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'B^'l'l^l.ll.l^^
9
^^*
1>arvar^ Colleae Xi&rain?
k
BOUGHT FROM THE
ANDREW Preston Peabody
Fund
BEQUEATHED BY
CAROLINE EUSTIS PEABODY
OF CAMBRIDGE
xCSSh^
=^x
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ROTHIEMURCHUS
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By tie Same Author
G.F. WATTS
R.A.
IN TNB
TEMPLE BIOGRAPHIES
With Portrait, ctc^
crown 8vo.
Second Edition,
"No fuller, nobler life ever en-
gaged a biofprapher's pen. As
one reads this admirable book,
one seems to have a new revela-
tion of the possibilities of the
human mind and of human
industry." — Daily News.
London: J. M. DENT & CO.
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ROTHIEMURCHUS
HUGH MACMILLAN, D.D.
LL.D., F.R.S.E.
WITH
TWELVE
ILLUSTRATIONS
1907
LONDON
J. M. DENT & CO.
*9 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
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:^rLr\2't.lL'fD
ji-^t^-^f^*-'^^
AU Rights Reserved
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CONTENTS
rAGB
I
ROTHIEMURCHUS 3
II
R0THIBMVRCHU8 — continued 13
III
LoCH-AN-£lLAN fj
IV
LocH-AN-EiLAN — conttuved 39
V
Glen Eunach 57
VI
Glen Eunach — continued 73
VII
Lamg Ghru . . 85
VIII
Glenmore and Cairngorm 105
IX
Kinrara .123
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The "Forest Cabin," where the Author Lived
Frontispiece
The Drvie in Snow .... facing page 15
Rothibmvrchus Pines
Loch-an-Eilan ....
The Castle, Loch-an-Eilan
On the Glen £vnach Road
Precipices above Loch Eunach
The Larig Pass ....
The Pools of Dee
Loch Morlich ....
The Shelter Stone and Loch Avon
Bridge of Alvie and Tor Alvib .
17
35
41
63
75
9«
99
109
"5
135
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NOTE
The following sketchesy with the exception of the
last two, appeared originally in the Art Journal^
and are now collected and republished with a few
alterations. Owing to the death of the author
they have not had the advantage of his personal
revision. The illustrations are reproduced from
photographs taken by Mr. W. Dempster and Mr«
Clarence G. Kerr.
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I
ROTHIEMURCHUS
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ROTHIEMURCHUS
ROTHIEMURCHUS
Of all the districts overshadowed by the extensive
Cairngorm range the most magnificent, by uni-
versal consent, is Rothiemurchus. It is a
region entirely unique. There is nothing like it
elsewhere. If Scotland as a whole is Norway
post-dated, this part of the country is especially
Norwegian. Scotland is famous for its artistic
colouring, which Millais compared to a wet Scotch
pebble ; but here the colouring is richer and more
varied than in any other part of the country.
The purples are like wine and not like slate, the
deep blue-greens are like a peacock's tail in the
sun, the distant glens hold diaphanous bluish
shadows, and a bloom like that of a plum is on
the lofty peaks, which changes at sunset into a
velvety chocolate or the hue of glowing copper
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4 ROTHIEMURCHUS
in the heart of a furnace. A day here in October
is something to be remembered all one's life, when
the tops of the mountains all round the horizon
are pure white with the early snow, and their
slopes are adorned with the brilliant tints of
faded bracken, golden birch and brown heather,
and all the low grounds are filled with the un-
changeable blue-green of the firs. At Rothie-
murchus the landscape picture is most beautifully
balanced, framed on both sides by heath-clad
hills, which rise gradually to the lofty uplands of
Braeriach and Cairngorm, with the broad summit
of Ben Macdhui rounding up its giant shoulders
behind the great chain itself, all coifFed with
radiant doud, or turbaned with folded mist, or
clearly revealed in the sparkling light, bearing
up with them in their aged arms the burden of
earth's beauty for the blessing of heaven. All
the views exhibit the most harmonious relations
to one another, and each is enhanced by the loveli-
ness of its neighbour.
Rothiemurchus is a high-sounding name. It is
a striking example of the genius which the ancient
Celtic race had for local nomenclature. It means
" the wide plain of the fir trees," and no name
coxild be more descriptive. Nothing but the fir
tree seems to grow over all the region. It has
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ROTHIEMURCHUS 5
miles and miles of dark forest covering all the
ground around, and usurping spots that in other
localities would have been cleared for cultivation.
You see almost no trace of man's industry within
the horizon. Whatever cornfields there may be
are entirely lost and hid within the folds of this
uniform clothing of fir-forest. All is Nature,
primitive, savage, unredeemed. In the centre
of the vast plain rises the elevated upland of
Tullochghru, about a thousand feet above the sea-
level, whose farms have a brighter green, smiling
in the sunshine, contrasted with the surrounding
brown desolation. It seems to emerge like an
island out of an ocean of dark-green verdure
flowing all around its base, and breaking in
billows far up the precipices of the Cairngorms.
The scenery as a whole is on such a gigantic scale
that the individual features are dwarfed. The
huge mountains become elevated braes or. plateaus,
and miles of mountainous fir-forest seem to con-
tract into mere patches of woodland. No one
would suppose that the hollow which hides Loch
Morlich in the distance was other than a mere
dimple in the forest, and yet it is more than three
miles in circumference, and opens up on the spot
a large area of clear space to the sky. The eye
requires to get accustomed to the vast dimensions
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6 ROTHIEMURCHUS
of mountain and forest to form a true conception
of the relative proportions of any individual
object. Nothing can be more deceptive than the
distances, which are always supposed to be much
shorter than they really are.
The crest of the Grants of Rothiemurchus is a
mailed hand holding a broadsword^ with the
motto, " For my Duchus." Duchus is the name
which they gave to their domain. It is a Gaelic
word meaning a district which is peculiarly one's
own, Rothiemurchus was always regarded by its
proprietors as standing to them in a very special
relation. Very touching expression has been
given to this sentiment in that popular work, The
Memoirs of a Highland Lady^ published some few
years ago. The attachment of the authoress,
who was a daughter of Sir John Peter Grant of
Rothiemurchus, to her native place was un-
bounded. She constantly speaks of her beloved
" Duchus " ; and when about to accompany her
father to India, when he was made a judge in
Bombay, she gives a pathetic picture of her last
walk in the " Duchus " with her youngest sister.
Her fortitude gave way when she heard the gate
of her home closing behind her, and she wept
bitterly. " Even now," she says, after long years
of absence, " I seem to hear the clasp of that
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ROTHIEMURCHUS 7
gate ; I shall hear it till I die ; it seemed to end
the poetry of my existence." Even the casual
visitor feels this strange spell which the place
exercises upon him ; and if one has spent several
summers in wandering among its romantic scenes,
the fascination becomes altogether absorbing.
Season after season finds your feet drawn towards
this charming region ; and no other spot can
replace it, no other scenery surpass it in its power
over the imagination and the heart. There is
little reference made in The Memoirs of a
Highland Lady to the natural characteristics of
Rothiemurchus. The book does not describe
the grand mountain scenery, or give any account
of the deer-stalking in the forest, or of the
climbing of the great peaks of the Cairngorm
range. It is occupied entirely with the mode of
life and the social relations of this remote region
at the beginning of last century. But you feel
conscious all the time of the presence of the
mountains. You feel that the grand scenery is
not the mere background of human action, but
mingles with it in the most intimate manner ; and
all this makes the reading of the book, so fiill
of artless simplicity and natural piquancy and
humour, peculiarly delightful.
The railway station for Rothiemurchus is
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8 ROTHIEMURCHUS
Aviemore, which has entirely changed its aspect
in recent years. In the old coaching days it had
hardly a single building except the inn, where the
horses were baited and passengers on the way to
Inverness halted to refresh themselves. This
quaint hostelry, looking like an ancient Scottish
peel, is still standing but is no longer used as an
inn. Its upper garden wall marked the height to
which the Spey rose during the celebrated Moray
floods, which Sir Thomas Dick Lauder so
graphically described, when living sheep were
brought across the river and left in the trees of
the garden by the overwhelming waters. The
whole country was inundated and became one
great lake, and the face of the hill behind was
seamed with white roaring waterfalls, and a dense
mist filled all the air. Aviemore is now a busy
junction where innumerable trains in the summer
months pass north and south, and passengers from
all parts of the world meet each other on the
platforms. A row of new villas is built along the
line and a modern hotel, with a noble background
of hills and an incomparable view in front of the
Cairngorm range, where all the great peaks are
seen grouped together in the most eflfective
manner, occupies the rising ground behind.
The lands of Rothiemurchus are bounded on
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ROTHIEMURCHUS 9
the west by the Spey that flows past Aviemore, at
the foot of Craigellachie. This storied rock is
not included in the possessions of this branch of the
family, although it formed the slogan or war-cry
of the whole clan, " Stand fast, Craigellachie." It
comes out boldly from the general line of hills,
and forms a most conspicuous feature in the land-
scape. It is composed of mica-slate broken into
ledges and rocky slopes, and in some places is
quite precipitous. It is covered mostly with
purple heather, interspersed with weeping birches
and bushes of willow. The bare spaces are clothed
with bracken, whose golden tints in autumn are
indescribable ; and even the hard exposed rock is
weathered and frescoed with yellow and hoary
lichens. It is a rich feast of colour to the eye at
all seasons of the year, and exhibits a poetry of
fleeting hues fairer than an equal portion of sky,
which it blots out, would show. By a poetic
instinct it was chosen as the symbol of the clan,
and its enduring steadfast character shadowed forth
their unchanging faithfulness amid all the strains
of life. The fame of this rock in the landscapes
of their native region has always powerfully im-
pressed the imagination of the warlike people. It
has been the scene of many a gathering of the clan
in times of war an4 foray ; and from this central
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lo ROTHIEMURCHUS
spot the fiery cross used often to be sent round to
summon the clansmen together. Ruskin, during
his visit to this region, greatly admired the
picturesqueness of Craigellachie ; and he speaks
thus of its associations : " You may think long
over the words * Stand fast, Craigellachie,' without
exhausting the deep wells of feeling and thought
contained in them — the love of the native land,
and the assurance of faithfulness to it. You could
not but have felt it, if you passed beneath it at
the time when so many of England's dearest
children were being defended by the strength of
heart of men born at its foot, how often among
the delicate Indian palaces, whose marble was
pallid with horror, and whose vermilion was
darkened with blood, the remembrance of its
rough grey rocks and purple heather must have
risen before the sight of the Highland soldiers —
how often the hailing of the shot and the shrieking
of the battle would pass away from their hearing,
and leave only the whisper of the old pine branches,
* Stand fast, Craigellachie.' "
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II
ROTHIEMURCHUS
{Continued)
\
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II
ROTHiEMURCHus — conthiued
Thb Spey, as it forms the western boundary of
Rothiemurchus, has a somewhat diversified course,
being mostly swift and shallow, with extensive
margins of white pebbles in its bed ; but where
the high road from Aviemore crosses it by a
modern iron bridge, it expands into a deep
and wide pool as black as Erebus, as if it con-
centrated in itself all the peaty waters of its source
in the bogs of Drumochter, and gives one an im-
pressive idea of the might of the river. The
Spey is not a classic stream. No poet has sung its
praises, but the murmur of its tide has found articu-
late expression in the beautiful strathspeys which
echo the swiftness of its pace and the swirl of its
waters. It has been associated as no other British
river has been with our national dance music. Its
tributaries from Rothiemurchus, each ^^a mountain
power/' sweU its volume and add to the beauty of
the scenes through which they flow. They
13
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14 ROTHIEMURCHUS
traverse the whole extent of the region from east
to west, from the bare, bleak heights of Braeriach
and Cairngorm to the rich green meadows which
the Spey has made for itself in the low grounds.
The vast pine-forests would be oppressive without
those voices of Nature that inform the solitudes,
and destitute pf those silvery pools which mirror
the alders and birches. The Luineag issues from
Loch Morlich, and exposes for most of its course
its sparkling wavelets to the open sky, and the
Bennie, uniting the stream that comes from the
Larig Pass and the river which carries off the
surplus waters of Loch Eunach, hides itself in the
depths of the woods, whose green folds hush the
soliloquies which it holds with itself. They form
together at Coylum Bridge — which means the
meeting of the waters, or literally the twofold leap
— theDruie, a capricious river that often shifts
its channel and converts much fertile land into a
wilderness of sand and gravel. With its vagaries
have been connected the fortunes of the House
of Rothiemurchus, which were to be prosperous so
long as the course of the river continued the same,
but disastrous should it change its bed and work
out a new channel for itself. Twice, at least, this
change has happened, when the property passed
from the Shaws to the Grants, and during the
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ROTH I EMURCHUS 1 5
great Moray floods which devastated the whole
district.
The subject streams of Rothiemurchus, which
are the size of rivers and speak powerfully of the
great range of mountains in which they rise,
gather to their generous heart the whispered
wanderings of a hundred rills. They bring down
the grand music of the mountains, the roar of the
tempest, and the sigh of the wind and the swoop
of the mist in the wild corries, and the soft
murmur of the upland brook. In the rhythm of
their song may be detected all the mystic tones in
which the mountains converse with one another.
The Luineag is the stillest water, for its bed is
least rugged ; but the Bennie is full of large
granite boulders over which it rushes with a swift,
clear current, whose harshness is made musical by
the listening air. It is the sound of the Bennie
alone that is heard, when the night deepens the
oppressive stillness and lonesomeness by hushing
aU other noises, and the great mountain range
looms on the horizon beneath the stars — a gigantic
silhouette, a geological dream, a vision of the
primeval ages, whose shade inundates all the land-
scape, and turns all the amphitheatre of valleys
black as ebony.
Nowhere are there more magnificent fir-forests
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1 6 • ROTHIEMURCHUS
than those of Rothiemurchus. These forests,
about sixteen square miles in extent, are the relics
of the aboriginal Caledonian forest which covered
all this region with one unbroken umbrageous
mass ; and there are here and there many of the
old giants which the hand of man never planted,
still growing in the loneliest recesses, and giving
an idea of what the whole primeval forest must
have been in its prime, ere the woodman, about a
century and a half ago, invaded its solitudes and
ruthlessly cut down its finest trees to be converted
into timber. Most of the trees that now cover
the area are of comparatively recent planting, and
though well grown do not display the rugged
picturesqueness for which the fir in its old age is
so remarkable. A plantation of young Scotch
firs is as formal as one of any other species of the
pine tribe, and presents an orderly and monotonous
appearance ; but as the tree grows older, it
develops an amount of freedom and eccentricity
of shape which no one would have expected of its
staid and proper infancy. Its trunk loses its
smoothness and roundness, and bursts out into
rugged flakes of bark like the scales on the talons
of a bird of prey or the plates of mail on an
armed knight. Its boughs cease to grow in
symmetrical and horizontal lines, and fling them-
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ROTHIEMURCHUS PINES.
To face Page 17.
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ROTHIEMURCHUS 1 7
selres out in all directions gnarled and contorted,
as if wrestling with some inward agony or out-
ward obstacle like a vegetable Laocoon. Its
colour also changes ; the trunk becomes of a rich
tawny red, which* the level afternoon sun brings
out with glowing vividness, and the blue-green
masses of irregular foliage contrast wonderfully
with this rusty hue and attest the strength and
freshness of its life. Such old firs are indeed the
trees of the mountain, the companions of the
storms that have twisted their boughs into such
picturesque irregularities, and whose mutterings
are ever heard among their sibylline leaves.
They are seen to best advantage when struggling
out of the writhing mists that have entangled
themselves among their branches ; and no grander
background for a sylvan scene, no more picturesque
crown for a rocky height, no fairer subject for an
artist's pencil exists in Nature. While the rain
brings out the fragrance of the weeping birches,
those "slumbering and liquid trees," as Walt
Whitman calls them, that are the embodiments of
the feminine principle of the woods, it needs the
strongest and hottest sunshine to extract the
pungent, aromatic scents of the sturdy firs, which
form the masculine element of the forest.
The fir is an old-world tree. Its sigh on the
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1 8 ROTHIEMURCHUS
stillest summer day speaks of an immemorial
antiquity. Its form is constructed on a primitive
pattern. It is a relic of the far-ofF geological
ages, when pines like it formed the sole vegetation
of the earth. It is the production of the world's
heroic age, when Nature seemed to delight in the
fantastic exercise of power, and to exhibit her
strength in the growth of giants and monsters.
It has existed throughout all time, and has main-
tained its characteristic properties throughout all
the changes of the earth's surface. It forms the
ever-green link between the ages and the zones,
growing now as it grew in the remote past, and
preserving the same appearance in build and
figure.
