Holidaying.

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Currie
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Holidaying.

Post by Currie » Mon May 18, 2020 8:53 am

From the Evening Telegraph, Dundee, Friday, August 6, 1886

HOLIDAYING.

“Tie up the knocker; say I'm off for my holidays.”

What the week’s day of rest is to the week, the year’s holidays are, or ought to be, to the year. There is a break in the stress of action, in the monotony of toil, and the time is devoted in quest of a change of scene and air. We long for some means of renewing our strength and reviving our jaded spirits, and no sooner is work suspended than, with a light heart and a pleasant smile, we betake ourselves to some other city or to the country, where we may breathe a purer air and admire the beauties of nature. Who is there who, after a few months spent at his desk, suddenly finds himself in the country, and does not only feel happier and more cheerful, but more charitable, more genial, and more disposed to take a generous view of men and things? The young tourist, with the “Lady of the Lake” and the “Lord of the Isles” in his knapsack, or the sportsman when he exchanges the sultry atmosphere of the town for the bracing air of the moor and the mountain and the snug comforts of his shooting-box, finds a kind word for every one. There is an advantage in being on sea rather than on land in hot summer weather. There is sure to be a pleasant breeze upon the water, tempering the heat, and the splashing sound of the waves has always a cooling and refreshing effect; and the sea is to some people, even when vexed with storms, a constant source of soothing influences.

Cruising about at the mouth of the Firth of Clyde, a fine combination of the bold and beautiful, dramatic in its completeness, meets the eye, where a fine contrast is presented by the rugged grandeur of the isle of Arran and the entrancing loveliness of Bute. In the scenery of the Clyde on the Northern side, with its richly wooded heights and its long silver fringe of villa towns, which seem to keep touch with each other on the water's edge, there is an indescribable charm, and it survives ever afterwards in memory’s magic glass. There are few river approaches at will compare with the Clyde. The picturesqueness of its scenery is unrivalled, and you can visit no place with a greater feeling of enchantment—the highlands and lochs and castle-crowned crags on one hand, and the lowlands, with their parks and farms, their manor halls and matchless verdure, on the other. At Greenock, looking right across, Roseneath, one of the seats of the Duke of Argyll, is to be seen, as also the entrance to the Gareloch, where a large number of vessels go to get their compasses adjusted; while high up among the clouds, as it were, towering in all its grandeur, is the peak of Ben Lomond. Looking away up on your right you discern the Castle of Dumbarton on its pyramid of solid rock, one of the prominent as well as picturesque views of the Clyde; while down on your left the blue mountains of Bute mingle with the horizon.

On leaving Greenock the landscape closes around you. You can almost hear the cattle ripping off the lush grass in the fields. You can see the daisies and buttercups, and the song of the skylark reaches your ear. You suddenly pass from a wilderness of waters into a verdurous sunlit landscape. The Clyde, after leaving Greenock, becomes little more than a large canal, enclosed between meadow banks, and from the deck of the steamer the most charming rural sights and sounds reach you. You are at sea amid beautiful parks and fields of clover, and you behold farm occupations—sowing, planting, and ploughing.

A combination of the bold and beautiful also meets your eye as you steer Westwards up the Firth of Forth, when Edinburgh comes into view, with its lofty houses, spires, and monumental pillars, over-canopied with steaming wreaths of blue smoke. On aproaching the Island of Inchkeith, with its historic memories of the Regency of Mary of Guise and the siege of Leith, a magnificent view is obtained of the stately city. Few cities have so fair a site as the lovely metropolis of Scotland. No city less requires ornamentation. It is emphatically the city of noble scenery and polished manners; of nature and art, God and man; of far-reaching associations and pleasant memories—memories of Sir Walter Scott, Professor Wilson, Brougham, and John Knox; of ancient palaces, venerable with stirring romance and startling crime. No city that I have visited has finer scenery. There is the majestic Castle frowning down on you as you stand in Princes Street, ; the old Palace of Holyrood standing beside the leonine hill of Arthur’s Seat, which Burns loved to climb; and the semi-circular rampart of Salisbury Crags, which resemble an ancient sea wall that has undergone displacement and upheaval in some great convulsion of nature.

