens upon one of the streams 
 of Loch Chon, which is a feeder of the Forth. It passes on the 
 south-west sides of Loch Chon and of the upper part of Loch Ard, 
 crosses the Duchray water, passes through a desolate country, 
 crosses many streams of the Forth ; and near the summit of the 
 Forth and Clyde Junction Railway, close to the Balfron station, at 
 a height of about two hundred and fifty feet, it quits the basin of 
 the Forth for that of the Endrick, which it subsequently quits at a 
 lower level for that of the Clyde proper. 
 
 " The parts, however, which more immediately concern the 
 Loch Katrine tourist are the sluices at the outlets of the lakes. It 
 is obviously necessary to have a sluice at the outlet of Loch 
 Katrine, for maintaining the water at a height sufficient, but not 
 inconvenient, for the discharge into the Glasgow conduit ; and this 
 sluice will be found at the bottom of the Beal-nam-bo. It consists, 
 as is usual, of adjustible sliding sluice-gates (managed by rack-and- 
 pinion machinery) and a weir ; it also contains, what is less usual, 
 a salmon-ladder, to enable the salmon to leap up into Loch Katrine. 
 This sluice in itself is sufficient for the mere management of the 
 water-supply to Glasgow ; but commercial considerations required 
 an additional system of sluices. The streams of the Teith and the 
 Forth are employed to give motion to various mills, and to serve in
 
 Loch Katrine. 61 
 
 various manufactures ; and, considering the large amount of water 
 abstracted for the supply of Glasgow, there was great fear that in 
 dry seasons the discharge from the outlet of Loch Vennachar would 
 be absolutely stopped, and the mills and manufactures would be 
 deprived of their necessary waters. A large sluice (much larger 
 than that at the outlet of Loch Katrine) is therefore established at 
 the ancient Coilantogle Ford, at the outlet of Loch Vennachar, 
 and is kept under the most careful daily regulation. In wet 
 seasons, the water (which otherwise would have been wasted in an 
 injurious torrent rushing downwards to Stirling and the Forth) is 
 treasured up, raising the surface of Loch Vennachar ; and in dry 
 seasons, the water of this accumulated store is discharged, by regu- 
 lated openings of the sluice-gates, for the benefit of the mills. It 
 was laid down as a condition that the supply of water to the river 
 should never be less than double the minimum in the former state 
 of the lakes, and it is believed that this condition has been main- 
 tained without difficulty." 
 
 Let us now turn to the less utilitarian aspect of Loch Katrine. 
 Here we cannot do better than follow Sir Walter Scott. With the 
 Lady of the Lake in our hands we are under the best guidance. 
 Starting from the little pier at the eastern end, and hardly out of 
 the Trossachs, we find ourselves in a few minutes in the very thick 
 of the romantic associations. The lofty peak of Benvenue towers 
 nearly three thousand feet into mid-air on the left, and forms the 
 best possible background for the view. Thus it is that Scott sees 
 it in the lines (Canto First, XL, xn.) : 
 
 " The western waves of ebbing day 
 Rolled o'er the glen their level way ;
 
 62 Loch Katrine. 
 
 Each purple peak, each flinty spire, 
 Was bathed in floods of living fire. 
 But not a setting beam could glow 
 Within the dark ravines below, 
 Where twined the path in shadow hid, 
 Round many a rocky pyramid, 
 Shooting abruptly from the dell 
 Its thunder-splintered pinnacle ; 
 Round many an insulated mass, 
 The native bulwarks of the pass, 
 Huge as the tower which builders vain 
 Presumptuous piled on Shinar's plain. 
 The rocky summits, split and rent, 
 Formed turret, dome, or battlement, 
 Or seemed fantastically set 
 With cupola or minaret, 
 Wild crests as pagod ever decked, 
 Or mosque of Eastern architect 
 Nor were these earth-born castles bare, 
 Nor lacked they many a banner fair ; 
 For, from their shivered brows displayed, 
 Far o'er the unfathomable glade, 
 All twinkling with the dewdrops sheen, 
 The brier-rose fell in streamers green, 
 And creeping shrubs, of thousand dyes, 
 Waved in the west- wind's summer sighs. 
 Boon Nature scattered, free and wild, 
 Each plant or flower, the mountain's child. 
 Here eglantine embalmed the air, 
 Hawthorn and hazel mingled there ; 
 The primrose pale and violet flower, 
 Found in each cliff a narrow bower ; 
 Foxglove and nightshade, side by side, 
 Emblems of punishment and pride, 
 Grouped their dark hues with every stain 
 The weather-beaten crags retain.
 
 Loch Katrine. 63 
 
 "With boughs that quaked at every breath, 
 Grey birch and aspen wept beneath ; 
 Aloft, the ash and warrior oak 
 Cast anchor in the rifted rock ; 
 And, higher yet, the pine-tree hung 
 His shattered trunk, and frequent flung, 
 Where seemed the cliffs to meet on high, 
 His boughs athwart the narrowed sky. 
 Highest of all, where white peaks glanced, 
 Where glist'ning streamers waved and danced, 
 The wanderer's eye could barely view 
 The summer heaven's delicious blue ; 
 So wondrous wild, the whole might seem 
 The scenery of a fairy dream." 
 
 The birches are nearly all gone. But the rest of this descrip- 
 tion is admirably true. Fitz- James, climbing the steep, and issuing 
 from the glen, looks down on the lake : 
 
 " Where, gleaming with the setting sun, 
 One burnished sheet of living gold, 
 Loch Katrine lay beneath him rolled, 
 In all her length far winding lay, 
 With promontory, creek, and bay, 
 And islands that, empurpled bright, 
 Floated amid the livelier light, 
 And mountains, that like giants stand, 
 To sentinel enchanted land. 
 High on the south, huge Benvenue 
 Down on the lake in masses threw 
 Crags, knolls, and mounds, confus'dly hurled, 
 The fragments of an earlier world ; 
 A wildering forest feathered o'er 
 His ruined sides and summit hoar, 
 While on the north, through middle air, 
 Ben-an heaved high his forehead bare."
 
 64 Loch Katrine. 
 
 The tourist is now well out into the expanse of the lake, not very 
 great at the most. Although some five hundred feet in depth, 
 Loch Katrine is only a couple of miles in width at the broadest 
 part, and its whole length from the Trossachs to the Stronachlachar 
 Pier is under ten miles. The traveller who is able to walk should 
 endeavour to take the road which runs along the northern shore. 
 He will thus be able to follow Scott's descriptions much more 
 nearly than from the deck of the steamer, which does not go very 
 near the point at which Fitz- James is supposed to emerge from the 
 woods and come in sight of the water. The road, or rather path 
 for it is impassable for carriages brings us first to Ellen's Isle^ 
 which rises abruptly, covered with a thicket of dark foliage : 
 
 " The stranger viewed the shore around, 
 'Twas all so close with copsewood bound, 
 Nor track nor pathway might declare 
 That human foot frequented there, 
 Until the mountain-maiden showed 
 A clambering unsuspected road, 
 That winded through the tangled screen, 
 And opened on a narrow green, 
 Where weeping birch and willow round 
 With their long fibres swept the ground. 
 Here, for retreat in dangerous hour, 
 Some chief had framed a rustic bower. 
 
 The wild-rose, eglantine, and broom, 
 Wasted around their rich perfume ; 
 The birch-trees wept in fragrant balm, 
 The aspens slept beneath the calm ; 
 The silver light, with quivering glance, 
 Played on the water's still expanse, 
 Wild were the heart whose passions' sway 
 Could rage beneath the sober ray !"
 
 Loch Katrine. 65 
 
 The southern shore of the lake is full of associations of a very 
 similar character. The beautiful woods which clothe the foot of 
 Benvenue afford innumerable opportunities for verifying and 
 realising passages in this and other poems of Scott. Near the 
 water's edge "is a very steep and most romantic hollow in the 
 mountain of Benvenue, overhanging the south-eastern extremity of 
 Loch Katrine. It is surrounded with stupendous rocks, and over- 
 shadowed with birch-trees, mingled with oaks, the spontaneous 
 production of the mountain, even where its cliffs appear denuded 
 of soil. A dale in so wild a situation, and amid a people whose 
 genius bordered on the romantic, did not remain without appro- 
 priate deities. The name literally implies the Corri, or Den, of the 
 Wild or Shaggy Men. Perhaps this, as conjectured by Mr. Alex. 
 Campbell, may have originally only implied its being the haunt of 
 a ferocious banditti. But tradition has ascribed to the Urisk, who 
 gives name to the cavern, a figure between a goat and a man ; in 
 short, however much the classical reader may be startled, precisely 
 that of the Grecian Satyr. The Urisk seems not to have inherited, 
 with the form, the petulance of the sylvan deity of the classics : 
 his occupation, on the contrary, resembled those of Milton's Lubbar 
 Fiend, or of the Scottish Brownie, though he differed from both in 
 name and appearance. ' The Uriahs,' says Dr. Graham, * were a 
 set of lubberly supernaturals, who, like the Brownies, could be 
 gained over by kind attention to perform the drudgery of the 
 farm, and it was believed that many of the families in the High- 
 lands had one of the order attached to it. They were supposed to 
 be dispersed over the Highlands, each in his own wild recess, but 
 the solemn stated meetings of the order were regularly held in this
 
 66 Loch Katrine. 
 
 Cave of Benvenue. This current superstition, no doubt, alludes to 
 some circumstance in the ancient history of this country.' Scenery 
 on the Southern Confines of Perthshire, p. 19, 1806. It must be 
 owned that the Coir, or Den, does not, in its present state, meet 
 our ideas of a subterraneous grotto, or cave, being only a small and 
 narrow cavity, among huge fragments of rocks rudely piled 
 together. But such a scene is liable to convulsions of nature, 
 which a Lowlander cannot estimate, and which may have choked 
 up what was originally a cavern. At least the name and tradition 
 warrant the author of a fictitious tale to assert its having been such 
 at the remote period in which this scene is laid." 
 