It is a novel experience to wander on an autumn
afternoon through the unbroken forests of Rothie-
murchus. The Scotch fir usually looks its best at
this time, for the older leaves that have a yellow
withered hue have been cast and the new ones
developed during the summer shine with a
beautiful freshness and greenness peculiar to the
season. Wherever a breach occurs among the
trees, the ground is everywhere covered with a
most luxuriant growth of juniper bushes, some of
which are of great age and attain a large size.
The grey-green of the foliage contrasts beautifully
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ROTHIEMURCHUS 19
with the dark blue-green of the fira, A dense
undergrowth of heather, into which the foot sinks
up to the knee, clothes ail the more open spaces.
Where the trees crowd together more closely the
heather disappears, and in its place the ground is
carpeted with thickly clustering bushes of the
bilberry and cranberry, whose vivid greenness is
very refreshing to the eye. The huge conical
nests of the black ant, composed of withered pine-
needles, are in constant evidence ; while on the
forest paths, when the sun is shining, may be seen
myriads of the industrious inhabitants passing to
and fro on their various avocations. The labour
involved in the construction of these nests must
be enormous. Many of them are old and
abandoned, and over these the cranberry and
bilberry bushes, which are ever pushing forward
th^ir roots on new soil, spread themselves so that
they are half or wholly covered with a rank, ever-
green vegetation, indicating their origin only by
the undulations they make in the ground. The
aromatic smell that pervades all the air is most
refreshing. It stimulates the whole system as
you fill your lungs with its invigorating breath.
The sanative influence of the fir-forest is most
remarkable. The plague and the pestilence dis-
appear, the polluted atmosphere is deodorised, and
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20 ROTHIEMURCHUS
with an efFect as magical as that of the tree which
sweetened the bitter Marah of the wilderness, the
presence of the Scotch fir purifies the most deadly
climate.
There is no wood more durable than the timber
of the old Scotch fir. It is proof, owing to its
aromatic odour, against insect ravages ; and its
texture is so hard and compact that it resists the
decay of the weather. So charged with turpentine
are the firs of Rothiemurchus, that splinters of
the wood used to be employed as candles to light
up the dark nights, when the people gathered
together in some neighbour's cottage to ply their
spinning-wheels and retail their gossip and old
stories. These wood torches when set in sconces
would burn down to the socket with an unwaver-
ing and brilliant flame, and would thus give forth
a large amount of light and heat at the same time.
The darker days of late autumn were always
brightened for us by splendid fires made of old
roots which had been left in the ground when the
patriarchal trees were cut down, and which con-
tained a vast amount of resin. I know no fires
so delightful — not even those made of the pine
branches of the Vallombrosa forest in Italy —
blazing up at once, as they do, and continuing to
the end clear and bright, while emitting a pleasant
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ROTHIEMURCHUS 21
fragrance which fills all the room, and creating a
most healthy atmosphere, which counteracts the
noxious influence of the rain and damp. The trees
in this cold mountain climate do not grow very
rapidly, but they are valuable in proportion to the
slowness of their growth ; the part of the wood
which is exposed to the sunshine being little more
than sap-wood of small value, while the part which
is turned to the north, and grows in stormy situa-
tions and takes long to mature, is hard and solid
and very valuable. It is of a fine red colour, and
when cut directly to the centre or right across the
grain is very beautiful ; the little rings formed
of the annual layers being small and delicate, and
in perfectly even lines. The best part is nearest
the root
About two hundred years ago, such was the
abundance of timber and the difficulty of finding
a market for it, that the laird of Rothiemurchus
got only IS. 8d. a year for what a man chose to
cut down and manufacture for his own use. The
method of making deals was by splitting the wood
with wedges, and then dressing the boards with
axe and adze ; saw-mills with circular saws and
even the upright hand-saw and plane being alto-
gether unknown. A very old room in Castle
Grant is still floored with deals made in this way,
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22 ROTHIEMURCHUS
showing the marks of the adze across the boards.
As a specimen of the immense size of the trees
that were cut down in the forests of Glenmore
and Rothiemurchus, there is preserved at Gordon
Castle a plank upwards of six feet in breadth.
The trees when felled were made into rafts and
floated down the Spey into the sea. Large heaps
of old roots dug up from the peat-bogs and from
the clearings in the forest may be seen piled up
beside every cottage and farmhouse for household
fires ; and everywhere the people seem to be as
dependent upon the. forests as the peasants of
Norway. Indeed, what with the forests and the
mountains and the timber-houses, one might easily
imagine oneself wandering in some Dovrefield
valley, instead of at the foot of the Cairngorm
range.
For the contemplative and poetic mind there is
no more impressive scene than a fir-forest. It is
full of suggestion. It quickens the mind, while
it lays its solemn spell upon the spirit like the
aisles of a cathedral. Here time has no existence.
It is not marked as elsewhere by the varying
lights and shades, by the opening and closing of
the flowers, by the changes of the seasons, and the
appearance and disappearance of various objects
that make up the landscape. The fir-forest is
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ROTHIEMURCHUS 23
independent of all these influences. Its aspect is
perennially the same, unchangeable amid all the
changes that are going on outside. Its stillness
is awe-inspiring. It is unlike that of any other
scene in Nature. It is not solitude, but the
presence of some mystery — some supernatural
power. How vividly, in the ballad of the " Erl
King," does Goethe describe the peculiar spirit
or supernatural feeling of the forest. The silence
is expectant, seems to breathe, to become audible,
and to press upon the soul like a weight. Some-
times it is broken by the coo of a dove which
only emphasises it, and makes the place where it
is heard the innermost shrine, the very soul of the
loneliness. Occasionally you hear the grand
sound of the wind among the fir-tops, which is
like the distant roar of the ocean breaking upon
a lee-shore. Sometimes a gentle sigh is heard far
oflF, how originating you cannot tell, for there is
not a breath of wind, and not a leaf is stirring ;
it comes nearer and waxes louder, and then it
becomes an all-pervading murmur. It is like the
voice of a god ; and you can easily understand
how the fir-forest was peopled with the dim,
mysterious presences of this northern mythology.
In its gloomy perspectives, leading to deeper
solitudes, there seem to lurk some weird mysteries
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24 ROTHIEMURCHUS
and speechless terrors that keep eye and ear intent.
You have a strange sense of being watched, with-
out love or hate, by all these silent, solemn,
passionless forms, and when most alone you seem
least lonely.
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LocH-AN^EiLAN IS OHC of the loveliest bits of
scenery in Scotland, and the special show-place of
the district. All roads in Rothiemurchus therefore
lead to it. But the high-road goes round from
Aviemore by the Doune, which is the residence of
the proprietor. Doune House is a square, modern
building, substantially constructed, in the midst of
spacious parks and richly-wooded policies, on the
banks of the Spey, whose soft, cultivated beauty
contrasts strikingly with the bare rocks and brown,
heath-clad mountains around. A high mound
crowned with trees lies to the east, from which
the mansion received its name. It was originally
a fort, and tradition says that it was inhabited by
a brownie which faithfully served the household
for many years, probably a personification of the
protection which the mound afforded. This family
seat was occupied for many years by the Duke
and Duchess of Bedford. The Duchess was the
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28 ROTHIEMURCHUS
daughter of the famous Jane, Duchess of Gordon,
who lived on the neighbouring property of Kinrara,
and seems to have inherited the vivacity of dis-
position and the active benevolence of her mother.
A large number of the leading men of the day were
entertained in the Doune during her occupancy,
among others Lord Brougham. A dispute arose
one night among the visitors as to whether the
Lord Chancellor of England carried the Great Seal
about with him when he travelled. The Duchess
put the matter to the test at once, and marching
at the head of her friends to the bedroom of Lord
Brougham, who was lying ill at the time, she per-
suaded him to imprint a cake which she had just
baked with an impression of the Seal, which, of
course, settled the question.
Rothiemurchus originally belonged to the
powerful family of the Comyns, who owned all the
lands of Badenoch. With the displacing of the
Comyns is associated a tradition of the Calart, a
wooded hill to the west of the little loch of
Pityoulish. In the pass close to this loch one
of the Shaws, called Buck Tooth, waylaid and
murdered the last of the Comyns of Badenoch.
The approach of the Comyns was signalled by an
old woman seated on the top of the Calart engaged
in rocking the tow, and Shaw, with a consider-
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LOCH-AN-EILAN 29
able force of his clansmen, sprang from his ambush
and put them all to the sword. The graves of
the Comyns are still pointed out in a hollow on
the north side of the Calart, called Lag-nan-
Cumineach. Unswerving tradition asserts that
this Shaw was no other than Farquhar, who led
thirty of the clan Chattan in the memorable con-
flict with the thirty Davidsons of Invernahaven,
on the North Inch of Perth, in 1396. His remains
were interred in the churchyard of Rothiemurchus,
and a modern flat monument with an inscription,
and with the five cylinder-shaped stones, the
granite supporters of the original slab, resting
upon it, indicates the spot. Tradition says that
these curious stones appear and disappear with the
rise and fall of the fortunes of the House of
Rothiemurchus. During the Duke of Bedford*s
tenancy of the Doune, a footman removed one
of them to test the truth of this tradition. But
he was obliged speedily to restore it, owing to
the indignation of the people. A few days after
putting back the stone upon the grave he was
drowned in fording the Spey, and his death was
considered in the district the just punishment
of his sacrilege.
The Shaws held possession of Rothiemurchus
till they were finally expelled by the Grants of
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30 ROTHIEMURCHUS
Muckerach in 1 570. On account of their frequent
acts of insubordination to the Government, the
lands of the Shaws were confiscated and bestowed
upon the Grants, "gin they could win them."
Many conflicts took place between the two rivals,
one of them in the hollow now occupied by the
large, well-stocked garden of the House. Though
defeated and slain, the chief of the Shaws would
not surrender his rights, but even after death con-
tinued to appear and torment the victor, until the
new laird of Rothiemurchus buried his body deep
down within the parish church, beneath his own
seat ; and every Sunday when he joined in the
prayers of the congregation he had the satisfaction
of stamping his feet upon the body of his enemy.
The last of the Shaws of Rothiemurchus was out-
lawed on account of the murder of his stepfather,
Sir John Dallas, whom he hated because of his
mother *s marriage to him. One day, walking
along the road near a smithy, his dog, entering,
was kicked out by Dallas, who happened to be
within, when the furious young man drew his
sword and cut off Dallas's head, with which he
went to the Doune and threw it down at his
mother's feet. The room she was in at the time
is still pointed out, and the smithy where the
murder occurred is now part of the garden. It
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LOCH-AN-EILAN 31
is said that on the anniversary of the tragedy,
every August, the scent of blood is still felt in
the place, overpowering the fragrance of the
flowers.
Muckerach Castle, some three miles from
Grantown, and now in ruins, was the earliest seat of
the Rothiemurchus family. The lintel-stone of the
doorway was removed and built into the wall of
Doune House. It has carved upon it the date of
the erection of the Castle in 1598, and the pro-
prietor's arms, three ancient crowns and three
wolves' heads, along with the motto, " In God is
all my trust." Several members of the Rothie-
murchus family greatly distinguished themselves
in the world of diplomacy and politics. Sir John
Peter Grant, a clever barrister, was first M.P. for
Great Grimsby and Tavistock, and in 1828 was
appointed one of the Judges of the Supreme Court
of Bombay. His son was Lieutenant-Governor
of Bengal, and ultimately Governor of Jamaica,
and for his valuable services was knighted. His
sister, who married General Smith, of Baltiboys,
in Ireland, wrote the charming Memoirs of a
Highland Lady^ giving a social account of Rothie-
murchus in the early years of last century.
Not far from the garden of the Doune, on a
knoll which commands an extensive view, is the
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32 ROTHIEMURCHUS
mansion-house of the Polchar, where the late Dr»
Martineau resided for many years. The house
has long sloping roofs and low walls, and is well
sheltered by trees from the blasts which in winter
must blow with great violence here.
From June to November the venerable divine
was accustomed to come to this place from London,
and the change no doubt helped to prolong his
valuable life. When he came first to Rothie-
murchus he found that everything was sacrificed
for the sake of the deer forest. Old roads were
shut up, and the public were excluded from some
of the grandest glens. Dr. Martineau set himself
to counteract this spirit of exclusiveness, and in a
short time he succeeded in securing free access to
the loneliest haunts of Nature. Of an extremely
active habit of body, he climbed the heights and
explored all the recesses of the Cairngorms. In
his later years, however, he seldom moved beyond
the scenes around his own door. His refined face
and earnest manner always impressed one. I shall
not soon forget his look, when I called upon him
on his ninety-second birthday to olFer my con-
gratulations and good wishes, as of one already a
denizen of another world, who had brought its far-
reaching wisdom and experience to bear upon the
fleeting things of time. The family of Dr.
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LOCH-AN-EILAN 33
Martineau have done an immense amount of good
in the locality, having founded a capital library
for the use of the inhabitants and visitors, and a
school for wood-carvingy with an annual exhibition
and sale of the articles made by the pupils, which
has stimulated the artistic taste of the young
people in a wonderful degree.
Passing the low-browed manse, whose situation
in the shadow of Ord Bin is exceedingly pictur-
esque, a beautiful path at the foot of the hill
conducts the visitor to Loch-an-£ilan. A stream
flows all the way from the loch beside the path»
which is over-arched by graceful birch-trees,
such as MacWhirter loved, and which he actually
painted on the spot several years ago while resid-
ing at the manse in a series of studies of the
Lady of the Woods, exceedingly beautiful and
true to nature. The slender trees here hang their
long waving tresses overhead and cast cool shadows
over the white path, while the murmur of the
stream soothes the senses and makes one see
visions and dream dreams. In a little while the
northern shore of Loch-an-£ilan comes in sight,
embosomed among dark-green fir-forests. It
occupies an extensive hollow, overshadowed on
the east by the bare round mountain mass of Creag
Dubh, one of the outer spurs of the Cairngorm
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34 ROTHIEMURCHUS
range, while on the other side rise up the grey
precipitous rocks of the Ord Ban, clothed with
birches and pines to the top. Ord Bin is composed
mostly of primitive limestone and bands of mica-
schist very much bent and twisted by the geologic
forces to which it owed its origin. It is easily
ascended, and the view from the summit, owing
to its central position, is both extensive and
magnificent, including the two horizons to the
north-east and south-west, with their clothing of
dark fir-forests in one direction, and of birch-
woods in the other. Loch Morlich shows itself
distinctly in its wide basin glancing in the sun,
while far over the wild mountains that surge up
tumultuously in the south-west, Ben Nevis storms
the sky with its broad summit.
Charles V. said of Florence, " It is too beautiful
to be looked upon except on a holy day." The
same might be said in a truer sense of Loch-an-
Eilan, for it is a sanctuary of Nature. Its beauty
touches some of the deepest chords of the heart.
It is not a mere landscape, it is an altar picture.
It is a poem that gives not merely a physical or
intellectual sense of pleasure, but awakens the
religious fiiculty within us, creating awe and
reverence like a holy hymn. One of its great
charms is its unexpectedness. It comes upon
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LOCH-AN-EILAN 35
you with a sense of surprise in the heart of the
woods. Its water is the spiritual element in the
dark fir-forest It is to the landscape what the face
is to the human body — ^that which gives expression
and imagination to it, — ^and therefore it lends itself
easily to spiritual suggestiveness. It is the face
of Nature looking up at you, revealing the deep
things that are at the heart of it. All around the
loch are fir-woods, miles in extent, in whose
depths one may lose oneself. But here at the
lochside one comes out into a wide open space,
and finds a mirror in which the whole sky is
reflected. There is a sense of freedom and en-
largement. One sees more of the shadow than of
the sunshine among the fir-trees, and only bits of
the blue sky appear high up between the green
tops of the trees ; but here the whole heavens are
seen not only above but below, with the double
beauty of reflection. The water makes the blue
sky bluer, and the golden sunshine brighter.
The sight awakens the thought that it is good to
have clear open spaces in our life, in which heaven
may be brightly imaged. It is good to have in
our souls parts devoted to a different element
from that of which our life is mostly composed,
in which we may have large glimpses of the
world that is above us, the spiritual and eternal
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36 ROTHIEMURCHUS
world. Life must broaden if it is to brighten.
Over the narrow stream the trees arch, shut-
ting out the sky. To the shores of the wide
lake they retreat, leaving it open to the whole
firmament.
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LOCH-AN-EILAN
(Continued)
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LOCH-AN-BILAN — coutinued
Thb little island which gave the loch its name
was originally a crannog or artificial lake-dwelling.
