Puck — May 28, 1879 — page 12: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

188 PUCK. Reader, have you ever sailed:up Loch Awe, or fished it? If not, then consider yourself happy, for you have something still to live for, The writer of this veracious history has been pretty well all over the globe, and has fished on waters in many lands. But he has never navigated or fished a lake enbosomed in scenery more beautiful and more varied and changeable than Loch Awe. Situated in the heart of the land of Lorne, sentineled by the loftiest and grandest moun- tains in Scotland, it extends in a narrow, wavy, serpentine line from north to south some six or seven-and-twenty miles, and in the course of this brief sketch presents to the traveler a pan- orama of ever-changing and strikingly con- trasted beauty that it would be hard to parallel. Beginning at the little bay at Ford which ‘our travelers have just left, the steamer passes through a short neck of water just wide enough to permit of the boat passin and suddenly glides into the loch itself, which widens out at once on either side to a breadth of something like two miles. From this onwards the lake is one series of similar gigantic basins or smaller lakes, each to all appearance shut in from the other, and opening into it by a channel more or less nar- Tow. ‘ At first the scenery is calmly beautiful, the hills sloping gently away on either side—to the right partly cultivated or dotted with in- numerable cattle and sheep, and to the left thickly wooded and more level. Then, as you pass the ruins of the old Abbey, and after that, of Feannacharn Castle—in it- self a sight worth seeing—and steam towards Portnasherry, the scenery begins to lose some- what of its softness, The hills gradually change into mountains, which on the left fall down in one sheer precipitous fall into the loch. The aspect of the water, too, changes con- tinually, as do also the clouds; and frequently, without a moment's warning, a sudden terrific gust of wind will sweep down some mountain gully, and smite the calm surface of the lake into a white heat of foam and spindriff. To the Doctor and Gascoyne it was as the revelation of a new world, and they drank in with greedy ears all the wondrous stories, con- secrating every inch of ground, which the Cap- tain and the Professor were not slow to tell them, After passing Portsonnachon the scene be- comes indescribably lovely, surpassing in strange and mystic beauty aught ever dreamed of by poet or immortalized on canvas, Islands of unimaginable loveliness, wooded to the water edge, or covered with green turf richer than the finest velvet rise from the still water as if by magic. Old ruins, mantled with ivy and gray with lichen and moss, frown down from inaccessible heights. To the north the mighty mass of the gigantic Ben Cruachan, its summit capped, and its bare, gaunt, forbidding sides streaked and slashed with great seams of ice, appears to fill the entire space; while on either side rise as from out the water hills wooded to the top, with lusty streams flashing white through the green foliage, as they tumble noisily lakewards, Overhead, again, are the ever-shifting glo- ties of the summer sky, already streaked with long luminous lines of sapphire and purple and blue and gold, as the sun slowly, lingeringly, sinks to his restiin the great Atlantic. Then suddenly, as if by magic, the scene changes on leaving Cladich, when, steaming across the lake to the left, the little steamer en- ters the Pass of Brander, a long, narrow estuary like a canal, flanked on one side by the mighty Cruachan, and on the other by a chain of lesser but still gigantic hills, the beetling tops of which seem almost to touch the rocks on the other side and shut out the sky. Almost overpoweringly grand and awful and dark is this part of the way, especially in- the gloaming, when the night begins to creep into the hollow, and the shadows deepen on the mountains, and the water of the lake passes by Jenperceptible gradations from lustrous brown or blue into the deepest and most sombre black. ‘Through such scenes did our friends sail, and even the volatile spirits of the irrepressi- ble Doctor were hushed into silence by the mystic and awful beauty which surrounded him, and in which he seemed gradually to be incorporated, until he became, as it were, part and parcel of it. It was now drawing well nigh on to seven o'clock, and they were approaching the end, so far, of their journey by water, when the Captain, pointing straight ahead to where the shoulder of the hill on the left sloped down to- wards the river Awe, which there escapes to the sea, said: “Do you see the outline of the shoulder of that hill ahead, gentlemen? Well, just watch it and tell me if it suggests the likeness of any one you know.” The three travelers—for they were now the sole occupants of the steamer, their fellow vay- ageurs having got out at Cladich—looked, and almost simultaneously exclaimed: “ Scott!" “Yes,” said the Captain, with a smile of satisfaction, ‘‘and I was the first to notice it.” “ By Jove, so it is!” cried the Professor; and