 This passage is from the Notes to the Lady of the Lake ; but 
 there is in reality no cave on the shore which would afford the 
 slightest shelter, and a poetical licence of the largest kind must be 
 allowed. The boatmen show travellers the only spot which at all 
 approaches the description, but it is rather lower down than the 
 foregoing passage would seem to indicate. Dr. Graham gives a 
 more precise account : 
 
 " After landing on the skirts of Benvenue, we reach the Cave 
 (or more properly the Cove) of the Goblins, by a steep and narrow 
 defile of a few hundred yards in length. It is a deep circular 
 amphitheatre of at least six hundred yards of extent in its upper 
 diameter, gradually narrowing towards the base, hemmed in all 
 round by steep and towering rocks, and rendered impenetrable to 
 the rays of the sun by a close covert of luxuriant trees. On the 
 south and west it is bounded by the precipitous shoulder of Ben- 
 venue, to the height of at least five hundred feet ; towards the 
 east, the rock appears at some former period to have tumbled down,
 
 Loch Katrine. 67 
 
 strewing the whole course of its fall with immense fragments, which 
 now serve only to give shelter to foxes, wild cats, and badgers." 
 
 But the poem itself gives a vivid picture of the surroundings of 
 the spot : 
 
 " In Benvenue's most darksome cleft, 
 A fair, though cruel, pledge was left ; 
 For Douglas, to his promise true, 
 That morning from the isle withdrew 
 And in a deep sequester'd dell 
 Had sought a low and lonely celL 
 By many a bard, in Celtic tongue, 
 Has Coir-nan Uriskin been sung ; 
 A softer name the Saxons gave, 
 And called the grot the Goblin Cave. 
 It was a wild and strange retreat, 
 As e'er was trod by outlaw's feet. 
 The dell, upon the mountain's crest, 
 Yawned like a gash on warrior's breast ; 
 Its trench had staid full many a, rock, 
 Hurled by primeval earthquake shock 
 From Benvenue's grey summit wild, 
 And here, in random ruin piled, 
 They frowned incumbent o'er the spot, 
 And formed the rugged sylvan grot. 
 The oak and birch, with mingled shada 
 At noontide there a twilight made, 
 Unless when short and sudden shone 
 Some straggling beam on cliff or stone. 
 With such a glimpse as prophet's eye 
 Gains on thy depth, Futurity. 
 No murmur waked the solemn still, 
 Save tinkling of a fountain rill ; 
 But when the wind chafed with the lake, 
 A sullen sound would upward break,
 
 68 Loch Katrine. 
 
 With dashing hollow voice, that spoke 
 The incessant war of wave and rock. 
 Suspended cliffs, with hideous sway, 
 Seemed nodding o'er the cavern grey. 
 From such a den the wolf had sprung, 
 In such the wild cat leaves her young ; 
 Yet Douglas and his daughter fair 
 Sought for a space their safety there. 
 Grey Superstition's whisper dread 
 Debarred the spot to vulgar tread ; 
 For there, she said, did fays resort, 
 And satyrs hold their sylvan court, 
 By moonlight tread their mystic maze, 
 And blast the rash beholder's gaze." 
 
 Above the Goblin's Cave, higher up the face of Benvenue, is 
 the pass called in the poem, Beal-nam-bo, or, in full, Bealach-nam- 
 bo, " The Cattle Pass." It is to be feared that in the old cateran 
 days Ellen's Isle was a place for the concealment of cattle stolen 
 from the Lowlands, and perhaps a " cattle-pen, shambles, and 
 larder," all in one. The clan Macgregor drove their booty to this 
 place of refuge from the Lowlands beyond Loch Lomond by the 
 pass of Bealach-nam-bo, the only practicable road between Ben- 
 venue itself and the water's edge. It is now visited by the 
 traveller with a very different purpose, for it affords some of the 
 grandest scenery in the whole district. From a shoulder of the 
 mountain, perhaps a thousand feet above the level of the lake, the 
 view is most charming. Few of us have seen it at sunrise, and it 
 may even be questioned whether Scott himself had ever witnessed 
 what he so vividly paints in these lines from the beginning of the 
 third canto :
 
 Loch Katrine. 69 
 
 " The summer dawn's reflected hue 
 To purple changed Loch Katrine blue ; 
 Mildly and soft the western breeze 
 Just kissed the lake, just stirred the trees, 
 And the pleased lake, like maiden coy, 
 Trembled but dimpled not for joy ; 
 The mountain-shadows on her breast 
 Were neither broken nor at rest ; 
 In bright uncertainty they lie, 
 Like future joys to Fancy's eye. 
 The water-lily to the light 
 Her chalice reared of silver bright ; 
 The doe awoke, and to the lawn, 
 Begemmed with dew-drops, led her fawn ; 
 The grey mist left the mountain side, 
 The torrent showed its glistening pride ; 
 Invisible in necked sky, 
 The lark sent down her revelry ; 
 The blackbird and the speckled thrush . 
 Good-morrow gave from brake and bush ; 
 In answer coo'd the cushat dove 
 Her notes of peace, and rest, and love." 
 
 Such a scene, at such an hour, must often have passed unheeded 
 before the eyes of the wild Macgregors as they drove the herds of 
 their Lowland neighbours through Beal-nam-bo to their fastness on 
 Loch Katrine. Rob Roy himself, who may be called the last of the 
 caterans, had his headquarters not far off. For this was the 
 Macgregor's country, and here they were more than once almost 
 exterminated ; yet somehow the clan, after repeated proscriptions, 
 has managed to survive, and to be pretty numerous still. A ter- 
 rible clan-battle was that between the Macgregors and Colquhouns, 
 which took place in this district, at Grlenfruin, early in the seven-
 
 70 Loch Katrine. 
 
 teenth century, and resulted indirectly in the temporary ruin of 
 the Macgregors, although they were victorious in the fight itself. 
 Some of the authorities attribute to them the murder of the chief 
 of Luss after the battle in cold blood, while others say that it was 
 perpetrated at a later period, and by the Macfarlanes. At Glen- 
 fruin, however, two hundred of the Colquhouns were left dead on 
 the field, while only two of the Macgregors were slain. Scott says 
 (Notes to the Lady of the Lake) : 
 
 "The consequences of the battle of Glenfruin were very 
 calamitous to the family of Macgregor, who had already been con- 
 sidered as an unruly clan. The widows of the slain Colquhouns 
 sixty, it is said, in number appeared in doleful procession before 
 the king at Stirling, each riding upon a white palfrey, and bearing 
 in her hand the bloody shirt of her husband displayed upon a pike. 
 James VI. was so much moved by the complaints of this ' choir of 
 mourning dames/ that he let loose his vengeance against the 
 Macgregors, without either bounds or moderation. The very name 
 of the clan was proscribed, and those by whom it had been borne 
 were given up to sword and fire, and absolutely hunted down by 
 bloodhounds like wild beasts. Argyle and the Campbells on the 
 one hand, Montrose, with the Grahames and Buchanans, on the 
 other, are said to have been the chief instruments in suppressing 
 this devoted clan. The Laird of Macgregor surrendered to the 
 former, on condition that he would take him out of Scottish 
 ground. But, to use Birrel's expression, he kept 'a Highland- 
 man's promise ;' and, although he fulfilled his word to the letter, 
 by carrying him as far as Berwick, he afterwards brought him back 
 to Edinburgh, where he was executed with eighteen of his clan.
 
 Loch Katrine. 71 
 
 (Birrel's Diary, 2nd Oct., 1603.) The clan Gregor being thus 
 driven to utter despair, seem to have renounced the laws from the 
 benefit of which they were excluded, and their depredations pro- 
 duced new Acts of Council, confirming the severity of their pro- 
 scription, which had only the effect of rendering them still more 
 united and desperate. It is a most extraordinary proof of the 
 ardent and invincible spirit of clanship, that, notwithstanding the 
 repeated proscriptions providently ordained by the legislature, 
 ' for the timeous preventing the disorders and oppression that 
 may fall out by the said name and clan of Macgregors, and their 
 followers,' they were in 1715 and 1745 a potent clan, and con- 
 tinue to subsist as a distinct and numerous race." 
 
 The part which they played in these later transactions and 
 others form the subjects of at least two other romances by Scott, 
 who seems to have had a peculiar interest in the history of these 
 " Children of the. Mist," as they were called. After existing for 
 centuries in a chronic state of rebellion, and after repeated Acts of 
 Parliament had been passed forbidding them even to use their 
 ancient surname, the dawn of a more civilised age found them still 
 numerous, though dispersed; and in 1822 the penal enactments 
 were finally removed. On the passing of the relaxation and the 
 reversal of the outlawry, no fewer than eight hundred and twenty- 
 six persons were found anxious to resume their patronymic ; and 
 by a solemn deed, which they all subscribed, to acknowledge Sir 
 John Murray, Bart., as the chief of the clan. He thereupon 
 assumed the name which had belonged to his ancestors, by Royal 
 licence, and was formally admitted to all the barren honours of the 
 chieftainship.
 
 1 N Loch Awe we are in the heart of the Campbell's 
 country. For a hundred miles the lands of Breadalbane 
 stretch, from Rannoch to the sea ; then Argyll takes up 
 the tale, and continues it away into the Islands. Before the 
 Campbells came, these were the fastnesses of many wild, but 
 scarcely wilder tribes. The Macgregors and the Macdougals made 
 the saying, " It's a far cry to Loch Awe," something more than a 
 mere geographical expression. When the Lowlander's herd was 
 once safe over the mountains, he might never hope to see it again. 
 The robbers went unpunished, and remained hidden till another 
 opportunity occurred for a raid on their richer neighbours. All 
 this is now changed. There are still Macdougals and Macgregors 
 as well as Campbells by the banks of Loch Awe. They may say, 
 in the words of Scott, 
 
 " Glen Orchy's proud mountains, Caolchuirn and her towers, 
 Glen Strae and Glen Lyon no longer are ours." 
 
 But they are not wholly landless, and the representative in the 
 male line of the ancient Lords of Lorn is still in the neighbour- 
 hood. As to the robbery of Southerns, it is carried on under 
 legalised forms. The Highlander now puts his demands upon 
 paper ; but, instead of fleeing to Loch Awe, he is able to attract
 
 Kilchurn Castle. 75 
 
 the Lowlander to visit him among his mountains, and to prove 
 how far a cry it is by personal experience. 
 
