Loch Fyne

“ They form parallel belts of varying width trending north-east and south-west. The slates and phyllites referred to the lowest group occur along the shore at Dunoon, and are followed by the Beinn Bheula grits and albite schists, forming nearly all the highest ground in Cowall between Loch Fyne and the Firth of Clyde and the greater part of Kintyre. The green beds, Glensluan mica-schists and Loch Tay limestones are developed in Glendaruel, and have been traced north-east to Glen Fyne and at intervals south-west to Campbeltown. ”

“ The gentle tourist takes an easier and straighter line to Oban. His boat threads the beautiful Kyles of Bute, then stands across to Tarbert, on the Isthmus of Cantyre, from the farther side of which goes the steamer to Islay. Up Loch Fyne is reached Ardrishaig, terminus of the big ark whose Oban-bound [11] passengers are transferred to a smaller craft for the Crinan Canal cut, that brings them over to the island-studded and cliff-cornered sounds of the west coast. ”

“ When you pass from the broad and blue waters of Loch Fyne into the narrow and rocky channel leading to Tarbert harbor, you find before you an almost circular bay, round which stretches an irregular line of white houses. There is an abundance of fishing-craft in the harbor, lying in careless and picturesque groups, with their brown hulls and spars sending a ruddy reflection down on the lapping water, which is green under the [pg 720] shadow of each boat. ”

“ The portion of Argyleshire, between the hollow of Loch Long and the Firth of Clyde on the east and Loch Fyne on the west, has been found by my colleague, Mr. C. T. Clough, to contain an extraordinary number of dykes (see Fig. 257) . The coast line of Renfrewshire and Ayrshire shows that the same feature is prolonged into the eastern side of the basin of the Clyde estuary. But immediately to the westward of this area the crowded dykes disappear from the basin of Loch Fyne. In Cantire their scarcity is as remarkable as their abundance in Cowal. ”

“ Coarse woollens are made for home use; but fishing is the most important industry, Loch Fyne being famous for its herrings. The season lasts from June to January, but white fishing is carried on at one or other of the ports all the year round. Slate and granite quarrying and some coal-mining are the only other industries of any consequence. ”

“ The Scots were always particularly jealous about the fishings in the firths and lochs “within land.” An important herring fishery of this kind was carried on in the lochs on the west coast, especially in Loch Broom and Loch Fyne, in autumn and winter, by fishermen from the Clyde, the Ayrshire coast, and Fifeshire, who built timber houses on shore where they cured the herrings ”

“ It [Pg 100] remains therefore that I retire to my room and do as I am doing. We returned yesterday from our Highland expedition. We went by steamer up Loch Fyne, across the Mull of Cantire in a canal boat, and again in a steamer among the multitudinous isles, the skirts of the Hebrides, up the great fiord of Loch Linnhe, which narrows gradually, and at the headland of Ardgower is transmuted into the inland lake, a salt Winandermere, of Loch Eil, at the head of which stands Fort William, where begins the Caledonian Canal. This, our most northerly point, we attained on Monday. ”

“ Look at the pretty things. It minds me o’ being in Loch Fyne, coming down from Crinan in ane o’ Meester Macbrayne’s bonnie boats on the way to Glasgie.”
“Does it? I’ve never been there.”
“Eh, then she ha’e lost a gran’ treat, laddie. There’s plenty o’ watter here, but never a mountain, nor a toon glinting oot o’ the shore. Look yonder, laddie; there’s a bit of a fesh.”
“Porpoise!” cried Steve excitedly; “and another, and another. Why, there’s a regular shoal.” ”

“ The herring-fishery is the chief industry, but there is some weaving of woollens and, in summer, a considerable influx of visitors. Ardrishaig (pop. 1285) , a seaport on the west of the mouth of Loch Gilp, is the east terminus of the Crinan Canal. It is the place of transhipment from the large Glasgow passenger steamers to the small craft built for the navigation of the canal. It is an important harbour in connexion with the Loch Fyne herring-fishery, and there is also a distillery. During the summer there is a coach service to Ford at the lower end of Loch Awe. ”

