BEN LEDI.
Themost popular excursion in Scotland, both with ourselves and with strangers from all parts of the world, is that which takes us to, and through, the Trossachs. But it is somewhat unfortunate that the idea exists in the public mind that it is an impossible excursion to any but rich people on account of its expense. We propose to-day to lead any who are willing to follow us to one of our Scottish mountains which more than any other may feel proud of its surroundings, which is, so to speak, at the very gate of the Trossachs, and to reach and climb which demands no great expenditure of time or of money although we can scarcely add strength, for Ben Ledi is not one of the easiest of our western hills to climb.
And yet it was not till Sir Walter Scott threw the spell of his genius over this district that it was regarded as anything else than a desolate, cut-throat country, into which no decent folk could venture.
Our route of course isviaStirling, with its rock andCastle and history; Dunblane, and its ancient cathedral with memories of good Bishop Leighton, and its window facing us, which Ruskin has pronounced the finest of its kind in the country; Doune, with its mills and old castle, to Callander, lying about 256 feet above the level of the sea, on the banks of the river Teith. Here we get our first view of the Ben 4½ miles to the north-west, and prepare to take our walk for the day.
When it is remembered that with the exception of the episode at Stirling Castle, the whole scenes of theLady of the Lakelie within the parish which gives its name to and has its centre in the town of Callander, it will be at once seen that it would be superfluous on our part to describe the sceneryen routeto the base of Ben Ledi. The best guide book here is theLady of the Lake, “every step and every scene being made classic in the beautiful and vivid word-painting of that poem.”
The ascent can be best made from Portnanellen about 2¾ miles from Callander, in the immediate vicinity of Coilantogle Ford. This was “Clan Alpine’s outmost guard,” the place where Roderick Dhu stood vantageless before Fitz James; “but it has lost its romance by the erection of a huge sluice of the Glasgow waterworks.” So thinks a writer in the latest OrdnanceGazetteer. However, as we make for it, crossing the Leny, pattering along its stony bed, after it has come down one of the prettiest passes either in this or any other country, as we admire the hollies thickly covered with berries, and think what an added beauty they will have from the first snows of winter, and as we get a foretaste or two of the mountains and the floods that we are to see before the day is done, we have neither the time nor the mind to be disturbed by thoughts of Glasgow and her waterworks.
The best and usual route of ascent can be best learned on the spot before starting. When a beginning is made the way opens up gradually, and as we have so much more that is readable to say, we will dispense with a detailed account of how each of the 3875 feet of the “Mountain of God” is to be covered.
The Gaelic name read commonly asbeinn-le-diais more correctlybeinn schleibhteorschleibtean. According to this latter reading the Ben is not the “Mountain of God,” but the “Mountain of Mountains,” or “Mountain girt with sloping Hills.” And this corresponds with its size and surroundings. It rises from a base of about 11 miles in circuit; in fact it occupies most of the space between Loch Lubnaig on the east, Loch Vennachar on the south, and Glenfinlas on the west. The fact that it has sometimesbeen called the “Mountain of God” is not due to the shape or size of the hill itself, but to this, that Druidical worship lingered on its summit after it had disappeared from the rest of Scotland.
One of the chief dangers, and one of the principal causes of discomfort, in climbing Ben Ledi is its liability to mists, and the number of bogs that surround its base. It is not every stout-legged counter-jumper who buys a return ticket to Callander, or every pretty lass who thinks to put colour in her cheeks by the toilsome walk, shall be allowed to treat the “Mountain of Mountains” with the contempt begotten of familiarity. They may struggle to the top, only to be knocked about by “air rending tempests,” or to find that the Ben has put on the fleecy mantle which the clouds seem ever ready to invest him with on the shortest notice. They may ascend voluble, expectant, and dry, but descend much more briskly, sad, sodden, and woefully disappointed. But even before they get well started, if the weather has been wet, and they are not careful, they may get occasionally up to the ankle, and if not, have to struggle at least with some sopping ground.