 Loch Awe and Ben Cruachan figured in history before Kilchurn 
 was built. Sir Walter Scott alludes to the story of Bruce's ex- 
 pedition to Argyleshire in his Highland Widow; but the following 
 account occurs in the Notes to the Lord of the Isles : 
 
 " The Lord of Lorn, who flourished during the wars of Bruce, 
 was All aster (or Alexander) Macdougal, called Allaster of Argyle. 
 He had married the third daughter of John, called the Ked 
 Comyn, who was slain by Bruce in the Dominican Church at 
 Dumfries ; and hence he was a mortal enemy of that prince, and 
 more than once reduced him to great straits during the early and 
 distressed period of his reign, as we shall have repeated occasion to 
 notice. Bruce, when he began to obtain an ascendancy in Scot- 
 land, took the first opportunity in his power to requite these 
 injuries. He marched into Argyleshire to lay waste the country. 
 John of Lorn, son of the chieftain, was posted with his followers 
 in the formidable pass between Dalmally and Bunawe. It is a 
 narrow path along the verge of the huge and precipitous mountain 
 called Cruachan-Ben, and guarded on the other side by a precipice 
 overhanging Loch Awe. The pass seems to the eye of a soldier as 
 strong, as it is wild and romantic to that of an ordinary traveller. 
 But the skill of Bruce had anticipated this difficulty. While his 
 main body, engaged in a skirmish with the men of Lorn, detained 
 their attention to the front of their position, James of Douglas, with 
 Sir Alexander Fraser, Sir William Wiseman, and Sir Andrew Grey, 
 ascended the mountain with a select body of archery, a'nd obtained 
 possession of the heights which commanded the pass. A volley of
 
 76 Kilchurn Castle. 
 
 arrows descending upon them directly warned the Argyleshire men 
 of their perilous situation ; and their resistance, which had hitherto 
 been bold and manly, was changed into a precipitate flight. The 
 deep and rapid river of Awe was then (we learn the fact from 
 Barbour with some surprise) crossed by a bridge. This bridge the 
 mountaineers attempted to demolish, but Bruce's followers were too 
 close upon their rear ; they were therefore without refuge and 
 defence, and were dispersed with great slaughter. John of Lorn, 
 suspicious of the event, had early betaken himself to the galleys 
 which he had upon the lake ; but the feelings which Barbour 
 assigns to him, while witnessing the rout and slaughter of his fol- 
 lowers, exculpate him from the charge of cowardice. 
 
 ' To Jhone off Lome it suld displese 
 I trow, quhen he his men mycht se, 
 Owte off his schippis fra the se, 
 Be slayne and chassyt in the hill, 
 That he mycht set na help thar till. 
 Bot it angrys als gretumly, 
 To gud hartis that are worthi, 
 To se thar fayis fulfill thair will 
 As to thaim selff to thole the ill.' 
 
 B. VIL, v. 394. 
 
 After this decisive engagement, Bruce laid waste Argyleshire, and 
 besieged Dunstaffnage Castle, on the western shore of Lorn, com- 
 pelled it to surrender, and placed in the principal stronghold of 
 the Macdougals a garrison and governor of his own. The elder 
 Macdougal, now wearied with the contest, submitted to the 
 victor; but his son, 'rebellious,' says Barbour, 'as he wont to 
 be,' fled to England by sea. When the wars between the Bruce 
 and Baliol factions again broke out in the reign of David II., the
 
 Kilchurn Castle. 77 
 
 Lords of Lorn were again found upon the losing side, owing to 
 their hereditary enmity to the house of Bruce. Accordingly, upon 
 the issue of that contest, they were deprived by David II. and his 
 successor of by far the greater part of their extensive territories, 
 which were conferred upon Stewart, called the Knight of Lorn." 
 In another passage of the same book, Scott further writes : 
 " Kobert Bruce, after his defeat at Methven, being hard pressed 
 by the English, endeavoured, with the dispirited remnant of his 
 followers, to escape from Breadalbane and the mountains of Perth- 
 shire into the Argyleshire Highlands. But he was encountered 
 and repulsed, after a very severe engagement, by the Lord of Lorn. 
 Bruce's personal strength and courage were never displayed to 
 greater advantage than in this conflict. There is a tradition in the 
 family of the Macdougals of Lorn, that their chieftain engaged in 
 personal battle with Bruce himself, while the latter was employed 
 in protecting the retreat of his men ; that Macdougal was struck 
 down by the king, whose strength of body was equal to his vigour 
 of mind, and would have been slain on the spot, had not two of 
 Lorn's vassals, a father and son, whom , tradition terms Mackeoch, 
 rescued him, by seizing the mantle of the monarch, and dragging 
 him from above his adversary. Bruce rid himself of these foes by 
 two blows of his redoubted battle-axe, but was so closely pressed 
 by the other followers of Lorn, that he was forced to abandon the 
 mantle, and brooch which fastened it, clasped in the dying grasp 
 t>f the Mackeochs. A studded brooch, said to have been that 
 which King Robert lost upon this occasion, was long preserved in 
 the family of Macdougal, and was lost in a fire which consumed 
 their temporary residence."
 
 78 
 
 Kilchnrn Castle. 
 
 Bruce died in 1329, and in 1440, during the reign of his 
 descendant, James II., the earliest portion of the existing remains 
 of Kilchurn Castle was built by Sir Duncan Campbell. 
 
 It stands on a space of level land close to the lake, and consists, 
 besides the main building, of northern and southern wings, added 
 as late as 1615. It is well described in a charming volume the 
 Painter's Camp by the accomplished Philip Gilbert Hamerton, 
 from which we borrow the accompanying illustration. 
 
 He says (p. 171) : "One bright evening, late in September, I 
 set out, after dinner, for Kilchurn, to get a series of observations on 
 moonlight colour ; for I had studied Kilchurn closely enough to re-
 
 Kile hum Castle. 79 
 
 member the ordinary daylight colour of every part of it. . . When 
 we got to Kilchurn, and had safely passed the bar at the entrance 
 to the bay, we floated quietly out into the midst, and Kilchurn 
 stood before us in the full mellow light of the moon. . . The 
 old castle, like most old buildings, has been ruined by man, not by 
 time. Henry the Eighth, Oliver Cromwell, blundering stewards, 
 and apathetic proprietors, are the real authors of most of the ruins 
 in Britain. "With a little friendly care and attention a strong 
 building will last a thousand years, but a fool will demolish it in a 
 day. Kilchurn is a ruin, merely because an economical steward 
 thought the roof timber would come in very well for the new 
 castle at Taymouth, and so carried it thither. But he had 
 omitted to measure the beams, which turned out to be too 
 short, and therefore, of course, useless. Then when the roof was 
 off, the old castle became a general stone quarry, and furnished 
 stones ready cut to all the farmers who chose to steal them. And 
 the new inn at Dalmally, and the queer little sham Gothic church 
 over the bridge, being erected some time afterwards, the now 
 ruined castle furnished hewn stones to both those edifices. There 
 is not a fragment of wood in all Kilchurn ; there is not one step 
 left there of all its winding stairs. Yet in the '45, the building 
 was garrisoned against the Prince ; and in the latter end of the 
 last century there were tapestry on the walls and wine in the 
 cellar, and a casque and shirt of mail still hung on the walls of the 
 armoury. Alone with these relics lingered one old servant as 
 housekeeper. She was the last inhabitant. Some domestics might 
 have objected to the situation. Fancy a London housekeeper shut 
 up alone in a great ghostly feudal castle on a narrow island rock,
 
 80 Kilchurn Castle. 
 
 with waves roaring round it in the long northern winter nights, and 
 the sobbing wind flapping the figured tapestry, and rattling the 
 armour in the armoury." 
 
 Mr. Hamerton has spent much time at Loch Awe, and is, as a 
 descriptive writer of the first class, the best guide to its beauties. 
 He has not been content to celebrate its charms in prose alone. 
 The Isles of Loch Awe is a volume full of poetical beauty and 
 power, and a charming pocket companion in this part of the High- 
 lands. We must return to it presently for a legend of the place, 
 but pause meanwhile at the name of one whom Mr. Hamerton will 
 allow us to call a greater poet. Wordsworth visited Scotland in 
 1803 and 1814, and a third time in 1833. The record of his 
 journeys has lately been published, and we venture to quote the 
 following passage, adding in full the poem of which the first three 
 lines only are given in Miss Wordsworth's Journal (p. 139): 
 
 " When we had ascended half-way up the hill, directed by the 
 man, I took a nearer footpath, and at the top came in view of a 
 most impressive scene a ruined castle on an island almost in the 
 middle of the last compartment of the lake, backed by a mountain 
 cove, down which came a roaring stream. The castle occupied 
 every foot of the island that was visible to us, appearing to rise out 
 of the water ; mists rested upon the mountain side, with spots of 
 sunshine between ; there was a mild desolation in the low grounds, 
 a solemn grandeur in the mountains, and the castle was wild, yet 
 stately not dismantled of its turrets, nor the walls broken down, 
 though completely in ruin. After having stood some minutes, I 
 joined William on the high road ; and both wishing to stay longer 
 near this place, we requested the man to drive his little boy on to
 
 Kilchurn Castle. 81 
 
 Dalmally, about two miles further, and leave the car at the inn. 
 He told us that the ruin was called Kilchurn Castle ; that it 
 belonged to Lord Breadalbane, and had been built by one of the 
 ladies of that family for her defence during her lord's absence at 
 the Crusades, for which purpose she levied a tax of seven years' 
 rent upon her tenants : * he said that from that side of the lake it 
 did not appear, in very dry weather, to stand upon an island ; but 
 that it was possible to go over to it without being wet-shod. 
 We were very lucky in seeing it after a great flood ; for its enchant- 
 ing effect was chiefly owing to its situation in the lake a decayed 
 palace rising out of the plain of waters I I have called it a palace, 
 for such feeling it gave to me, though having been built as a place 
 of defence a castle, or fortress. We turned again and re-ascended 
 the hill, and sate a long time in the middle of it, looking on the 
 castle and the huge mountain cove opposite ; and William, address- 
 ing himself to the ruin, poured out these verses : 
 
 " Child of loud-throated War ! the mountain Stream 
 Roars in thy hearing ; but thy hour of rest 
 Is come, and thou art silent in thy age ; 
 Save when the wind sweeps by and sounds are caught 
 Ambiguous, neither wholly thine nor theirs. 
 Oh ! there is life that breathes not ; Powers there are 
 That touch each other to the quick in modes 
 Which the gross world no sense hath to perceive, 
 No soul to dream of. What art thou, from care 
 Cast off abandoned by thy rugged Sire, 
 Nor by soft Peace adopted ; though, in place 
 And in dimension, such that thou might'st seem 
 But a mere footstool to yon sovereign Lord, 
 
 * Not very probable.
 
 r 
 
 82 -Kilc/mnt Castle. 
 
