The Immeasurable Wilds: Travellers to the Far North of Scotland

A Descriptive Tour in Scotland by T.H.C., MDCCCXL

Loch Lomond from Rowarde Erran

T.H.C. is reluctant to own up to his full name, but the author is Chauncey Hare Townshend, who is described as an "English poet, clergyman, mesmerist, collector, dilettante and hypochondriac" - so we can expect some colour from his account, I think! Much of his collection of books, art, fossils, jewellery, maps, etc. was left to the South Kensington Museum, and the rest, to the Wisbech and Fenland Museum, where you can find a Sevres porcelain breakfast set said to have been captured from Napoleon's baggage after Waterloo.

Townshend's journey took him across to the Hebrides, including Skye, and as far north as Inverness. His companion on these travels was 'H'. The account is illustrated with particularly attractive lithographs, some of which I shall add here even though none are of the far north.

Bare Feet: 

Like many travellers, THC was astonished to find so many people without shoes as soon as they had crossed the border from England. "The very circumstance of seeing so many weans and lasses padding and tripping about with naked feet, gives one the idea of being in a strange land. The lower orders do not here, as in Wales, carry their shoes and stockings in their hands, as if in thrifty care of the most luxurious part of their apparel, but seem to discard these articles altogether. I have not even seen a Cumberland clog." (Page 5).

Food:

"We did full justice to the Scotch marmalade [at a] capital breakfast." They were at the Buck's Head in Glasgow. (Page 6).

For lunch beyond Loch Shiel, "mine hostess set before us ...kippered salmon, accompanied by fresh eggs, capital oat cakes and heavenly butter (we have generally met with this article good in Scotland), adding thereunto one biscuit. It was her last!" (Page 161).

Lunch beyond Arisaig: Oatcakes (the bread of the district), cheese nearly as good as Stilton and eggs, not only boiled to a bubble, but overflowing, as we opened them, with a milky nutriment which betokened them to be fresh as the morning...[Generosity:] For this repast (hear it, you Englanders)  the good woman refused, by a shake of the head and repulse of the hand, to take anything, and it was with the utmost difficulty that, by getting our driver to tell her we could not be comfortable if we did not renumerate her, we forced a trifle upon her acceptance." (Page 165).

_____________________________________

Inns:

At the inn at Ardchincrocan, the headwaiter "regularly supplied the teapot with cold water, never brought a thing one asked for, and his dry toast was as hard as tiles." The bedroom was only "...a trifle fresher than the Black Hole of Calcutta." (Page 30).

At Loch Earne Head, he finds the landlord to be very generous. He gives him a stick on departing to replace the one THC has lost." (Page 55).

At Killin, the only beds available were "two close cribs, shut up in cupboards in the public sitting room." (Page 57)

The inn at Luib was good. THC writes of "the warmth of farewell...we departed laden with kind wishes and with an excellent luncheon." (Pages 68-69).

Glen Falloch: "There we took shelter in a turnpike house that 'pays the double debt' of a turnpike and a public-house....cocks roost upon the beds, and run over the children that roll about the floor." (Page 69).

Inverarnan Inn, where "we went to be flea-bitten...It is a dirty place, and I would rather lie down, or trudge on ten long miles than sleep - or rather watch - there again." (Page 71).

Tarbet Inn, "an excellent place of entertainment."

Rowardennan Inn: "Not so pleasant as heretofore." They have to endure a whisky evening below until 03.00, then two of the participants who came to bed next door talked. "The only interruption to their blasphemies and indecencies was that they were, every now and then, abominably sick." (Page 74).

Arrochan Inn: The establishment "delighted us from the first", but again they had trouble with late-night revellers. (Page 82).

The Inn at Dalmally they thought pretentious, "the sort of inn you pay dear for a little, just because they exhibit a list of wines over the chimney-piece, including champagne or bottled gooseberry, produce cigars for the young linen-drapers from London or Glasgow, and rejoice in a couple of male waiters." (Page 90).

Inn at Ulva: "To speak more truly, a hovel." (Page 131).

