Our Western Hills: How to reach them; And the Views from their Summits By a Glasgow Pedestrian — Key Ideas to Explore

h, in his book on Strathblane, has acted the part of an “Old Mortality” in this one.

The Spout is a cascade of 70 feet formed by the Blane in its passage to the valley below, and which, with its surroundings of rock and wood, presents a scene of the most wild and romantic beauty; the hollow into which the river plunges being filled up with a vast collection of gigantic stones piled upon each other, and adorned on its sides with many alternate strata of various hues.

Anyone can see for himself at a glance at Ballagan the process by which our mountain glens and gorges are formed—how after a heavy rainfall the descending waters rush down the watercourses, setting all the boulder and rock fragments in the bed of the stream in motion. The last of the old race of the Levenax, or Lennox, had a castle near to and in sight of this romantic glen, from which fact the range of hills was, and frequently still is, called the Lennox range, and its highest point the Earl’s Seat. Ballagan House, which is close at hand, commands a beautiful view of the fall, and is within hearing of its music, even when it has not the power to strike a loud note. In flood-time the Spout is stupendous, and increases its apparent height by covering the huge masses below so as to vie with the sublimity if not the beauty of Cora Linn. This may seem to some to be rather strong language, but all measurement is comparative, and it may be possible to feel that there is more than prettiness or even grandeur here.

The view, even half way up, is not to be despised, the beauty of which consists in its “breadth,” as an artist would say. The meadows, with their green frames of hedges, may be compared to small cabinet pictures—lovely, but small. This is life-like—a broad cartoon from the hand of nature. The sward rises and rolls along in undulations like the slow heave of an ocean wave. Handsome trees of all sorts are scattered around, under whose ample shade cattle can, and, to judge from the brown and bare patches around their trunks, evidently do, repose in the heat of the day. Following up the stream, which in its higher reach is called the Laggan Burn, we come on two smaller cascades, and after a pleasant and comparatively easy ascent up the fretted terraces of trap, reach the summit, 1894 feet above the sea level, 3 miles to the north of the station we have left, and at the meeting point of Killearn, Campsie, and Strathblane parishes.

The climb to the top will well repay a visit, as will readily be believed when we say that the eye embraces a range of scenery extending all the way from Ben Lomond to Tinto. The prospect before us is of the most beautiful description; the vast basin of the Clyde from Kilpatrick to Dechmont lying stretched at our feet, with Glasgow, Paisley, and many other towns and villages scattered on its breast; while the line of the horizon is formed by the Gleniffer, Fereneze, and Cathkin braes. Immediately below us is the valley of the Blane, or Warm River; and we cannot help acknowledging that Strathblane (the valley of the Warm River) is a word that is peculiarly descriptive of the valley, which is sheltered in almost every direction from the violence of the winds. The probability is that, with part of Campsie (the crooked strath, according to some), it was at some long-past date a fresh-water loch, and that subsequently the barriers in the direction of Loch Lomond were broken down, and the valley drained accordingly. The nature of the soil contributes to establish this opinion, consisting largely of sand, gravel, and other comminuted fragments of the neighbouring rocks. The valley of the Blane, as it winds its way westward from the bare and desolate conical hill of Dunglass, 400 feet high, on the east, to the conical and finely wooded hill of Dunquaich, on the west, also 400 feet high, is one of the prettiest in Scotland, quite equal to and not unlike the drive between Crieff and St. Fillans, which Dr. John Brown, in his “Horæ Subsecivæ,” calls the finest 13 miles in Scotland.