“ Loch Awe — Cruachan Mountain — Glen Aray — Inverary Castle — Inverary — Loch Fyne — Cairndow Inn ¶ Glen Kinglas — Loch Restil — Rest and be Thankful — Glen Croe — Ben Arthur — Loch Long — Arrochar — Tarbet — Loch Lomond — Luss — Helensburgh ¶ The Clyde — Dumbarton — Renton — Alexandria — Balloch — Kilmaronock — Drymen ¶ Buchlyvie — Kippen — Gargunnock — Windings of the Forth — Stirling ¶ Wallace Monument — Cambuskenneth — St. ”

“ The coach drive to Gairloch occupies six hours in all, including a short stoppage to bait the horses at Kinlochewe, and during the whole time the eye is filled with pictures of grandeur or of delight. After the tedious descent to the water's edge has convinced you that the feeling of smallness is a mistake, you have time to observe the effect which such a mountain as Ben Slioch has in dwarfing all around it. Loch Maree is but six miles from the sea, with no great descent, so that the hill raises its mighty shoulders almost sheer from the sea level. ”

“ But the clear course of the lovely Leven is rock-crossed and intercepted with gravelly shallows, and guards Loch Lomond from the white-winged roamers that from all seas come crowding into the Firth of Clyde, and carry their streaming flags above the woods of Ardgowan. And there stands Ben. What cares he for all the multitude of other lochs his gaze commands—what cares he even for the salt-sea foam tumbling far away off into the ocean? All-sufficient for his love is his own loch at his feet. How serenely looks down the Giant! ”

“ It lies in a prodigious wilderness, with which perhaps no man alive is conversant, and in which you may travel for days without seeing even any symptoms of human life. We speak of the regions comprehended between the Forest of Atholl and Ben-nevis, the Moor of Rannoch and Glen Spean. There are many lochs—and Loch Ericht is their griesly Queen. Herdsmen, shepherds, hunters, fowlers, anglers, traverse its borders, but few have been far in the interior, and we never knew anybody who had crossed it from south to north, from east to west. ”

“ Mary Avon is helped on deck, and ensconced in a snug little camp-chair. The days of our summer idleness have begun.
And as yet these are but familiar scenes that steal slowly by—the long green island of Lismore—Lios-mor, the Great Garden; the dark ruins of Duart, sombre as if the shadow of nameless tragedies rested on the crumbling walls; Loch Don, with its sea-bird-haunted shallows, and Loch Speliv leading up to the awful solitudes of Glen More; then, stretching far into the wreathing clouds, the long rampart of precipices, rugged and barren and lonely, that form the eastern wall of Mull. ”

“ The climate is neither too mild nor too severe, but just right. The rainfall is neither too much nor too little, but just right. In short it is a perfect region,—perfect in its variety of scenery, from the rich woodlands of its lower ranges to the wild grandeur of its mountain recesses. Perfect is it also in its fine lochs, its picturesque waterfalls, its brattling burns, and its rolling rivers.
The waters from the Dhu Loch run into Loch Muick, above which lies the hut at Altnaghuissac, a favourite shiel, or mountain summer house of the royal family when living at Balmoral. ”

“ The first that takes possession of the imagination, dreaming of the Highlands as the region of Lochs, is the Queen of them all, Loch Lomond. A great poet has said that, "in Scotland, the proportion of diffused water is often too great, as at the Lake of Geneva, for instance, and in most of the Scottish lakes. No doubt it sounds magnificent, and flatters the imagination, to hear at a distance of masses of water, so many leagues in length and miles in width; and such ample room may be delightful to the fresh-water sailor, scudding with a lively breeze amid the rapidly-shifting scenery. ”

“ After the dulness of Glasgow and the Vale of Leven comes that wakening up to very ecstasy among the islands of Loch Lomond,—that new world, magical, enchanting. And then that plunge into the heart of the Highlands, when they find themselves by the shores of Loch Katrine, alone with the native people there,—the smell of the peat-reek within, and the scent of the bog-myrtle without; those ‘gentle ardours’ that awake, as they move along Lochawe-side and look into the cove of Cruachan, or catch that Appin glen by Loch Linnhe, at the bright sunset hour, enlivened by the haymaking people ”

“ Leaving, wilt seek in the moorland of Rannoch the wandering hero.
⁠There is it, there, or in lofty Lochaber, where, silent up-heaving,
Hearing from ocean to sky, and under snow—winds of September,
Visibly whitening at morn to darken by noon in the shining,
Rise on their mighty foundations the brethren huge of Bennevis?
There, or westward away, where roads are unknown to Loch Nevish,
And the great peaks look abroad over Skye to the westermost islands? ”

