IT CHAPTER XIV. LOCH LOMOND. View from Balloch Pier-A Bright Day for Tourists-The T is a lovely morning in the early autumn as I sit on Balloch Pier, and, looking up Loch Lomond, try my best to carry away a water-colour sketch of the scene before me. Loch Lomond itself the lake full of islands,' 'the Queen of Scottish lochs'-here narrowed to a comparative strip, which gradually widens to a breadth of five miles, claims the centre of the sketch. On either side, the Loch is shut in by a long-withdrawing range of mountains, the Grampians, extending in a long and rugged line to the right, and terminating towards the centre of the view in the distant Ben Lomond, whose highest pinnacle of rock is swathed by the morning mists. The hills are fringed with foliage down to the water-side; gleaming rocks crop up from amid emerald pastures and verdant clumps; and the undulating ground is splashed everywhere with heather, with its varied tints of crimson and creamy pink and purple. Castles, villas, and humbler residences sparkle white from amid the embosoming foliage and the dark masses of the Scotch firs. Scattered islands, receding bays, and rocky headlands break up the surface of the Loch, and crowd the picture with every variety of form and outline. The long level gleam of water is ruffled into gentle ripples, which, in the morning sunshine, are In colour like the satin shining palm, Or sallows in the windy gleams of March. The sails of boats flash like sea-gulls' wings; and a cloud of small birds glisten in the air and quiver white against the clear blue of the sky, like a shoal of silverscaled fish sparkling in the shallows. It is the very morning of all others to induce a visit to Loch Lomond; and, as I work away with my paintbrush and moist colours, and endeavour to note down the salient features in the crowded loveliness of the scene, I am not at all surprised to find my solitude interfered with by a swarm of tourists who have just arrived by the two railways from Stirling and Glasgow. A few of these venture into the rowing and sailingboats, whose proprietors are clamorous for custom; but by far the greater number flock to the steamer, which is snorting and puffing beside the pier. It is probable that many of these tourists have come that morning through Glasgow from Edinburgh; they will now sail twenty miles up Loch Lomond to Inversnaid, from whence they will cross Rob Roy's country in comfortable coaches to Stronalachan, where a steamer will be in waiting to bear them down Loch Katrine; from whence coaches will carry them through the Trossachs and over the Brig o' Turk to Callander; where they will again seat themselves in their railway carriage, to be taken past the Bridge of Allan, Stirling, Bannockburn, Falkirk, and Linlithgow, and will be back in Edinburgh by comfortable time in the evening. Could any single day's Tour in Tartan-land' surpass this especially if, as now, the sun so brightly shines upon their undertaking? There is the usual medley of sight-seers: the middleaged folks, so careful about their luggage; the young ladies, in such gushing emotions at the scenery; the university men, in the latest novelties of travelling costume, casting to the winds the cares of greats and smalls; the evident reading party, with their necessary reading paraphernalia of fishing-rods, gun-cases, and riding-whips; and, among all, an adventurous amateur photographer, who, after a fatal hesitation of five minutes, has straddled out his three-legged camera, and has no sooner decided upon his point of view, and hidden his head beneath the hood like a hunted ostrich, than the signal for departure is given, and the 'Now then, sir, if you please!' of the captain compels him to pack up his traps, and leave his performance as incomplete as that of Mr. Punch, when Policeman X bids him 'Move on!' ere his tragedy has reached halfway to its diabolic denouement. More fortunate than Mr. Punch or the amateur photographer, I have completed my water-colour drawing; and, as I wish to get back to the comfortable hotel at Tarbet, I may as well enjoy another sail up the Loch while the weather is so propitious. So, we are all on board; and the favourable seats on the high deck between the tops of the paddle-boxes are already crowded with ladies, who, from that moment, keep up an incessant feu de joie of enthusiastic comments on the lovely scenery that slides past them in a series of panoramic views, whose beauty, on a bright The view wants for sunny morning in the late summer or early autumn, cannot be surpassed in Scotland. nothing!' said a lady near to me. 'Yes, it does,' re plied the gentleman who stood beside her: it wants water. Water!' cried the lady; why, I thought that Loch Lomond was the largest lake in the United Kingdom. The largest freshwater lake,' replied her companion; true! that's the very point. Fresh water is not salt, and Loch Lomond is not the sea. If the base of Ben Lomond was washed by the waves of the ocean, then the view would indeed want for nothing!' I thought of poor Albert Smith's stupid engineer, with his ‘I tell you what it is—Chivity Vecchy ain't London ; and what's more, it never will be, Mr. Smith.' But it was evident that the wretched sea-loving tourist had come to Loch Lomond with a foregone resolution to find fault with it because it was not the Atlantic. On the other hand, Wordsworth complained of Loch Lomond for having too great an expanse of water, and said that it had ‘the blankness of a sea prospect without the grandeur and accompanying sense of power.' He thought that no one could see it without feeling that a speedier termination of the long vista of blank water would be acceptable, and without wishing for an interposition of green meadows, trees, and cottages, and a sparkling stream to run by his side.' Professor Wilson, in a good-natured-friend sort of style, showed that his brother poet was talking great nonsense, and measured Loch Lomond by the standard of Windermere. 'It is out of our power,' said Christopher North, 'to look on Loch Lomond without a feeling of perfection. The "diffusion of water" is indeed great; but in what a world it floats! at first sight of it, how our soul expands! The sudden revelation of such majestic beauty, wide as it is, and extending afar, inspires us with a power of comprehending it all. Sea-like indeed it isa Mediterranean sea-enclosed with lofty hills and as lofty mountains; and these, indeed, are the Fortunate Isles! We shall not dwell on the feeling which all must have experienced on the first sight of such a vision-the feeling of a lovely and a mighty calm! It is manifest that the spacious "diffusion of water" more than conspires with the other components of such a scene to produce the feeling; that to it belongs the spell that makes our spirit serene, still, and bright as its own.' Elsewhere, in the Recreations,' under the head of 'The Moors,' we find Christopher North speaking thus -and I recommend the passage to propitiate the nautical grumbler: Loch Lomond is a sea! Along its shores might you voyage in your swift schooner, with shifting breezes, all a summer's day, nor at sunset, when you dropped anchor, have seen half the beautiful wonders. It is many-isled, and some of them are in themselves little worlds, with woods and hills. . . . Ships might be sailing here, the largest ships of war; and there is anchorage for fleets. 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 in another volume he writes: We should as soon think of penning a critique on Milton's 'Paradise Lost,' as on Loch Lomond. People there are in the world, doubtless, who think them both too long; but, to our minds, neither the one nor the other exceeds the due measure by a leaf or a league. You may, if it so pleaseth you, 6 |