Inn on Iona: They avoid it - "its appearance was anything but inviting." (Page 137).

Inn at Aross: "It looked quiet and comfortable in the moonlight." However, they found the service tardy, and "after ringing and ordering supper at least twenty times, we gave up the matter in pure despair, and at last actually went supperless to bed." It turns out that "all the time that we had been ringing and scolding, her mistress was bringing forth a man child into this world. This adds another to the many instances  in which I have remarked that the people hereabouts never tell you of a thing at the time it happens. I believe one reason for this to be that they cannot muster up English enough in an emergency."

Inn at Stontian: "comfortable". (Page 148).

Inn at Ardivaser on Skye: "There was little to complain of...[it was] tidy and comfortable; the bed, though we had but one for both of us, appeared good and clean, and the fare, though homely, was plentiful...It was a hovel of one story, with earthen-floor." Alas, there were fleas, which "always harbour in the blankets." THC thought it "the most villainous house in all Scotland for fleas."

Inn at Broadford: "Poor, dull...Great spots of damp appear through the cracked and peeling plaster; the beds are furnished with the commonest red-checked cotton hangings, not over-clean; the uncarpeted floor...We hear the twang of a jew's harp just under the window." 

The General's Hut: They make no comment about it on their arrival, but they feast there "quite Quin-ishly upon grouse - the first of the season-, eggs and bacon, young peas and pancakes" so it sounds good! From there they visited the Falls of Foyer. (Page 246).

Aviemore Inn: "A tidy place...and we should have found it very comfortable, had we not found it very full." (Page 249). 

Inn at Dalwhinnie: "Let the luckless traveller beware of the lonely inn  at Dalwhinnie, after the shooting season has set in; for he will find, as we did, both the house and the attention of the landlord taken up by parties of sportsmen...We quarrelled with the landlord for quartering a tobacco-smoking bagman upon us (who, moreover, picked his teeth with the carving-knife)." After threatening to leave, the landlord changes his tune and begs them to stay, and they are rewarded with "the first real Scotch breakfast ...which we had as yet had the happiness to fall in with. Boiled herring, hot roasted grouse, mutton-ham, pork-ham, eggs, honey, curranr jelley, marmalade: surely, here was enough to persuade forgiveness through the medium of the stomach." (Page 250).

Inn at Dalnacardoch: "I like our inn at Dalnacardoch."

_____________________________________

Glen Dochart

Healing Loch:

At Loch Earne, a boatman tells the story of "a damsel who had lost her wits...To this holy well, then, was this damsel brought...tightly bound with cords...and...all muffled up in blankets she was well soused in the sacred waters and forced to swallow a good dose of it." She was left by the loch for the night, and her guardians returned the next morning to find her healed. Townshend asks the boatmamn if he believes the story. "Believe it?" he exclaimed. "Why, I've seen the girl and I'll point her out to you, sir, any day." (Pages 53-54)

Loch Ewer

Places:

Loch Katrine. THC loves it - it "answers all I had ever dreamed of. The boathouse "formed, not untastefully, of undressed fir logs." On Ellen's Isle, there is " a rustic building which Lord Willoughby, the owner of the island, has with much good taste constructed in exact accordance with Scott's description of Ellen's 'Sylvan Hall'." (Pages 32-37).

Near Loch Earne Head: "This is the first place where I have felt as if fairly in the Highlands. At the Trossachs, the Gaelic tongue began to mingle with the Lowland Scotch; but here the lower orders seem to speak nothing but their native language." (Page 46).

On pages 63-64. he describes his ascent of Ben More.

At Inverarnan "everything about us looked very Scotch. Before the door, kilted children were sitting on logs of wood, the elder feeding the youhger with oatmeal, ladled out of a bowl in horn spoons. Farther off, a strapping Highland lassie was washing clothes after the fashion of the country, that is to say, trampling the linen with her naked feet. Vigorously did she dance away in the tub, lifting up her kirtle, quite as high as Jeanie is said to have done for a bawbee." (Page 71).

