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We went up a hill yesterday the Coyle and looked across the glen to the broad snow fields which still encircle the black cliffs of Lochnagar. To-day we are going up to Alt na Ghuissac, and shall lunch at the Queen's hut. H. M. called here on Sunday, and was remarkably pleasant and jolly.
This is the capital of British Bechuanaland, and the head-quarters of Sir Sidney Shippard, the Administrator. The town itself contains about 500 inhabitants, chiefly Europeans. Here we spent four days. On one of these I was taken by Mr. M to visit his fine Bechuanaland farm of 6,000 morgen 12,000 acres which he has named "Lochnagar."
If you go up those hills, you get a glorious view the mountains sweeping round you where you stand, up to the top of Lochnagar, with its bleak walls a thousand feet perpendicular, and gullies into which the sun never shines, and round to the dark fir forests of the Ballochbuie.
Another member read to the club an account of his journey to Lochnagar, which was afterwards published in Chambers's Journal. He was celebrated for his descriptions of scenery, and was not the only member of the club whose essays got into print. More memorable perhaps was an itinerant match-seller known to Thrums and the surrounding towns as the literary spunk-seller.
And more: When you see growing on those knolls of serpentine a few pretty little Alpine plants, which have no business down there so low, you will have a fair right to say, as I said, "The seeds of these plants were brought by the ice ages and ages since from off the mountain range of Lochnagar, and left here, nestling among the rocks, to found a fresh colony, far from their old mountain home."
And when he wakes he has just one glass of hot water and sugar, with a little Lochnagar. And then he is equal to any thing backgammon, bezique, or even conversation." Impatient as I was, I saw nothing better; and by this time I was becoming used to what all of us must put up with the long postponement of our heavy cares to the light convenience of others.
In honour of the country, the Prince and his sons appeared in kilts, the Queen and the Princesses in royal Stewart tartan skirts and shawls over black velvet bodices. In 1859 the Queen made no less than three successful ascents of Highland mountains, Morvem, Lochnagar, and at last Ben Macdhui, the highest mountain in Scotland, upwards of four thousand feet.
And you will see that the knolls of serpentine rock, or at least their backs and shoulders towards Lochnagar, are all smoothed and polished till they are as round as the backs of sheep, "roches moutonnees," as the French call ice-polished rocks; and then, if you understand what that means, you will say, as I said, "I am perfectly certain that this great basin between me and Lochnagar, which is now 3000 feet deep of empty air was once filled up with ice to the height of the hills on which I stand about 1700 feet high and that that ice ran over into Glen Muick, between these pretty knolls, and covered the ground where Birk Hall now stands."
And you will see that on the side of the Coiles towards Lochnagar, and between the knolls of them, are scattered streams, as it were, of great round boulder stones which are not serpentine, but granite from the top of Lochnagar, five miles away.
From Novar we went to Brahan, where everything is as lively as usual, and Seaforth in great force,... I then joined Lord Kingsdown at Foss, on Loch Tummel, a delightful place in the centre of the Perthshire Highlands, where you see all Scotland at your feet, from Ben Nevis to Lochnagar.
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