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It has been said that the Highlands
were discovered by Sir Walter Scott. This is only in part
true. Scott did more than any other man to make the
Highlands known to the world, and by the magic of his
genius he has invested the land and the people with
imperishable interest and renown. But other great men had
spoken of the Highlands before him. The English poet
Wordsworth and his sister Dora visited the Trossachs in
1803, seven years before "The Lady of the Lake" was
published, and had penetrated as far us Glencoe and the
shores of Loch Leven, and it is to this journey that we
owe the beautiful poems of ‘‘The Blind Highland Boy",
"Stepping Westward," " The Solitary Reaper," and others.
Still earlier, in 1773, the great English lexicographer,
Samuel Johnson, made his famous tour to the Hebrides, by
which he not only gave, as he believed, the death-blow to
Macpherson and Ossian (though in this he was mistaken),
but threw a flood of light on the character and customs of
the Highland people. But neither of these came to
Strathspey. Johnson travelled by the East coast, and
Wordsworth by the West, and to both Strathspev was unknown
and unvisited. Sir Walter, also, though he makes Glenmore
the scene of one of his poems, and otherwise indicates
some acquaintance with the country and its legends, never
appears to have entered it. He was much in the Highlands
of Perth and Argyll, but he never crossed Drumuachdhar. He
could make the gallant Dundee say " There are hills beyond
Pentland and streams beyond Forth," but he himself saw
them only in imagination, or dim in the distance, like the
worthy Bailie Nicol Jarvie. One of the earliest visitors
of whom we have record was the penniless pilgrim Taylor,
the "Water Poet" (1618). He gives the following
description of a visit to Castle Grant (Hindlev’s
"Taylor,’’ p. 56) :—‘‘From thence we went to a place
called Balloch Castle, a fair and stately house, a worthy
Gentleman being the owner of it, called the Laird of
Grant, his wife being a gentlewoman honourably descended,
being sister to the Right Honble. Earl of Athole, and to
Sir Patrick Murray, Knight; she being both inwardly and
outwardly plentifully adorned with the gifts of grace and
nature; so that our cheer was more than sufficient, and
yet much less than they could afford us. There stayed
there, four days, four Earles, one Lord, divers Knights
and gentlemen and their servantes, footmen and horses; in
every meal, four long tables furnished with all varieties;
our first and second course being three score dishes at
one board, and after that always a banquet; and if I had
not foresworn wine till I came to Edinburgh, I think I had
there drunk my last." Another poet who visited the country
was Aaron Hill. He was connected with the York Company,
and was a frequent guest at Coulnakyle. Hill was one of
the victims of Pope in the ‘‘Dunciad.’’ Some rather sharp
letters passed between them, which led to a modification
of the lines complained of. Hill’s
name
does not now appear, and the reference
to him is rather complimentary than otherwise. Book II.,
295 :_
"Then * * * essay’d;
scarce vanish’d out of sight,
He buoys up instant, and returns to light;
He bears no tokens of the sabler streams,
And mounts far-off among the
swans of Thames.
But the noblest of
our poet visitors was Robert Burns. Mr Henry Mackenzie,
"The Man of Feeling," introduced Burns in the following
letter :—
"EDINBURGH, 24th
August, 1787.
MY DEAR Sir
.JAMES,—This will be delivered lo you by the Bard of
Ayrshire, Mr Burns, of whom you have heard a great
deal, and with whom Louis was acquainted here. He is also
charged with a Box directed for Miss Grant. I presume Miss
Eliza, which came some time ago, in the English Stage
Coach, and was omitted to be sent by McLaren. It consists
of such light materials as poets sometimes present ladies
with. Mr Burns is accompanied in his northern tour by Mr
Nicol, with whom I have not the honour of being
acquainted, but Louis, I presume, has a very feeling
remembrance of him. You will find Burns not less uncommon
in conversation than in his poetry, clever, intelligent
and observant, with remarkable acuteness, and independence
of mind, the last indeed to a degree that sometimes
prejudices people against him, tho’ he has on the whole
met with amazing patronage and encouragement. Louis will
show him the Lions of Castle Grant and as he is all
enthusiast about the fortia facta peatrum, let him
not forget, as in the case of Lord Monboddo, to show him
the large Gun. —Yours most affectionately,
"Henry MACKENZIE.
"Sir JAMES GRANT of GRANT, Baronet,
" Castle Grant, per favor of Mr Burns."
‘The Louis referred to in this letter
was the Laird’s eldest son, of whom a sketch has been
already given. Burns made a tour of twenty-two days, his
furthest stretch being about ten miles beyond Inverness.
In a letter to Rev. John Skinner, he says, we travelled
"many miles through a wild country, among cliffs grey with
eternal snows, and gloomy savage glens famous in Scottish
music, till I reached Castle Grant, where I spent half a
day with Sir James Grant and family." We may conceive how
the heart of the bard would glow, as he passed places
familiar to him by name, but which he had never seen
before. First came Rothiemurchus, with its "Rant," which
was one of his favourite tunes ; lower down Tullochgorm,
famous for its Strathspey, and to him still more endeared
by Skinner’s spirit-stirring song and, on the other side
of the Spey, the woods of Abernethy, one of the haunts of
Macpherson, the brave raider, whose death he has
immortalised—
"Sae rantingly, sae wantonly, sae
dantonly gaed he,
He play’d a tune, and danc’d it roun, aneath the gallows
tree."
