Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1890-10-25


pilgrim writer ever got notice where pray
er is heard and welcomed, one certainly
had impressive attention directed to his
needs this hospitable night. Then with
handgraps all around, the host and hostess
not forgetting their silent landmarks in
the goodnight ceremony, the inmates of
the manse separated. And in my great
chamber that night, even with the larches
beating grewsomely at the windows, and
the Highland winds whistling SO wildly
down the passes that the house shook and
the chimnies creaked above and soughed
drearily in their fire-places beneath,
passed from consciousness to sleep and
dreams with the one thought above all:
That the far-away world and its grinding
activities hold nought in all their mighty
possibilities like the blessed content, peace
and faith beneath the roof of this one
lonely Highland manse.
There is something positively bewitch-
ing in digging out the meaning of the old
Gaelic names of things and places, still re-
tanned in the everyday topography of
Scotland. The beauty and expressiveness
of their application are remarkable. Take
the single work strath as an example.
Strath is English for the Gaelic Srath. 1t
means a valley. But it means still more.
1t is valley confined by hills or noun
tains on either side, through which a river
runs. Then to any one who has lived, or
wandered lovingly, in Scotland, how per-
feet in description, covering whole ~neces-
sary sentences in our own language, are
| the compact suffixes. Stranraer, in Wig
town, from Srath-an-radhair, is the valley
| OF good grass or pasture. Strathgroy, in
Perthshire, from Srathdhruidh, is the val
| ley where the Druids dwell. Strachur, in
Argyle, was once Srath-a-choire, or valley
| of the ravine. Strathcrombel, in Ross
shire, is from Srath- -cron- -beul, or the val
ley of the curved opening, an. exact de-
scription in the fewest possible words.
| Then there is Strathearn, or Srath-ear-an,
| in Perthshire, the valley of the east-run-
ming river. Strathbrock, in Linlithgow-
shire, is from -bhruic, the valley of
| the badgers. Strathbran,' found both in
the shires of Perth and Ross, was in Gae-
| lie, Srath. Craoin, or valley of the drop
ping or drizzling showers. Again, in
Perthshire, is Strathallen, from Srath-a -alu-
inn, the fair and beautiful valley, and
Strathtummel, corrupted from Srath-teth-
thuil, is the valley of the fierce stream or
torrent. And here, away in the ragged
northern edge of the shire of Inverness, is
this wonderful Strathglass, to the Gaels
Srathglas, their "gray valley" gray in the
skies above it, gray in its valley-bed where
II
| splatches of crimson laid by the pencils of
the frost; gray in the masses of birch, in
the myriads of hchened crags; and gray
in the very mists of its countless water
falls.
| Not one thousand people in all Scotland
know of the existence of this grand ''Gray
| Valley" Not one hundred families can be
found within it from end to end. No
"Murray" or "Black" has ever penetrated
it's depths to describe it. The old High
landers look at me curiously from the
doors of their crofts, and doubt that am
from so far q land as America. To their
ken, 1 am the first American to know
Strathglass. And what thrill comes to
one at the consciousness of possibly. being
| the first American to be seen, nearly at
the threshold of the twentieth century,
anywhere on the face of this great earth.
The noble strath opens to the German
ocean at Beauty, and with a gradual as
cent cleaves straight and true through the
| mist-wreathed mountains for nearly thirty
miles to the southwest, and then breaks
into two western chasms, Glen Cannich
and Glen Affric, which nearly equal
Strathglass in beauty and grandeur. It is
all one region. And across the seventy or
eighty miles from sea to sea there are Just
two estates, that of the Chisolms of CHS.
olm and Kintail of Rossshire. These GOV.
er the straths and glens, reaching far over
upon the mountains to the north and
south; and from six to eight hundred
square miles of land are possessed by
these two families. More than one-half OF
| this is enclosed game preserve, and is
controlled through rental as such by one
man. That means that down through the
past century thousands of people, who,
through the inherent rights of clanship,
had precisely the same original right 10
lands they occupied as had the heads of
the clans themselves, have been driven
from their homes that one man, able to
pay ten thousand pounds per year in rent
| ais, ten thousand pounds year in the ex-
penses of hunting lodges, gamekeepers
and gillies, and as much more in litigation,
could come here once year and butcher
red deer; and those red deer as tame, from
the absence of humankind, as the mild
eyed cows that stand in crofters' byres.
There is little of human interest in this
magical Gray Valley. The interminsble
scenes of splendor are what would bring
You again and again to it when You had
once known it. Indeed it may be called
so close preserve that one commits tres
pass in entering it, unless your feet are
kept within the track of the two roads
which thread the valley. These wind
along the mountain bases above and a
either side of the river Glass, and fnall,
branch into bridle-paths among the west
ern glens. Passing up the strath from
|, Beauty one gentleman's seat is found. 4
, little farther on an avenue of sycamore.
leads to Erchless castle, the great hall o
the Chisholms of Chisholm, who fought T.
she death at Culloden for ''bonnie Primo,
, Charlie" The Chisholms they have al
ways been called; an old chief of the clal
once saying there We're but three person
| = 4 -.
/ this prefx-"the" pope, s'the" king AM
the male line became extinct, and the at
, torneys of the estate, which covers vas
Strathglass and more, for forty year
searched the whole earth for an heir, final
, " discovering Que in the person of
, struggling, half-starved clerk in Ne,
| York. He also died without male issue
few years since; and the wife and daugh
. ter, living in regal splendor, are not deeI
l ly saddened because another 'sthe" CHS
holm is difficult to discover.
Besides Erchless castle there are the Lii
tie hamlet of Struy. containing less than
D half dozen houses; not over a score c
: orofters' houses, little specks of whit
, down there in the depths of the valley;
: tiny Catholic chapel-for Cromwell an
Knox could never quite annihilate the oil
= : religion in the Highland fastnesses-an
: near it the vastest and most curious eros
, | on earth, hundreds of feet in height, Gu
J into the escarpment of the souther
: mountain the manse where / am liy
|, ing and the little Free chnrch at Fasnskyl
bridge; and finally the hamlet of Tonic
: whose inhabitants are wholly dependent
y of Lord Tweedmouth, whose estate of fl
! ty thousand acres, Geusachan Gaelic
q stplace of the firs'O, stretches away to tn
southwest behind the mountain wall
!. which shut in Glen Affric to its north.
In the British National gallery, or some
, where in London, is wondrous paintin
! of Strathglass. McWhirter, painter of th
, !, "Three Graces," found the msrvelou
- strath, lived in this manse for the many
!, many months he was at work, and thoug
4 he produced undoubtedly the most mag
= nifcent landscape ever placed upon car
q vas, his own desperate discouragement q
being unable to convey to others what b
!, himself saw and felt was a pitiful CON
= mentary upon the occasional utter made
! quacy of the sublimest interpretations G
!. art. Here upon this jutting crag b
!. stood. 1t Is where the strath breaks
y the northwest into the higher, gloomiel
!, grander reach of Glen Affric. Strathglas
= itself sweeps to the east and west with ur
= obstructed views for half a score of mile
in either direction. IF your fancy be
!. glowing one, pnt it to its most fervent tei
. in picturing the widest, sweetest, weirl
= est and most gloriously beautiful spt
Z Within its powers of creation, and yo
: have not then got even a glimpse of Ii
70 70 magical fascinations of Strathglass.
= The entire southern horizon for a rang
of twenty miles is a serrated edge of roc
g. ,c6 fas, 80, u