“ The road from Aberfoyle to the Trossachs rises very steeply past some slate-quarries. As we rise the hills come into view—Ben Ledi and Ben Venue, with Ben Lomond dominating all the landscape; Ben Voil peeping over Ben Lawers; and on the clearest days, far in the distance, Ben Nevis, Schiehallion, and many others. Far below to the right lies Loch Drunkie, and much nearer the desolate little tarn called Loch Reoichte, which signifies “frozen,” and this among them all for desolate beauty stands first. ”

“ It is about a mile to the first small detached strip of natural birch wood just opposite the house (on the other side of the river) furthest away from Poolewe. Craig Bhan is the low hill that rises close above the road on the side you are on. Near the top, about one hundred and fifty yards from the road, you will find on the one hand a magnificent view of Loch Maree, and in the other direction of Loch Ewe. I know no finer point of view in the district. One of the brochs, or Pictish round houses (Part I., chap. xxi.) ”

“ We passed the mouth of the deep denied Inverfarigaig, with the black rock resembling a ruin above it, and further on Urquhart Castle, built on a detached rock overlooking the loch, the most conspicuous object being a strong square keep, surmounted by four turrets. The banks of the loch now appeared far more cultivated than at the other end. Sailing through little Loch Dochfour, we again entered the canal, which runs down into Loch Beauly; while the river Ness, which we had on our right side, falls into the Moray Firth, close to Inverness, which stands on a plain about a mile off. ”

“ A trip from Athlone to Killaloe on a fast boat would, on a fine summer day, be one of the most enjoyable things in the way of an excursion by water that can be imagined. It is over thirty years since the writer experienced the pleasure of it, and the remembrance of its enjoyableness haunts him still. The shores of Loch Derg are much wilder than the shores of Loch Erne or Loch Ree. Very few houses, and nothing that could be called a town, can be seen through the whole twenty-five miles of the lake. ”

“ The country near Callander is very pleasing; but, as almost everywhere else, imperfectly cultivated. We went up a broad vale, through which runs the stream from Loch Ketterine, and came to Loch Vennachar, a larger lake than Loch Achray, the small one which had given us such unexpected delight when we left the Pass of the Trossachs. Loch Vennachar is much larger, but greatly inferior in beauty to the image which we had conceived of its neighbour, and so the reality proved to us when we came up to that little lake, and saw it before us in its true shape in the cheerful sunshine. ”

“ It was a bitterly cold day in the beginning of winter, and Fionn, who with his son Oisin, Oscur, Caeilte, Diarmuid, and the son of Lugach had been travelling from early in the morning, soon after midday found themselves in a desolate part of the country lying a little to the south of Loch Erne. Heavy hailstorms frequently swept down upon them, and they were looking for a house to shelter in when they started a shy, beautiful fawn from its lair in a hazel-wood. ”

“ Its shores are fully as beautiful as its islands. It would be hard to conceive anything in the way of shore scenery more beautiful than the shores of Loch Ree for eight or ten miles on the Leinster side of the lake between the mouth of the river Inny and Athlone. The shores are so irregular and cut up into so many promontories and headlands that, to follow the water’s edge from Athlone to where the Inny enters the Shannon, a distance of not more than ten miles as the crow flies, would involve a journey of over fifty. Every headland is [Pg 52] tree-crowned, and every promontory rock-girded. ”

“ It will be strange if our friends at Fort-William do not manage to bag some of them ere they repass the narrows at Corran Ferry.
The heat is oppressive within doors; but Loch Leven, we observe, is darkening under a rippling breeze from the south-east, and we are off for a sail in our tidy, little craft, that, with lugsail sheeted home, will go to windward of anything of equal size on the coast. ”

“ All the men of Mull were there; M'Coll of that Ilk, the M'Donalds of Aros, the M'Leans of Duairt and those of Lochbuy. As a poor fisherman from Lochlinnhe, disguised in bonnet, kilt, and plaid of undyed wool, with a long beard, and a face so pale and wan, that not even Una would have known me, I mingled with the hunters. For three days the sport continued, and one great stag—the prince of the island—after escaping many a spear, bullet, and arrow—after flinging the strongest of the grey dogs aloft on its branching antlers—and after swimming Loch Uisc and Loch Ba ”