But, alas! he does not seem to have
been in the vein for song. Only, in his notes he has the
significant entry, "Strathspey, rich and romantic,"
John Wilson, "Christopher North,"
visited Strathspey more than once. He was at Tomintoul in
1815, and again in August, 1816. He describes it as a
"wild mountain village," and of one of the markets held
when he was there he says, "Drinking, dancing, and
swearing and quarrelling going on all the time." It was
here that he had a fight with the Caird :-—
"A stalwart tinkler wright seemed he,
That weel could mend a pot or pan
And deftly he could throw the flee,
Or neatly weave the willow wan’."
Wilson crossed, on foot, from Tomintoul
by Tomdow to Strathspey, and stayed over the Sunday with
friends—the Misses Grant. On the Monday he ascended
Cairngorm, in company with Mr Alex. Grant, and it is said
he lost the MS. of one of his poems on the hill. This put
him in a bad temper, to which he gave vent in a fierce
magazine article. Tennant, Campbell, Garnett, and Newt
refer to Strathspey in their books. The Honourable Mrs
Murray’s "Guide to the Beauties of Scotland" describes a
visit to Rothiemurchus (1799), and an ascent of Cairngorm,
where she seems to have visited "Coire Meararad," which
she calls "Margaret’s Coffin."
Mr John Ruskin, Professor Shairp, and
Professor Blackie visited Strathspey, and have spoken of
it in their characteristic way. Ruskin’s grand passage on
the Rock of Craigellachie is often quoted. There are three
kinds of visitors that may be referred to. First,
Missionaries. Of this class "the Haldanes" may be
named. During five summers, beginning with that of 1797,
Mr James Haldane had devoted himself to long and laborious
itinerancies for the purpose of preaching the Gospel." In
1802 and 1805 he visited Strathspey. He was then in the
prime of manhood, wore a blue coat braided in front, with
hair powdered and tied behind, and had a clear and
powerful voice, with an earliest and impassioned delivery.
At Aviemore he preached in the wood, in the midst of a
snow storm. At Grantown and other places he held meetings,
and made a deep impression on many. Mr Peter Grant,
Baptist minister, gives the following account of Captain
Haldane’s visit to Grantown ("Lives of the Haldanes," p.
344): —"The novelty of a field preacher, especially a
gentleman, attracted multitudes. In a short time the whole
country was astir I was young, and had little concern
about my soul when Mr Haldane visited this place. All that
I remember is having heard and seen himself and John
Campbell preach at Grantown on a market day. They took
their station a little out of the village, where a Church
has been since built. Almost the whole market gathered to
hear. At first they thought to drown his voice by laughing
and sporting, but in a short time his powerful and
commanding voice overcame all uproar, and a solemnity
prevailed to the end of his discourse. Some have since
acknowledged to me that they received their first
impression (of religion) on that occasion. . . . Another
circumstance not to be forgotten is that he induced my
father-in-law to set up a Sabbath School, especially to
teach the people to read the Scriptures in the Gaelic
language." This is said to have been the first Sabbath
School established in Strathspey.
Of the class of Sportsmen,
Colonel Thornton—"Sporting Tour in the Highlands of
Scotland, 1804 "—may be said to have been the pioneer. His
preparations were most elaborate. Like Agricola, he
invaded the country by sea and land, His stores were
brought to Findhorn by a schooner, and from there carried
inland; while he himself, taking Edinburgh, Glasgow, and
the Lomonds in his way, met his stores at Raits, in
Badenoch, which he made the centre of his operations. The
Colonel was a man of catholic tastes. He shot, he fished,
he hawked, he fared sumptuously in his tent with the
gentry, and he not only kept a diary, but had an artist to
illustrate his work with sketches of the country. Some of
his feats in shooting and fishing were most remarkable. He
tells us that the Duke of Hamilton, one of the best shots
in Scotland, "had had good sport, having killed three
brace of birds" in a day’s shooting. But he himself got
far above this, 20 to 30 brace of grouse often falling to
his gun; which, considering that he used a flint-lock gun
generally with a single barrel, was very fair shooting.
Colonel Thornton was wonderfully successful in fishing. In
Loch Lornond, between five and eight in the morning, he
killed five salmon, one of them being 42 pounds weight.
His most remarkable exploits in Strathspey were in killing
pike. In the Spey, near Aviemore, and in the Lochs of
Pytoulish, Glenmore, and Alvie, he secured some monsters
of extraordinary size. One of these is said by him to have
been 5 feet 4 inches in length, and was calculated to
weigh 48 lbs.! Colonel Thornton speaks of Mr Stewart,
Pytoulish, as accompanying him in some of his expeditions,
and a retainer of his, who had been present at the killing
of the great pike of Loch Pytoulish, in his old age when
working as threshing man at the Dell of Rothiemurchus,
used to delight the youngsters by a thrilling account of
the adventure. The sportsmen who have since invaded the
country are beyond reckoning.