 Huge Cruachan (a thing that meaner hills 
 Might crush, nor know that it had suffered harm) ; 
 Yet he, not loth, in favour of thy claims 
 To reverence, suspends his own ; submitting 
 All that the God of Nature hath conferred, 
 All that he holds in common with the stars, 
 To the memorial majesty of Time 
 Impersonated in thy calm decay ! 
 
 Take, then, thy seat, Vicegerent unreproved ! 
 
 Now, while a farewell gleam of evening light 
 
 Is fondly lingering on thy shattered front, 
 
 Do thou, in turn, be paramount ; and rule 
 
 Over the pomp and beauty of a scene 
 
 Whose mountains, torrents, lake, and woods unite 
 
 To pay thee homage ; and with these are joined, 
 
 In willing admiration and respect, 
 
 Two Hearts, which in thy presence might be called 
 
 Youthful as Spring. Shade of departed Power, 
 
 Skeleton of unfleshed humanity, 
 
 The chronicle were welcome that should call 
 
 Into the compass of distinct regard 
 
 The toils and struggles of thy infant years ! 
 
 Yon foaming flood seems motionless as ice ; 
 
 Its dizzy turbulence eludes the eye, 
 
 Frozen by distance ; so, majestic Pile, 
 
 To the perception of this Age, appear 
 
 Thy fierce beginnings, softened and subdued 
 
 And quieted in character the strife, 
 
 The pride, the fury uncontrollable, 
 
 Lost on the aerial heights of the Crusades !" 
 
 This last line refers to a legend which Mr. Hamerton has made 
 the subject of a poem on Kilchurn. We venture to quote a few 
 lines, but our readers must look for the complete story, of which
 
 Kilchurn Castle. 83 
 
 this is the commencement, in the book itself (p. 39). Mr. 
 Hamerton says : 
 
 " Sir Colin Campbell was a knight of Khodes. 
 For seven years lie risked continually 
 His life in foreign warfare. Seven years 
 Waited the Lady Margaret, his wife, 
 Like a poor widow, living sparingly, 
 And saving all the produce of his lands 
 To build an island fortress on Loch Awe, 
 There to receive Sir Colin, and so prove 
 Her thrift and duty. Little more we know 
 Of what she did to occupy her time : 
 Perhaps a narrow but perpetual round 
 Of mean and servile duties, too obscure 
 To be recorded, kept her nerves in health. 
 And truly it is well to handle life 
 Not daintily. The best resource in grief 
 Is downright labour. This at least we know, 
 That the good spouse of that brave Highland chief 
 Looked to her husband's interest and hers, 
 When from her quarries silently before 
 Loud blasting tore the layers of the rock 
 The clansmen ferried loads of idle stones 
 Across the water ; and on what was then 
 An island, and is yet in winter floods, 
 Made them most useful servants trusty guards 
 Of all the treasure of a Highland chief 
 His wife, his tail, his cattle, and his goods." 
 
 Scott has not unfrequently made passing allusions to Loch 
 Awe ; but Kilchurn figures under another name in his Legend of 
 Montrose. As Mr. Hamerton says :- 
 
 " This is Sir Walter's pile of Ardenvohr, 
 Changed since Dalgetty criticised its strength."
 
 84 Kile hum Castle. 
 
 The whole scene is too amusing, and has become too famous now 
 to be omitted here ; but the judicious reader may perceive that it 
 will not exactly fit in all particulars what even in its ruins Kilchurn 
 professed to be. Sir Walter rather magnifies it : 
 
 " ' This house of yours, now, Sir Duncan, is a very pretty defen- 
 sible sort of a tenement, and yet it is hardly such as a cavaliero of 
 honour would expect to maintain his credit by holding out for 
 many days. For, Sir Duncan, if it pleases you to notice, your 
 house is overcrowed, and slighted, or commanded, as we military 
 men say, by yonder round hillock to the landward, whereon an 
 enemy might stell such a battery of cannon as would make ye glad 
 to beat a chamade within forty- eight hours, unless it pleased the 
 Lord extraordinarily to shew mercy.' 
 
 " ' There is no road,' replied Sir Duncan, somewhat shortly, 
 'by which cannon can be brought against Ardenvohr. The 
 swamps and morasses around my house would scarce carry your 
 horse and yourself, excepting by such paths as could be rendered 
 impassable within a few hours/ 
 
 " ' Sir Duncan/ said the Captain, ' it is your pleasure to 
 suppose so ; and yet we martial men say, that where there is a 
 sea-coast there is always a naked side, seeing that cannon and 
 munition, where they cannot be transported by land, may be right 
 easily brought by sea near to the place where they are to be put in 
 action. Neither is a castle, however secure in its situation, to be 
 accounted altogether invincible, or, as they say, impregnable ; for 
 I protest t'ye, Sir Duncan, that I have known twenty-five men, by 
 the mere surprise and audacity of the attack, win, at point of 
 pike, as strong a hold as this of Ardenvohr, and put to the sword,
 
 Kilchurn Castle. 85 
 
 captivate, or hold to the ransom, the defenders, being ten times 
 their own number.' 
 
 " Notwithstanding Sir Duncan Campbell's knowledge of the 
 world, and his power of concealing his internal emotion, he 
 appeared piqued and hurt at these reflections, which the Captain 
 made with the most unconscious gravity, having merely selected 
 the subject of conversation as one upon which he thought himself 
 capable of shining, and, as they say, of laying down the law, 
 without exactly recollecting that the topic might not be equally 
 agreeable to his landlord. 
 
 " ' To cut this matter short,' said Sir Duncan, with an expression 
 of voice and countenance somewhat agitated, * it is unnecessary for 
 you to tell me, Captain Dalgetty, that a castle may be stormed if 
 it is not valorously defended, or surprised if it is not needfully 
 watched. I trust this poor house of mine will not be found in any 
 of these predicaments, should even Captain Dalgetty himself choose 
 to beleaguer it.' 
 
 " ' For all that, Sir Duncan,' answered the persevering com- 
 mander, ' I would premonish you, as a friend, to trace out a sconce 
 upon that round hill, with a good graffe, or ditch, whilk may be 
 easily accomplished by compelling the labour of the boors in the 
 vicinity ; it being the custom of the valorous Gustavus Adolphus 
 to fight as much by the spade and shovel, as by sword, pike, and 
 musket. Also, I would advise you to fortify the said sconce, not 
 only by a foussie, or graffe, but also by certain stackets, or 
 palisades.' (Here Sir Duncan, becoming impatient, left the apart- 
 ment, the Captain following him to the door, and raising his voice 
 as he retreated, until he was fairly out of hearing.) ' The whilk
 
 86 Kile hum Castle. 
 
 stackets, or palisades, should be artificially framed with re-entering 
 angles and loopholes, or crenelles, for musketry, whereof it shall 
 arise that the foemen The Highland brute I the old High- 
 land brute ! They are as proud as peacocks, and as obstinate as 
 tups, and here he has missed an opportunity of making his house 
 as pretty an irregular fortification as an invading army ever broke 
 their teeth upon. But I see,' he continued, looking down from the 
 window upon the bottom of the precipice, c they have got Gustavus 
 safe ashore. Proper fellow 1 I would know that toss of his head 
 among a whole squadron. I must go to see what they are to 
 make of him.' 
 
 . . . . 
 
 " He had no sooner reached, however, the court to the seaward, 
 and put himself in the act of descending the staircase, than two 
 Highland sentinels, advancing their Lochaber axes, gave him to 
 understand that this was a service of danger. 
 
 " ' Diavolo,' said the soldier, ' and I have got no pass-word. I 
 could not speak a syllable of their salvage gibberish, an' it were to 
 save me from the provost-marshal.' 
 
 " * I will be your surety, Captain Dalgetty,' said Sir Duncan, 
 who had again approached him without his observing from 
 whence ; ' and we will go together, and see how your favourite 
 charger is accommodated.' 
 