After affording a secure retreat for ages to the
primitive inhabitants by its wicker huts built on
wooden platforms, it finally formed a foundation
for a Highland feudal stronghold of considerable
dimensions, covering all the available space and
appearing as if rising out of the water. Tradition
asserts that it was originally built by the Red
Comyns, who once owned all the country round
about. The lands of Rothiemurchus having been
granted by Alexander XL to Andrew, Bishop of
Moray, in 1226, the Earl of Buchan, son of
Robert II., better known on account of his
ferocity as the Wolf of Badenoch, took forcible
possession of these lands, and was in consequence
excommunicated. In revenge he sacked and burned
the Cathedral of Elgin. For this sacrilegious act
he had to do penance by standing barefoot for
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40 ROTHIEMURCHUS
three days at the door of the cathedral, and was
restored to the communion of the Church on
condition that he would return to the Bishop
of Moray the lands he had wrested from him.
This castle was one of the possessions which the
Wolf gave up. During his occupation we may
well suppose that it was the scene of many bloody
deeds and crimes. It was afterwards bestowed in
lease upon the Shaws, whose chief dwelt there for
more than a hundred years without molestation.
From the Shaws it ultimately passed to the
Grants of Muckerach, who have continued to
hold it ever since. One event only has been
recorded since they took possession. In 1 690)
after the disastrous battle on the ^^ Haughs of
Cromdale," so long celebrated in song and
dance in Scotland, the remnant of the defeated
adherents of James II., the followers of Keppoch
under General Buchan, fled to Loch-an-Eilan for
refuge, and made an attempt from the mainland
to seize the castle, which was defeated by the
Rothiemurchus men under their valiant laird. A
smart fire of musketry greeted them from the
walls of the castle, the bullets for which were cast
by Grixxel Mor, the laird's wife, and they were
repulsed with great loss. Since then the castle
has become a roofless ruin, whose time-stained
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LOCH-AN-EILAN 41
walls, mantled with a thick growth of ivy, add
greatly to the picturesque appearance of the loch.
The stumps of the huge fir-trees, from which the
timber for the roofing and flooring of the castle
was obtained, may still be seen on the margin of
the peat-bogs behind the loch from which the
people of the neighbourhood obtain their fuel,
preserved as hard and undecayed as ever after the
lapse of all these centuries. It has been persist-
ently said that a xigzag causeway beneath the
water led from the door of the castle to the shore,
the secret of which was always known only to
three persons. But the secret has never been
discovered, and the lowest state of the loch has
never given any indication of the causeway. On
the top of one of the towers the osprey or
sea-eagle, one of the rarest of our native birds,
used to build its nest. For several seasons un-
fortunately the birds have abandoned the locality,
possibly because they were not only persecuted
by the crows, which stole the materials of
their eyrie, but also frightened by the shouts of
visitors on the shore starting the curious echo
from the walls of the castle. I was fortunate
enough, one recent summer, to see the male
bird catching a large pike and soaring up into
the sky with it, held parallel to its body, with
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42 ROTHIEMURCHUS
one claw fixed in the head and the other in the
tail. After making several g}rrations in the air,
with loud screams, it touched its nest, only to
soar aloft again, still pertinaciously holding the
fish in its claws. A seagull pursued it, and
rising above, attempted to frighten it, so that
it might drop the fish, but the osprey dodged
the attacks of the gull, which finally gave up the
game and allowed the gallant little eagle to
alight on its nest in peace, and feed its clamorous
young ones with the scaly spoil. The fish in
Loch-an-Eilan are principally pike, which often
attain a large size, especially in the eastern bays,
being there so little disturbed.
Sir Thomas Dick Lauder realised the capa-
bilities of Loch-an-Eilan for figuring in romance^
and has given us a vivid description of its
picturesque features in his story of Lochandhu.
It combines within the small area of three miles
in circumference all the elements of romantic
scenery. There is no monotony, but, on the
contrary, an infinite variety along its shores^
which form coves and inlets and low, rocky points
and gravelly beaches and open green banks. On
the east side the rocky precipices rise almost
immediately from the water and fling a dark
shadow over it The path here is seldom used.
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LOCH-AN-EILAN 43
and one rarely meets a visitor in the solitude.
On the nearer or western side there is a large
promontory of green meadow-land^ standing out
against the richly- wooded background of the Ord
Ban, on which is situated an ornamental cottage
with a red roof, which in summer is frequented
by crowds of visitors who come from all parts of
the country in carriages and on bicycles and make
delightful picnics on the shore. The site of this
picturesque cottage was first occupied by a house
which was built by a General Grant for his
widowed mother in accordance with her own
wishes. This General was originally a turnspit
in the kitchen at Doune. Quarrelling one day
with the cook, the boy cut off her hair with his
knife and then ran off down the avenue at full
speed. The cook came crying to her master who
shouted after him in Gaelic, "Come back, you
black thief, and get your wages." "Wait till I
ask for them,'' was the reply. He then enlisted
as a soldier and rose rapidly from the ranks to the
highest position in the Indian army and amassed
a large fortune. He never came back to his
native glen, but he provided for all his relations
and gave his mother a pension, on which she
lived happily for many years, not priding herself
very much on her son's wonderful career, nor held
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44 ROTHIEMURCHUS
in any high consideration by her neighbours in
consequence. On the promontory below the
cottage stands a rough granite monument in-
timating that at this point General Rice, who did
a great deal of good in the locality during his
sojourn in it, and whose portrait may be seen in
almost every house, was drowned by the breaking
of the ice while skating on the loch on 26th
December 1892.
The southern end of the loch is formed by
precipitous grey rocks in the background, crowned
with dark woods, the haunt in former times of the
wild cat, and surmounted at the highest point by
a monument now almost entirely concealed by the
trees, erected by her husband to the Duchess of
Bedford, whose favourite outlook was from this
place. The shore here consists of magnificent
moraines covered with grass, heather and bracken,
which produce in their autumnal fading the most
gorgeous effects of colour. Beyond these im-
mediate boundaries the open country reveals
itself, taking into the horizon the round peaks of
the Boar of Badenoch and the Sow of Atholl, and
so completing the magic picture of the loch by
the ethereal blue colours of the far distance. The
quieter bajrs are white with whole navies of water-
lilies, and when the hills and open parts of the
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LOCH-AN-EILAN 45
woods are crimson with the heather in full bloom,
almost changing the water of the loch by the
enchantment of its reflection into wine and con-
trasting with the rich blue-green of the fir-trees,
there is no finer sight to be seen in all the land. It
was feared at the time that the terrible conflagra-
tion which ravaged the wooded shores on the
eastern side some years ago would destroy for
ever much of the beauty of the loch. But while
a vast portion of the luxuriant undergrowth of
the woods was burnt down on this occasion, the
loss was more than made up by the revelation of
the varied rocky features of the scene, which this
undergrowth had hidden by a monotonous cover-
ing of uniform vegetation ; and now, after the
rains and storms of several winters have washed
away the charred and blackened wrecks, the re-
cuperative powers of Nature have already spread
over the naked spaces a healing mantle of tenderest
green. The woods at the head of the loch were
left altogether untouched ; and here, by the side
of the charming path, which at every step dis-
closes some new combination of beautiful scenery,
there is a number of very ancient firs, whose
gnarled, exposed roots form the banks of the path,
and whose venerable trunks and branches over-
shadowed the spot long before the castle on the
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46 ROTHIEMURCHUS
island was built. They are the relics of the great
aboriginal Caledonian forest ; their huge red boles,
armoured from head to foot with thick scales like
a cuirass. Nature's own tallies, record in the mystic
rings in their inmost heart the varying moods of
the passing seasons.
Beyond Loch-an-£ilan is a much smaller loch
where the conflagration began, and which, there-
fore, suffered greater havoc in the destruction of
its woods. It is called Loch Gamhna, or the Loch
of the Calves, on account of its old connection
with the creachs which used to take place along
its shores. On the eastern side there is a path
through the forest called Rathad-na-Meirlich, or
"the reivers' road," because along it the cattle
stolen by the Lochaber marauders in Speyside
were driven to the south. There is a tradition
that Rob Roy himself took part in such raids, and
was no stranger in these parts. An old fir-tree,
to which the Speckled Laird of Rothiemurchus,
as he was called, tied a bullock or two during
these forays, in order to procure immunity for
his own herds, was standing until it was burnt
down by the recent forest fire. I possess some
fragments of this old tree, so surcharged with
turpentine that they act like torches, and burn
down to the hand that holds them with a
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LOCH-AN-EILAN 47
steady bright flame. Several of the Macgregors
whom Rob Roy took with him from the south to
aid in one of these expeditions remained behind
and settled in Rothiemurchus, and became allied
with the laird's household. A tombstone pre-
serves their memory in the churchyard. The
laird, Patrick Grant, who got the name of
Macalpine because of his friendliness to the un-
fortunate clan Alpine or Macgregors, was greatly
helped by Rob Roy in a time of sore need.
Mackintosh, the nearest neighbour of Grant,
built a mill just outside the west march of
Rothiemurchus, and threatened to divert a stream
from Grant's lands to it. A fierce quarrel arose
between the two Idirds on this account, and
Mackintosh threatened to burn the Doune to
the ground. Marching for this purpose with
his men, he suddenly encountered the forces of
Rob Roy, and fled precipitately. Rob Roy set
fire to Mackintosh's mill, and sent him a letter
in Gaelic, in which he threatened to kill every
man and burn every house on the Mackintosh
estate, unless he promised to abstain in future
from molesting Rothiemurchus. A song was
composed on the occasion, entitled "The
Moulin Dhu," or Black Mill, the tune of which
is one of the best reel tunes in Highland music.
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48 ROTHIEMURCHUS
The Street of the Thieves is the most celebrated
of the forest paths of Rothiemurchus ; but the
whole district is full of paths, used for more
innocent purposes. They are most intricate and
bewildering to one who does not know the
ground, but are easily traversed by the natives.
Being covered with russet carpets of pine-needles,
as if Nature herself had made them, and not man,
they are always dry and elastic to the tread.
What heavenly lights and shades from the
branches overhead play upon them ; and how the
westering sun with its level rays brings out the
red hues, until the forest paths glow in sympathy
with the splendid Abendgluhen on the sunset hills !
The dense mass of vegetation in these forests
strikes one with astonishment. Not an inch of
soil but is covered with a tangled growth of
heather, blaeberry and cranberry bushes and
juniper ; and feeding parasitically upon the
underground stems are immense quantities of
the yellow Melampyrum or cow wheat, and pale
spikes of dry Goodyera^ that looks like the ghost
of an orchis. Here and there in the open glades
the different species of Pyrola^ or winter-green,
closely allied to the lily of the valley, send up
from their hard round leaves spikes with waxen
balls of delicate whiteness and tender perfume.
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LOCH-AN-EILAN 49
The one-flowered Moneses grandiflora, exceedingly
rare, is found in some abundance in the woods at
the south-west end of the loch. And it may
chance that in some secret spot the charming little
Linneeay named after the father of botanical science^
may lurk, reminding one of the immense pro-
fusion with which it adorns the Norwegian forests
in July. The mosses are in great variety and
extraordinary luxuriance, espedally the rare and
lovely ostrich-plume feather moss, which grows
in the utmost profusion on the shady knolls.
The Rothiemurchus forests have always been
famous for their rare fiingi, especially for their
Hydnay a genus of mushroom, which has spikes
instead of gills on the under surfece of its cap»
One species, the Hydnum ferrugineum, is found
only in these forests, and exudes, when youngs
drops of blood from its spongy substance. There
are innumerable ant-hills of various sizes, some
being enormous, and these must have taken many
years to accumulate. You see them at various
stages. Some are fresh and full of life, crowded
with swarms of their industrious inhabitants.
But many are old and deserted, either half grown
over with the glossy sprigs of the cranberry, or
completely obliterated by the other luxuriant
vegetation.
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All through the forest you see little mounds
covered with blaeberry and cranberry bushes,
which clearly indicate their origin. They were
originally ant-hills. Each particle of them was
collected by the labours of these insects. If you
dig into them you will find the foundation to be
composed exclusively of pine-needles, and you
can trace the tunnels and galleries made by the
ants. It is a curious association this — of plant
and animal life — a kind of symbiosis. The
struggle between the two kinds of life is seen
here in a most interesting way. The wave of the
undergrowth of the forest, in its slow, stealthy,
irresistible progress, encroaches upon the ant-
hills, and forms at first a ring round their base.
Gradually it creeps up their sides, and you see
one-half of the ant-hill covered with cranberry
bushes and the other half retaining its own
characteristic appearance of a heap of brown fir-
needles with the ants swarming over them, busy
at their work. But the vegetable wave still ad-
vances and finally extinguishes the last spark of
animal life on the mounds, and rolls its green
crest over their buried contents. In this re-
markable way the soil of the forest is formed by
a combination of the labours of plant and animal
life. Looking at the vast mass of animal and
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LOCH.AN-EILAN 51
vegetable life, you feel that there is something
almost terribly impressive in this rapacious, ever-
splendid Nature, tirelessly working in its un-
conscious forces, antagonistic to all stability.
You have an overpowering conception of vital
energy, of individual effort, upreaching to the
sun and preserving the equilibrium of Nature !
One has no idea from the uniform clothing of
the fir-forests of the extraordinary irregularity of
the ground, except here and there in the open
parts and places bare of timber, where the ups
and downs of the landscape may be seen to per-
fection. Huge moraines and heaps of river-drift
show what elemental forces were at work, in the
later geologic periods, in moulding the aspects of
the scenery. Volcanic forces first piled up the
gigantic granite masses of the mountains on the
horizon, and great glaciers planed down their
sides and deposited the debris over the low
grounds where the forest now creeps. The past
here seems to be all Nature, a theatre where only
the physical powers have been operating. Human
life at the beginning must have been on too small
a scale to contend with the mighty natural forces,
and was soon wiped out and effiiced. In a fir-
forest, with its heather and juniper, man could
find almost no subsistence in his primitive state —
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52 ROTHIEMURCHUS
no kind of scenery could have been so inhospitable
to him. And yet over the green upland slopes
of Tullochghru, where the ground has not been
broken for centuries, great quantities of burial
c^rns and circular dwellings and artificial mounds
or places of popular assembly show that there was
here, in ^r-off times, a large population. At a
place called Gu-n-rhu--ffinachan, near the Croft,
where evidences of glacial action are most striking,
there is a green hillside which must have been the
earliest clearing in the great aboriginal forest, on
which lies a half-hidden stone with three cup-
marks rudely hollowed out on its surface by a
flint implement, surrounded by f^nt traces of
human habitation. These cup-marks are as sig-
nificant as the footprints which Robinson Crusoe
saw on his lonely island. They are the only ones
I have been able to find in all the district. They
people the past for us, and give it that human
interest without which the grandest scenery be-
comes desolate and uninviting. They show that
where man had made a home for himself in the
primeval forest, there beside it he prepared an
altar for the unknown god of his unconscious
worship. Older far, and of happier memory than
the castellated lair of the Wolf of Badenoch on
Loch-an-£ilan, these primitive cup-marks speak,
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LOCH-AN-EILAN 53
not of man's inhumanity to man, but of man's
reverence and upward look of soul, and of the
peace that binds heaven and earth. The eternities
of the past and the future are associated mth these
rude symbols. We feel that the persons who
scooped them out with their flint tools were men
of like passions with ourselves ; that they had
similar experiences and similar fears and hopes.
Their dust has utterly disappeared, their memories
have altogether perished, but what they dedicated
to religion has survived, has shared in the im-
mortality of religion ; and Nature has here pre-
served the first feeble steps of primitive man
along the upward path with sacred inviolability
amid the inhospitable waste.
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GLEN EUNACH
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RoTHiEMURCHus Is essentially a sporting estate.
More than three-fourths of its lands have no
agricultural or pastoral value, and are fit for no
other purpose than a deer forest. The vast up-
land regions and luxuriant fir-woods would
hardly yield any subsistence for sheep or cattle,
and the climate is too bleak and cold for them.
But they are admirably adapted for the antlered
denizens of the forest, which frequent in large
herds the mountain corries, where the patches
of grass have a peculiarly fattening quality and
the deer thrive well. The deer forest of
Rothiemurchus has always occupied a high
place in the estimation of sportsmen, and com-
mands a large rental It has often been held
season after season by the same tenant, and the
result has been uniformly satisfactory. For the
accommodation of the deer-shooters, a very
elegant and commodious lodge, Drumintoul, has
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58 ROTHIEMURCHUS
been built on the other side of the Druie, not far
from Loch Pityoulish, from whence access is
obtained to the high grounds by a capital driving-
road through the woods. Glen Eunach forms the
principal part of the deer forest, and from this
circumstance its magnificent scenery is not so
well known as it ought to be. It is naturally the
object of the proprietor and tenants to keep the
glen secluded to avoid the scaring of the deer.
But before the stalking season commences, parties
are allowed to visit the place with certain necessary
precautions. To the vast majority of visitors to the
district, however, it must obviously be a sealed spot.
