Through Scotland

« WE'LL WANDER SCOTLAND THOROUGH:' PacMf ALEDONIAN RAILWAY X. Millar, Qenera/Manager. Written by George Eyre-Todd Fpom Glasgow lo EcLinB&pgf?, KBepcUen, Invepnegg, PeeBle?, Moffat, Dfcinvfpie:g, Capitis, Stpanpaep, Tê Circle, Tf>e: Tpoâe^, Tjjg Seottigf? hoe^ - OBKJ5, eêê . ancl . THE WESTERN JHISWIaWDS. Maclure,]Macdonald & Co., jfcrnatiunfal printers to lift late Bugsn ©tctjoria, Glasgow. THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH — — SCOTLAND. Mountain and mist, lone glen and murmuring stream. The shaggy forest, and the grey hillside These are thy features, Scotland—these the pride Of those that love thee, and thy minstrels' theme. For partial nature that denied to thee The sun of England and the soil of France Hath clothed thee in the garment of romance, That dearer for that dearth thy face might be. Proud mother, whose least son with reverence turns To greet thee, —land of Wallace, Knox, and Burns Thy rugged hills are sacred from the feet Of heroes ; and thy bards (a countless throng) With tuneful tribute make the charm complete — Each moor a memory, and each stream a song. —Robert Reid, * * Contents* * * To Merrie Carlisle (to Ayr, via Douglasdale ; to Biggar PAge and Peebles; to Dumfries; and to Annan), - - - 7 To Falls of Clyde and Tillietudlem, .... 40 Through the Covenanters' Country (to Hamilton and Lesmahagow ; to Strathaven and Darvel ; to Busby and East Kilbride), 45 To Leadhills and Wanlockhead, 50 To the Shores of Clyde, - 53 To the Island of Arran, 65 Through the Rob Roy Country, 70 To Edinburgh, 84 ' Edinburgh to Stirling, - 94 To Stirling Town, 96 To Oban and the West Highlands, - - - - - 104 Through the Trossachs, going via Callander, - - - 118 To Ballachulish and Glencoe, 128 Down Strathearn, - 133 Down Strathtay, 137 Down Loch Awe, 142 To Perth, the Central Highlands, and Inverness (to . Crieff to and Comrie ; Bankfoot), .... 146 To Dundee, Carnoustie, and Arbroath, - - - - 155 To the Granite. City, the Dee Valley, and Interness (to Alyth, Airlie, &c. ; to Kirriemuir, Glen Prosen, Clova, &c. ; to Fettercairn and Clatterin' Brig, &c.)> - - 162 To Braemar, by Blairgowrie and the Spital of Glenshee, - - 179 Into the Grampians, by Brechin, Edzell, Tarfside, and Invermark, 181 To Merrie Carlisle. To AYR, via Douglasdale, To DUMFRIES, and To BIGGAR and PEEBLES, To ANNAN. ROUTE.—From Glasgow (Central Station) ; from Edinburgh (Princes Street Station). NE of Dr. Johnson's polite remarks regarding Scotland and the Scots denned the best road known to a Scotsman as the road to England. Even in the good Doctor's day there were not wanting Scotsmen to reply that it was a good thing for England that it was so. Whatever the merits of that con- tention, there can be little doubt that at the present hour one of the most interesting roads out of Edinburgh or Glasgow, to a Scotsman or to anyone else, is the road towards " Merrie Carlisle." While no part of Scotland is without memories many and vivid, the particular region through which this road passes has a history of unique and peculiar kind. It was, indeed, in early times a dominion by itself. The British or Cymric kingdom of Strathclyde, whose capital was Dumbarton, stretched from the shores of Loch Lomond to the Cumber- land Lakes. Glasgow, then a hamlet on the Molendinar,was theearlybishops seat of the re- CENTRAL STATION HOTEL, GLASGOW. gion, and when St. Kentigern, or Mungo, the early bishop, was expelled by Morken, the pagan king, it was by this route that he fled southward to seek refuge in Wales. — 8 Rutherglen. Were the good St. Mungo to return to his ancient seat to-day he would find considerable subject for reflection in the changes that have come about since his time. The Molendinar in which he used to bathe is now a sewer ; the Dovehill on which he sat to dry himself is covered by the tenements of Gallowgate ; his cell of wattle and daub has grown into a Gothic cathedral; and the pleasant forest in which he used to hear the wild white bull roar and the wolf howl is a great city of church and market, mansion and factory, far as the eye can see. Not less astonishing would appear the change in the country through which he fled. Up the once lonely strath of Clyde the train sweeps now, with its plume of steam, through towns humming with busy life, and past flaming furnaces, smoking chimney stalks, and mountains of refuse that tell how the bowels of the earth are being torn for their treasures. Main Line Just out of the city, Rutherglen keeps memory of its from ancient rivalry with Glasgow. A burgh with older charter Glasgow. an(j }der privileges, it was fated, in the end of the twelfth century, first to have its influence curtailed, and then to see its birthright, the rule and revenue of rich Strathclyde, pass to its younger