 "He conducted him accordingly down the staircase to the 
 beach, and from thence by a short turn behind a large rock, which 
 concealed the stables and other offices belonging to the castle. 
 Captain Dalgetty became sensible, at the same time, that the side 
 of the castle to the land was rendered totally inaccessible by a
 
 Kilchurn Castle. 87 
 
 ravine, partly natural and partly scarped with great care and 
 labour, so as to be only passed by a drawbridge. Still, however, 
 the Captain insisted, notwithstanding the triumphant air with 
 which Sir Duncan pointed out his defences, that a sconce should 
 be erected on Drumsnab, the round eminence to the east of the 
 castle, in respect the house might be annoyed from thence by burn- 
 ing bullets full of fire, shot out of cannon, according to the curious 
 invention of Stephen Bathian, King of Poland, whereby that Prince 
 utterly ruined the great Muscovite city of Moscow. This inven- 
 tion, Captain Dalgetty owned, he had not yet witnessed ; but 
 observed ' that it would give him particular delectation to witness 
 the same put to the proof against Ardenvohr, or any other castle 
 of similar strength;' observing, 'that so curious an experiment 
 could not but afford the greatest delight to all admirers of the 
 military art.' " 
 
 The point of view chosen by our artist is on the eastern shore 
 of the loch, looking towards Ben Loy, which raises its tall head 
 beyond and above the castle. Dalmally, the usual resting-place of 
 tourists, is about half-way between the castle and the mountain, 
 and from it, as a base of operations, the ascent of Ben Cruachan is 
 most easily made. There are few such views in Scotland as that 
 to be had on a clear day from the summit. Although some six or 
 seven hundred feet lower than Ben Nevis, the situation of Ben 
 Cruachan affords a nearer sight of the beautiful islands of the 
 west, the bay of Oban, and even beyond " the sandy Coll " and 
 the "wild Tiree" the distant hills of Rum and Skye. To the 
 north and east, Loch Etive and Glencoe, Glen Strae and Glen 
 Orchy, seem just beneath our feet ; while farther into the blue
 
 88 Kile hum Castle. 
 
 distance all the mountains of the Scottish Highlands roll wave 
 after wave of solid rock towards the German Ocean. Again we 
 have recourse to Scott for the expression of feelings almost unutter- 
 able in the presence of such scenes : 
 
 " Stranger ! if e'er thine ardent step hath traced 
 The northern realms of ancient Caledon, 
 Where the proud Queen of Wilderness hath placed, 
 By lake and cataract, her lonely throne ; 
 Sublime but sad delight thy soul hath known, 
 Gazing on pathless glen and mountain high, 
 lasting where from the cliffs the torrents thrown 
 Mingle their echoes with the eagle's cry, 
 And with the sounding lake, and with the moaning sky. 
 
 " Yes ! 'twas sublime, but sad. The loneliness 
 
 Loaded thy heart, the desert tired thine eye j 
 
 And strange and awful fears began to press 
 
 Thy bosom with a stern solemnity. 
 
 Then hast thou wished some woodman's cottage nigh, 
 
 Something that showed of life, though low and mean ; 
 
 Glad sight, its curling wreath of smoke to spy, 
 
 Glad sound, its cock's blithe carol would have been, 
 Or children whooping wild beneath the willows green. 
 
 " Such are the scenes, where savage grandeur wakes 
 An awful thrill that softens into sighs ; 
 Such feelings rouse them by dim Rannoch's lakes, 
 In dark Glencoe such gloomy raptures rise : 
 Or farther, where, beneath the northern skies, 
 Chides wild Loch-Eribol his caverns hoar 
 But, be the minstrel judge, they yield the prize 
 Of desert dignity to that dread shore, 
 That sees grim Coolin rise, and hears Coriskin roar."
 
 HERE is always a feeling of disappointment excited by 
 the first sight of a place of which we have heard much. 
 The traveller who sets out from Salisbury for Stone- 
 henge, and ascends the long succession of dusty chalk hills 
 in the blinding glare of the summer sun, can hardly believe his 
 eyes when, slowly toiling up one more "down," he suddenly 
 sees the object of all his trouble on the grassy slope before him. 
 It is just far enough from the road not to look great, and just near 
 enough to be recognised with a certainty which would willingly 
 think itself deceived. The case is the same with remarkable objects 
 of natural scenery. The Giants' Causeway, for example, and even 
 Niagara, do not strike the beholder at first sight. They need to 
 be examined, to be measured, to be compared, mentally, with other 
 objects, before their vastness, their strangeness, their real pre- 
 eminence is discerned. 
 
 Of no place in the whole of the three kingdoms is this more 
 true than of Ben Nevis. The tallest mountain in England is 
 Scawfell, with its three thousand one hundred and sixty feet, but 
 Ben Nevis is more than a thousand feet higher. Snowdon is the
 
 92 Ben Nevis. 
 
 highest peak of Wales, but Ben Nevis is eight hundred feet 
 higher. Carrantuohill, in Kerry, exceeds all other Irish hills, 
 but Ben Nevis is nine hundred feet higher. Yet it may safely be 
 asserted, that any one who has seen them all would have thought, 
 apart from ascertained measurements, that Ben Nevis was less than 
 the least. 
 
 Much of this feeling is caused by the absence of anything like a 
 peak or point to mark the summit Ben Nevis has no single point, 
 but three ridges at the top are of nearly equal height, and it thus 
 presents a rounded aspect to the spectator below. The great mass, 
 and, so to speak, the weight of the whole mountain is sufficiently 
 grand and striking ; but this is a thing of which the eye alone can 
 hardly judge. When the traveller wakens up the morning after his 
 arrival at Fort- William, he hastens to take a look at the highest 
 mountain in Great Britain ; but it is not by its height that he is 
 first impressed. It is massive, great, even magnificent ; but com- 
 pared with Ben Lomond, or Moel Siabad, far from beautiful. 
 After a little this feeling of disappointment subsides, and a climb 
 to the top is amply rewarded by a most extensive view over some 
 of the loveliest scenery in Scotland. 
 
 Perhaps the best account of Ben Nevis will be found in the 
 Scenery and Geology of Scotland, by Mr. Geikie, of Edinburgh. 
 He says (p. 99) : 
 
 " If one would grasp at once the leading features of Highland 
 scenery, let him betake himself to some mountain-top that 
 stands a little apart from its neighbours, and looks over them 
 into the wilds beyond. A better height could not be chosen than 
 the summit of Ben Nevis. None other rises more majestically
 
 Ben Nevis. 93 
 
 above the surrounding hills, or looks over a wider sweep of moun- 
 tain and moor, glen and corry, lake and firth, far away to the 
 islands that lie amid the western sea. In no other place is the 
 general and varied character of the Highlands better illustrated ; 
 and from none can the geologist, whose eye is open to the changes 
 wrought by sub-aerial waste on the surface of the country, gain a 
 more vivid insight into their reality and magnitude. To this, as a 
 typical and easily accessible locality, I shall have occasion to refer 
 more than once. Let the reader, in the meantime, imagine himself 
 sitting by the side of the grey cairn on the highest peak of the 
 British Isles, watching the shadows of an autumnal sky stealing 
 over the vast sea of mountains that lies spread out as in a map 
 around him. And while no sound falls upon his ear, save now 
 and then a fitful moaning of the wind among the snow-drifts of 
 the dark precipice below, let him try to analyse some of the chief 
 elements of the landscape. It is easy to recognise the more marked 
 heights and hollows. To the south, away down Loch Linnhe, he 
 can see the hills of Mull and the Paps of Jura closing in the 
 horizon. Westwards, Loch Eil seems to lie at his feet, winding up 
 into the lonely mountains, yet filled twice a-day with the tides of 
 the salt sea. Far over the hills, beyond the head of the loch, he 
 looks across Arisaig, and can see the cliffs of the Isle of Eigg, and 
 the dark peaks of Rum, with the Atlantic gleaming below them. 
 Further to the north-west the blue line of the Cuchullins rises 
 along the sky-line, and then, sweeping over all the intermediate 
 ground, through Arisaig and Knoydart and Clanranald's country, 
 mountain rises beyond mountain, ridge beyond ridge, cut through 
 by dark glens, and varied here and there with the sheen of lake
 
 94 Ben Nevis. 
 
 and tarn. Northward runs the mysterious line of the Great Glen, 
 with its chain of lochs. Thence to east and south the same billowy 
 sea of mountain-tops stretches out as far as eye can follow it the 
 hills and glens of Lochaber, the wide green strath of Spean, the 
 grey corries of Glen Trieg and Glen Nevis, the distant sweep of 
 the moors and mountains of Brae Lyon and the Perthshire High- 
 lands, the spires of Glen Coe, and thence round again to the blue 
 waters of Loch Linnhe. 
 
 "In musing over this wide panorama, the observer cannot 
 fail to note that while there are everywhere local peculiarities 
 in the outline of the hills, and the shapes of the sides of the 
 valleys, there is yet a general uniformity of contour over the 
 whole. What seem at a nearer view rough craggy peaks and 
 pinnacles, seen from this height are dwarfed into mere minor 
 irregularities of surface. And thus over the whole of the wide 
 landscape one mountain-ridge appears after another, with the 
 same large features, rising and sinking from glen to glen with 
 the same smoothed summits, broken now and again where from 
 some hidden valley a circular corry or craggy cliff lifts itself bare 
 to the sun." 
 
 The impossibility of mere words to paint a landscape has 
 often been insisted upon, but if it be within a writer's power 
 to make a view visible without the artist's aid, Mr. Geikie 
 has contrived to accomplish the task. The same descriptive 
 pen has exercised itself in an account of the ascent of Ben Nevis 
 (p. 116):- 
 
 " If the observer be sure of foot and steady of eye, let him 
 ascend that mountain, not by the regular track, but up the long
 
 Ben Nevis. 95 
 
 and almost equally lofty ridge which lies to the east, and thence 
 along the narrow and somewhat perilous ' col' which circles round 
 to the southern front of the great Ben. The ascent lies first among 
 heathery slopes, channelled with brooks of clear cold water, and 
 roughened with grey, worn, and weathered hummocks of schist and 
 granite. Blocks of granite of every size cumber the ground, 
 standing sometimes on rocky knolls, and sometimes half buried in 
 morass. That the frosts of many a century have been busy here, 
 is shown by the countless boulders and protruding knobs of rock 
 which have been split open along their joints. Slanting up the 
 mountain, the observer has leisure to remark, as he crosses 
 streamlet after streamlet, that their channels, sometimes cut 
 deeply into the solid rock, are evidently the work of the running 
 water. He finds them grow fewer as he rises. On the slopes, too, 
 the boggy peat and shaggy heather begin to give way to long 
 streams of angular granite blocks, among which the scanty vegeta- 
 tion is at last reduced to mere scattered patches of short grass and 
 moss, with here and there a little Alpine plant. A wilderness of 
 debris now covers the bald scalp of the mountain. The solid 
 granite itself cannot be seen through the depths of its own 
 accumulated fragments ; but when the crest of the height is gained, 
 the rock is found peering in shattered fragments from amidst the 
 ruin. This narrow mountain-ridge is then seen to rise between 
 two profound glens. That to the north-east is crowned by a 
 rampart-like range of pink-hued granite cliffs, from which long 
 courses of debris descend to the bottom. The glen that lies far 
 below on the south-west is overhung on its further side by the vast 
 rugged precipice of Ben Nevis, rising some fifteen hundred or two
 
 96 Ben Nevis. 
 
 thousand feet above the stream that wanders through the gloom at 
 its base. That dark wall of porphyry can now be seen from bottom 
 to top, with its huge masses of rifted rock standing up like ample 
 buttresses into the light, and its deep recesses and clefts, into 
 which the summer sun never reaches, and where the winter snow 
 never melts. ... So narrow is the edge of the ridge in 
 some places, that a single block of granite may split into two 
 parts, of which one would roll crashing down the steep slope 
 into the valley on the left hand, while the other would leap to 
 the bottom of the glen on the right. In this sharp form the 
 ridge divides, one arm sweeping round the head of the glen on the 
 north-east side, while the other circles westwards to the shoulders 
 of Ben Nevis." 
 