A third class who may be mentioned are
visitors who come for health or pleasure. Amongst these we
have had many men of distinction. President Grant, of the
United States, came to see the land of his fathers.
Admiral Hobart Pasha, whose first wife was a daughter of
Dr Grant of Kinchirdy, whom he won when he commanded the
"Bulldog" in the Mediterranean, in 1847, twice visited
Strathspey, and was once (1849) the writer’s guest for a
week. Dr James Martineau has for several years made his
summer home at Polchar, Rothiemurchus, and his friends
Jowett, Harrison, and Swinburne visited him there in 1873.
The beloved Dr John Brown (" Rab and his Friends") spent a
month at Coulnakyle in 1874 Mr Robert D. Holt, of
Liverpool, held the Dell Shootings for fifteen years, and
during that time Mr Herbert Spencer and other eminent men
were guests at the Dell. Mr Spencer was fond of fishing.
One season, when he came north, he told Mr Holt that he
had been studying the habits of the salmon and that he had
discovered they, fishers, were all wrong as to their
fly-hooks. They should be reversed in form as to the head,
and he showed, with some pride, some flies which he had
got made in this new shape. Mr Holt smiled, but said
nothing. Next day Mr Spencer got the best water, and at
luncheon he was asked as to his luck. Alas he had not had
a single rise, while Mr Holt had got two nice fish. No
more word was heard of the philosopher’s new style of
salmon flies. Mr John Bright was also a keen fisher, and
used often to visit at Tulchan, in the time of Mr Bass. in
1886 he came to our parish to see his brother-in-law, Mr
Duncan Maclaren, Edinburgh, then staying at Achnagonain.
It was a red-letter day on which I met him. I had
seen Mr Bright many years before in Sutherland, and had
correspondence with him, but this was the first time it
had been my privilege to be together with him in private.
Mr Maclaren was very deaf, and the burden of conversation
fell upon Mr Bright. He was in high spirits, and talked of
many things, but chiefly on Scottish subjects. He had
interested himself in behalf of the widow of a Scottish
literary man, whose case I had brought before him, and
this led to his speaking of the minor Scottish poets. He
said he should like to see a book with short biographies
and specimens of these poets. I mentioned that something
of the kind was being done in a London newspaper that
claimed to be the organ of the Democracy. On this he said
that the strongest thing he knew in English poetry on
Democracy was in Shelley. He thought he could give the
passage. He began, but failed at first. Pausing a moment,
he began again, and then went on without stop or stumble
to the end. It was grand to see the "old man eloquent"
declaiming this favourite passage. His eye kindled, his
cheek flushed, his voice gained force and richness, he
seemed ten years younger than when he started.
"THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY."
"Men of England, heirs of glory,
Heroes of unwritten story,
Nurslings of one mighty mother,
Hopes of her and one another!
"Rise, like lions after slumber,
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you!
"What is freedom? Ye can tell
That which slavery is too well,
For its very name is grown
To an echo of your own.
"‘Tis to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day
In your limbs, as in a cell,
For the tyrants use to dwell.
"So that ye for them are made,
Loom and plough and sword and spade,
With or without your own will, bent
To their defence and nourishment.
"‘Tis to see your children weak
With their mothers pine and peak,
When the winter winds are bleak—
They are dying whilst I speak."
And so on for several stanzas. Mr
Bright spoke also very fairly, of the Church Question
(Scotland), and his last word, when bidding good-bye,
was-—-" Disestablishment or no, be tolerant, be
tolerant."
Queen Victoria passed through the east
end of our parish on her return journey from the romantic
visit to Grantown in September, 1860. In "Leaves from the
Journal of our Life in the Highlands," Her Majesty has the
following entry:—-"We passed over the Spay by the
Bridge of Spay. It continued provokingly rainy, the
mist hanging very low on the hills, which, however, did
not seem to be very high, but were pink with heather. . .
. The first striking feature in this country is the
Pass of Daidhu, above which the road winds—a steep
corrie with green hills. We stopped at a small inn, with
only one house near it. Further on we came to a very steep
hill, also to a sort of pass, called Glen Bruin,
with slate hills evidently of slate formation. Here we got
out and walked down the hill, and over the Bridge of
Bruin, and partly up another lull, the road winding
amazingly after this—up and down lull." Had the day been
favourable, Her Majesty might have seen to the east the
Haughs of Cromdale, and at the head of the gorge John
Roy’s cave; and passing along the shoulder of
Sgor-gao-thaidh she might have obtained a splendid
view of the country to the west, with Ben Nevis dimly
visible in the far distance. The Bridge of Bruin is the
eastern boundary of the parish, and a little beyond there
is a dark gorge, with a very fine example of water-worn
rocks, where
"Deep, deep down, and far within,
Toils with the rocks the roaring linn."
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