J. Ewing Ritchie

“ And I own at first sight there seemed to be a good deal in the Glasgow criticism. Few cities have so fair a site as the noble metropolis of our northern brethren; few cities less require ornamentation. Hers emphatically is that beauty which unadorned is adorned the most. To stand in Princes Street, with the castle frowning on you on one side, and with the Calton Hill in front; to loiter under the fair memorial to Sir Walter Scott (by the side of which I am pleased to see a statue of Livingstone has just been placed) ”

“ The land does not flow with milk and honey. The hut of a Skye peasant, with its turf walls, its bare and filthy floor, not the sweeter for the fact that the cow—if the owner is rich enough to have one—sleeps behind, its peat fire, with no chimney for the escape of smoke, its bare-legged boys and girls, its sombre men, its gaunt women, seemed to me the climax of human wretchedness. ”

“ Dark-eyed, black-haired, with heads which you might knock against a rock without cracking, and with arms and legs that one would fancy could stop the Flying Dutchman,—evidently these are not the men to be tossed about with every wind of doctrine or cunning craftiness of men who lie in wait to deceive. Little pity would they have for the imperfect, weak-kneed brother, who, in the pulpit or out of it, could presume to doubt what they had learnt at their mothers’ knees. Up here in Skye, the religion known is bright and clear. ”

“ There is no paper published in all the Isle of Skye, but the people believe. You man of the nineteenth century, the heir of all the ages underneath the sun, would think little of the peasant of that wintry region. I believe he thinks as little of you as you do of him. You mock, and he believes; you scorn, and he worships; you stammer about Protoplasms and Evolutions, he says in his old Gaelic tongue, “God said, Let there be light, and there was light.” There are many in London who would give all that they have if they could believe as these men and women of the North. ”

“ I learn that Mull is a cheap place—as it ought to be—to live in. In Tobermory, butter—beautiful in its way—is eighteenpence a-pound; mutton, tenpence; eggs, eightpence a dozen; and, says my informant, things are now very dear. The people are agricultural, and each one cultivates his little crop. The women are fearfully and wonderfully made; they seem born for hard work, and a large number of the young ones leave yearly for Glasgow, where, as maids-of-all-work, they are much in request. In the mud and rain, children, barefooted, come out to stare. ”

“ I shall never forget my first view of the Clyde from the heights above Greenock. It is true I had seen the Clyde before, but it was at Glasgow years ago, and it had left on my mind but a poor impression of its extent, or utility, or grandeur. What a sight you have of dockyards, where thousands of men are ship-building! ”

“ Meeking’s young men look down every day.
It was on the next day that you saw the statue and the preparations to the most advantage, and such seemed to be the opinion of all Edinburgh and the surrounding country. A cloudless sky p. 106and an Indian sun tinted everything with gold, and a smart breeze set all the flags of the Venetian masts waving all along the line in a way at once effective and bewildering. Fashionable people filled up the streets, dashing equipages drove rapidly past, shops were crammed, waiters at the hotels were tired to death. ”

“ As I sit musing in the dining-saloon of the Elena, it occurs to me that a Scotchman is bound to be a better educated man than an Englishman; for these simple reasons—in the first place, he does not drink beer—and beer is fatal to the intellect, inasmuch as it magnifies and fattens the body ”

“ There was a good deal of the right that is born of might in Scotland then; it is to be hoped that the land is happier now with its castles in ruins, and its sons and daughters wanderers on the face of the earth, farming in Canada, climbing to wealth and power in the United States, governing in India, growing wool in Natal, coming to the front with true Scotch tenacity and instinct everywhere. ”

“ To leave the train and hurry down the pier, and rush on board the Iona, is the work of a minute, but of a minute rich in marvels. The Iona is a fine saloon steamer, which waits for the train at Greenock, and thence careers along the Western Coast, leaving her passengers at various ports, and picking up others till some place or other, with a name which I can hardly pronounce, and certainly cannot spell, is reached. It must carry some fourteen or fifteen hundred people. ”