Entering by a gate at Loch-an-Eilan, over
which the Scottish Rights of Way Society has
fixed a board indicating that this is the commence-
ment of the public road to Braemar by the Larig
Pass, you skirt the northern shore of the loch,
which you soon leave behind, and proceed through
old fir-forests around the base of the bare
mountain mass of Creag Dubh, one of the outer
spurs of the great Cairngorm range. This hill is
well worth ascending for the sake of the splendid
view which the top commands of the whole region.
A pathway leads to the sununit, the fir-trees
becoming more dwarfed and stunted the higher
up you climb. Near the top of the first height
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GLEN EUNACH 59
there is a gully where the deer often resort, and
the ground is torn up by their combats during the
rutting season. In this place I have several times
found a curious moss which grows only on the
droppings of deer, a spedes of Splachnum^ which
has a very fine appearance with its large red
capsules and bright green foliage. Developing
only on animal substances, it seems to reverse the
great rule that plants precede animals in the scheme
of creation. On the highest ridge the ground is
remarkably bare and storm-scalped. The winds
rush over it with almost irresistible fury, even on
a comparatively calm day, and sweep everything
before them. The vegetation that clothes this
bleak altitude is Polar in its character, rising only
an inch or two above the soil, or creeping along
and holding firmly by its roots. Arctic willows
and azaleas form the only patches of verdure
among the large heaps of white granite dibris ;
and over the tangled masses of dark mosses and
lichens that cling closely tc^ether for mutual help
against the common foe, a curious stringy lichen
of a straw colour, the Alectoria sarmentosa^ un-
known except in such Polar situations, forms
tortuous knots. A bit of ground with its
characteristic plants from this ridge would remind
one of a spot in Greenland or Spitzbergen.
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The Creag Dubh^ though looking like an inde-
pendent summit over Loch-an-Eilan, whose sky-
line it forms, is in reality the elevated foot of the
Sg6ran Dubh, a lofty hill opposite Braeriach, and
only two or three hundred feet lower in height.
The easiest way to ascend the Sgoran Dubh is over
the long-extended ridge at the back of Creag
Dubh, rising higher and higher by gentle elevations
to the sharp conical summit. On the sky-line,
not far behind the ridge of Creag Dubh, is a huge
boulder left by glacial forces on this exposed point
called the " Argyll Stone." After the disastrous
battle at Aberdeen, Montrose fled across the
country to the Spey, intending to make use of the
ferry-boats on the river to pass over to the other
side. But finding them removed and an armed
force waiting to oppose his passage, he marched
his army back through the forest of Abernethy,
where he remained for several days, and then pro-
ceeded through the forest of Rothiemurchus over
the hills down into Badenoch. Argyll followed
fast upon his heels and caught sight of the
vanishing host at this point. Learning that many
of the natives had joined the standard of Montrose,
Argyll took vengeance upon the whole district,
which he laid waste with fire and sword. Not
far from the Argyll Stone there is another large
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GLEN EUNACH 6i
boulder called Clach Mhic Allan, or the Duke
of Atholl's Stone. The Duke was taking refuge
behind it, when he was set upon and killed near
the summit of the ridge.
At another index board of the Scottish Rights
of Way Sodety in the heart of the forest two
ways meet and cross each other. The one to the
left leads through the Larig to Braemar, the other
to the right is the path to Glen Eunach. Near
the point of divergence there is a small shallow
lake, which in hot summers is often dry. For
about a mile and a half the road proceeds in a
straight line on a uniform level through the well-
grown plantation which has superseded the old
aboriginal forest of giant trees. In this wood I
have several times seen and heard the crested tit —
a bird which is now almost wholly confined to the
Rothiemurchus forest and is becoming more rare,
though once it was abundant wherever the ancient
Caledonian forest extended. By and by you come
to the pass of the glen, where the precipitous
banks on either side contract, and the stream,
deep down below, forces its way with considerable
difficulty, roaring and foaming, over the great
boulders that fill its bed. Directly opposite on
your left hand is the bare, elegantly-shaped cone
of Carn Eilrig, which rises to an imposing altitude
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62 ROTHIEMURCHUS
from this point It is the " sanctuary " of Rothie-
murchus, where, in former times, the deer escap-
ing into it were not allowed to be shot. This
humane practice, however, no longer obtains.
This hill, like a grand, solemn sphinx, is set to
guard the portals of a mountain region of mystery
and romance. The murmurs of the stream in its
bed are all-pervading. You hear them a good
way off— filling all the air like the voices of a
multitude. The steep rocks on either side, accord-
ing to the folk-lore of the place, are inhabited by
two different ** brownies," perpetually quarrelling
and shouting at one another. Wild shrieks and
mocking laughter are heard, especially when the
belated pedestrian approaches the pass at twilight,
and recalls, with fear and trembling, its uncanny
reputation. No mortal was ever the friend of the
one ** brownie *' without deeply oflFending the
other, who manifested his anger in very oflFensive
ways. The sound of many waters at the pass
accounted for a good deal of this supernatural
superstition. Beyond the pass the last solitary
firs of the forest contend with the elements, and
are twisted and dwarfed by the severity of the
struggle; but you hardly notice them, for they
are extinguished by the universal magnitude of the
inorganic masses and forces around. From this
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GLEN EUNACH 63
point the pass opens up a wide treeless waste of
utter solitude. Terraces of moraine matter,
broken and gleaming white in the sunshine, in-
dicating the different levels at which the stream
formerly ran, bank up its course, and little rills
coursing down the mountains from both sides
fall into it to swell its volume. This region has
never been animated by human life. It is above
the zone of cultivation. No ruins of hamlets,
with nettles growing round the cold hearth-stones,
cluster on the spots where the turf is softest and
greenest among the heather, to testify of forcible
evictions and heart-broken farewells, and of the
new homes of exiles far away across a world of
seas. The peace here is not the peace of death, to
which man's works return, but the peace of the
primitive, untamed wilderness. From time im-
memorial the region has been dedicated to the
noble pastime dear to the old kings and chieftains
of Scotland. Large herds of red deer frequent
the corries ; but you may wander for days over
the boundless waste without seeing a single antler,
when all at once you may behold on the ridge
over your head a score of deer standing motionless,
gazing at you with their horns piercing the sky-
line like skeleton boughs. It is a grand sight,
but it is only momentary, for, scenting danger,
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64 ROTHIEMURCHUS
they disappear over the shoulder of the mountain,
noiselessly, like a dream, into the safe shadows of
another glen.
On the right-hand side, shortly after the pass is
traversed, a solitary pine may be seen on the high
ground isolated at a considerable distance from
the last straggler, which marks the spot where the
old inhabitants of Rothiemurchus used to take
leave of their friends when they went to the
summer shielings. This was considered an import-
ant occasion, and several old-world ceremonies
were performed in connection with it. A large
company helped to lead the cattle and to carry
the dairy utensils and household bedding of the
women who were to stay behind and occupy the
rudely-constructed bothies, where they carried on
the manufacture of butter and cheese for winter
consumption. After seeing to their comfortable
settlement in the huts, usually constructed in
some green sheltered place beside a mountain rill,
the friends would depart to their own farms down
in the low grounds, and at the end of three or
four months, the women of the shielings would
return home laden with the products of their
summer industry. Glen Eunach, as I have said,
was never inhabited. It had no agricultural
capabilities, but here and there beside the streams
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GLEN EUNACH 65
there were green spots that grew very nourishing
grasses, which enabled the cows to give large
quantities of milk, and the shielings of Glen
Eunach in ancient times were justly celebrated.
On the left-hand side of the stream there is a
large extent of ground principally covered by
moraines, which is hid from the visitor along the
road by the elevated terraces forming the banks of
the stream. Among these moraines is a small
lake, marked on the Ordnance map by the curious
name of **Loch Mhic Ghille-Chaoile," which
means the lock of the lean matCs son. It obtained
this curious name from the circumstance that a
native of Rothiemurchus was killed beside it long
ago, in connection with the raiding of the cattle
in the summer shielings of Glen Eunach one
Sunday morning by the Lochaber reivers. The
herdsman in charge of the cattle, as the Rev. Mr
M^Dougall graphically tells us, rushed to the
church of Rothiemurchus, where the people were
met for worship, and informed them of the robbery.
Mac Ghille-Chaoile, who was the fleetest of foot,
because of his hereditary leanness, outstripped
his companions in the pursuit, and came up
alone with the marauders at the little loch in
Glen Eunach, where he found the cattle gathered
together in one spot ready to be removed. Here
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66 ROTHIEMURCHUS
a fierce altercation took place, in consequence of
which Mac Ghille-Chaoile was slain. Taking up
his body and hiding it in a hollow near at hand,
called ** Coire Bo Craig/' the raiders decamped,
so that when the rest of the pursuers arrived they
saw no trace either of their companion or the
reivers. Some five or six weeks later, a Lochaber
woman visiting Rothiemurchus told the people of
the manner of Mac Ghille-Chaoile's death, and of
the spot where his body was concealed, as she had
been told by the reivers, whereupon his friends
brought down his remains and laid them devoutly
in the churchyard. The loch after this became
associated with his name, and the discovery in
recent years of an old rusty dirk beside the loch,
with which probably the ruthless murder was
committed, gave confirmation to the story.
Crossing the stream by a wooden bridge you
come to the first bothy, built of timber, for the
use of deer-stalkers. Here it is customary to
leave the road and climb Braeriach, over heath
and peat bogs, by a foot-track by the side of a
tributary burn that comes down from the heights.
From this point you do not see the full pro-
portions of the mountain ; you see only a part of
its long-extended sides rising tier above tier to the
sky. You must go farther away in order to take
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GLEN EUNACH 67
in the whole view. Perhaps the best point of
observation is the railway station at Avicmore,
where you see the huge mountain rising up from
the extensive fir-forest of Rothiemurchus in a long,
swelling, massive slope, with immense rounded
shoulders, catching alternate sunshine and shade
from the passing clouds, and exhibiting, even
under sudden gleams of light, a peculiarly grey,
barren aspect About a thousand feet from the
sunmiit the uniformity of the slope is broken up
by two great corries, divided from each other by
a narrow neck or ridge connecting the shoulders
of the mountain with the top. One of them is
occupied by a bright green transparent tarn,
perhaps the highest lakelet in Britain, into which
a streamlet trickles down the face of the cliff in a
series of waterfalls, a mere slender thread in dry
weather, but presenting a magnificent sheet of
unbroken foam when swollen by a storm. The
conies look at a distance, when filled- with the
afternoon shadows, like the hollow eye-sockets
of a gigantic sktdl. In the rifts and shady re-
cesses patches of snow linger almost throughout
the whole year, and appear dazzlingly white by
contrast with the dark rocks around.
The loneliness of the wooden bothy is oppres-
sive. I have rested in it both in storm and in
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68 ROTHIEMURCHUS
calm. Even on the brightest summer day it is
desolate in the extreme ; and the rivulet that
murmurs past has a forlorn sound, as if it missed
the cheerfulness of human habitations. This one
bothy emphasises the solitude, as a single tree
does in a treeless wilderness. It reminds you
of social instincts and companionships for which
there is no gratification in this glen. I remember
spending an hour or two in it along with the
Master of Balliol and Professor Jones, having
been compelled to take refuge from a wild storm
which shrouded all the mountains in a dense,
leaden mist, and soughed in fierce gusts among
the corries, raising the voice of the stream
that flowed behind to a loud upbraiding. A
cheerful fire of wood dispelled the gloom and
made us warm and cosy. In one recess there was^
a rude bed, with a shelf and candles and tea-cups,
proving that the hut was often occupied at night.
You can -imagine the eeriness of the solitary
tenant, especially if he had a superstitious mind
filled with the ghost stories of the district. The
very coldness of the night would give him a
sensation of the supernatural, such as might pre-
cede the advent of a spectre, and the wailing of
the winds would seem like the voices of the dead.
A feeling of expectancy would take possession of
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GLEN EUNACH 69
him as if some mysterious being were coming
out of the vast darkness to hold commune with
him. The very room itself would be filled with
some unknown presence, some one of the powers
of darkness. It is a wonder that anyone can be
found hardy enough to pass through such an ex-
perience. One must be matter-of-fact and un-
imaginative indeed to do so. But a summer day
in such a spot is a delicious sensation, when the
whole glen is filled with a subdued and softened
light, and the mountain sides seem as if a blue
smoke were rising over them like a veil, giving
them a spectral charm, and the ripple of the streams
is musical, and the purple heather just beginning
to bloom and to tint the bogs has a faint odour,
a "caress of scent," the very soul of perfume.
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{Continued)
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GLEN EUNACH — coHtinued
Beyond the first bothy the scenery becomes
grander and lonelier. The glen contracts, the
slopes of Braeriach on the one side and those of
the Sgoran Dubh on the other become steeper and
loftier. Nature is more awe-inspiring, and seeks
to impress us more and more the nearer we
approach to her heart. In a short time the great
precipices of the Sgoran form peaks and spires of
indescribable grandeur. The face of the perpen-
dicular clifis, more than two thousand feet in
height, is broken up into deep rifts, with long
trailing heaps of debris at the foot, and great out-
standing buttresses of rock, as if these mighty
masses required additional support ; and the
colour of the granite is a rich dark blue, like the
bloom on a plum. The rocks have caught this
hue from the sky during untold ages of exposure
to sun and storm. The effect of these gigantic
rocks with wreaths of mist and cloud writhing up
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74 ROTHIEMURCHUS
their sides, and revealing more and more of their
great height and steepness, cannot be described in
words. The stream at the foot of these precipices
flows darkly and sluggishly over a wide peaty
hollow amid the stumps and tortuous roots of old
pine-trees, testifying that this place was once
densely wooded with the primeval forest. How
these trees could exist then, and why they cannot
flourish now, is a problem not easy to solve. It
is not that the climate or any of the conditions
requisite to the growth of the pine-tree have
changed. The probable reason is not the height
of the spot, or the bleakness of the climate, but
the exposure of the individual trees, when planted,
to the prevailing storms. When once a gap was
made in the serried, ranks of the pines as they
grew in the original wood, they yielded one by
one to the force of the tempest ; and the reason
why we cannot now make our planted firs to grow
in such a situation, where we see thousands of their
fallen progenitors cumbering the ground with their
bleached remains, is that we cannot imitate the
slow, gradual method of Nature in giving them
the shelter which, through long centuries of
mutual crowding together, they afibrded to each
other.
Farther on the picture is complete when the
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GLEN EUNACH 75
first glimpse of Loch Eunach is seen at the next
bothjr, which is built of stone^ and is meant for
longer habitation. There a waterfall tumbles
down from a huge bastion of Braeriach, the sound
of which is lost in the immeasurable silence ;
while beyond it the mountain ascends out of
sight, plateau above plateau. Loch Eunach re-
poses in the hollow between the great cliffs of
Sg6ran Dubh and the gigantic sides of Braeriach,
whose gloomy shadows are cast down upon its
waters. From its situation it is exposed to all
the winds of heaven, which often come in immense
sweeps, lifting the water in blinding spindrift far
over the shores. A universal darkness sometimes
gathers over it on the brightest day without a
warning, in a moment, and torrents of slanting
rain descend that sting your face and wet you
through and through. But the clouds and
the mist vanish as rapidly as they appear, and an
azure world is revealed in the clear depths below>
unflecked and dazzling, and the clouds, even
when they again form, are suspended overhead
in soft, ethereal masses in reposeful majesty and
calm, and the waters are broken everywhere by
multitudinous swift-flowing ripples, that seem like
shuttles working backwards and forwards, weaving
the sheen of the waves that glance in the sun like
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76 ROTHIEMURCHUS
watered silk. The lower end of the loch is
dammed by huge banks of granite sand of the
whitest hue, formed by the disintegration of the
rocks around by the ever-restless waters ; and
here a walk along the shore reveals tufts of Alpine
vegetation, Oxyria and Alpine Ladfs Mantle and
rare Kteracia^ such as delight the botanist's eye
and heart. Loch Eunach, like many of our
Alpine lochs, abounds with delicate char, which
make excellent eating.
The head of the glen, beyond the loch, is shut
in by a lofty and rugged amphitheatre of cliiFs
called Corrour, which pass across between
Braeriach and Sgoran Dubh, and down whose
dark faces are long streaks and patches of light
green, marking water-courses. Between the loch
and these cliiFs there is a large tract of level land,
of wonderful smoothness and verdure, which is a
favourite haunt of the deer. Here they may
often be found in the earlier and later seasons of
the year, cropping the rich grass in security, while
in summer they seek the higher elevations for the
sake of the cooler air. This spot used to be
included in the shielings of Rothiemurchus.
One summer, about the beginning of the
eighteenth century. Lady Mary, the wife of the
famous laird, Patrick Grant, surnamed Macalpine,
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GLEN EUNACH 77
accompanied the maidens to the shielings of
Corrour, for change of air ; and there, without
nurse or doctor, in a mere hut tenanted by the
cattle, was suddenly born her second son John, who
got the name of Corrour from this circumstance.
