Quantock Hills

“ It was but a blunt, conical hillside of green corn, rosy ploughland, sheep-fed pasture, and a few elms in the partitions; and behind it the dim Quantocks. Between these two hills, at a spot where the road twists again at right angles, a brick summer-house perched on the walled roadside bank, at the very corner. Here, as I heard, a few generations ago, ladies from the house near by used to sit to watch for the coaches. I was now two hundred feet up in the foothills of the Quantocks. Three or four miles in front bulked the moorlands of the main ridge. ”

“ While to the north, south, and east there is nothing but moor, with an occasional hill to relieve the monotony; to the west there is a landscape of unrivalled beauty. In the foreground there is the fertile valley of the Irvine, dividing Galston on the south from Loudon on the north, and Kyle from Cunningham, a vista of little less than 20 miles in length. ”

“ For miles across the plain the men who follow the trail watch the steep outlying shoulder of the Brandon Hills for a landmark. When they leave the Souris valley the hills are blue with distance and seem to promise wooded slopes, and maybe leaping streams, but a half-day's journey dispels the illusion, for when the traveller comes near enough to see the elevation as it is, it is only a rugged bluff, bald and bare, and blotched with clumps of mangy grass, with a fringe of stunted poplar at the base. ”

“ The road winds and curves in an interminable pattern, finding its way, by trial and error it seems, among the great granite spires that give the region its name. These “needles,” through the last of which the highway actually plunges in a tunnel, are the remains of a great granite plateau which once covered that entire portion of the Black Hills. Contrary to popular opinion, the rocks are not outthrusts, the 34 result of some ancient upheaval, but the last thin vestiges of this once-solid plateau. The age-old process of erosion has carved them into the shapes they now have ”

“ To the mountaineer who makes his way from Seascale or from Drigg to Wastdale Head, the Cumberland hills with their long, rolling outlines, their flanks concealed by superincumbent soil and vegetation, do not seem to promise well as far as rock climbing is concerned. Only here and there do the ridges break into rocky precipices; nowhere is seen the rugged grandeur of the Highlands of Scotland; such valleys as Glencoe with its rock-built walls, or the splintered summits of the Coolin, or of An Teallach, do not exist. ”

“ And then slowly, slowly, the whole white bank in the valley lifts silently and wonderfully; up and up it goes in a solid mass, and as the higher parts of the hills, which were previously in sunshine, are temporarily hidden by the uprising mass, so the lower part of the valley gradually becomes visible, first only a strip at the very bottom, then more and more as the white curtain is raised. Finally the white mass disappears and joins its fellows in the sky above, a fragment of cloud lingering sometimes a little below the summit of the highest hill. ”

“ About noon we reached the main fork. The Pannack river was before us, the valley being here 11⁄2 miles wide, fertile, and bordered by smooth hills, not over 500 feet high, partly covered with cedar; a high ridge, in which there is a prominent peak, rising behind those on the left. We continued to descend this stream, and found on it at night a warm and comfortable camp. Flax occurred so frequently during the day as to be almost a characteristic, and the soil appeared excellent. The evening was gusty, with a temperature at sunset of 59°. ”

“ Almost as soon as this era of upheaval first started, as soon as the first land of the Black Hills was elevated above the great sea, the forces of erosion set to work. Wind and rain worked their terrifying magic on the slowly rising terrain, carving away the softer rocks and the loose dirt and leaving only the granite outcroppings. Down from the sides of the great dome poured the waters of melting snows, gushing springs, and torrential rainfalls, digging out rivers, canyons, and the deep and narrow cuts which characterize this beautiful region. ”

“ With a mean breadth of 28, and a total length of 90 miles, it develops itself in a westerly direction, at the foot of the sombre mountain-chain known as the Black Hills. On issuing from the immense, uniform, and monotonous prairie, the traveller finds himself suddenly transported, after a descent of 100 to 200 feet, into a depression of the soil where rise a myriad of abrupt rocks, irregular or prismatic, or like columns dressed with enormous pyramids, and from 110 to 220 feet in height. ”