“ I saw no sign of intoxication on the evening of the fast day, but I did see churches filled, and all business suspended, and the sight of the Gaelic congregation was extremely interesting. The men in good warm home-spun frieze, the women with clean faces, and plaid shawls, and white caps, the younger ones with the last new thing in bonnets, looking as unlike the big, bare-footed damsels of the streets, and the old withered women whom you see coming in from the wide and dreary moor, as it is possible to imagine. In London heresy may prevail—sometimes, it is said, it crosses the Scottish border ”

“ We pass another old castle, that of Stalker, on a small island, a stronghold of the ancient and powerful Stewarts of Appin, who, though now extinct, anciently ruled over this region, and, connected with the royal family of that name, occupied a distinguished place in Scottish story. In the sunlight our trip is immensely enjoyable. The air has healing in its wings. You feel younger and lighter every mile. On the left are the splendid mountains of Kingairloch and Ardour, and on the right those of Appin and Glencoe. ”

“ In rough seas, on this rock-bound coast, where the wind howls like a hurricane as it rushes down the gorges of the hills, and where the Atlantic seems to gather up its strength, here and there, at fitful intervals, ere it becomes still and tame—under the soothing influence of Scotch bag-pipes—it is well to remind the traveller on the deep that He, who holds the waters in the hollow of His hands, is love. Tobermory is, I imagine, a very religious place ”

“ At length we reach Scarba, Mull is swiftly gained, and there, on the other side of us, not, however, to be visited now, are Staffa and Iona. Altogether, we seem in a deserted district. It is only now and then we see a house, or gentleman’s residence, and, except where we pass some slate works on our right, the rocks and hills around seem utterly unutilised. Occasionally we see a few sheep or cattle feeding, and once or twice we are cheered with arable land, and crops growing on it; but the rule is to leave Nature pretty much to herself. ”

“ We seem all at once to have come into the world again. On every side of us there are steamers bearing tourists, and holiday-makers, and health-seekers to the crowded bathing-places and health resorts. As we approach our journey’s end, the Clyde seems covered with rowing-boats, and music and laughter echo along its waters. ”

“ As next morning I crossed the Clyde, and took my seat in a crowded and early train, it seemed to me that rain was not far off, and that at Edinburgh Royalty might be favoured with a sight of what in England is known as Scotch mist. Nor were my forebodings wrong. The modern Athens was under a cloud, and many were the heavy-hearted who had come from far and near to do honour to the day. The Glasgow men have but a poor opinion of the citizens of Edinburgh. They took a very unfavourable view of the matter. If Edinburgh desired to have a statue of Albert the Good, why not? ”

“ Late as the season is, a few women are hay-making. What sunburnt, weather-beaten, wrinkled faces they have! Plump and buxom at eighteen, they are old women when they have reached twice that age.
As to Glencoe, what can I say of it that is not already recorded in the guide-books, and familiar to the reader of English history? The road is carried along the edge of Loch Leven, and is really romantic, with the rocks on one side, the winding glen in front, and the loch beneath. It is very narrow, and as we meet two four-horse cars returning with tourists we have scarce room to pass. ”

“ It was no unusual thing, we read, for rain to come down upon the travellers in torrents; for snow to fall in darkened flakes or driving showers of powdered ice; for winds to blow and howl with hurricane force, bewildering to man and beast; for frost to bite and benumb both hands and face till feeling was almost gone; and p. 9for hail and sleet to blind the traveller’s eyes and to make his face smart as if beaten with a myriad of slender cords. In Dent Dale, which is almost ten miles in length, the scenery is remarkably fine. ”

“ In this world everything is comparative. We in Middlesex may not have the warm sunshine and blue skies of France or Italy, but we have weather which admits of garden parties, and country sports, and pastimes; up in this region of mountain, rock, and river, it is perpetually blowing big guns or raining cats and dogs, and the Scotchman, as he can’t go out, must sit at home and improve his mind. ”

“ At one corner is what evidently was a receptacle for holy water, and all around the place there is an antiquity—in the p. 52grass growing in many of the streets, in the deserted walls of houses crumbling to decay, in the weather-beaten, ancient look of the people, certainly by no means suggestive of gaiety or life. ”