 These glens, of which Mr. Geikie has much more to say, afford 
 another point of interest beyond those on which he speaks so 
 eloquently. The snow which never melts, as he says in the above 
 passage, is the subject of a curious local usage. Cameron of Glen 
 Nevis holds his lands from the Crown by the tenure of presenting, 
 when required, a snowball to the Queen at midsummer, or at any 
 other time it is asked for. The Camerons muster strongly in the 
 neighbourhood of Ben Nevis. Fassifern and Lochiel are both close 
 by to the west, and near them is the monument of Prince Charles, 
 erected to commemorate his landing in 1745, when, on the 19th 
 August, his standard was here first displayed by Tullibardine, in 
 the presence of a thousand Highlanders, chiefly of the Cameron 
 clan. At Kilmallie, which lies close to Ben Nevis, but across the 
 lake, and facing Fort-William, is the monument of Colonel Cameron 
 of the 92nd Highlanders, who was killed at Quatre Bras. Though
 
 Ben Nevis. 97 
 
 the epitaph on the monument was written by Sir Walter Scott, and 
 though the hero's father was made a baronet in consideration of his 
 son's great services and death, the lines of Byron will form a more 
 lasting memorial of him, and one better known to English readers. 
 They occur in Childe Harold, Canto III., when, having alluded 
 to the famous ball at Brussels, and to the fall of " Brunswick's fated 
 chieftain," he goes on : 
 
 " And wild and high, the ' Cameron's gathering ' rose ! 
 The war-note of Lochiel, which Alhyn's hills 
 Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes : 
 How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills, 
 Savage and shrill ! But with the breath that fills 
 Their mountain pipe, so fill the mountaineers 
 With the fierce native daring which instils 
 The stirring memory of a thousand years 
 And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears. 
 
 " And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, 
 Dewy with Nature's tear-drops as they pass 
 Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, 
 Over the unreturning brave alas ! 
 Ere evening to be trodden like the grass 
 Which now beneath them, but above shall grow 
 In its next verdure, when this fiery mass 
 Of living valour, rolling on the foe, 
 And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low." 
 
 The Camerons of Fassifern were descended from John Cameron, 
 the second son of John Cameron of Lochiel, who, having been out 
 in 1715, was attainted, and forfeited his lands. Lochiel had two 
 other sons ; the elder, Donald, was the Lochiel who figured in the
 
 98 Ben Nevis. 
 
 '45 ; and the younger, Alexander, a medical man, was himself the 
 hero of as sad a tragedy as any with which the family name is 
 connected. He was at Culloden, where he succoured indifferently 
 both friends and foes, and ministered as a surgeon to the wounds 
 of the soldiers of both parties. Finding himself still deeply 
 implicated, like his brother, in the rebellion, he fled to Flanders, 
 where his father lived; but returning to Scotland in 1753, more 
 than eight years after the rising, he was arrested, and sent to 
 London, where he was imprisoned in the Savoy, brought to trial, 
 and put to death. His body was buried in the ancient chapel of 
 St. John, in the Savoy ; and a stained-glass window, erected with 
 the special leave of the Queen by his present representatives, marks 
 at once the sadness of his fate and the improvement in manners, 
 which would render such an act of barbarous justice impossible at 
 the present day. 
 
 John Cameron of Fassifern, the brother of this ill-fated individual, 
 was the father of Ewen Campbell, created a baronet, as we have said,, 
 in recognition of the services of his eldest son, who perished at 
 Quatre Bras. Lochiel was also represented in this glorious 
 campaign. His eldest son, the late chie was in the Grenadier 
 Guards at Waterloo. These modern Camerons were, however, only 
 worthy sons of their great ancestor, " Evan Dhu," whose history 
 forms so strange, yet so characteristic, an episode in the history of 
 Scotland. To give an accurate idea of the state of society there in 
 the time of Cromwell and the Civil Wars, a notice of him would be 
 most useful ; and, as his life was passed under the shadow of Ben 
 Nevis, a short account of it will not be out of place here. Ewen 
 Cameron of Lochiel was born in 1629 that is, in the fourth year of
 
 Ben Nevis. 99 
 
 the reign of Charles the First and died in 1719, more than five years 
 after the accession of the House of Hanover. He thus lived through 
 some of the most stirring scenes, and took part in many of the 
 events, of that disturbed era. The clan had originally been seated 
 on the eastern side of the loch, where they held their lands under 
 the Lord of the Isles. They were divided into three families or 
 septs, and in 1431, when Donald Dhu invaded Scotland, they were 
 attacked and dispersed by him, and their chief driven away into 
 Ireland. In 1564, Queen Mary granted a charter confirming 
 Donald Cameron of " Lochyell " in his estates on the western side 
 of the lakes, and these lands descended duly to his grandson 
 "Evan Dhu." This chieftain was a staunch Eoyalist, and in 1652 
 he joined the Scottish rising against Cromwell, which General 
 Monk endeavoured fruitlessly to suppress. At last a kind of truce 
 was concluded, in which Lochiel received very honourable terms. 
 But Sir Walter Scott's account of the matter is the best : we read in 
 the Tales of a Grandfather (chap, xlvi.) : 
 
 " It was the constant policy of Cromwell and his officers, both 
 in Ireland and Scotland, to cut down and destroy the forests in 
 which the insurgent natives found places of defence and conceal- 
 ment. In conformity with this general rule, the commandant of 
 Inverlochy embarked three hundred men in two light-armed vessels, 
 with directions to disembark at a place called Achdalew, for the 
 purpose of destroying Lochiel's cattle and felling his woods. Lochiel, 
 who watched their motions closely, saw the English soldiers come 
 ashore, one-half having hatchets and other tools as a working 
 party, the other half under arms, to protect their operations. 
 Though the difference of numbers was so great, the chieftain vowed
 
 100 Ben Nevis. 
 
 that he would make the red soldier (so the English were called from 
 their uniform) pay dear for every bullock or tree which he should 
 destroy on the black soldier's property (alluding to the dark colour 
 of the tartan, and perhaps to his own complexion). He then 
 demanded of some of his followers who had served under Montrose, 
 whether they had ever seen the Great Marquis encounter with such 
 unequal numbers. They answered, they could recollect no instance 
 of such temerity. ' We will fight, nevertheless,' said Evan Dhu ; 
 ' and if each of us kill a man, which is no mighty matter, I will 
 answer for the event.' That his family might not be destroyed in 
 so doubtful an enterprise, he ordered his brother Allan to be bound 
 to a tree, meaning to prevent his interference in the conflict. But 
 Allan prevailed on a little boy, who was left to attend him, to 
 unloose the cords, and was soon as deep in the fight as Evan 
 himself. 
 
 " The Camerons, concealed by the trees, advanced so close on 
 the enemy as to pour on them an unexpected and destructive 
 shower of shot and arrows, which slew thirty men ; and ere they 
 could recover from their surprise, the Highlanders were in the 
 midst of them, laying about them with incredible fury, with their 
 ponderous swords and axes. After a gallant resistance, the mass of 
 the English began to retire towards their vessels, when Evan Dhu 
 commanded a piper and a small party to go betwixt the enemy and 
 their barks, and then sound his pibroch and war-cry, till their 
 clamour made it seem that there was another body of Highlanders 
 in ambush to cut off their retreat. The English, driven to fury and 
 despair by this new alarm, turned back, like brave men, upon the 
 first assailants ; and if the working party had possessed military
 
 Ben Nevis. 101 
 
 weapons, Lochiel might have had little reason to congratulate 
 himself on the result of this audacious stratagem. 
 
 " He himself had a personal rencontre, strongly characteristic of 
 the ferocity of the times. The chief was singled out by an English 
 officer of great personal strength, and as they were separated from 
 the general strife, they fought in single combat for some time. 
 Lochiel was dexterous enough to disarm the Englishman ; but his 
 gigantic adversary suddenly closed on him, and in the struggle 
 which ensued both fell to the ground, the officer uppermost. He 
 was in the act of grasping at his sword, which had fallen near the 
 place where they lay in deadly struggle, and was naturally extending 
 his neck in the same direction, when the Highland chief, making a 
 desperate effort, grasped his enemy by the collar, and snatching 
 with his teeth at the bare and outstretched throat, he seized it as a 
 wild-cat might have done, and kept his hold so fast as so tear out 
 the windpipe. The officer died in this singular manner. Lochiel 
 was so far from disowning or being ashamed of this extraordinary 
 mode of defence, that he was afterwards heard to say it was the 
 sweetest morsel he had ever tasted. 
 
 "When Lochiel, thus extricated from the most imminent danger, 
 was able to rejoin his men, he found they had not only pursued the 
 English to the beach, but even into the sea, cutting and stabbing 
 whomever they could overtake." 
 
 Sir Walter narrates one or two similar scenes, and proceeds : 
 
 " By such exploits he rendered himself so troublesome, that the 
 English were desirous to have peace with him on any moderate 
 terms. Their overtures were at first rejected, Evan Dhu returning 
 for answer, that he would not abjure the King's authority, even
 
 102 Ben Nevis. 
 
 though the alternative was to be his living and dying in the 
 condition of an exile and outlaw. But when it was hinted to him 
 that no express renunciation of the King's authority would be 
 required, and that he was only desired to live in peace under the 
 existing government, the chief made his submission to the existing 
 powers with much solemnity. 
 