Staffa: "Nothing that I had yet seen had prepared me for the surpassing grandeur of this face of rock." (Page 132).

On Iona: "Before we even touched land, we were besieged by a troop of half-naked amphibious-looking boys, who emulously presented to our notice platefuls of pebbles...crying out...'gie us a bawbee!'" They sketched the Cathedral, and were approached by a man (the famed schoolmaster) who says "That which many men and horses could not move, you will carry away with you in your book." It transpires that he has done much to influence "the present good state of preservation...He had caused walls to be propped, rubbish to be cleared away and many a beautiful old fragment to be brought to light." He refused the 2/6 they offered him. "Hear this," writes THC, "ye who say the Scotch are grasping." (Page 145).

St Mary's Cathedral in Iona

Ben Nevis: They are advised not to climb it "because it was a crack mountain, and you might meet all Cheapside upon its summit." (Page 159). 

Beyond Arisaig, "the woods are all in the very course of being cut down, in order to put a few hundred paltry  pounds into the rich owner's pocket." (Page 167).

Inverness: "A mighty civilised sort of place."

___________________________________________

Dress:

On the road to Lochearn Head, "we first saw a person in a genuine Highland dress..." (Page 45).

"Between Glasgow and this place [Armadale, Skye], I had not seen a dozen in kilts and tartans (the last, I think, was a shepherd in Glenfinnan), with the exception of very young boys." (Page 189).

On Skye, "some of the village girls whom we passed were strikingly handsome, and had dressed their luxuriant dark hair quite a la Diane....One lovely girl had dressed her rich brown hair with as much precision as any lady of the land." (Page 225).

Roads:

A man returned to the hotel at Loch Earne Head because "he found he should have to pay a shilling per mile all along the line of the road on which he was proceeding, and that he was convinced that all the innkeepers in these parts had entered into a combination to cheat him." (Page 49).

At Glencoe, "General Wade's military road through it has given place to one that is a triumph of modern engineering." (Page 85).

Agriculture and Farming:

At Inverarnan "we had no better amusement than looking at the turf-carts coming down the narrow sandy ways, on the hill opposite the Inn. Curious things are those turf-carts. They have no wheels, and are fashioned in the form of hammocks." (Page 71).

On Skye, "near a village, a curious scene presented itself: the gathering of the black cattle and goats. Men and women, all clad in dark blue cloth, drove them along, and the cattle filled the air with their cries and bellowing...On gaining the pasture...the creatures scattered themselves about...and old men and women sat on the rocks looking on, with their elbows resting on their knees, while girls and boys ran about with sticks after the cattle. It was a singular, wild Skye-ish sort of scene.." (Page 224).

Description of a Skye gate:"Three unbarked very long fir poles are held parallel to each other, being inserted at one end only, in an upright piece of timber, and are still further kept in place by another pole crossing them diagonally. Those ends of them that are free are shrply pointed and vibrate, threatening as if anxious to impale the unwary traveller or his horse. The only hinges are a hair-rope twisted round a stake fixed in the ground." (Page 225)

Art Sketching:

At Inveraray "a party of ladies were seated...sketching away. We had seen them the day before, perched like sea-gulls on a bit of rock, vigorously pencilling the bay of Inveraray. As we stood on the dilapidated bridge (H, myself, and a guide), we must have furnished them with a good figure group for their sketch." (Page 89).

Later (pages 103-104), the three sketching ladies came across THC and H at Tobermory, while they were themselves sketching. "They came close up to us, and were soon peeping over our shoulders at our sketches...\i have a moral dislike to this...Gently I began to move away; but the loadstone acted, and the three...as gently followed. Becoming positively nervous, I at length shut up my book and, turning round, faced the enemy...I bowed, said 'Good evening'...and...left the luckless damsels utterly astounded."

Transport:

Carriages: At Carndow Inn, they "exchanged the horrible conveyance in which we came , the (so-called by courtesy) spring-cart - for which, by the way, we paid a shilling a mile - for another more civilised sort of vehicle, a car, which seemed a couch of the gods after the other machine." (Page 86).