This son had a distinguished career as an officer
in the army, and died abroad after a good deal of
service. This incident has been commemorated
by the name of Corrour being given to a large
villa recently built by a relation of the present
laird on the way to Aviemore. In all the district
there is not a grander spot than Corrour. There
are very few that can come up to it in all Scotland.
The scenery of the deep corrie recalls that of
Loch Coruisk among the Cuchullin Hills in Skye,
and Loch Eunach equals, if it does not surpass,
the wonderfully wild view of Loch Avon from
the heights of Ben Macdhui above it. In that
weird caldron of the storms, that den "where,"
as Wordsworth boldly says, "the earthquake
might hide her cubs," the imagination could revel
in the most dreadful shapes of ancient superstition.
We do not wonder that before the Highland
fancy, in such lonely places, visions of water-bulls
and ghostly water- kelpies should shape themselves
out of the gathering mists.
To be alone on the shores of such a loch during
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78 ROTHIEMURCHUS
a tempest would be the height of sublimity.
All Ossian*s terrors would be seen in the
writhing mists and foaming waters and frowning
rocks appearing and disappearing through the
clouds, and the howling of the winds would seem
like the spirits of the lost. Even on the
brightest summer day, when sitting on the pure
white granite sands on the margin of the loch,
one feels as if sitting "on the shore of old
romance," and has an eerie sensation as if the veil
that separated the seen from the unseen were
thinner in this place than anywhere else, and might
be lifted up at any moment and some uncanny
shape appear.
Braeriach is in the Rothiemurchus forest, which
extends to the Duke of Fife's forest on the Brae-
mar side. It is one of the foremost of the great
group of mountains which forms the roof of
Scotland, and occupies the most imposing elevated
ground in Britain. The boundary between the
counties of Aberdeen and Inverness runs along the
ridge of Braeriach, and is one of the grandest lines
of delimitation in the kingdom. A well-made
zigzag path, constructed by the deer-stalkers for
bringing down the produce of the chase from the
mountain, ascends from Loch Eunach, by which
it is comparatively easy to climb to the top. On
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GLEN EUNACH 79
the way up many fascinating rills cross one's path,
which flow down a course lined with the softest
and greenest moss, inexpressibly pleasant to the
eye in the desolate wilderness, while here and there
cushions of the lovely moss-campion, starred with
its numerous crimson blossoms, form a delightful
sward by their side. You can hardly tear your-
self away from the charm of the little transparent
pools and from the sweet gurgling sound they
make in the awestruck silence, and the delicious
coldness of the sparkling water which you are
tempted at every step to scoop up with your hand
and drink, infusing new vigour into your parched
frame. The granite rock holds these rills like a
crystal goblet, and from its hard sides no particle
is worn away to pollute the purity of the element
or tame its brilliant lustre. The cairn crowning
the highest point is only two or three yards from
the brink of a tremendous precipice, which forms
part of a long wall extending for upwards of two
miles, perhaps the most formidable line of preci-
pices to be found in Britain. Cairntoul, which
rises up across the gorge to almost the same height
as Braeriach, shapes the huge granite boulders of
its top into a gigantic cairn, and bears in its highest
corrie a beautiful little circular lake, which shows
as green as an emerald in the afternoon light, and
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gives rise to the white waters of the Garachory
burn. Near the summit of Braeriach, at the
north-east extremity, are five springs, which are
perennial, and are called the ** Wells of Dee,"
The rills from these springs unite a little lower
down the mountain at an elevation of about 40cx>
feet, and farther on to the southward join the
Garachory. These rills are supposed to form the
principal source of the Dee. At this height you
cannot distinguish the varied tones of the minstrelsy
of the united stream as it breaks into foam among
the numerous boulders in its course ; but you
hear instead an all-pervading sigh or murmur in
the air, like the distant echo of the shout of a
multitude, which has an indescribably grand effect
upon the mind.
The panorama of the whole Highlands of
Scotland, from the long broad summit of Ben
Macdhui, gleaming red in the level afternoon
light, surrounded by the wild grandeur of the
crags about Loch Etchachan and Loch Avon,
"the grisly cliffs that guard the infant rills of
Highland Dee," to the highest point of Ben
Nevis in the far western distance, scaling the
heavens, and gathering a fringe of dark clouds
around its brow, seems to spread out in one
uninterrupted view before you — a tumultuous
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ocean of dark mountains, with here and there
the solid mass crested with glistening snow.
Gazing on the sublime picture, in which the
wild chaos of Natiu-e has swallowed up all traces
of man's presence, and not a single human habita-
tion or sign of cultivation is visible in all the
immeasurable horizon, you feel to the full the
inspiration of the scene. So quickened is the
pulse, so elevated are the feelings^ that one hour
in such a situation is worth a whole month on
the tame level of ordinary life in the city or
on the plain. The mind receives a keener edge,
and is quick to perceive the interest that lies not
only in the great whole of the view, but also in
the smallest details of it. The mystery of the
mountain is in the eye of the lonely wildflower
that strives in a forlorn way to embellish the
brown weather - beaten turf, and every tuft of
grass that waves in the wind, and every little
rill that trickles in the silence, seems to be con-
scious of the sublimity of the spot. Problems of
the original upheaval by some mighty internal
force of the mass of primary rock which forms
the base of the whole group of mountains occupy
and stimulate the mind. The granite detritus,
of which you take up a handful from the ground
beside your feet, and let it pass through your
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82 ROTHIEMURCHUS
fingers, seems like sand from Nature's great hour-
glass, speaking to you of worlds that have passed
away in ages for which you have no reckoning,
of universal decay and death ; and you are re-
minded that these seemingly everlasting moun-
tains are perishing, slowly when measured by
man's notions of time, but surely, for, as the
poet tells us, they are only clouds a little more
stable and enduring that change their shapes and
flow from form to form, and at last disappear for
ever in the eternal blue.
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LARIG GHRU
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LARIG GHRU
In the grand, beautifully-balanced view of the great
Cairngorm range, obtained from the platform of
the railway station at Aviemore, a remarkable
cleft is seen between the lofty, long-extended
plateaus of Braeriach and the great massive slopes
of C^rngorm. This gloomy pass is called the
Larig Ghru, or, to give it its full name, the Larig
Ghruamach, or Savage Pass, from its extreme wild-
ness. It is generally filled with writhing mists or
dark shadows, but when the sun shines directly
into it, it discloses its rocky sides moistened by
the melting of the snow in the clefts above, and
lit up with a silver radiance. You can then see far
into its inner recesses, almost half-way through, and
the vista reveals visions of bleak diils, red granite
slopes, an almost perpendicular watercourse,
rounded summits retreating one behind the other
until the end is filled up with the huge shoulder
of Ben Macdhui, which appears and disappears in
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86 ROTHIEMURCHUS
the mist. Grand as it looks at a distance, you
can only form a true conception of its savage
sublimity when you actually enter for a consider-
able distance into the rugged jaws of the pass
itself. From both near and far points of view it
has often attracted the attention of the artist, and
pictures of it in oil or water-colours not seldom
adorn the walls of the exhibitions of the Royal
Academy in London.
The Larig Ghru pierces the great Cairngorm
range from south to north, and is the principal
route by which the pedestrian can cross from
Speyside to Braemar. It used to be much
frequented by drovers and shepherds, who trans-
ported their flocks and herds by this route from
the hillsides of Aviemore and Kingussie to the
markets of Castletown on the Dee. But since the
opening of the Highland Railway between Inver-
ness and Perth these markets have been discon-
tinued, and the surplus sheep and cattle of the
district are sent by train to the large towns and
cities of the south ; consequently the pass has
fallen into desuetude as a great public road, and is
now used almost exclusively by the adventurous
tourists who wish to penetrate into the sublime
solitudes of the Cairngorms. There never was
any road worthy of the name in its palmiest days
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LARIG GHRU 87
— only a species of bridle track ; but such as it
was, it was kept in the best repair of which it was
capable. But since its abandonment to the summer
tourists, it has been allowed to revert to the wild-
ness of Nature ; and were it not for the zealous
efforts of members of the Cairngorm Club, who
have taken the matter in hand, it would by this
time have become impassable. They have in many
places smoothed the roughest parts of the track,
and in others indicated its course, when it would
otherwise have disappeared in bog or rocky desert^
by the erection of stone men as guides. Especially
welcome are these rude cairns amid the vast be-
wildering heaps of d6bris that have fallen from the
Ic^ty cliffs on both sides of the pass at its highest
point, and meet together in the narrowest parts
to bar the way.
A gang of labourers employed for a few weeks
would have removed all these difficulties of the
route, and made it easy and pleasant for the tourist>
either on foot or on horseback. But there are no
public funds available for this purpose ; indeed, it
is not considered desirable by the powers that be,
that the track should be maintained at all. It
would be considered a piece of good fortune if it
should disappear altogether and these solitudes be
entirely unvisited, so that the deer forest through
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88 ROTHIEMURCHUS
which it passes might not be disturbed. For
many years the pass was closed to pedestrians, lest
they should scare the game ; and it was only after
many unpleasant struggles that the Scottish
Rights of Way Society succeeded in opening up
a through communication between Aviemore and
Braemar, and re-establishing the public right of
way through this defile, which had existed from
time immemorial, although for a period it had
been foolishly suffered to pass into abeyance. But
though the freedom of passage was ultimately
conceded, it was restricted to the narrowest line
consistent with going through at all. No margin
on either side of the track was permitted, and the
pedestrian has in consequence to plant his feet in
the exact footsteps of his predecessors, and so
make the ruts ever deeper and more trying. In
this way the path is the most difficult and tire-
some of any in Great Britain, It is a pity that a
more generous interpretation was not given to the
licence allowed, so that the arduousness of the
passage might have been somewhat mitigated. No
one visiting this sublime solitude for the sake of
the wild scenery would wish to inflict the slightest
injury upon the sport of the huntsmen — their
interests would have been as sacred to him as his
own ; and the likelihood is that, treated with a
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LARIG GHRU 89
generous trustfulness, he might be even more
zealous of the rights of the proprietor than, as
human nature is constituted, he can be at present.
The entrance of the Larig Pass is about six
miles from Aviemore. There are two routes by
which it can be reached, both equally delightful
all the way. The most direct route is by the
high road past the village of Inverdruie, which
consists of a cluster of grey wooden houses like
a Norwegian settlement, situated in a wide clear-
ing in the fir-forest. The clang of the black-
smith's anvil sounds musical in the still air, and
the busy hum of the long row of wooden hives
in the blacksmith's garden, filled with delicious
heather honey, charms the summer silence. The
schoolmaster's garden has bright borders of flowers
in it, and the schoolhouse windows are filled
with large pots of geranium in full scarlet blossom,
which still further increase the resemblance to a
Norwegian village. A bypath leads to the Dell,
now let to summer visitors. The first lairds of
Rothiemurchus lived here in the simplest fashion,
and it was long used as a jointure house, com-
manding in the centre of the plain, beside the
much-divided channels of the Druie, covered
with thickets of alder and willow, a very fine view
all around the horizon. The main road passes the
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90 ROTHIEMURCHUS
neat and substantial United Free Church — built
with much taste, principally of the granite
boulders of the place, with its interior ceiling and
fittings made as fragrant as a house of the forest
of Lebanon with the aromatic smell of red-grained
fir boards — and makes a wide opening in the
forest all the way up to Coylum Bridge. At this
point a board indicating that this is the com-
mencement of the public road to Braemar by the
Larig Pass stands in the wood on the right-hand
side of the road before you cross the bridge. A
delightful track along the bank of the shady
river takes you through thickets of alder and
clumps of fir to the rustic wooden bridge that
crosses the Bennie, about two miles farther up
in the heart of the forest. The loud murmurs of
the river, whose many boulders awaken its volume
to a wilder music, accompany you all the way,
and the current of cool air carried along by the
flowing waters cools your heated brow. At the
wooden bridge, the other route from Aviemore
round by the north shore of Loch-an-Eilan and
through the long fir-woods, joins this route, and
both cross the Bennie over the rustic steps. A
kind of ford has been made a little above, by
which vehicles can cross in a most jolting fashion
when the water is low. The path after a while
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LARIG GHRU 91
emerges into open pasture ground beside the
quiet stream lined with alders and birches. This
green oasis was once cultivated, and on the other
side of the river there are the ruins of two large
substantial houses connected with the farm of
Altdruie. They were tenanted by Macgregors,
who were brought to this region by Rob Roy
from the Braes of Balquidder. The farm has
been allowed to become a waste wilderness, and
is now part of the great deer forest, a solitary
house and stable being built for the accommoda-
tion of gillies and horses employed in connection
with the sport. Beyond this bothy the path soon
takes you through the luxuriant heather and
gigantic juniper bushes, which form the under-
wood of the forest, along the bank of the stream,
to the direct opening of the Larig Ghru Pass.
Here at the end of a fir-wood, a stone pillar and
a guide-post stand, with the necessary directions.
Were it not for these patent indications, the
obscure entrance would often be missed by the
stranger.
For nearly a mile the path passes through a
scraggy fir-forest, its narrow course almost con-
ceded by the luxuriant heather meeting over it
from both sides. The quality of the ground
varies continually from soft peat-bog to hard
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92 ROTHIEMURCHUS
granite gravel and rough boulders, and one has
to walk by faith and not by sight, getting many
rude shocks and sudden trippings from unseen
and unexpected obstacles. In wet weather this
part of the route is altogether deplorable, and is
the occasion of so many disasters that one becomes
utterly reckless, plunging on, heedless of the
sodden state of one's shoes and the draggled
wretchedness of one's clothes. The track mounts
continually upwards until at last you rise above
the straggling forest into the wide open moorland,
with a grand view all around, and the free air of
heaven playing with grateful coolness on your
face. Thereafter you pursue your way over
huge moraines, the relics of the ancient glaciers
that once swept over this region and converted it
into an undulating strath of the most surprising
labyrinthine heights and hollows. The path takes
you along the edge of these great mounds, where
their broken sides slope down precipitously to the
channel of the burn that foams and roars over its
boulders far below. On the other side, directly
opposite you, the bare conical hill of Carn Eilrig
rises to an imposing altitude. It is a magnificent
spectacle, and the sound of many waters, that
comes up to you and seems to fill all the hushed
listening air like the shout of a multitude, is very
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LARIG GHRU 93
inspiring. The sides of the moraines are covered
with masses of blaeberry and cranberry bushes
loaded with their purple and scarlet berries ; for
whatever may be the failiu-e of the wild-fruit
harvest in the low grounds, where sudden frosts
and blights in spring and early summer are so apt
to wreck the richest promise, an abundant crop
may always be gathered here, above the risk of
such casualties. In the pass there are no less
than six different kinds of berries growing —
blaeberry, whortleberry, cloudberry, cranberry,
crowberry, bearberry — in great abundance. The
crowberry offers its refi"eshing black berries to the
parched palate in great abundance beside the path ;
the cloudberry, with its broad, currant-like leaves
and orange, rasp-like fruit, haunts the bogs ; while
the whortleberry mingles with the blaeberry in
the same situations, but is easily distinguished
from it by its more straggling habit and by the
glaucous or grey-green colour of its leaves. Its
berries are very like those of the blaeberry, only
of a somewhat flatter shape and with a more
refined taste.
At the large boulder, surmounted by a stone
man, which crowns the highest point of this part
of the pass, and which commands a splendid
vista of the richly-wooded scenery of the Spey
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94 ROTHIEMURCHUS
around Aviemore, the defile contracts, and on the
one side are the great precipices of Braeriach, and
on the other the rugged frowning buttresses of
Creag-na-Leachan, which look as if they threatened
to fall down and crush the visitor. These rocky
jaws of the pass are composed of red granite,
which looks in the heaps of broken debris at the
bottom of the defile what it really is, but up in
the overhanging difFs has taken on a dark purple
bloom by weathering, which completely disguises
its true character, and in stormy weather assumes
a most gloomy and forbidding appearance, greatly
enhancing the savage aspect of the gorge.
Granite, wherever it occurs, is always characterised
by a special type of scenery. It usually exhibits
a tame uniformity of outline, unrelieved even by
the great height to which it is often elevated.
Owing to the ease with which this rock may be
decomposed by the weather, and the protection
which the angular rubbish thus formed gives the
surface, being constantly renewed as often as it
is wasted away by the elements, it forms long,
uniform, gently-inclined slopes. But owing also
to its being traversed by innumerable vertical
joints, this rock forms savage corries and dizzy
cliflFs, which the decays of Nature only make more
precipitous, as they remove slice after slice from
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LARIG GHRU 95
their faces. Thus the different angular exposures
of the rock to the wasting powers of Nature at the
front and at the back of Braeriach, for instance,
have given rise to the widely-different appearances
of the hill from those two points of view, which
so astonish the visitor. The smooth, undulating
slopes and tableland on the west side of the hill
contrast in a remarkable manner with the vertical
walls into which the mountain breaks down all
at once on the east and north sides, descending
sheer for two thousand feet into the profound,
mist-hidden glens. There is no other rock which
combines these apparently incongruous features on
the same range — the grandeur of lofty precipices
and the smoothness of sloping shoulder and level
top.