If, however, a good day is chosen in a dry season, and the mists should keep away, we can promiseyou something out of the common run of things in mountain scenery even in the west of Scotland. It is said that in many of the towns of Switzerland the best houses were formerly built with their backs to the Alps as if the view of them were hateful. The natives, in fact, spoke of the region of ice and snow as “the evil country.” But those who have made the ascent of Ben Ledi in the favourable circumstances that I have referred to will wish not only to set their faces to Ben Ledi, but will be anxious for another opportunity of enjoying the view from its summit, a view which commands all the way from the Bass Rock to the Paps of Jura, and from the Moray Firth to the Lowther Mountains. Loch Vennachar is seen lying at our feet with its 5 miles of water, and its two islands, one at its eastern end, and the other, calledIllan-a-Vroin, or the “island of lamentation,” further west, and covered with wood. To the south, where now stands the ruins of an old mill, the Teith flows past. A peep, but little more, can be had of Invertrossachs House, which was occupied by the Queen in 1869.
There has been many a visit paid to the summit of Ben Ledi since that day, but the largest, probably, and certainly the most enthusiastic party was that which went up to erect the Jubilee Cairn. The loyalHighlanders and the inhabitants of the classic district embracing Loch Lubnaig, Loch Vennachar, and Glenfinlas, in answer to a summons, which, like the “fiery cross,” was carried down the valley of the Teith, and up the Pass of Leny by the Kirk of St. Bride, erected a cairn on the top of an older one, which had existed for sometime, but had probably been blown down by the high winds which sweep across the hills with great violence. The new cairn, which was erected out of an abundant supply of building material to be found in the summit, has a base of 14 feet, and its height is equal to its diameter. It is chiefly made up of great slabs of a slaty sandstone, which had, we understand, to be dug, in not a few cases, out of the mountain side, in which they were embedded, in some cases, several feet. At a height of 12 feet the slaty material was no longer used, and for the next 2 feet, to the summit, the cairn consists of white quartz, which, when the sun shines upon it, has a beautiful effect even at some little distance. The fact that the cairn only took five hours to be “begun, continued, and ended,” speaks volumes for the number and the diligence of the willing and loyal workers. And if the cairn is not quite as firm as the “Eddystone Lighthouse,” it will at least outlive the reign of the next two of our crowned heads.
But though the jubilee builders were numerous, and although the quartz on the crown of the cairn can shine and sparkle in the proper given circumstances, these are as nothing to the concourse of grave Druid priests who used to worship here, and to the glittering of their fires far and wide. It is said that at sunset on the night before the first of May they found their way to this summit ready to welcome the rising of the God of day with a fire offering, which could be seen from all parts of the Lowlands of Scotland from the German Ocean to the Atlantic, and which the superstitious natives took to be kindled by the hand of God. All private and domestic fires had been put out, and the country was universally waiting for the first gleam of the new Bal-tein, or Baal-fire from heaven, for another year.
As we rest behind the Jubilee Cairn to eat our biscuit and cheese, and get shelter from a stiff north-wester, we again and again look round in all directions, but the views to be had are at once so grand and so various that it would only bewilder the reader to go into details, and we would recommend him to lose no time, but embrace the first opportunity he has of making the ascent and getting the view himself. One other reason why we should not go into particulars is that we have to embrace much of the same prospectthat we had on Ben Venue, although with this difference that we have now a much better view away to the north.
It is not often that we have a sheet of water on or near the summit of our Scottish hills; but this is something that Ben Ledi can boast of. On its shoulder, a little way below us, there is a small and dark tarn, only a few yards in width, which yet was made the unwilling witness, nay, worse, participator in a terrible tragedy. The tarn is called Loch-an-nan-corp—“the small lake of dead bodies,” a name the origin of which tradition ascribes to the calamity which “once upon a time,” not to be too particular, overtook a funeral procession there. Two hundred persons journeying from Glenfinlas to a churchyard on the pass of Leny, found this lake frozen over and covered with snow, and attempted to cross it, but the ice gave way and they were all drowned. An interesting writer in theIllustrated News, a year or two back, a writer who, we are pleased to hear, belongs to Glasgow, says, writing on this point, “No tablet on that wind-swept moor records the half-forgotten disaster; only the eerie lapping of the lochlet’s waves fill the discoverer with strange forebodings, and at dusk, it is said, the lonely ptarmigan may be seen, like souls of the departed, haunting the fatal spot.”