“ He stopped to watch, and looked up at the great mound that jutted out from the hills into mid-valley. It was a natural formation, and always it must have had something of the form of a fort, but its steepness had been increased by Roman art, and there were high banks on the summit which Lucian's father had told him were the vallum of the camp, and a deep ditch had been dug to the north to sever it from the hillside. On this summit oaks had grown, queer stunted-looking trees with twisted and contorted trunks, and writhing branches ”

“ Looking to the south we have a perfect tableland of small mountains, the Leadhills range being a{23} little to the east, those near Sanquhar due south, and those near Dalmellington to the west, Blackcraig and Enoch’s Hill being prominent between. Behind a small cairn to the west of the two greater ones there is a very fine spring, the waters of which, falling into the valley below, divide into two little streams. The one part, under the name of the Garpel, runs into the Firth of Clyde at Ayr, through the channel of the water of Ayr ”

“ Here, as the highway begins to descend into the valley of the Cannonball River, there is a far-reaching view of country severe and imposing. Steep grass-covered hills and mesas give way to sharp, abrupt, gray clay cones and buttes that rise in confusion from the plain. The work of erosion in the creation of these formations is visible in many sidehills, where the top layers of earth have worn away to expose the bedrock strata beneath. ”

“ It is now utilized by a railroad, and the rocks and cliffs along the way have been disfigured and besmeared with patent medicine advertisements. The Notch is a gigantic cleft through the mountains, with treasures of splendid scenery along the way on either side. Hills draw apart, valleys open, streams and cascades sparkle in their tortuous beds, while the skirts of the mountains are dotted with rich colors, and the meadow-lands become a fringe of emerald encompassing their irregular bases. ”

“ We ascended by a steep hill from the river bottom, which is sandy, to a volcanic plain, around which lofty hills sweep in a regular form. It is cut up by gullies of basaltic rock, escarpments of which appear everywhere in the hills. This plain is called the Taih prairie, and is sprinkled with some scattered pines. The country is now far more interesting to a traveler than the route along the Snake and Columbia rivers. To our right we had always the mountains, from the midst of whose dark pine forests the isolated snowy peaks were looking out like giants. ”

“ Successive portions of this line of heights are known as the Western Downs, the White Horse Hills, the Chiltern Hills, the East Anglian Ridge, the Lincolnshire Wolds and the Yorkshire Wolds. The rivers from the gentle southern slopes of the Oolitic heights pass by deep valleys through the Chalk escarpments, and flow on to the Tertiary plains within. The typical scenery of the Chalk country is unrelieved by small streams of running water; the hills rise into rounded downs, often capped with fine clumps of beech, and usually covered with thin turf, affording pasture for sheep. ”

“ Leaving entirely the Snake river, which is said henceforth to pursue its way through canons, amidst rocky and impracticable mountains, where there is no possibility of traveling with animals, we ascended a long and steep hill; and crossing the dividing ridge, came down into the valley of Burnt river, which here looks like a hole among the hills. The average breadth of the stream here is thirty feet; it is well fringed with the usual small timber; and the soil in the bottoms is good, with better grass than we had lately been accustomed to see. ”

“ Those to the north are about a hundred miles in extreme length, and, rising from a great plateau, lie perpendicular to the direction of the real Rocky Mountains toward which they lead: half the course of the Pina Pa subtends their southern base. The Western men know them as the Rattlesnake Hills, while the southern are called after the river. The former—a continuation of the ridge in which the Sweetwater has burst a gap—is one of those long lines of lumpy, misshapen, barren rock, that suggested to the Canadians for the whole region the name of Les Montagnes Rocheuses. ”

“ Behind that you have the Forest of Glenfinlas, once a royal forest; and behind that rises Ben Ledi (the Hill of God) to 2875 feet. Farther on you have Loch Vennachar (the Lake of the Fair Valley) , with its islands, and the Ford of Coilantogle at the far end of it, to which Roderick promised to lead the king in safety, and where the fight took place—“the Gael above, Fitz-James below.” Still further off is Callander, looking bright and fair under the influence of Old Sol, and nestling at the base of Uam-Var. ”