About a mile farther up the pass you have
to cross over the stream at a point where an
enormous avalanche of angular masses of rock
has poured down the left side of the hill into the
valley. Through this cataract of stones you hear
the loud rumble of an unseen cataract of water
falling from the heights and forming one of the
tributaries of the stream at your feet. The spot
makes a kind of cut de sac or a recess on the
route, where you can get shelter from the wind,
soft materials for a couch to lie upon, fuel to
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96 ROTHIEMURCHUS
kindle a fire, and plenty of the coldest and most
delicious water, all inviting you to rest a while,
and make ready an alfresco meal. In this favoured
corner of the pass, which may well be named le
jarditty you may gather in abundance on the slopes
around the rare and interesting cornel, the Comus
suecicay beautiful alike in its flowering and fruiting
stage. It has a large, brilliant white, strawberry-
like blossom, but in the centre is a dark purple
tuft, almost black, which gives it a very singular
appearance. The apparent white petals are
actually bracts, which remain on the plant when
the flowers are fertilised, and gradually go back
to the green colour of ordinary leaves, as is the
case in the Christmas rose. The dark purple tuft
in the centre consists in reality of the true flowers.
In autumn the foliage of the cornel fades into
beautiful red and orange tints, and the blossoms
give place to one or more large, transparent scarlet
berries. In its fruiting stage it is a very striking
and conspicuous plant, and cannot fail to attract
the eye even of the greatest novice in botany. I
remember seeing the peasants in Norway hoeing
it away as a weed in the potato-fields 1
The stream above this spot for a considerable
distance disappears below the ground, and the
channel where it should flow is covered with
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LARIG GHRU 97
blaeberry and whordeberry bushes. Higher up
you see it again pursuing its rejoicing course in
the light of day and in unabated fulness, over
stones covered with the softest and richest mosses
of the most vivid green and golden colours.
These mosses in the bed of the stream give to the
music of the waters a peculiarly subdued and
muffled tone, like a prolonged sigh, which greatly
increases the feeling of melancholy in the forlorn
waste around. The path here passes over ground
peculiarly bare and storm-scalped. Hardly any
vegetation grows on it save the white reindeer
lichen, the brown alpine cudweed and grotesque
tufts of upright clubmoss. The stones are
blackened with various species of tripe de roche^
looking like fragments of charred parchment,
which crunch under your tread into black powder.
Nothing can exceed the loveliness of the lemon
crust of the geographical lichen, which spreads
over the granite boulders everywhere in great
patches, looking like maps with its glossy black
fructification and little waving lines. Its vivid
yellow colour contrasts in the most charming
manner with the vivid red of the surface of the
granite stone on which it grows. It is a perfect
feast of beauty to the eye that can appreciate it.
Beyond this point you enter on a region of
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98 ROTHIEMURCHUS
extreme desolation. The stream that has been
your companion all along has disappeared. You
are now on the watershed of the pass, about
2750 feet above the level of the sea. On your
left hand the south-west side of Ben Macdhui
rises up to the lofty sky-line in almost per-
pendicular slopes of granite detritus, on which
hardly a speck of grass, or lichen, or moss is seen.
These slopes stand out against the clear blue,
cloudless sky, when the sun on a bright day is
shining full upon them, with the most intense
scarlet radiance, like mounds of newly-burnt
slag at the mouth of a mine. You have a sense
of imprisonment, of oppression. Each rock and
height seems endowed with personality, and im-
presses you with a feeling of hostile and irresistible
power. The red screes take on a look of cruel
menace. Where the rocks of Creag-na-Leachan
form the western boundary of these screes, there
is a breakneck descent from Ben Macdhui into
the pass called the Chimney, which presents
almost insuperable difficulties to all but the ex*
perienced climber. The course of a side stream,
descending from the heights in a series of white
cascades, breaks the uniformity of these great
slopes, and is supposed to form the true source of
the Dee. Immense heaps of rough and crowded
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LARIG GHRU 99
blocks of stone that have fallen from the clifls on
both sides of the pass obstruct the way, and being
often sharp and set on edge in all varieties of awk-
ward positions, the footing is exceedingly precari-
ous, and the progress over them must be slow and
cautious. The stone men of the Cairngorm Club
are an immense help in the perplexing intricacies
of the track. Here and there oases of Alpine
verdure occur among the leafless cairns, where
the weary eye is refreshed by seeing frequent
grey-green rosettes of Alpine cudweed upholster-
ing mossy ground, tufts of glossy dark green
Alpine rue, and, in one or two places, clusters of
the rare and striking Saussurea alpinay with its
pale blue composite flowers and large, handsome
leaves. In hollow basins among these heaps of
detritus are the three principal pools of Dee.
They are evidently formed by the perpendicular
stream that falls from the shoulder of Ben
Macdhui, and is lost for a time under the cairns,
to reappear at intervals in these sheets of water,
where the ground is unobstructed.
Clambering over the last barrier of wreckage
from the cliffs, you come down on the other side
to the sourte of the Dee. There you see the
river rushing full-bodied and complete at once
from under the huge mass of moss-covered stones.
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loo ROTHIEMURCHUS
proclaiming its freedom in a loud, confused roar-
ing. You obtain a long vista of the other side of
the pass, with the narrow, rugged path gleaming
white at intervals, and the noble river, which has
no superior in Scotland for the clearness of its
waters and the uniform swiftness of its current,
winding down at its side to the cultivated glens
and straths. Amid an array of giant mountains
unequalled in Scotland within a similar area,
forming the guardians of the pass on either side,
your eye catches the magnificent steep sides and
conical top of Cairn Toul, which fills up the
whole southern side of the gorge. You sit down
beside the clear waters that give you such a sense
of overflowing, unfailing fulness, and yield your-
self freely to the thoughts and feelings that arise
in your heart. You feel that there is a spell
upon you which it would be sinful to disturb.
The imagination of a Dor6 could suggest nothing
more wildly desolate than this secluded fountain-
head of waters, with the mountain streams mur-
muring around it and the vast solitary peaks
rising above it, shutting it out from all except the
sun for a few hours at midday and the stars at
night. Nothing can exceed the loneliness of the
place. One coming here alone would almost
thank his shadow for the suggestion of companion-
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LARIG GHRU loi
ship which it afforded. But what a field for
meditation to one who is in league with the
stones of the field, and who can interpret the
mysterious signs in which the dumb mountjuns
speak to him ! The stream has the voice of a
sibyl uttering mystic oracles ; and an occasional
Alpine bird flitting about, made almost tame by
its ignorance of man, soothes the listening air
with its tender twitter, and makes the place where
it is seen and heard the very soul of the loneli-
ness. How full of significance does every stone
become, and how touching is the mute appeal of
each Alpine flower by your side ! You feel your-
self a small and unheeded atom in the midst of
the overwhelming mass of matter around you ;
and yet you feel at the same time that you belong
necessarily to the heart of things, and supply the
element of consciousness to them all, and are
folded closely round in the arms of Infinite Love.
In all your life you have never been so alone with
Nature, in the very heart of it, as here. You
seem to hear the pulse of the earth, to feel some-
thing of the eternal leisure of the mountains.
Nature lays her calm cool hand upon the tumult
of your heart, and while she humbles you, and
makes you poor in your own esteem, she exalts
and enriches you with her wealth of grand
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I02 ROTHIEMURCHUS
suggestions. On a calm summer's day the
mystery of the origin of the river in this spot
captivates the mind and recalls all the romance
and tenderness of *^ youth and buried time." But
what must it be in winter, or in a storm, when the
shallow waters are changed into raging torrents,
and the wind is shrieking fiercely among the
rocks, and the sky is blotted out with dark
clouds, and the conies are filled with swirling
mists and stinging rains and blinding snow !
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GLENMORE AND CAIRNGORM
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GLENMORE AND CAIRNGORM
The estate of Rothiemurchus is very compact and
is all comprehended within our horizon. Nearly
the whole of it may be seen at the same time from
any elevated central point. But its attractions
are greatly enhanced by the estates that are im-
mediately contiguous to it, viz. Glenmore on the
north and Kinrara on the south. Glenmore is
within the circuit of the same hills, and so also is
a part of Kinrara, whose higher points may be
seen included in the same comprehensive view.
But the Ord Ban separates between the scenery
of Rothiemurchus and the scenery of Kinrara,
while it reveals Loch Morlich and the landscapes
around the shooting lodge of Glenmore lying at
the foot of Cairngorm, which are unseen from the
low grounds around. From the top of this con-
spicuous hill you see the horizon of Rothiemurchus
to the north, a horizon of dusky fir-forests, and
the horizon of Kinrara to the south, a horizon
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io6 ROTHIEMURCHUS
of graceful birch-woods, another and altogether
different world of beauty. Both Kinrara and
Glenmore belong to the Duke of Richmond and
Gordon, and Rothiemurchus comes in between
them, partaking of the characters of both places,
passing gradually into the upland grandeur of
Glenmore, and shading insensibly into the quiet,
soft loveliness of Kinrara.
To begin with Glenmore, which is bounded by
the same hills to the north and east as Rothie-
murchus, there are two routes by which the
shooting lodge may be reached. The first is by
Coylum Bridge and Altnacaber and through the
fir-forests that line the banks of the Luineag or
past the farm of Achnahatnich. The road is a
remarkably pleasant one. The open spaces at
Achnahatnich are a beautiful contrast to the
dusky woods around. Before they were broken
up for cultivation they were covered exclusively
with an immense growth of heather and juniper
bushes, from the latter of which the place gets its
name of the Field of the Junipers. The light
green meadows and cornfields, with the sun shin-
ing full upon them, refresh the eye through the
vistas of the dark trees, and the occasional
cottages, far separated from each other, relieve
the oppression of the solitude. The hills are not
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GLENMORE AND CAIRNGORM 107
very high, but extremely picturesque, forming
one continuous line of rounded masses of nearly
equal altitude, their bases covered with pine-woods
and their summits with bracken and variegated
mosses and purple heather. At the western ex-
tremity they terminate in a steep declivity, with a
red scaur running down the face of it. On the
highest point are the ruins of an ancient Celtic fort,
which commands a magnificent view, and below
it is a cup-marked stone, beside which the early
defenders of the fort used to worship. This ridge
descends towards the uplands, and between it and
the range of hills beyond there is a deep depres-
sion, which is the commencement of the Sluggan
Pass, leading straight from Abernethy to Glenmore,
and becoming grander as you proceed through it.
A considerable stream lies far down at the bottom,
and the sides of the defile are exceedingly steep,
covered with a rout of trees that seem to clamber
up, one beyond another, and occupy the most
precarious positions. It looks more like a scene
in Switzerland or Norway than any in this country.
Through the Sluggan Pass the way opens out
upon the richly-wooded plains of Kincardine,
and the valley of the Spey northward past Boat
of Garten, and the blue fields around Grantown,
until the far horizon is closed by the traditionary.
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sharply-cut hill called Benn-na-CIaidh — or the
Cut of the Sword — cleft from summit to foot by
one stroke of a prehistoric giant's brand.
Returning to the Glenmore route the path
reveals at every turn some new aspect of land-
scape loveliness. A herd of deer may often be
seen quietly feeding in the open grassy spaces at
a little distance from the road, unheeding the
presence of the passer-by, if he does not shout to
them. Feeding for the most part on the low
grounds, where the grass is sweeter and more
abundant, such deer seem larger than usual, and
confirm a statement often made that before our
native deer had been driven by men to the higher
and poorer regions of our country, they were
a larger race. In the superficial strata of the
earth, horns of at least sixteen tines have been
found ; and it is a well-known fact that when a
herd is confined to the luxuriant conditions of a
deer-park, it will develop larger horns than when
left wild on the hills. Midway on this route a
rustic wooden bridge crosses the river and a path
over it leads to a mineral well in the forest —
which has drawn patients from far and near — and
strongly impregnates the surrounding air with the
smell of sulphuretted hydrogen. About two
miles beyond, the shores of Loch Morlich come
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GLENMORE AND CAIRNGORM 109
in sight, and the drive up to the lodge is as fine
as anything in this country. The loch itself is a
beautiful sheet of water, surrounded on all sides
by fir-woods, and the road passes along the edge
of the water. It is about three miles round,
forming a wide circular basin, every part of which
is visible, without any bays or promontories.
There are hardly any trout or char in it, the
prevalent pike having nearly extirpated them.
The loch is 1046 feet above the level of the sea ;
and the view, looking down its vast area to the
hills beyond, seems much more extensive than
one could believe, looking up at it from the
reverse way. At the upper end there are great
banks of the smoothest white granite sand, formed
by the attrition of the waters on the rocks around,
in which grow dwarf juniper bushes and willows,
spreading widely and flatly over the surface, and
knitting the particles of sand into a compact
sward. The fir-trees and alders along these
banks are most magnificent specimens of their
kind. As you go round the head of the loch you
come upon some giants of the ancient forest that
were spared when the Glenmore Company, a firm
of wood merchants from Hull, bought the forest
from the Duke of Richmond for about ^20,000.
The timber of these glorious trees was extremely
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valuable, and in all Scotland the firs of Glenmore
were considered by far the grandest and oldest.
The company, it is said, even with the gross
wastefulness of their mismanagement, cleared
;^70,ocx) of profit. Among green and vigorous
trees you come upon the wrecks of the ancient
forest, trees of enormous girth and great height,
stripped by the winds even of their bark, and like
huge skeletons, holding up their bleached bones to
the pitying heavens, or, broken by the violence of
the storms, strewing the ground with the fragments
of their trunks and boughs and leaving their
twisted and entangled roots with large masses of
the surface soil clinging to them high in air.
The alders are equally magnificent and venerable.
They are the largest and oldest specimens I have
ever seen, their branches, tortuous by age and
long resistance to the weather, knotted into the
most fantastic forms. The trunks of such trees
are often hollow, or filled with mouldering dust,
and they are frequented by the rare crested tit,
the phantom bird of these old Caledonian forests,
which is oftener seen in the Glenmore woods
than anywhere else. Among the interesting
plants that occur in this forest are the Moncses
grandifloray the one-flowered winter-green, with
its delicate white fragrant blossoms crowning its
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GLENMORE AND CAIRNGORM iii
lily-of-the-valley stem. The LintuBa borealis is
also somewhat frequent in flower among the
recesses of the woods. These two plants may
be said to be relics of the old Caledonian forest,
whose flora and fauna were similar to those of
Norway and Sweden. From its far inland,
inaccessible position, Glenmore was less exposed
to the ravages of the invading foes than any other
part of Scotland ; and hence the trees were
allowed to grow age after age and generation after
generation with impunity — without risk of axe or
fire — and it became the great nursery of the pine-
forests of Scotland, where we see the conditions
of the old Caledonian forests reproduced at the
present day.
The road along the shores of the loch com-
mands an unbroken view on the opposite side of
the great wall of mountains between Cairngorm
and Braeriach, which is one of the most stupendous
lines of precipices in Britain. It rivets the
attention all the way by its simple grandeur and
its wide extent. This wall of mountains is not
seen from other points, being lost in the mass of
Cairngorm, which seems to form part of the
mountains around the Larig Ghru Pass. It is
only as we advance that they reveal themselves
along the sky-line, forming lofty acclivities and
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huge precipices, and long horizontal plateaus,
rising up abruptly from the basin of the loch.
The snow lingers far on in summer among the
rifts and shady recesses, and brings out by con-
trast the blackness of the grim rocks, adding
greatly to the sublimity of the landscape. On a
gloomy day, when the sky is covered with dark
clouds, the lofty wall of granite assumes a wild,
uniformly forbidding appearance. Very little
detail is seen, and the eye can form no true idea
of the great height of the precipices. But on a
clear bright day, the sunshine illumines each scaur
and cleft of the granite rocks, and shows the
great variety of their appearance, and they gain
immensely in sternness of expression and in vast-
ness of height. Glenmore Lodge before its recent
reconstruction was a curious conglomeration of
buildings, added, one after the other, to the
original central structure. It is now a well-
designed Highland lodge with a picturesque
effect which harmonises well with the character
of the surrounding scenery.
