Loch Ness

“ I was one summer evening walking home from fishing in Loch Ness, and having occasion to fasten up some part of my tackle, and also expecting to meet my keeper, I sat down on the shore of the loch. I remained some time, enjoying the lovely prospect: the perfectly clear and unruffled loch lay before me, reflecting the northern shore in its quiet water. The opposite banks consisted, in some parts, of bright greensward, sloping to the water's edge, and studded with some of the most beautiful birch-trees in Scotland ”

“ Smart, cheerful, and regularly built, Inverness has the air of a lowland town, spread out on a river plain, across which fragments of the Highlands have drifted from the grand mountains in view, as the Alps from Berne. The Ness has the distinction of being the shortest river in Britain, shorter even than London’s New River; but its course of only a few miles, from Loch Ness to the Moray Firth’s inner recess, is enough to make it a resort for big salmon and small shipping. ”

“ One is prominent in the vale of the Nevis, near Fortwilliam, and another occupies the summit of a magnificent rock overhanging Loch Ness, in Stratherrick. Naos, too, has given his name to rocks, and woods, and lakes ranging from Ayrshire to Inverness-shire, but the most signal of all is the great lake which fills the eastern portion of the Caledonian valley, Loch Ness. The old Statistical Account of Inverness states that the name of this lake was understood to be derived from some mythical person among the old Celts ”

“ Other noted falls are Moral on the Enrick and Kilmorack on the Beauly.
The number of hill tarns and little lakes is very great, considerably more than 200 being named. Loch Ness, the most beautiful and best known of the larger lakes, is 221/2 m. long, 13/4 m. broad at its widest point (Urquhart Bay) , has a drainage area of 696 m., and, owing to its vast depth (751 ft.) , uniformity of temperature, and continual movement of its waters, never freezes. It is the largest body of fresh water in Great Britain, and forms part of the scheme of the Caledonian Canal. ”

“ Inverness is built in a delightful situation, skirting the Ness, which here takes the form of a beautiful, shallow river moving peacefully forward to its great receptacle, Loch Ness, a few miles away; but, although the country near the town is comparatively level, it is surrounded by mountain scenery of the most charming description. Our route lay along the north-western side of the Caledonian Canal in the direction of Fort Augustus, and we again passed the Tomnahurich Hill. ”

“ In the north-west the Beauly river (16 m. long) is formed by the confluence of the Farrar and the Glass. The Enrick (18 m.) , rising in Loch-nan-Eun, takes a north-easterly direction for several miles, and then flowing due east falls into Loch Ness, just beyond Drumnadrochit, close to the ruined keep of Castle Urquhart. The Ness (7 m.) , a fine stream for its length, emerges from Loch Dochfour and enters the sea to the north of Inverness. The Moriston (19 m.) , flows out of Loch Clunie, and pursuing a course E. by N.E. falls into Loch Ness 4 m. south of Mealfourvounie (2284 ft.) ”

“ As there was nothing to see at Fort Augustus, the garrison having been removed, we did not go on shore.
At an early hour the next morning we got under weigh, and glided down Loch Ness, which is twenty-four miles long, and about a mile and a quarter broad, although it is narrower in some places. The depth is very great, in some parts one hundred and thirty fathoms. In consequence of this the water seldom freezes in the loch. The rugged and heath-covered mountains rise on either side to the height of about a thousand feet ”

“ In the summer months they abode at the high fort of Darthool, for so they named it, on the heights above the Black Loch, or Loch Ness as we now call it; and from the first frosts till the cuckoo’s song had ceased they lived at Dunuisneachan, their father’s ancient stronghold by the shores of Loch Etive. Thence often they wandered far afoot, or sailed southward and eastward among the sea-lochs and narrow kyles. ”

“ I continue to think it anything but beautiful. But Loch Ness offers a good deal. Yesterday I went to Foyers. It is by far the highest of the Scotch waterfalls, and there is a pleasant, quiet, sabbatic country-inn,8 overlooking the whole lake, with our highest hill, Mealfourvonie, just over the water, and with the Foyers river less than a mile off.
To J. C. Shairp, Esq.
Glenfinnan Inn, Fort William: September 1, 1847.
Excuse a blotted sheet. I am out of the realm of civility, being in your own well-beloved West, at Glenfinnan on Loch Shiel. The mountains are extremely fine, but not the weather ”

“ Let a frost be ever so hard, Loch Ness never has been known to freeze; it is therefore imagined, the whole bed of it is of sulphur. The water of the Ness river, and I believe most of the water about Inverness, is strongly impregnated with it, and often disagrees with man and beast, particularly with strangers unaccustomed to it. In the spring, 1796, some military men were obliged to be removed from Inverness, many of them having died of the flux, in consequence of the water being so strongly impregnated with sulphur. ”