 " Lochiel came down on this occasion, at the head of his whole 
 clan in arms, to the garrison of Inverlochy. The English forces 
 being drawn up in a line opposite to them, the Camerons laid down 
 their arms in the name of King Charles, and took them up again in 
 that of the States, without any mention of Cromwell, or any 
 disowning of the King's authority. In consequence of this honour- 
 able treaty, the last Scotsman who maintained the cause of Charles 
 Stuart submitted to the authority of the republic. 
 
 " It is related of this remarkable chieftain, that he slew with his 
 own hand the last wolf that was ever seen in the Highlands of 
 Scotland. Tradition records another anecdote of him. Being 
 benighted, on some party for the battle or the chase, Evan Dhu 
 laid himself down with his followers to sleep in the snow. As he 
 composed himself to rest, he observed that one of his sons, or 
 nephews, had rolled together a great snowball, on which he 
 deposited his head. Indignant at what he considered a mark of 
 effeminacy, he started up and kicked the snowball from under 
 the sleeper's head, exclaiming ' Are you become so luxurious that 
 you cannot sleep without a pillow ?' ' 
 
 After the accession of James II., Lochiel came to court to obtain 
 pardon for one of his clan, who, being in command of a party of 
 Camerons, had fired by mistake on a body of Athole men, and
 
 Ben Nevis. 103 
 
 killed several. He was received with the most honourable distinc- 
 tion, and his request granted. The King desiring to make him a 
 knight, asked the chieftain for his own sword, in order to render 
 the ceremony still more peculiar. Lochiel had ridden up from 
 Scotland being then the only mode of travelling and a constant 
 rain had so rusted his trusty broadsword, that at the moment no 
 man could have unsheathed it. Lochiel, affronted at the idea 
 which the courtiers might conceive from his not being able to draw 
 his own sword, burst into tears. 
 
 " ' Do not regard it, my faithful friend,' said King James, with 
 ready courtesy ; ' your sword would have left the scabbard of itself, 
 had the Koyal cause required it.' 
 
 "With that he bestowed the intended honour with his own 
 sword, which he presented to the new knight as soon as the 
 ceremony was performed." 
 
 But Sir Evan Cameron was not destined to go down into his 
 grave before he had occasion to draw the King's sword more than 
 once. The Western Highlands were constantly disturbed during 
 the remaining years of the seventeenth century, and Lochiel figures 
 in every event which took place within sight of Ben Nevis. All 
 the clans whose homes were on its slopes took part in the war 
 which followed the accession of William the Third. The 
 Macintoshes and the Macdonalds took the opportunity to renew 
 their ancient feuds respecting the possession of Glen Eoy and 
 Glen Spean, which lie close to the mountain on the north. The 
 Macdonalds of Glencoe and those of Glengarry, which lie a little 
 further off, willingly joined in the fray, and came to help their 
 kinsmen of Keppoch. The Macintoshes met this array at Mullroy.
 
 104 Ben Nevis. 
 
 A furious battle ensued, and the Macintoshes were defeated. The 
 Macphersons now appeared on the scene. Cluny, their chief, 
 took the part of the defeated clan; and having compelled the 
 Macdonalds to submit, set the chief of Macintosh, who had been 
 taken prisoner, at liberty again. But the matter was not to end 
 here ; for some soldiers of the Government, under the command of 
 a Captain Mackenzie of Suddie, had taken part in the fight, and 
 Suddie had been killed. Sixty dragoons and two hundred foot- 
 guards were sent down from headquarters with orders to waste the 
 country, and Macdonald of Keppoch had to fly for a time ; but a 
 fine having been paid for him, he shortly returned, and soon after- 
 wards we find him besieging Inverness to punish the inhabitants 
 for taking part against him in his late troubles. While engaged 
 in this enterprise, he was interrupted by Lord Dundee who is 
 better known in history as " Claverhouse" who persuaded him to 
 join the army he had raised for the restoration of King James. 
 Sir Evan Cameron of Lochiel, and many another chief from the 
 same country, were in the army ; and when they met King 
 William's forces under Mackay at Killiecrankie, it was old Lochiel 
 who pointed out a favourable omen to his fellows : 
 
 " The armies shouted when they came in sight of each other ; 
 but the enthusiasm of Mackay^s soldiers being damped by the 
 circumstances we have observed, their military shout made but a 
 dull and sullen sound compared to the yell of the Highlanders, 
 which rung far and shrill from all the hills around them. Sir 
 Evan Cameron of Lochiel, of whom I formerly gave you some 
 anecdotes, called on those around him to attend to this circum- 
 stance, saying, that in all his battles he observed victory had ever
 
 Ben Nevis. 105 
 
 been on the side of those whose shout before joining seemed most 
 sprightly and confident" 
 
 This was the last battle in which he took part He was allowed 
 to retire to his estates after the final success of King William, and 
 there he lived to a great age in peace. Latterly, he grew very 
 infirm, and lost his strength and the use of his faculties, else 
 perhaps he might have prevented the temporary ruin of his family 
 when his eldest son, John Cameron, joined the Earl of Mar in the 
 Old Pretender's rising. However, he survived his son's attainder 
 and flight, and at last " this once formidable warrior was fed like 
 an infant, and, like an infant, rocked in a cradle." 
 
 But the history of the Camerons of Lochiel is by no means all 
 there is of interest to be told of Ben Nevis. We mentioned above 
 the invasion of Argyllshire by Donald Balloch. in 1431. This was 
 the occasion of the famous " pibroch," or march, " of Donald Dhu," 
 which Sir Walter Scott's spirited fines have rendered so familiar. 
 The words are full of local allusions : 
 
 " Pibroch of Doaoil Dim 
 
 Pibroch of DonnO, 
 Wake thy wild voice anew 
 
 Come sway, come away, 
 
 Come in your war array, 
 
 '. -:."..- .:. 1 .'. :___ :_?.. 
 
 Come from deep glen, and 
 From nMiarnfcuin so rocky j 
 
 The war-pipe and pennon. 
 Are at Inrcdoehy.
 
 106 Ben Nevis. 
 
 Come every hill plaid, and 
 
 True heart that wears one ; 
 Come every steel blade, and 
 
 Strong hand that bears one." 
 
 Inverlochy Castle was the scene of many another such gather- 
 ing. It is said to have been built originally by Edward the First 
 of England to overawe the Highlands, and the situation ensured it 
 a conspicuous part in every contest. It was at Inverlochy that 
 Donald Dhu defeated Mar and Caithness in 1431 ; and more than 
 two centuries later, the great Marquis of Montroae surprised 
 Argyll and his Covenanters under the same walls. He had just 
 withdrawn towards Inverness, in the winter of 1644, in order to 
 organise some of the clans for the ensuing campaign ; but during 
 the last days of January, 1645, "he learned that his rival, Argyll, 
 had returned into the Western Highlands with some Lowland 
 forces ; that he had called around him his numerous clan, burning 
 to revenge the wrongs which they had sustained, and was lying 
 with a strong force near the old castle of Inverlochy, situated at 
 the western extremity of the chain of lakes through which the 
 Caledonian Canal is now conducted. 
 
 " The news at once altered Montrose's plans. 
 
 " He returned upon Argyll by a succession of the most difficult 
 mountain-passes covered with snow, and the vanguard of the 
 Campbells saw themselves suddenly engaged with that of their 
 implacable enemy. Both parties lay all night on their arms ; but, 
 by break of day, Argyll betook himself to his galley, and rowing 
 off shore, remained a spectator of the combat, when, by all the rules 
 of duty and gratitude, he ought to have been at the head of his
 
 Ben Nevis. 107 
 
 devoted followers. His unfortunate clansmen supported the 
 honour of the name with the greatest courage, and many of 
 the most distinguished fell on the field of battle. Montrose 
 gained a complete victory, which greatly extended his influence 
 over the Highlands, and in proportion diminished that of his dis- 
 comfited rival." 
 
 With a purpose very similar to that which had caused Edward 
 the First to build Inverlochy, General Monk built the fort, after- 
 wards strengthened and called after William the Third. Even this 
 fortress is now no longer used for its original purpose. It has 
 passed into private hands, having been sold by Government to 
 Campbell of Monzie. Yet Fort- William was not without its place 
 in history. At least twice it comes forward very prominently. 
 The first time was soon after its construction. In 1692, William 
 the Third having tried in vain to pacify the Highlands, issued a 
 proclamation, in which the last day of the year was named as the 
 latest date at which the submission of the chiefs would be 
 received ; and further announcing that those clans who had not by 
 their heads taken the oath of allegiance before the 31st December 
 would be looked upon and treated as public enemies. The humane 
 and wise object of this proclamation was attended with consider- 
 able success. After some hesitation, and a show of force on the 
 part of the Government, the chiefs, one after another, came in 
 before the period had elapsed ; but there was one exception. 
 Macdonald of Glencoe, as we saw above, was one of the chiefs 
 implicated in the affair at Mullroy. The clan was one of the most 
 turbulent, and the year had almost elapsed without any formal act 
 of submission on the part of Maclan, their representative. On the
 