At Dalmally, they turn down the offer of a cart. "Luckily, they were able to give us a chaise as far as Taynault, and we infinitely preferred the welfare of our bones to the cherishing of our purses." (Page 90).

On Mull, they hire a cutter for £1.00 a day, from Sandy MacLean, so that they could explore the islands. The deal included three men to work the boat. (Page 122). However, sensing later that the captain was going to prolong the voyage unnecessarily, they jumped ship at Loch Scredan, and headed back across Mull by land. (Page 141).

At Fort William, they experience another cart, in which they travel at 2mph. (Page 157).

The Caledonian Canal: "Viewed as a work of art, the canal itself is sublime. One feels that one is in the presence of a great idea, honoring thus the intellect that originated the union of two mighty seas and linked together a chain of inland lakes to achieve it. There is to me as much poetry, though of a different kind, in the display of man's supremacy over nature as there is in nature, perhaps more." (Page 238).

On the Steamer: THC is put off by "an eternal smell of cigar proceeding from the mouths of attornies' clerks, mingled with the old herring odours on board the steam-boat." (Page 239).

At Inverness "The landing of the steam-boat passengers was an animated scene. Many conveyances of many kinds belonging to different hotels in Inverness, which is a mile from the landing place...were waiting to dispose of the travellers. Great was the competition, and happy was the driver who could carry off most customers for his master." They find themselves at the Royal Hotel, "in clover." (Page 240).

Coach from Inverness: "We had some difficulty in getting places; but, at length, by dint of the guard standing up, and a boy swinging behind, we were tucked into a back seat on the outside. We had a most crampy journey to Dalwhinnie, to say nothing of a bitter, persecuting wind and a few hail showers." (Page 250).

Loch na Gaar

Opinion of Dr Johnson:

At Tobermory, a "Mr Jock" expressed " vehement displeasure...against the Doctor, whose name, it appears, is in bad odour here abouts...What seemed to nettle Jock the most was something Dr Johnson had said to this effect: that if an old woman were to lose her needle, in any of these lovely islands, she must wait a quarter of a year, perhaps, till a pedler came by, before she could buy another. 'It's false' cries Jock. 'And it was a beggarly thing to say; and if the rascally old Doctor were to visit the islands now, he'd be tossed in a blanket.'" (Pages 126-127)

_____________________________________

Small Lake in the Laiard of Coll's Grounds, Naar Tobermory

Handshakes:

THC fears that he might have caught the itch from "the passion that the lower orders have of seizing and shaking one's hand before one can put it out of harm's way. The poor, also, amongst themselves, shake hands with as much ceremony as two Frenchmen embrace." (Page 148).

Fast Days and The Sabbath:

"We found some amusement in observing a crowd of country people who kept passing the stables, on their way to a neighbouring church, this being a fast day, and in Scotlasnd fast-days are observed as religiously as Sabbaths.2 On this subject, THC observes that, at Killin, "the people of the Inn would not let us have a boat because it was the Sabbath, yet soon after, the landlady and her duaghters made no bones of employing boatman and boat to go pleasuring." A bystander " made me observe the difference between doing a thing for hire or for recreation." (Page 184).

Geology:

They marvel at the rocks at Loch Ness "all composed of large round stones massed together by some wondrous operation of nature. If you fancy a plum-pudding stone magnified into a rock, you will have a perfect idea of this freakish formation, which had something of an artificial air, as if nature had been playing at masonry, building up huge walls with a firmer than Roman cement, and then tumbling them into ruins." (Page 243).

Final Assessment of the Highlands: THC is disappointed by the scenery around Blair Atholl, compared to what he had found in the Highlands. It (the scenery further south) "is a scenery to live amidst, not to pass through...it pleases if it cannot astonish...Such a spot as Loch Corruish in Skye stamps itself at once on the memory, and a repetition of its grandeur, however delightful, could scarcely deepen the first impression it produced...Not so with the beautiful and fairy gem-like scenery of this neighbourhood [Blair Atholl]. It must be seen again and again, in order to be estimated according to its worth." (Page 260).

Bremar Castle