rival. The bishops of Glasgow preserved with jealous care the charter of Alexander II. in 1226, forbidding the bailies of Rutherglen from taking toll further westward than the cross of Shettleston. Rutherglen, never- theless, remained a place of importance. Its castle, a stronghold now vanished, was taken by the English, and besieged by Bruce, and, after the battle of Langside, was burned, as a possession of the Hamilton family, by the Regent Moray. In its kirk a peace was signed between England and Scotland in 1297, and the compact was made with Sir John Menteith to betray Wallace : A messynger Schir Aymer has gart pass On to Schir Jhon, and sone a tryst has set. At Ruglan kirk thir twa togydder met. The memories of the town in later days are democratic. At " Din's Dykes," south of the main street, Queen Mary, fleeing from Langside, came near to being cut down by two labourers who sallied out of a field of hay with their scythes for the purpose. And, flouting certain loyal rejoicings in Cambuslang. 9 1679, a body of eighty men, among whom were Hackston of Rathillet and Balfour or "Burley," red-handed from the murder of Archbishop Sharpe, after psalm-singing and prayer, burned at the cross the acts of parliament against conventicles, this being the first appearance of the Covenan- ters' rising which came to a head at Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge. In later days successively a weaving and mining town, Rutherglen at the present hour is chiefly famous for the great chemical works owned by Baron Overtoun. Cambuslang, a few miles farther out, was in early times a possession of the great Earls of Douglas, and its church was one of the prebends of the Glasgow bishopric. Now a favourite residence of Glasgow citizens, it was formerly a weaving village, where much of the celebrated " Glasgow muslin " was made. Its greatest memory, however, is of a religious awakening. For five months in 1742 it was the scene of a revival, known as the "Cambuslang work," to which thousands flocked from all parts of the country. At the sacrament services of 15 th August, the final day, not fewer than thirty thousand persons were present. The place has also certain poetic memories. Gilbertfield mansion in the neighbourhood was long the residence of Allan Ramsay's friend, the translator of Blind Harry's "Wallace," who remains known as Hamilton of Gilbertfield. Of that translation Burns wrote, "It has poured a tide of Scottish prejudice into my veins which will boil along there till the flood-gates of life shut in eternal rest." Beyond Cambuslang the iron district begins. Forge after forge fills the air with fire and smoke, in every strath the steel companies carry on their alchemy, and the entire valley seems an iron mine. Amid all this, however, appear many scenes of other interest. On the right, as the railway crosses the Clyde, a glimpse is caught of the ruined towers of Bothwell Castle, famous as a stronghold of the great house of Douglas in every period of Scottish history ; and after passing the villa-town of Uddingston, the traveller sees, over the bosky strath, also on the right, the towns of Hamilton and Bothwell. Between them, out of sight, lies Bothwell Bridge, the scene of the Covenanters' overthrow in 1679. A little farther on, the deep wooded glen of the South Calder is crossed by a bridge that was considered a triumph io Motherwell. of engineering art in its day. Doubtless as much was thought sixteen hundred years earlier of the Roman bridge which still stands half a mile down the glen to the right. A single arch of twenty feet span, high, narrow, and without parapets, it carried the Watling Street, one of the four great Roman roads in Britain, across the stream. West of it a quarter of a mile lies Bothwellhaugh, the property of that James Hamilton who shot the Regent Moray at Linlithgow in 1569. Three miles up the glen, on the other hand, in the rock under Cleland House, a great cave, capable of holding fifty men, was, according to tradition, one of the secret fastnesses of the patriot Wallace. Similar cavern fortresses are to be seen at Hawthornden and at Ancrum. At Motherwell the irrepressible anecdotist invariably remembers a historic pun. " Motherwell," shouts the platform porter. "Father well too?" inquired the sympa- thetic traveller from the carriage window. "A bittock west," responded the porter grimly, "ye'll find Bothwell." Here, amid the smoke and busy mineral traffic of Motherwell and Wishaw and Law Junction, where the trains from the north join on, it is curious to reflect that the railway line, now perhaps the most important part of the Caledonian system, was originally built in 1830 as a light single-line tramway to be wrought by horse-power.

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