THE trial cruise will not soon be forgotten by those who were privileged to take part in it. The trip was worthy of the great ship, and worthy of the famous ‘Castle’ Line. The strangers and foreigners, the Englishmen and the colonists, who were of the party, had an opportunity of seeing all that is grandest in Scottish coast-scenery, such as is enjoyed by few natives; and every Scotsman on board must have felt proud of his country.
The course taken was the converse of that of Agricola, when his galleys sailed round Scotland, and proved for the first time that Britain was an island. While the Romans sailed, or rather rowed in open galleys, from the Firth of Forth to the Firth of Clyde, the ‘Dunottar Castle’ pleasure-party steamed from the Clyde to the Forth in a veritable floating palace, replete with the comforts of advanced civilisation, and embodying the most recent developments of science in the applications of steam and of electricity. The contrast is almost too great to be appreciated even by the most imaginative modern mind. It is difficult to realise what the feelings of James Watt, or of Henry Bell, would be were they permitted to see to what perfection the results of their inventive genius have been brought by their successors.
Perhaps few of those who entered on the expedition realised the useful purposes which it served. They thought only of the pleasant holiday provided for them; but in truth it answered a more practical and more important end. It was, in fact, a preliminary trial, in which the crew and all the officers, including the stewards, were put through their facings, and in which the commissariat and other resources of the management were subjected to a pretty severe test. The whole routine of the daily life was precisely similar to that which will prevail in the regular voyages of the ship from London to the Cape, and it is but just to say that the results were entirely satisfactory.
The ‘Dunottar Castle’ presented a splendid appearance as she rode at anchor at the Tail of the Bank, off Greenock, on Saturday, August 30th, awaiting the arrival of the invited guests of Sir Donald Currie. Being light of draught, she lay high in the water, and made everything else in the neighbourhood, even an American liner, look small in comparison, while her beautiful lines were seen to the greatest advantage. On board, everything was ship-shape and in good order; and when Sir Donald Currie, on his arrival from Garth, was received on the main deck about noon, by Captain Webster and his officers, it might have been supposed that the steamer had been in commission for years, and was undergoing an inspection on her return from one of her ocean voyages.
The view from the upper deck was magnificent. Few scenes in the British Isles can compare in beauty and variety with the estuary of the Clyde opposite Greenock. We stood in the centre of a wide cyclorama, nearly every point in which glowed in brilliant sunshine. Greenock alone was dark and murky, as is its wont. Even Gourock gleamed in colour, as it caught the sun’s rays emerging from the mists. Dumbarton Castle loomed large in the warm haze to the eastward. Helensburgh basked peacefully on its wooded slopes. Kilcreggan and Cove smiled in their leafy bowers, while beyond them Ben Lomond raised on high its massive head. Westward, the rugged ridge of the Arrochar Hills and Argyll’s Bowling Green filled up the distance. Then the line of view descended again at Strone Point, and the placid Holy Loch, and the bright villas of Hunter’s Quay, and so the circuit was complete.
When the last tug-load of passengers and luggage had been received on board, the anchor was weighed, and the majestic ship steamed down the Firth past the Cloch lighthouse, past Castle Wemyss, and Wemyss Bay, and Skelmorlie, on the one side, and past Dunoon and Inellan on the other. Off the Greater Cumbrae we lay-to, in order to receive on board Lord Provost Muir of Glasgow, who, with his brother Commissioners of the Clyde Trust, had been engaged in an inspection of the lighthouses on these coasts. Their little steamer drew up alongside, and the Commissioners were courteously received on board and were shown over the ship. The Commissioners, minus the Lord Provost, were dismissed with a cheer, and we proceeded on our way.
Passing Rothesay Bay and Mount Stuart House, one of the Marquis of Bute’s residences, we enter a wider sea, and get a fine view of Goatfell and the rugged peaks of Arran which surround Glen Sannox. Opposite that weird glen, of evil omen, we turn northward, and steam past the Fallen Rocks, and round the north point of Arran into Kilbrannan Sound, our purpose being to sail round Arran and to anchor for the night in Lamlash Bay. We have a pleasant glimpse, in passing, of Loch Ranza and its rugged keep, and of the valleys and ‘cols’ that lead over to Glen Sannox and Glen Rosa. The west coast of Arran, however, is distinctly tame, and gives few tokens of cultivation and industry, until we approach the south end of the island. There are, indeed, more signs of an active population on the peninsula of Cantire, on our right. Arran, however, can boast of historical, or at least of traditional, interest, for the King’s Cave, near Blackwaterfoot, is said to have been the first resting-place of Robert the Bruce on his landing from Rathlin Island.
Arran—from the Firth of Clyde.
As we steam southward, that island and the Irish coast are clearly visible beyond the Mull of Cantire. Looking back from this point, the picturesque outline of the mountains in the north of Arran stands out boldly against the northern sky, while southward we see Ailsa Craig and its pale grey rocks, with their myriads of gannets. By-and-by, in the gloamin’, we pass Whiting Bay, in which at least half a hundred small boats are busily engaged in deep-sea fishing. Then we steam cautiously between Holy Island and King’s Cross Point (another landmark of the Bruce) into Lamlash Bay, where we drop anchor, and prepare to dine in peace.
We then begin to realise the importance of the fact that our cruise is to be one of pleasure, as well as of practical use, in a sense not previously thought of. We are to steam ahead during daylight, and our nights are to be spent peacefully at anchor in quiet waters. The arrangement is not only comfortable on that account, but is also convenient, inasmuch as we shall miss very little of the coast-scenery—none of it, indeed, if we are careful to rise betimes.
As we lay at our anchorage, we had an opportunity of realising what the electric light has done for navigation, not merely in the brilliant lighting of our own ship, but in that of several of the Clyde steamers. When the ‘Duchess of Hamilton,’ a coasting steamer, passed through the bay with her lights gleaming, she might have been a floating firework displayed for our special gratification.
Calmly and peacefully the night was passed. Some spent an hour pleasantly in the Music Saloon, under the spell of music and song. Others found more congenial occupation in the Smoking-room. Not a few lingered on deck till a late hour, bewitched by the galaxy of stars, or watching the glimmering lights of the Lamlash cottages, as, one by one, they succumbed to the demands of repose, and bade us a silent ‘good-night.’ One or two adventurous rowing boats came out at a late hour to inspect the monster of the deep that had suddenly disturbed the quiet of the bay; but the plash of their oars soon died away, and our little world was left in a silence that was felt.