“ In Scotland, the falls of its rivers are seldom of great size; but the rocky beds over which they roar and dash in foam and spray—the dark, precipitous glens into which they rush—and the frequent wildness of the whole scenery around, are compensating features. The most remarkable instances are the Upper and Lower Falls of Foyers, near Loch Ness. At the upper fall, the river precipitates itself, at three leaps, down as many precipices, whose united depth is about 200 feet; but, at the lower, it makes a descent at once of 212 feet, and, after heavy rains, exhibits a grand appearance. ”

“ The Old Red Sandstone extends into this county from Nairn through Culloden Moor past Inverness and down Loch Ness to a point south of Foyers; it occurs also on the south-east side of Loch Oich, and around Beauly, where it forms the falls of Kilmorach. These rocks consist at the base of coarse breccias and conglomerates passing upwards into chocolate-coloured sandstone and flags, with the shaly series containing limestone nodules known as the fish bed from the abundance and importance of its fossil contents; it is well exposed in the Big Burn and near Loch Ashie. ”

“ Pennant, who had been there four years earlier, describes the scenery as “most romantic and beautiful.” [588] Wesley thought the neighbourhood of Inverness one of the pleasantest countries he had ever seen. [589] In striking contrast with the enjoyment of these four travellers are the feelings of those who a few years before had seen the spot when the alarms of war were still fresh. “On each side of Loch Ness,” writes Ray, “is a ridge of most terrible barren woody mountains. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If by any causes of a nature similar to those which we see in daily action on the surface of the earth, it must have been by the flowing of rivers upon them. Thus the flow of the Ness and the Spey towards the sea, might have lowered the land in these directions to their present level, and thus the exit of Loch Shiel might have destroyed the barrier to the west; while the repeated failures of the supposed barrier at the mouth of the Lochy had in the mean time produced the complete drainage of Glen Roy and Glen Gloy, and with the exception of Loch Laggan, that of the Spean. ”

“ The scenery is everywhere of the most awful, the wildest, and most extensive. The weather is at its best, and every peak, and scaur, and wrinkle are visible to the naked eye. Below us to the left, winding under Ben Lochain, Ben Bheula, and Ben Cruach, is Loch Goil, flashing back the blue sky, and holding the sun-softened lines of the great hills in its bosom. To the north-west we can see the greatest of all those lochs that do so much to adorn, and draw tourists to, the west coast of Scotland, and which even from a commercial point of view is not without its value as our “great herring pond.” ”

“ The wind seemed to shriek around the mountain summits and to bellow in the gorges below, while the thunder hurtled across the sky, and the lightning, green and ghastly, flashed about the rocks of Loch Leven, shedding, ever and anon, for an instant, a sudden gleam upon its narrow stripe of water, and on the brawling torrents that roared down the mountain sides, and were swelling fast to floods, as the rain, which had long been falling on the frozen summit of Ben Nevis, now descended in a broad and blinding torrent that was swept by the stormy wind over hill and over valley. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ The heaviness of the rain shortened our voyage, but we landed on one island planted with yew, and stocked with deer, and on another containing perhaps not more than half an acre, remarkable for the ruins of an old castle, on which the osprey builds her annual nest. Had Loch Lomond been in a happier climate, it would have been the boast of wealth and vanity to own one of the little spots which it incloses, and to have employed upon it all the arts of embellishment. But as it is, the islets, which court the gazer at a distance, disgust him at his approach, when he finds, instead of soft lawns ”

“ 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 lake itself lies clear, black, and deep, a somewhat sullen, yet always beautiful sheet of water. On the left the dark masses of Ben Ledi cast their shadows upon the water, intensifying the depth of its tone, and giving the loch its distinctive character. Near the water the banks are in many places full of gentle woodland beauty, but as a rule the impression made by the overhanging bulk and the dusky-hued rocks of Ben Ledi, absorb the sense, and the loch ever presents an idea of grandeur and desolation. ”

“ 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! ”

“ We approach cautiously and watch the trout—how alternately mouth and gills open and close, keeping up an incessant pumping—as they lie behind stones watching for luckless flies. Passing over to the other side as at once the quickest route, and that by which the best views are to be got, we are not very far up till we can see the hills that hem in Loch Long on all its sides, standing up weird-like, jagged and fissured, grim and gruesome, even in fine weather, lending sublime impressiveness to the scene. ”

“ 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. ”