 108 Ben Nevis. 
 
 i 
 
 last day of December, however, Glencoe appeared at Fort- William, 
 and offered to take the oath of allegiance. Colonel Hill, the 
 governor of the fort, was not an officer of sufficient rank, nor a 
 magistrate, to take the oath tendered him, and Macdonald was 
 desired to repair to Inverary, to the Sheriff of Argyleshire, Sir 
 Colin Campbell, to swear allegiance. But Inverary was at that 
 season four or five days' journey from Glencoe, and the first week 
 of a new year had nearly gone by before the faith of the Macdonalds 
 had been pledged. Regarding the subsequent event, which shed 
 such a gloomy light over Glencoe, much controversy has taken 
 place. We are not concerned to vindicate the character of either 
 William or his minister, the Master of Stair. There can be no 
 doubt the Campbells and other neighbouring clans had powerful 
 friends at court, and carried their bloody feuds and barbarous 
 quarrels even into the civilised life of the capital. Sanguinary 
 instructions were sent to Colonel Hill. The tribe of Glencoe was 
 to be extirpated ; they had been named in a proclamation made on 
 the 16th January : " As for Maclan of Glencoe and that tribe, if 
 they can be well distinguished from the rest of the Highlanders, it 
 will be proper, for the vindication of public justice, to extirpate that 
 set of thieves" words, no doubt, very shocking to our ears; but 
 when we consider the lawless character of the country at the time, 
 they can scarcely be considered too severe. Whether the knowledge 
 of Glencoe's submission was purposely suppressed or not can never 
 be known, in all probability ; but much of our pity for the victims 
 of the error, if it was one, is removed when we remember that both 
 they and most of their neighbours, if not all, had long since, by 
 repeated acts of disorder and even of blood, justly forfeited their
 
 Ben Nevis. 109 
 
 lives. A party of soldiers was ordered to occupy Glencoe on the 
 1st of February, where, being received as friends by the 
 Macdonalds, and accounting for their coming on the plea that 
 Fort- William was overcrowded, they remained for nearly a fort- 
 night. This gave the subsequent event still more the appearance 
 of treachery. On the 12th, orders arrived that all the members of 
 the clan under seventy years of age were to be put to death. 
 Campbell of Glenlyon, who commanded the soldiers, though he 
 was a connection by marriage of the chief, and though he had 
 enjoyed his hospitality on several occasions, does not seem to have 
 had much hesitation in executing these orders. 
 
 "About four o'clock, in the morning of 13th February, the 
 scene of blood began. A party, commanded by one of the Lindsays, 
 came to Maclan's house and knocked for admittance, which was at 
 once given. Lindsay, one of the expected guests at the family meal 
 of the day, commanded this party, who instantly shot Maclan dead 
 by his own bed-side, as he was in the act of dressing himself, and 
 giving orders for refreshments to be provided for his fatal visitors. 
 His aged wife was stripped by the savage soldiery, who, at the same 
 time, drew off the gold rings from her fingers with their teeth. She 
 died the next day, distracted with grief, and the brutal treatment 
 she had received. Several domestics and clansmen were killed at 
 the same place. 
 
 * 
 
 " Meantime the work of death proceeded with as little remorse 
 as Stair himself could have desired. Even the slight mitigation of 
 their orders respecting those above seventy years was disregarded 
 by the soldiery in their indiscriminate thirst for blood, and several
 
 110 Ben Nevis. 
 
 very aged and bedridden persons were slain amongst others. At 
 the hamlet where Glenlyon had his own quarters, nine men, 
 including his landlord, were bound and shot like felons ; 
 and one of them, Macdonald of Auchintriaten, had General 
 Hill's passport in his pocket at the time. A fine lad of twenty 
 had, by some glimpse of compassion on the part of the soldiers, 
 been spared, when one Captain Drummond came up, and 
 demanding why the orders were transgressed in that particu- 
 lar, caused him instantly to be put to death. A boy, five or 
 six years old, clung to Glenlyon's knees, entreating for mercy, 
 and offering to become his servant for life, if he would spare 
 him. Glenlyon was moved; but the same Drummond stabbed 
 the child with his dirk, while he was in this agony of supplication." 
 Out of a population of about two hundred, nearly a quarter were 
 put to death in this cold-blooded manner, and probably many more 
 perished from cold and hunger. " Flying from their burning huts, 
 and from their murderous visitors, the half -naked fugitives com- 
 mitted themselves to a winter morning of darkness, snow, and 
 storm, amidst a wilderness the most savage in the West Highlands, 
 having a bloody death behind them, and before them tempest, 
 famine, and desolation. Bewildered in the snow-wreaths, several 
 sank to rise no more. But the severities of the storm were tender 
 mercies compared to the cruelty of their persecutors. The great 
 fall of snow, which proved fatal to several of the fugitives, was the 
 means of saving the remnant that escaped. Major Duncanson, 
 agreeably to the plan expressed in his orders to Glenlyon, had not 
 failed to put himself in motion, with four hundred men, on the 
 evening preceding the slaughter ; and had he reached the eastern
 
 Ben Nevis. ill 
 
 passes out of Glencoe by four in the morning, as he calculated, he 
 must have intercepted and destroyed ail those who took that only 
 way of escape from Glenlyon and his followers. But as this 
 reinforcement arrived so late as eleven in the forenoon, they found 
 no Macdonald alive in Glencoe, save an old man of eighty, 
 whom they slew; and, after burning such houses as were 
 yet unconsumed, they collected the property of the tribe, consisting 
 of twelve hundred head of cattle and horses, besides goats and 
 sheep, and drove them off to the garrison of Fort-William." 
 
 Fort-William once more appears in history. It was besieged in 
 1746 by the Young Pretender, but without success. It is worth 
 noting that, notwithstanding the massacre, Macdonald of Glencoe 
 joined his standard with a hundred and fifty men, and, according to 
 Scott, had an opportunity, during the march into the Lowlands, of 
 sparing the house of the Earl of Stair, to whose father the clan 
 owed so great an injury. 
 
 We have several times had occasion to speak of Glen Roy. 
 Modern science has given it an interest even greater than any it 
 had as the scene of the last great battle of the clans. Mr. Geikie 
 thus describes the " Parallel Koads" of Glen Eoy : 
 
 " Far away up the valley, if the day be a favourable one, the 
 traveller can trace a line carved along the steep hill-side, to the 
 south of the river, and running with seemingly mathematical 
 precision in a horizontal course till it is lost in the distance. 
 
 . . Returning now to Glen Roy, the traveller should ascend 
 that valley to see what light its famous ' Parallel Roads ' have to 
 cast upon the history of the old glaciers of the Highlands. The 
 same long, straight line, which, as he drew near to the Bridge of
 
 112 Ben Nevis. 
 
 Roy, he noticed running high along the mountain -side, in the south 
 of the Spean Valley, is now seen to turn up Glen Roy, winding 
 along the hills of that valley with the same singular horizontality. 
 When he gets several miles up the glen, he begins to see traces of 
 two other terraces, until, on reaching a turn of the road, the long, 
 deep glen lies before him, with its three bars, straight and distinct 
 as if they had been drawn with a ruler, yet winding into all the 
 recesses of the steep slopes, and coming out again over the projecting 
 parts without ever deviating from their parallelism. The ' roads,' 
 so long a subject of wonderment and legendary story among the 
 Highlanders, and for so many years a source of sore perplexity 
 among men of science, seem at last to be understood. Each of 
 them is a shelf or terrace, cut by the shore waters of a lake that 
 once filled Glen Koy. The highest is of course the oldest, and 
 those beneath it were formed in succession, as the waters of the lake 
 were lowered. They are seen not only in Glen Roy. A little beyond 
 where the first good view of the lake is obtained, there is a hollow 
 through the hills on the left side of the -valley, marked on the maps 
 as gap. This hollow forms a short ' col' between Glen Roy and a 
 small valley that strikes away to the south-west. Standing on the 
 top of the ridge, the observer looks up Glen Roy on the one side, 
 and down this narrow valley on the other, and he can mark that, 
 while the lowest of the parallel roads in Glen Roy runs along the 
 hill-side, a short way below him the two upper roads come through 
 the hollow, and wind westward into Glen Collarig ; so that the old 
 lake not only filled up Glen Roy, but also some of the other valleys 
 to the west. Until Agassiz suggested the idea of a dam of glacier- 
 ice, the great difficulty in the way of understanding how a lake
 
 Ben Nevis. 113 
 
 could ever have filled these valleys, was the entire absence of any 
 relic of the barrier that must have kept back the water. Mr. 
 Jamieson has recently shown, however, that Agassiz's suggestion is 
 fully borne out by the evidence of great glacial erosion, both in 
 Glen Spean, and in the valley of the Caledonian Canal. The latter 
 valley, as I have already pointed out, seems to have been filled to 
 the brim with ice, which, choking up the mouth of Glen Gluoy and 
 Glen Spean, served to pond back the waters of these glens. The 
 Glen Ireig glacier, in like manner, stretched right across Glen Spean, 
 and mounted its north bank. When the lake that must thus have 
 filled Glen Eoy and the neighbouring valleys was at its deepest, its 
 surplus waters would escape from the head of Glen Roy down into 
 Strath Spey, and at that time the uppermost beach or parallel road 
 (1140 feet above the present sea-level) was formed. The Glen 
 Ireig glacier then shrank a little, and the lake was thus lowered 
 about eighty feet, so as to form the middle terrace, which is 1059 
 feet above the sea, the outflow being now by the head of Glen 
 Glaster, and through Loch Laggan into the Spey. After the lake 
 had remained for a time at that height, the Glen Ireig glacier con- 
 tinued on the decline, and at last crept back out of Glen Spean. 
 By this means the level of the lake was reduced to 847 feet above 
 the sea, and the waters of Glen Roy joined those of Loch Laggan, 
 forming the long winding lake, having its overflow by what is now 
 the head of Glen Spean, into Strath Spey. While this level was 
 maintained, the lowest of the parallel roads of Glen Roy was 
 formed. As the climate of the glacial period grew milder, how- 
 ever, the mass of ice which choked. up the mouth of Glen Spean, 
 and ponded back the water, gradually melted away. The drainage
 
 114 
 
 Ben Nevis. 
 
 of Glen Roy, Glen Spean, and their tributary valleys was then no 
 longer arrested, and as the lake crept step by step down the glen 
 towards the sea, the streams one by one took their places in the 
 channels, which they have been busy widening and deepening ever 
 since. Such seems to have been the history of the mysterious 
 parallel roads of Lochaber. Instead of tracing back their origin 
 to the days of Fingal, they stand before us as the memorials of an 
 infinitely vaster antiquity the shores, as it were, of a phantom 
 lake, that came into being with the growth of the glaciers, and 
 vanished as they melted away." 
 
 Marcus Ward & Co. , Printers, Royal Ulster Works, Belfast.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
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