Those who, instead of retracing their steps, and coming down again by Coilantogle, prefer to make for the Pass of Leny, will find at the foot of the mountain a little mound, close to where the river leaves Loch Lubnaig, the burying-ground to which the clansmen were carrying their dead friend. There is now only a low scone wall around this diminutive grave-yard, but here once stood the small chapel of St. Bride, “which,” according to Sir Walter Scott, “stood in a small and romantic knoll in the middle of the valley,” from the Gothic arch of whose doorway, we read in theLady of the Lake, the happy marriage company were coming out when Roderick Dhu’s messenger rushed up to the principal one of the party and thrust into his hands the fiery cross of the Macgregors. After rounding this knoll we arrive, about a mile farther on, within sight of Loch Lubnaig, or the “Crooked Lake,” which is some 5 miles in length, overhung on both sides by rugged hills, and surrounded by groves of birch, pine, and hazel. We do not know a better position than the farmhouse of Ardchullary for getting a good view of the loch. Unless you have provided yourself with a very liberal allowance of the biscuits and cheese to which we have already referred, you will be glad to get near to some such kindly and hospitable place. And if you are a little tired and done up with yourday’s travels, additional interest will attach, in your eyes, to this house, from its having been the favourite summer quarters of Bruce of Kinnaird, the Abyssinian traveller, who retired to these solitudes for the purpose of arranging the materials for the publication of his travels.
The date of our visit to Ben Ledi’s summit was “on or about” the time when the young grouse begin to lose the number of their covey, and to learn that every man who treads the moor is not so harmless as the shepherd, especially when a dog accompanies him. And ever and again we come across them sitting warily and watchfully among the heather, and saw them rising far out of gunshot. The grouse, indeed, were now being deserted for the black game, which, on account of the general lateness of the grey hen in sitting compared with that of her red sister of the moor, are allowed a little rest. Of course some men make it a rule to pull a trigger upon a blackcock how or whenever they can, and some birds fall to the guns of those who do not know the difference between heath-fowl and moor-fowl. Most people, indeed, remember the canny reply of the Scotch keeper to the English sportsman who was out on the moors for the first time, and had missed what he thought was a grouse. “I was too soon, Donald,I am afraid,” said the latter. “’Deed, and you were, sir, eight days too soon; it was an auld blackcock.” We saw over and again in the course of the day good proof of what we had often heard that the blackcock is far from a model husband, and anything but resembles the grouse-cock in his devotion to his mate.
But we must step out on our homeward and southward journey with the Leny accompanying us in the valley, the road being quite equal, during its mile or two, to that between Callander and Coilantogle. The river is low to-day, and runs under banks that are hung with ferns and lingering foxgloves, with golden rod and harebells, and all the flowers of the late summer. But in a wet season, when each rivulet along the mountain side swells into an angry torrent, and from an occasional cliff “the wild cataract leaps in glory,” it exults in the added strength of all its hundred turbulent vassals, and rises in its might, and seething, and struggling, and overflowing its banks, rises and roars a furious stream.
As we get into Callander again we are passed by the coaches on their return from Loch Katrine, and when we look at the prancing steeds, the happy tourists, and last, but not by any means least, the red-coated, brass-buttoned, and very superior persons who handle the whip and reins, we have no difficulty in seeing why itis that there should be in our days a coaching revival, even on routes where there is the opportunity of travelling by train. There is no more delightful way of spending a summer day, given sunshine and warmth, than to have a drive on a well-appointed coach, behind an accomplished whip, and four “spanking” horses.
We are not at all sorry, however, that this particular outing did not take that special shape, and although we cannot claim to be the first to bring the glories and the attractions of Ben Ledi into view, as Mrs. Murray did in the case of the beauties of the Trossachs, and who claimed that Sir Walter Scott should have dedicated theLady of the Laketo her (although her claim has not generally been allowed), we feel that we have done something at least to tempt some Glasgow excursionists to follow us, and climb the hill for themselves.