The ascent of Cairngorm is made by the path
that winds across the stream at the bottom of the
valley. The distance to the top may be about
five miles by a tedious, but not a difficult route,
a distinct path marking the gradual course to the
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GLENMORE AND CAIRNGORM 113
cairn that crowns the highest point The first
part of the way leads past a solitary farmhouse
called Ricaonachan, which used to be the shooting
lodge, for two miles through a wooded defile
formed by a large burn from the southern side of
Cairngorm. Crossing this burn by a rustic wooden
bridge, you climb the actual side of the hill and
emerge on a wide open moorland, from whence,
by a long, gradual incline by a deer-shooters* zig-
zag path, you are brought up to the ridge, from
which the summit is soon reached. The surface
of the mountain is extremely barren, consisting
mostly of rough granite gravel and boulders with
hardly any vegetation. The naked soil produces
very few of the Alpine plants that are conspicuous
on other mountains of similar elevation. Here
and there a rare sedge or scale-moss gladdens the
eye of the botanist ; and large tufts of a chocolate-
brown AndrecBay and patches of a snowy scalloped
lichen called Cetraria nivalis^ both almost entirely
confined to the Cairngorm range, remind you of
the vegetation of the Polar regions. In the
southern corrie near the top, well-shaded from the
sun, a large wreath of snow usually lingers till
August, and then melts completely away. The
mountain is entirely bare of snow for about a
month or six weeks ; the last relics of the past
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winter almost mingling with the first fall of next
winter's new snow. The origin of the large
burn at the foot of the hill is from the melting of
the snow in this corrie. The course of the water
downwards may be traced by the tract of rich
green verdure which it nourishes, and which forms
a great contrast to the barren sterility of the rest
of the region. It is this green tract of verdure
that has given its name to the mountain.
A few hundred yards beyond the crowning
cairn, there is a spring of deliciously cold water
called Fuaran-a-Mharcuis or the Marquis's well,
which is often a spot of blackness amid the snow,
or entirely obliterated by it. The tourist is not
infrequently induced to go on from this point to
the summit of Ben Macdhui, which adds con-
siderably to the arduousness of the feat. Descend-
ing over the steep cliife by the stream on the
south-western side of Cairngorm, you come to the
shore of Loch Avon, which is unequalled among
the Scottish lochs on account of its utter loneli-
ness and the stern magnificence of its mountain
setting. For a large part of the year the sun
cannot reach it on account of the loftiness of the
rocky walls which shut it in. The wind for the
same reason does not often ruffle its surface, and
it stretches before the eye for a mile and a half, a
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GLENMORE AND CAIRNGORM 115
calm mirror in which the wild solitude sees itself
reflected with double grandeur. Its waters are of
a startlingly blue colour, breaking at the shore into
green and cobalt hues like the bickering colours
on a peacock's neck. At the west end of this
loch is the famous Clach Dhian or Shelter Stone,
which is an immense boulder of granite resting on
other stones, and thus forming a cave suflScient to
accommodate five or six men. This spot is often
used as a sleeping-place when the tourist is over-
taken by the darkness, and it is suflSciently wind-
proof and dry to provide fairly comfortable
quarters for a summer night. Bearing south-east
from this well-known landmark, and climbing up
by the stream to Loch Etchachan, a foot-track
leads to the top of Ben Macdhui, where an un-
equalled and uninterrupted view of all the High-
land hills will reward the climber's pluck and
perseverance.
The views from Cairngorm, notwithstanding
its great elevation, are by no means remark-
able — the distant ones being too vague and
indistinct to produce a deep impression, and the
near ones consisting of rolling billows of granite
mountains unbroken by bold precipice or deep
ravine, and leaving little to the imagination. But
what has distinguished it more than anything else is
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the peculiar crystals that are found upon it. The
upward path is strewn with large pieces of granite
interspersed with veins of quartz, which have been
broken in order to find transparent gems. But in
every case the quartz has crystallised into opaque,
white hexagonal crystals, which have no beauty
or value. It is very rarely that one comes upon a
perfect specimen of the gem among the debris of
the mountain. The best crystals have been found
in drusic cavities in the granite, and they vary
in colour from an almost black or dark smoky
hue, to a brilliant yellow like an Oriental topaz.
The largest specimen ever found is in possession of
Mr. Farquharson of Invercauld. It was picked up
in 1780 on the top of Ben Avon, and weighed 49
lbs. Invercauld gave ^40 for it. Cairngorms have
been purchased at a cheap rate by the local jewellers,
but an extravagant price has been charged for them
elsewhere. Very fine specimens used to be dis-
covered on the mountain in tolerable profusion ;
but they are now comparatively scarce.
The other route by which Glenmore Lodge is
approached is more roundabout. It proceeds
past Loch - an - Eilan, the cross-road to Glen
Eunach and the entrance to the Larig Ghru Pass.
The track goes through the forest, which in this
place is somewhat thin and open, and admits of
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GLENMORE AND CAIRNGORM 117
the continuous luxuriant growth of heather among
the trees. It used to be much frequented by
the country people, but it has gradually fallen
into desuetude, until now it has almost ceased to
be traversed. The consequence is that the heather
has grown over it, obliterating the ruts of the
wheels, although still leaving sufficiently distinct
traces of the existence of the path, which the
horse has no difficulty in pursuing. It is a
delightfully soft track, freed from bumping and
jerking by the elastic cushions of the heather,
although it passes over irregularities of the surface,
over heights and depths that might otherwise
endanger the safety of the vehicle. There is no
forest-path in Rothiemurchus so charming as this
is. It offisrs at every turn far-stretching views
over the forest of the open country to the west
and north and splendid glimpses of the dark
Cairngorm mountains on the right, while the
vistas in the forest itself are enchanting. To do
justice to it, one ought to traverse it leisurely on
foot on a bright summer day, when every knoll
and decaying old root, covered with mystic vege-
tation, affords endless sources of delight. Here
and there huge moraines, covered with heather,
and crowned by clumps of fir-trees, with wooden
huts on the highest points as lookout stations
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for the deer, rise up on the right hand, between
you and the vast wall of mountains filling up the
sky behind, and bear witness to the destructive
forces that in far past glacial times sculptured the
landscape. Marshy places and little lochans add
the variety of their black, still, shining waters,
fringed with reeds and rushes, to the whole scene,
and mirror the fir-trees in their depths. I re-
member vividly how on one occasion the sunset
glow reddened -all the pines of this forest path,
rested as an indescribable glory on the grey
mountain peaks, and filled all the air with a
suffused golden sheen that made every object
which it illumined a picture. The track con-
tinues the same to the end. It takes you to the
high deer-fence which separates the property of
Glenmore from Rothiemurchus, when passing
through the gate you come to Loch Morlich.
The margin of stones and sand is decked with
bright green water-mosses in great variety and
with immense quantities of sundew of unusually
large size. The extraordinary profusion of the
tufts of this curious carnivorous plant or vegetable
spider along the beach is due to the great develop-
ment of insect-life which is often seen by the side
of a loch, the one acting and re-acting upon the
other. I was struck by the same circumstance at
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GLENMORE AND CAIRNGORM 119
Loch Gamhna near Loch-an-Eilan, where large
masses of luxuriant sundews form quite a reddish-
brown sward on the margin of the loch ; and at
Loch Insh the shore is equally covered with large
tufts of the rarer long-leaved species, the Drosera
anglica. The road comes to a large sluice where
the Luineag issues from the western end of Loch
Morlich, over which you pass on foot, while your
vehicle crosses by a shallow ford a little farther
down. This sluice was constructed to regulate
the flow of the water of the loch into the river,
when floats of timber, cut in the forest, had to be
sent down into the Spey, and from thence on to
the sea. The dam banked up the waters of the
loch to a higher level than the ordinary one, and
all at once the imprisoned flood was released, and
carried the timber with it over every obstruction
down to the Spey with great impetuosity.
The ordinary road to^ Glenmore Lodge is
crowded with vehicles and bicycles during the
season, for this is one of the show places of the
district, and most of the visitors wish to ascend
Cairngorm. At the lodge there gather visitors
from all parts of the world, and parties can be
traced by aid of a glass all the way up the slopes
of the mountain to the top. In the afternoon
the crowd disappears, and there falls a great
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stillness upon the place. It reverts then to its
wonted loneliness, enhanced by the contrast of
the bustling scenes that preceded. The presence
of such a multitude of people interferes no doubt
to a certain extent with one's thorough enjoyment
of the solitude, and is apt to take away the bloom
and sentiment of romance, which requires loneliness
for its development, and to prevent the peculiar
thoughts which the Alpine landscapes themselves
suggest, while it introduces alien ideas of the
great world left behind. But the scene is on
so vast a scale that humanity seems to be entirely
swallowed up, and the great dumb mountains
necessarily subdue the soul to a kindred peace.
The popularity of Cairngorm does not seem to
scare away the deer from their accustomed haunts
in the neighbouring hills and corries, or to destroy
in the least degree the sport of the huntsmen.
There is room for all ; and Nature and human
nature act and re-act upon each other, for it is
to be hoped that the crowd of visitors take back
with them to the busy haunts of man the visions
and inspirations that come to them from the ever-
lasting hills.
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IX
KINRARA
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IX
KJNRARA
The names given to various localities on the
banks of the Spey — that river of wondrous
reels and strathspeys — are very musical. They
have a poetical charm which captivates the
imagination and suggests ideal pictures. Cairn-
gorm, Rothiemurchus, Rebhoan, Altdruie, Kin-
rara, speak of an older language, of a haunted
past, and of traditions of romance which inform
all the scenes. Kinrara sounds like one of the
names which the poet Campbell gave to his
mystical creations of Highland lore. When we
hear it we think of Lochiel, and CuUoden, and
Glenara. I remember the first time I came
across the name. It was in the midst of
the forest of Rothiemurchus, near Aviemore,
that I saw it, inscribed on a white board of
the Scottish Rights of Way Association with
an arrow pointing the way to it to the tourist
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1 24 ROTHIEMURCHUS
across the rough Larig Pass from Braemar. At
the head of Loch-an-Eilan, farther on, I saw the
magic name again on a similar board with a
similar arrow indicating its proximity. But it
seemed to me to retreat the nearer I got to it,
like the foot of the rainbow, and it was not till
some time afterwards that I was able to locate and
visit it. I then found that the reality behind the
name did not belie its melodiousness. It recalled
fair visions that were quite in harmony with its
musical sound.
The horizon ofKinrara isquite diflferent from that
of Rothiemurchus, the district that lies next to it on
the north. Rothiemurchus obtains its name from
the dark, continuous forest of firs which covers
the extensive plain at the foot of the Cairngorm
mountains ; whereas Kinrara is covered mostly
with birches, which give a much softer aspect to
the scenery. The principal hill of the district,
which rises behind Kinrara, called Tor Alvie, is
covered with birch- trees, and many fine specimens
of this tree, self-sown, occur among the woods,
with pure white stems and long, drooping branches.
The woods are all natural. They climb over
rocky ground with whose rugged features their
mottled stems of black corrugated bark, below
hoary with lichens and showing milk - white
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KINRARA 125
smoothness of stem above, exquisitely harmonise.
Here and there they gather into thick, shady
clumps or open out into sunny glades, where
shadow and sunlight play over the mossy ground
and freckle the sward with delicious wavelets.
The landscapes partake of the character of wild,
disordered, natural scenes and carefully-dressed
park scenery. The situation of Kinrara House is
exceptionally fine. Overshadowed by the birch-
clad hill behind and shrouded by groves of
ornamental trees, it seems to have too much
seclusion, and yet the policies cover such a
wide space that they afford ample room for all
the trees that crowd around. The trim and
velvety lawns gradually lose their formality and
merge imperceptibly into untutored wilderness.
The view in front from the elevated terrace is
over open and widely-extended ground on to the
huge masses of mountains from the Sgoran Dubh
to the dark blue hills of Glenfeshie in the distance,
comprehending a vast variety of scenery within
its bounds. Ridge after ridge seems to come
down from the blue firmament in ever-graduating
shades of deeper blue ; the far horizons are full
of peaks and plateaus whose vast spaces and
intervals are so crowded and foreshortened that
they can only be distinguished by their varying
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126 ROTHIEMURCHUS
colours, and look like a wondrous mosaic built up
against the sky. In late autumn it is a painter's
palette ; ever jr shade of green and red and yellow
is to be seen in the foliage. The house is not
visible among the trees from the public road. It
has no beauty of architecture, being a plain square
building, depending for its effect entirely upon the
loveliness of its situation.
This retired spot was chosen by the celebrated
Jane, Duchess of Gordon, as her summer residence
for many years. She was devotedly attached to
it, and drew to it, by the charm of her manner and
her brilliant conversation, crowds of the highest
nobility of England and Scotland from July to
November. In London the duchess was the life
and soul of courtly circles. She greatly delighted
George III. by her wit and vivacity ; and his
household was charmed by her personificatio^ of
the provincial peculiarities of the natives of
Scotland and Ireland. Knowing a few words of
Gaelic she could represent the nasal pronunciation
and vehement gestures of a Highland minister in
the pulpit, and give examples of the Scottish dialect
and Aberdonian intonation, which always threw
the royal listeners into convulsions of laughter.
Her influence at Court was used to help on
candidates for military or civil situations from the
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KINRARA 127
Highlands ; and the ministers of state could not
resist the earnestness of her pleading when she
espoused the cause of some rural prot^gd from
Badenoch or Strathspey. Pitt, **that heaven-
born minister," as he was called, was often cajoled
into placing her favourites in high positions in the
Treasury and Horse Guards. She was of the
utmost service in increasing the military forces
of our country during the Napoleonic wars. She
fanned the ancient martial spirit of the people,
and by the powerful patronage of the Gordon
family she helped to produce a host of brave
officers whose honourable deeds will long live
in the annals of the British army. Dressed in
Highland bonnet and feathers with tartan scarf
and short tartan petticoats, she appeared on festive
occasions in the district, and raised recruits by
offering to dance with any likely young man to
the music of the bagpipes ; and at the end of the
reel she handed to her partner a guinea and a
cockade, in the name of King George and the
Duke of Gordon. It was even said that she did
not hesitate to bestow a kiss as a reward to those
who enlisted in this way ; and thus many scores
of young men, the finest in the countryside, in
spite of the remonstrances and lamentations of
their female friends, were decoyed into the military
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128 ROTHIEMURCHUS
service of their country. By devices like these
was formed the famous 92nd Regiment or Gordon
Highlanders, which added fresh glories to the
national banners in every country and clime. Mrs.
Grant of Laggan wrote a song* in connection
with this regiment, which has always been very
popular : —
** Oh, where, tell me where, is your Highland laddie gone ?
He's gone with streaming banners^ where noble deeds arc
done.
And my sad heart will tremble till he comes safely home.
Oh, where, tell me where, did your Highland laddie stay ?
He dwelt beneath the holly trees, beside the rapid Spey,
And many a blessing followed him the day he went away."
At the southern extremity of Tor Alvie, a high
cairn of stones was erected by the late Duke of
Gordon, the son of this famous duchess, with a
tablet commemorating the brave officers belonging
to this district who fell at Waterloo— Sir Robert
MacAra of the Black Watch, and Colonel John
Cameron of the 92nd Regiment, and their valorous
countrymen. On the eastern brow of the hill is a
rustic hermitage, commanding a most magnificent
view of cultivated valley and heath-clad brow,
dark forests and frowning mountains. Here there
is also a pillar to the memory of the last Duke of
Gordon, the popular chief and landowner, which
stands out prominently above every other object
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KINRARA 129
in the centre of the vast landscape and is seen from
all directions.
The Duchess of Gordon was as much at home
among the humble cottages of the poor on her
estate as among the splendours of a Court. She
was greatly beloved bjr all her tenantry, and de-
lighted in making others sharers in her own
happiness. Mrs. Grant of Laggan said of her
that " she presented the least favourable aspect
of her character to the public," and that "she
showed most in her Highland home, where her
warm benevolence and steady friendship were
most felt." There is a sprightly song in Eraser's
" Gaelic Airs," which records the gaieties of the
times when she was the leading star of the bright
social firmament. Correspondingly great, there-
fore, was the gloom and sorrow when the news
came that she had died on 12th May 1812 ; and
Mrs. Allardyce of Cromarty wrote the following
elegiac verses regarding the sad event : —
*' Fair in Kinrara blooms the rose.
And softly waves the drooping willow,
Where beauty^s faded charms repose.
And splendour rests on earth's cold pillow ;
Her smile, who sleeps in yonder bed,
Could once awake the same to pleasure.
When fashion's airy train she led,
And formed the dance's frolic measure.
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When was called forth our youth to amis»
Her eye inspired each martial spirit ;
Her mind, too» felt the Muse's charms,
And gave the meed to modest merit.
But now, farewell, fair northern star,
Thy beams no more shall Courts enlighten,
No more lead youth, our youth, to war.
No more the rural pastures brighten.
Long, long! thy loss shall Scotia mourn,
Her vales, which thou wert wont to gladden.
Shall look long cheerless and forlorn.
And grief the minstrel's music sadden $
And oft amid the festive scene.