“ In the interior of the island are farmers and farmers’ wives, who evidently have cash to spare. As we skirt along the coast we see here and there a grey castle in ruins, telling of a time and manners and customs long since passed away. At one castle—that of Moy, for instance—the laird was a real knight and chief, and behaved as such. One part of the castle was built over a precipice, and in the wall was a niche in which a man could just stand, and barely that; a man or woman charged with a crime was placed in that niche ”

“ Small sheep, almost as horned and hardy as goats, may be met with, but never pigs. Pork seems an abomination in the eyes of the natives. Every cotter has a portion of the adjacent moor in which to cut peat sufficient to supply his wants. Out of the homespun wool the women make good warm garments—and they need them. Fish and porridge seem their principal diet, and it agrees with them. The girls are wonderfully fat and healthy; and consumption is utterly unknown. While I was at Stornoway, an old woman had just died in the workhouse considerably over a century old. ”

“ Stornoway is a very busy place, and has at this time of the year a population of 2,500. In May and June it is busier still, as at that time there will be as many as five hundred fishing boats in the harbour, and a large extra population are employed on shore in curing and packing the fish. In the country behind are lakes well stocked with fish, and mountains and moors where game and wild deer and real eagles yet abound. But a great drawback is the climate. An old sportsman writes:—“The savagery of the weather in the Lewes, the island of which Stornoway is the capital, is not to be described. ”

“ The girls have no bonnets on, the boys mostly wear kilts, but they have all the advantages of a school, and the steamers from Oban now and then bring batches of the Glasgow papers. One of the things that most strikes a stranger in these Western isles is the astonishing number of sweetshops. Every one is born, it is said, with a sweet tooth in his head, but here every islander must have a dozen at least. Tobermory is no exception to the general rule. The lower part of the town, at the far end of the bay, is chiefly devoted to trade, and at every other shop I see sweets p. ”

“ It is seldom the reality surpasses your expectations. As regards myself, in the case of Staffa I must admit it did.
The same morning we land at Columba, or the Holy Isle. The story of St. Columba’s visit to Iona is laid somewhere in the year a.d. 563. He, it seems, according to some authorities, was an Irishman, and from Iona he and his companions made the tour of Pagan Scotland; and hence now Scotland is true blue Presbyterian and always Protestant. Here, as at Staffa, we miss the tourists, who scamper and chatter for an hour at each place, and then are off ”

“ It seems to me that the people quite appreciate the charms of their rocky island. Coming down the cliff, I saw a notice—“Furnished Apartments to Let”—and the price asked was quite conclusive on that head. Down by the harbour an enterprising Scot, who had been a gentleman’s servant in London, had established a store for the sale of bottled beer and such pleasant drinks, and seemed quite satisfied p. 67with the result of his experiment. At any rate, he preferred Portree to residence further inland, where he said even the very eggs were uneatable, so strongly did they taste of peat. ”

“ In rough weather it requires no little courage to make one’s way in a steamer from Tobermory to Portree, the capital of the Isle of Skye. Our noble-hearted owner is very careful on this point. The Elena is a beautiful yacht, and he treats her tenderly. ”

“ It is true that I am adorned with a genuine Highland bonnet, and would make my fortune in London as a Guy on the fifth of November; but here Highland bonnets are common. It is true my companion is a great divine from town, and one well known in Exeter Hall; but here you would take him for a skipper, and nautical men are as common as Highland bonnets. I fear it is for very weariness that Oban ladies sit staring out of the windows on the empty streets and silent bay this dull and watery Sabbath night. I can almost fancy I hear them sing—
“I am a-weary, a-weary ”

“ In this roof the fowls nestle, and lay an infinite number of eggs; but all things inside and out are tainted with turf in a way to make them disagreeable. There is no chimney, and but one door, and the floor is the bare earth, with a bench for the family formed of earth or peat or stone. Beds and bedding are unknown. If the family keeps a cow, that has the best corner, for it is what the pig is to the Irishman, the gentleman that pays the rent. ”

“ There are yachts all round, but none equalling the Elena. The hotels which line the bay are handsome, beautifully fitted up, and the proprietors are looking forward to the 12th of August and the advent of the English. All the shops are doing a roaring trade, and as to eggs, not one has been seen in Oban these four days. Here come the coaches, something of a cross between omnibuses and wagonettes, which run to Glencoe and Fort William, and other spots more or less famed in Scottish story ”