To those of my readers who have the good fortune to receive a week's holidays I would strongly advise them to pay a visit to the Firth of Clyde. From Glasgow you can visit the most delightful parts of Scotland with the least inconvenience and the smallest cost. From Glasgow the famed Clyde steamers convey tourists to all parts of the Western Highlands, and Dunoon, Rothesay—the Brighton of Scotland—Oban, the Island of Arran, with its lofty peaks, its deep ravines, its lonely corries, and lovely glens, and other places are well worth visiting. You may also visit the land of Burns—Ayr, with “Alloway’s Auld Haunted Kirk,” the “Banks and Braes o’ Bonnie Doon,” its ‘‘honest men and bonnie lassies;” Mauchline, where he toiled and struggled with his small farm; Kilmarnock, pregnant with reminiscences of him; Dumfries, loveliest of cities, with its fine mausoleum, the small house where he breathed his last, and the chair wherein he sat night after night delighting his eager listeners—these and other much-talked-of spots, remarkable for natural beauty or historic association, are well worth paying a visit. At this season of the year, when Nature does all in her power to make these places attractive, clothing them “from seaweed fringe to mountain heather” with “shapes of beauty” and “glories infinite’—

“Full of sweet dreams and health and quiet breathing” —
it is a treat to visit them.

Up Loch Long and down Loch Lomond is a favourite route of tourists, especially English and American. The boat sails from Glasgow or Greenock every day up Loch Long to Arrochar. Arriving at Arrochar, you can travel over to Tarbet, a distance of fully one mile, or you can take the coach, which is always at Arrochar awaiting for passengers going to Tarbet. From Tarbet you get the steamer down Loch Lomond. It is a lovely sail on a calm day; the small steamer glides smoothly along, there is not a ripple on the water, and everything is mirrored in the loch. The hills rise up on either side of you like impregnable walls.

The loch is fully twenty miles long, and there is a number of islands scattered on its bosom. Inchmurrin is the principal one, it being upwards of a mile in length. On the way down the steamer touches at Luss, Balmaha, and several other places. From Tarbet you can also cross over to Inversnaid, which has long been a favourite with the admirers of the stern and wild in Highland scenery. It was at Inversnaid that Wordsworth met the Highland girl whose charms he has rendered immortal in one of his sweet poems. As you stand and gaze upon the ruins of Inversnaid fort, and look back on other years, a change comes over the spirit of your dream. Rob Roy and his exploits flash upon you. The fort was erected in 1713 to check the raids of the bold outlaw; it was on one occasion set fire to by him, and at a subsequent period it was taken possession of by his nephew. Alas! what a change—all is quiet now. It is with feelings of deepest sadness that you stand and behold the mouldering remains of its former grandeur. From Inversnaid you can walk to Arduli, take the coach from Arduli, and join the Oban railway at Crianlarich and go on to Oban. At Oban you can join the boat, which goes past the island of Shuna, through the Crinan Canal to Lochgilphead, and then on through Loch Fyne. The scenery here is magnificent.

People rush away to foreign countries to steam upon the Rhine or the Danube, at great expense and fatigue, without so much as an idea that the rivers of Great Britain have charms of scenery quite as remarkable and, to most people, quite as novel as those over-praised highways of the tourist. We are prone to talk too much of the scenery abroad, and see too little of that at home. From Land’s End to John o’ Groat’s there are many sights of beauty and interest to charm the tourist. Have not the Scottish, Irish, and Welsh mountains, lakes, and rivers attractions for the tourist as great as any which Europe can boast of? Why is Ireland—“first flower of the earth and first gem of the sea” —almost as unknown to the ordinary tourist as Piccadilly to the Mahdi? The Irish peasant does not shoot people to whom he owes no rent, and “Killarney’s wild echoes” can give no answer to the query. Is it that he shuns visiting these famous places of his native land for the same reason that the traveller who went down to Jericho refused to visit that famous city again? or is it that the home traveller, like the home prophet, is without honour amongst his own people? Be it as it may, it is not easy to understand why the wandering tourist knows so little of his own country, and cares so little to see its hidden or open beauties, and why his visits to the famous places of his native land are so like those of the angels—“few and far between.”

RICHARD B. WILLIAMSON.


“Sweet Highland Girl, a very shower
Of beauty is thy earthly dower!”
(Wordsworth)

Hope that inspires,
Alan

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