Where pleasure cheats the midnight pillow,
A sigh shall breathe for noble Jane,
Laid low beneath Kinrara's willow/'
The remains of the Duchess of Gordon wetc
brought north from London when she died and
laid in a spot which she had often indicated in
her walks as the place where she wished to be
buried. It lies not far from the mansion house
in a spacious park on the banks of the river
where it has a quick clear current and fills its
banks from side to side, murmuring a perpetual
requiem as it flows past, deepening the peace of
the dead. There is no other grave but her own
in this quiet resting-place ; but the secluded spot
was an ancient graveyard connected with some
chapel dedicated to St. Eda, which disappeared
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KINRARA 131
ages ago, and of which not a trace now survives.
Who this St. Eda was is not known, some sup-
posing that he was the Bishop of Farus in Ireland,
but the probability rather is that this is a dedica-
tion to St. Aiden corrupted into St. Eda — the
celebrated Celtic saint of Lindisfarne, who was
highly popular throughout the Highlands, and
had many churches consecrated in his name. A
handsome monument, in the shape of a truncated
obelisk, formed of granite from the neighbouring
mountains, was erected on the spot by her noble
husband, and on it is commemorated, at her own
request, the names of all her children, with the
exceptionally brilliant marriages which they had
made ; her own name being inscribed on a plain
marble slab covering the grave. Lord Huntly
planted some larches round the enclosure which
have grown into fine trees and cast down an
appropriate funereal shade on the sod ; and Lady
Huntly laid out a beautiful shrubbery and ex-
tended the larch plantation, making paths through
it. To the charming scenery around Kinrara this
lonely tomb gives an air of tender sadness.
Sleeping there, far from the stately mausoleum
where the dust of her illustrious kindred reposes,
she has taken complete possession of the spot,
that was so dear to her in life, by her inefFace-
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132 ROTHIEMURCHUS
able memory which mingles with every object
around, sighs in the wind, and syllables her name
by the airy voices of the solitude, by the waving
of the trees and the flowing of the river. One
of the distinguished visitors at Kinrara during
the lifetime of the duchess was Prince Leopold,
the husband of the lamented Princess Charlotte,
and subsequently King of the Belgians. On the
day of his arrival he was taken up to the top of
the Tor Alvie, and there he was surprised to
meet the Marquis of Huntly, who at a precon-
certed signal summoned his clansmen from their
places of concealment among the heather and
birch-trees around, who rose in their plaided
array to give the prince a right royal welcome.
" Ah ! " exclaimed the prince, surprised and
greatly pleased at the sight, " we have got
Roderick Dhu here ** — alluding to the scene in the
Lady of the Lake where —
" The mountaineer then whistled shrill,
And he was answered from the hill ;
Instant, through copse and heath, arose
Bonnets and spears and bended bows ;
And every tuft of broom gave life
To plaided warrior armed for strife !
Watching their leader's beck and will,
All silent there they stood, and still."
It would take several weeks to exhaust all the
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KINRARA 133
varied beauties of Kinrara. Tor Alvie, the
wooded hill behind the house, affords endless
walks and outlooks on the surrounding scenery.
Paths through the birch-woods leading to lovely
seclusions of Nature ; large lochans and sheets of
marshy water covered with myriads of water-
lilies ; dark sweeping forests of fir that skirt the
bases of the mountains, and rows of pine-trees
crowning an eastern height, every one of whose
spear-tops the rising sun flashes into a sort of
sudden presenting of arms to the celestial poten-
tate along the whole sky-line ; the rapid Spey
flowing between beaches of white pebbles accumu-
lated here and there by its waters, and under
graceful trees whose light foliage throws down
flickering lights and shadows on its dimpled
siurfkce; and here and there some rustic farm-
house, with its cultivated fields and picturesque
steadings — all these details of the landscapes,
contrasting with the trim walks, the rich gardens
and the trailing vines of the mansion house, make
a paradise in the wilderness. Kinrara is now the
shooting-lodge of the Duke of Richmond and
Gordon, and has been occupied for a number of
years by the Earl of Zetland.
The way to Kinrara from Aviemorc skirts the
foot of Craigellachie, and opens up many charm-
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1 34 ROTHIEMURCHUS
ing vistas of the surrounding scenery. At the
foot of Craigellachie, immediately above the
village, is a little lochan, concealed in a field of
green mounds, called Loch Balladern. Its
surface is covered with the large floating leaves
and red mottled spikes of Potamogeton and with the
little lemon flowers and neat round leaves of the
Nuphar pumila^ the smallest of the water-lilies,
found only in a few of our lochs. The lochan
is a lovely mirror for the birch-clad rocks that
rise precipitously above it, and is full of small
sweet trout. Strangely enough, during the earth-
quake of Lisbon, its waters were greatly agitated,
dashing about in its little shrouded basin in a way
that made a deep impression upon those who saw
it. Almost at the gates of Kinrara is the charm-
ing Loch Alvie, of which one gets the most
tantalising glimpses from the railway in passing
along. The name of this little lake is derived
from the fact that in former times it was visited
by wild swans on their southern migratory flight
from the Arctic regions. It is about a mile in
length and half a mile in breadth, but has an
irregular outline, forming a large promontory at
the western end, running far out into the water,
on which is picturesquely situated the church of
the parish with the manse and glebe, which are
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KINRARA 135
almost surrounded by the loch. The Church of
Alvie ociiupies a knoll on which there was a
religious cell from the time of St. Columba.
It is even older than the knoll of Adamnan at
Insh, for tradition ascribes its dedication — if
not its actual foundation — to St. Drostan, the
nephew of St. Columba, to whom there are
many dedications in the north and north-east
of Scotland. This famous saint founded the
Monastery of Deer, as the Book of DeeVj the
oldest MS. in Scotland, tells us, built a church
and lived a hermit's life in Glenesk, Forfarshire,
where he wrought some miracles and died.
Under the floor of the Church of Alvie, when
renewed some time ago, 150 skeletons without
coffins were found — the remains probably of
some ancient local battle. They were re-interred
in the churchyard. The charm of the surround-
ing lake consists not in its magnitxide or grandeur,
but in the blueness of its surface when the sun
shines, reflecting the shadows of the birch-trees
around it, and the clouds lying still as itself above
it, in the purity and transparency of the little
wavelets that ripple to the shore with a placid
murmur infinitely soothing to the tired spirit, and
in the sheets of dazzlingly white water-lilies that
cover large spaces in the quiet bogs with the most
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1 36 ROTHIEM URCHUS
refined bloom and verdure. From its eastern end
a pleasant little burn flows through the woods,
round the base of Tor Alvie, and falls into the
Spey. It has sometimes happened, when swollen
by the autumn storms, that the waters of the loch
have risen so high as almost to cover the pro-
montory on which are situated the church and
manse ; and on one occasion, during the unpre-
cedented flood of 1829, the ministers who had
been assisting at the communion on Sunday were
detained on the spot till the waters abated on
Wednesday. Near the top of the hills on the
north side of the loch the dwarf birch, Be tula
nana^ which is one of the rarest of our Alpine
plants, and one of the most diminutive of our
native trees, grows in considerable abundance
among the bogs. One of the ministers of this
parish, the Rev. William Gordon, lived to the
advanced age of 10 1 years, remarkable for his
generous nature and noble life. When the clans
fled from Culloden, many of the fugitives came
south past the manse of Alvie in a state of
destitution and applied for relief to Mr. Gordon.
The Duke of Cumberland, hearing of his benefi-
cence and suspecting his loyalty, summoned him
to his presence at Inverness by a military guard,
when Mr. Gordon stated that he was straitened
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KINRARA 137
between two contrary commands. His heavenly
King's Son commanded him to feed the hungry ;
his earthly king's son commanded him to drive
them from his door. Which of these two
commands was he to obey? The duke, taken
aback, replied, ^^ By all means obey the command
of the Son of your heavenly King," and dismissed
him with several tokens of the royal approbation.
In the middle of an arable field at Dalfour, about
a mile west from Loch Alvie, there is a nearly
perfect Druidical circle, forming a ring about sixty
feet in diameter, enclosing another ring of stones
of smaller size, set on end, about half that
diameter. Connected with this remarkable relic,
there is in the immediate vicinity a stone pillar
about eight feet high, without any sculpture or
inscription, recording some event which has long
passed into oblivion. Beyond Loch Alvie there
used to be a dreary moor, covered only with
stunted heather, and incapable of being cultivated,
owing to the shallowness and stoniness of the soil.
The Duchess of Gordon planted it with Scotch
firs, mingled with larch-trees, which have thriven
and greatly relieve the barrenness of the waste.
The hostelry of Lynwilg, for many years the only
inn on the road past Kingussie, is welcome as
a resting-place for the weary traveller. This
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1 38 ROTHIEMURCHUS
whole district was once part of the ancient Barony
of Dunachton, which passed into the possession of
the Laird of Mackintosh about the year 1500,
through his marriage with the daughter of the
baron. The new proprietor was a man of high
character and conspicuous ability, and was much
regarded by his tenants ; but a conspiracy was
formed against him by a treacherous member
of his own clan who wished himself to rule,
and so murdered his chief. He and his lawless
band took refuge in a castle on an island of
Loch Alvie, since burnt down, but the enraged
clan besieged him there and put him to death.
A few miles farther on is the romantic, richly-
wooded village of Kincraig, at the end of a spur
from Craigellachie, which gleams forth like a
beautiful oasis in the wilderness. Here a pro-
fusion of graceful, natural birches rises up among
the knolls and rocks picturesquely grouped
together and hides the fashionable villas which
have recently been built upon the spot. At
Kincraig the Spey expands into a large lake called
Loch Insh, which is a mile long and half a mile
broad. Nowhere does the combination of loch
and birch-wood appear so beautiful as here. The
blue waters shining through the small glistening
leaves, and between the silvery colonnades of the
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KINRARA 139
trees, produce the most exquisite effects, especially
when the multitudinous ripples on the surface
laugh in the breeze and sparkle like jewels. At
the foot of the loch, where the Spejr flows out of
it, there are two large knolls covered with fir and
other trees. When the river is in flood these
knolls are completely surrounded by water, and,
converted into an island, are shut off from the
mainland. This circumstance has given origin to
the name of the loch, which means the loch of
the island. On the northern mound called Ion
Enonan, or Adamnan's Island, is situated the
Church of Insh, whose ancient name proves that
the conditions which prevail at present during
spates of the river have prevailed from time
immemorial. The church is the most interesting
object of antiquity in the whole district. Its
foundations go back to the days of St. Colxmiba,
who visited the Picts north of the Grampians, and
is said by St. Adamnan, his biographer, to have
converted Brudeus the King in his Court at
Inverness. The dedication of this church to St.
Adamnan in 690, or thereabouts, was a conse-
quence of this visit. Previous to its occupancy
as a place of Christian worship, the fir-crowned
knoll had a religio lociy as a site of Druidic rites.
It was the place where for ages the people had
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I40 ROTHIEMURCHUS
been accustomed to meet and practise the adora-
tion of the sun, and other acts of Nature-worship,
and the consecration of the heathen altar was
continued to the Christian Church, and the people
met as of old in the same spot, with a diilerent
religion, and the Sunday of the iformer dispensa-
tion became the holy day of rest of the new.
In a basin carved out of a slab of granite forming
the sill of one of the windows of the church is
preserved a very ancient square bell of cast
bronze, which is one of the series of early Celtic
bells still existing in Scotland. Its shape and size
are like those of the bell of St. FiUan in the
Antiquarian Museum in Edinburgh. It has an
oval-shaped handle and a moulding round its
mouth, and a big iron tongue protruding from
its mouth. The basin-shaped depression in which
it rests was probably the font of the original
church erected on the knoll, or belonged, it may
be, to the system of cup-marked stones peculiar
to sun-worship, which occupied the spot in pagan
times. There is a tradition connected with the
bell similar to that associated with the bell of
St. Fillan, that if carried away from the locality
it breaks out into a constant cry of *^ Ion Enonan,
Ion Enonan/* which ceases not until it is brought
back to the knoll on which the church stands.
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KINRARA 141
In all probability the bell is as old as the time of
Adamnan, and was blessed by him in person.
The saint's day was originally a holy day of
worship, but it became, as was generally the case,
a fair, called Feil Columcille, or St. Columba's
Market. At this fair it was the custom of the
women of the district to attend dressed in white
garments ; and the late aged minister of the church
remembered an old woman showing him the white
dress in which in her young days she went to
the Fair of St. Columba, and which she carefully
preserved in order to be buried in it. No doubt
this was an unconscious survival of a ceremonial
usage of the Early Church, in which candidates for
baptism required to appear clothed in a white
dress ; and the custom came afterwards to be
associated with the festival day of the saint, as
commemorative of his Christian work. The spot
on which the Church of Insh stands, I have said,
has been a sacred spot from time immemorial,
and the church itself is the only one in Scotland
in which Christian worship has been carried on
continuously from the seventh century to the
present day. The present building is no doubt
the last of a series of buildings often renewed on
the spot, but the lowest part of the walls shows
traces of much older structures ; and until
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142 ROTHIEMURCHUS
recently, when the internal fittings were com-
pletely restored, the galleries, seats and pulpit
made of fir, warped and wizened by age, were of
very primitive forms and had been suffered to fall
into a state of considerable dilapidation.
The road on the other side of the Spey winds
along the shore of Loch Insh, and at some dis-
tance crosses the Feshie by a steep and narrow
bridge, where the stream forms a deep dark pool
far below. The view is very wild and somewhat
alarming at this spot. The parapets of the bridge
have been heightened to increase the feeling of
security, but the precipitous banks of the river,
and the wide Stygian pools which they enclose,
excite the imagination and fill it with terror. An
accident might easily occur at this place ; as in
point of fact one did happen to a carriage, which
was upset and life was lost. The Feshie drains
one of the grandest and most extensive of the
Highland glens, and is a splendid stream with a
large volume of water. Owing to the vast
quantity of detritus it has brought down from the
mountains it has formed a bar which has dammed
up the course of the Spey, causing it to expand
into a lake, which is now Loch Insh. During the
flood of 1829 its waters filled the whole glen. A
shepherd's house high up on the side of the hill.
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KINRARA 143
beyond the utmost possible reach of a spate, was
overwhelmed by the river, and the inmates barely
escaped with their lives in the middle of the night
to the highest ground they could reach, where
they were imprisoned till the evening of the
following day. The scenery of Glen Feshie was
greatly admired by Landseer, who left as a
memento of his having been in the place a draw-
ing of a deer above the mantelpiece on the wall
of a gamekeeper's cottage in the glen — now shut
up in order to preserve it. Thomson of Dud-
dingston also made several sketches of the giant firs
of the forest, and during his sojourn in the district
was immensely impressed by its sublimity. So over-
powered with emotion was he on one occasion in the
forest that he exclaimed, ** Lord God Almighty ! "
and said to his host and companion, Sir David
Brewster, that " the sky over such a scene seemed
the floor of heaven.*' Macculloch, in one of his
letters to Sir Walter Scott, before the authorship
of the Waverley Novels had been found out,
wrote that the unknown writer should lay the
scene of his next story in Glen Feshie. Her late
Majesty Queen Victoria passed through it on the
way from Braemar to Strathspey, and has re-
corded in her journal the excited feelings which
the memorable journey produced.
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144 ROTHIEMURCHUS
The extensive birch-woods of South Kinrara
and Dalnavert, which add so much to the at-
tractiveness of the landscape, were long ago
called the Davochs of the Head. They were
given in compensation for the head of the L^rd
of Mackintosh, who was decapitated while paying
a friendly visit to the Earl of Huntly in 1556.
Sir Walter Scott refers to this incident in an
article on the " Highland Clans " which he con-
tributed to the Quarterly Review. He informs
us that Mackintosh, in his bitter quarrel with the
Gordons, burnt their castle of Auchindoun, and
thereby aroused their implacable vengeance. The
earl reduced him to such extremities by his con-
stant persecution that he had at last to surrender
himself to his foe. Coming to the seat of the
Gordons, he found the master absent, but yielded
himself up to the countess instead, who informed
him that the earl had sworn never to forgive his
crimes until he should see his head upon the
block. Thereupon the humbled chief knelt down
and laid his head upon the kitchen dresser where
the oxen were cut up for the baron's feast No
sooner did he make this humiliating allegiance
than the cook, who stood behind him with the
cleaver uplifted, at a sign from the inexorable
countess, let the cleaver fall and severed Mac-
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KINRARA 145
kintosh's head from his body by a single stroke.
Dalnavert was the last remnant of the extensive
possessions of the ancient Shaws, the earliest lords
of this district. It how belongs to the estate of
The Mackintosh. About eighty years ago the
local company of volunteers used to assemble here
for drill. Both the mother and the wife of the
late well-known Premier of Canada, Sir John A.
Macdonald, were born in this place. The mother
went from thence after her marriage to Glasgow —
where the great statesman was born ; but he
returned from America for his bride to his
maternal country on the banks of the Spey.
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