“ It is no part of our plan to describe that wilderness of beauty, “all in the Trossachs Glen,” which attracts so many tourists from all parts of the world year after year. But if our hill climber has got any superfluous energy after he has gone up and come down, it would be a pity to be so near the Trossachs without actually seeing the famed and fabled spot. ”

“ The ridge of the hill is green, but like most such lands is soft; and this is the nature of the way till you reach the last stage, which is steeper (excepting near the very summit) , and is formed of large fragments of slaty-rocky, intermixed with a kind of sparry marble of considerable size. The first part of the journey is the least agreeable, from its soft and boggy nature; halfway up the lake appears to most advantage, its glassy surface studded with islands, round which appears to breathe a perpetual spring. ”

“ The elevation of the camp by the boiling point, is 8,050 feet. We are now 1,000 feet above the level of the South Pass in the Rocky mountains; and still we are not done ascending. The top of a flat ridge near was bare of snow, and very well sprinkled with bunch-grass, sufficient to pasture the animals two or three days; and this was to be their main point of support. This ridge is composed of a compact trap, or basalt of a columnar structure; over the surface are scattered large boulders of porous trap. The hills are in many places entirely covered with small fragments of volcanic rock. ”

“ I wonder whether anywhere else in the world there is such an abrupt wall without foot-hills, for, as I have said, the broken hilly country of the Kangra cannot be described as foot-hills to this ridge. The rise is too abrupt, there is far too great a wall-like effect, and indeed from any of the points one passes on the ridge, the impression given is that of looking directly into a flat country. ”

“ As in most of the hill ranges which are offsets from the Rocky Mountains, they contain gold in valuable quantities, and doubtless a minute examination will lead to the discovery of many other useful minerals. The Black Hills are appropriately named: a cloak of gloomy forest, pine and juniper, apparently springing from a rock denuded of less hardy vegetation, seems to invest them from head to foot. The Laramie Hills are sub-ranges of the higher ridge, and the well-known peak, the Pharos of the prairie mariner, rises about 1° due west of Fort Laramie to the height of 6500 feet above sea level. ”

“ In a north-easterly direction may be seen the thriving town of Beith, and the high ground behind it, forming part of the watershed between the basin of the Clyde and the river systems of Ayrshire. Due east is the valley of the Garnock, the beauty of which is somewhat marred by a variety of coal and iron works, whose bings of shale and other refuse are considerably higher than any Dutch hills that we have seen. ”

“ There is such an assembly of rude and wild grandeur as fills the mind with the most sublime conceptions. It is as if a whole mountain had been torn in pieces and had fallen down by a great convulsion of the{88} earth, and the huge fragments of rocks and rocky wooded hill lie scattered about in confusion for several miles along the side of Loch Katrine. Black and bluff headlands of rock dip down into the unfathomable water, or, to speak more exactly, into a loch which was found recently to be 75 fathoms deep, and which on account of its depth scarcely ever freezes. ”

“ Their forms are more rugged than those of any other hill-group in Britain (Fig. 331) . Every declivity among them is an irregular pile of crags, every crest is notched like a saw, every peak is sharpened into a pinnacle. Instead of being buried under vast sheets of their own debris, these hills show everywhere their naked rock, which seems to brave the elements as few other rocks can do. Unlike the pale Red Hills, they are dark, almost black in tone, though when canopied with cloud they assume a hue of deepest violet. ”

“ There can be no mistake as to what we have come out to see. There is not much to distract our attention from the object we have in view, nothing near of a like kind to compete with it. There it stands, like a large self-contained house, all others at a respectable distance from it, not to be mistaken with any other—nay, as destitute of relations as Melchisedeck, a great porphyritic hill, dominating like a king over the Upper Ward. After leaving the station, a quarter of a mile{11} to the south, there is a camp still to be seen covering half an acre. ”