the nearer they approached up to a certain dis- tance the closer grew the likeness to the profile of that noble face, as if its owner were taking his evening siesta on his native hill, with his grand, calm face upturned to the evening sky, Gradually, as they approached the little pier where the boat was to be moored for the night, the likeness vanished, the shadows deepened suddenly, and as they crept alongside the pier, a cold wind blew out from the north. “I could almost live here for ever,” sighed the sentimental Doctor—his thoughts reverting simultaneously, however, to the question of dinner or ted. : “I wish we could stay over the night,” echoed Gascoyne. “Of course you can,” said the Captain heartily. “The Professor "’—(who meanwhile had disappeared below with the steward)—“al- ways stays on board, and ”"—this with a wink to the Doctor—" and we generally contrive to make a night ofit.” “ Bedad,” cried Bob in delight, and flourish- ing his hat shillelaghwise, ‘and it's Robert Macdonald Esquire himself that’s in luck this blessed night and no mistake. Hoo, whirra begoo, but won't we make their mouths wather in Ballinaslowboy when we write home of our foreign travels in these parts!" Gascoyne, less emotional and more practi- cal, was not less pleased, and thanked the Cap- tain cordially. At this juncture the Professor reappeared to announce that tea—a real Scottish “tousy tea” —would be ready in ten minutes, and mean- while they could dispose of themselves in what manner they pleased. The Captain now came forward and said, with a knowing look at the Professor, and a nod of his head towards the river: * Any chance to-night down the way ?”— (meaning the Awe). “Oh, yes,” was the reply; ‘ Bilston has ar- ranged to make that all right. The keeper will be on board in half an hour or so, and if you only leave him to the Doctor, my word for it he'll not be able to tell the difference be- tween Cruachan and a lamp-post by eleven o'clock. Then Campbell and Bilston will slip out with the rods, and leave the Doctar—who takes more kindly to the whiskey than to the water—to finish the bottle with the keeper.” “T understand,” said the Captain laughing, “You were always a bit of a poacher, Pro. fessor, but what would the Senatus "— “Hush,” interupted the other, reddenin, uncomfortably; “‘ we'll propitiate the dignities by a present of trout, should the Fates prove propitious. Besides I don’t mean to go. I feel tired and shall turn into my bunk.” The Awe, we should perhaps explain for the benefit of unsophisticated readers, is one of the best salmon rivers in Scotland—perhaps, for its length, ste best—and is strictly preserved, On rare occasions, however, ason this of which we write, worthy steward Bilston used to get an hour or two's fishing for a friend; his modus operandi being the extremely simple but effect- ive one of plying with Scotch whiskey the game-keeper, whose duty it was to preserve the stream from the unhallowed touch of poachers, This duty, on the present occasion, devolved upon Bob, who, though professing to regret the loss’ of the fishing, was by no means so averse from undertaking the task as his words would imply. But thischapter hasalready extended to such a length that we shall have to reserve the piscatorial and social adventures of our friends for number seven. (To be continued.) No man thoroughly understands the solemn grandeur of a floor-crack until he tries to pick a pin out of it with his fingers.—. Y. Sar. WE have received the first three numbers of Uncle Sam, a new candidate for humorous honors in this city. So far as it has gone, we like its tone. It seems to appreciate the fact that it is possible to be funny without being blasphemous, venomous, or vulgarly personal. —Holy Com, Adv, Sounds as if that meant somebody.—Fersonal Phila, Bulletin, Tue de jure President of the United States, whose portrait accompanies this article, is Allen G. Thurman, of Ohio, who was lately chosen president id tempore of the United States Senate. yy the terms of the Constitution, when there is a vacancy in the Presidential and Vice-Presidential office, as there now is— Messrs, Samuel J. Tilden and Thomas A, Hen- dricks having failed to qualify and assume the duties of the offices to which they were re- spectively elected—the president pro tempore of the Senate becomes the acting President of the United States. To this office Mr. Thur- man was chosen.— Zoledo Commercial, Mr. MartIN was a conductor on the Bur- lington, Cedar Rapids and Northern Railroad. He is a church member, and puts his faith in the Lord, He arose at a church meeting at Pottsville the other evening and told what the Lord had done for him, Among other things, he said he ran his caboose car from Cedar Rapids to Pottsville without a flange on one wheel. He had faith the Lord would keep the caboose on the track, and He did. It was not long after he received an epistle from C. J. Ives, General Superintendent, which began thus: ‘ Young man, I don’t believe the Lord hasanything to do with running freight trains;” and now Martin has no caboose to trust in the Lord.—ew York Sun, Comicbooks.com