Learned Gaelic commentators have long ago found out that the original name of this district was “Rhue,” or point of land; and failing any more plausible theory, we are willing to admit the corruption of the text. We can only observe that our ancestors must have laboured under considerable difficulties in the pursuit of names, or the parish must have been devoid of any marked attraction, when an insignificant promontory on the Gareloch was deemed the most interesting object in it, and worthy to stand godfather, parochially speaking, to such a large district of country. The insignificance of this title, however, affords no fair criterion by which to judge of the locality, any more than the name of a man affords of his qualities. Speaking of that part of the parish property known as Row, and inclusive of its neck of land, there are few more beautiful or more romantic places on the surface of earth—few of the homes or haunts of men so favoured with the attractions of all that is lovely in nature. The road thence from Helensburgh is the most popular of all strolls in the neighbourhood, and well deserves the preference bestowed upon it. On a summer evening, it is crowded with pedestrians, and on few days of the year, and at few hours, will you not meet with walkers of all classes. The road, which is but a narrow and indifferently preserved one, leads along the margin of the Gareloch to the village of Row—a distance of about two miles from Helensburgh. Immediately on passing Helensburgh, Ardencaple Castle and policies appear on the right hand side of the road. The castle is a building of some antiquity, and of some local historical interest. It stands on a rising knoll, defended by an array of stately trees, by whose leafy branches it is almost wholly concealed during summer. A cool shady avenue of fir, beech, and elm leads up to it, but there is nothing very imposing or architecturally interesting in the building itself. The more ancient part of it has been added to at various times, without due regard to the original design; and were it not for the clustering ivy, which has

“Claspt the gray walls with hairy-fibred arms,
And suck’d the joining of the stones and rocks, A knot, beneath, of snakes, aloft, a grove,”

reaching, in some places, to the very eaves, it would be rather a dull unsightly mass of rough stones and mortar. The interior, contrary to anticipation, almost corresponds with the exterior in containing little or nothing of interest to the visitor. It leads nothing, but borrows much of its interest and picturesqueness from the situation it occupies, and the noble woods by which it is surrounded. Anciently, Ardencaple belonged to the Faslane branch of the Lennox family. In the fourteenth century, it became the residence of the M‘Aulay, a chief of some importance, and who, with his predecessors, occupy a somewhat conspicuous, though not enviable position in the freebooting annals of the county. For about a couple of centuries this family possessed a very considerable influence, not only locally, but in the stormy annals of the Scottish nation. Their power, however, declined with the seventeenth century, and about the middle of the eighteenth, they had parted with the last of their possessions here. Ardencaple fell into the hands of a branch of the Argyll family; was for years possessed by the Duchess Dowager of Argyll, and was, about two years since, purchased, along with the estate, by Sir James Colquhoun of Luss, by whom the lands are now offered to feu. A finer position for sea-coast villas than the range of fields adjacent to the shore presents, can scarcely be well conceived. The amenity of the castle and its immediate policies would not be injured, nor their seclusion encroached upon to any perceptible extent, were this strip of land laid out in houses and gardens.

A little beyond the castle, the road separates a point of land, known as Cairndow and “Neddy’s Point,” from the policies. This Point is understood to be still in possession of the Argyll family. Here, from time immemorial, a ferry to the opposite castle of Roseneath has existed, and of very recent date an obnoxious toll-bar has been erected, the advantages of which are not nearly so apparent as those of the ferry. The Cairndow Point embraces about half an acre of land rising to a considerable height above the level of the loch, and clad by some twenty straggling beech trees, whose shade in summer affords an agreeable lounge to travellers. Barring the toll-bar, there are no houses now on the Point, though traces of foundations of one or two may still be discerned among the grassy inequalities of the surface. One or two cottages existed here within the memory of the present generation, the principal of these occupied by the Neddy, whose surviving name has since distinguished the locality. He was ferryman and fisherman to the Duke, and seems to have been somewhat of an original, if the traditions preserved of him deserve credit. His wife, a little English woman, used to help him daily to launch his boat, and waited on the beach for his arrival home at evening invariably saluting him, ere he stepped ashore, with “Welcome home, Neddy, fish or no fish.” The rocks about this point afford shelter during summer to a succession of gangs of tinkers—those nomads of civilisation who live in utter heathenism and barbarism, despite all reformatory institutions and religious or philanthropic efforts. Nothing reaches their case but the order of the policeman to move on; they know no higher authority, and no purer law than that which can be enforced by the baton, and society seems to consider them a class privileged to live and die in the most debased ignorance and idleness. The women and children beg by day; and by night, round their glimmering fires, the families huddle together and divide the spoil, and fight and swear over the liquor which their cunning or their importunity has procured.

From this point to Row Quay, Cairndow Bay, or Ardencaple Bay, as it is sometimes termed, forms a beautiful crescent-like sweep of about half a mile. It is said to bear a very marked miniature resemblance to the Bay of Naples. The ground ascends gradually from the water edge to a considerable height, and the white and gray villas, rising above each other, look forth from the overhanging woods down upon the loch beneath. Many of these villas have been erected at great expense, and are finished and decorated with the most refined taste. On a calm summer day, when the woods are in full foliage, abounding in varied tint and shadow, and almost screening the houses from view, and imaged in softer tone on the bosom of the waters, there is scarcely a more beautiful bit of scenery over which one can linger and admire than at this point. At the further extremity of the bay is Row Quay, and beyond it sweeps another semicircle, forming the Row Bay not so beautiful as the first, yet possessing many attractions. In its centre stands the village and parish church of Row—the village consisting of a small cluster of houses, only partially seen from the road, with Ardenconnal house like a protecting fortress occupying a commanding situation on the heights behind. Adjacent to the village is the parish church, erected about ten years since—a very handsome building and decorated with several beautifully stained glass windows, the gift, we believe, of Robert Napier, Esq., and others. A sad drawback, however, to the architectural beauty of the church is the utter ruin and neglect of the churchyard— imperfectly fenced, and with tombstones lying in every condition of dilapidation and disorder. Row parish was disjoined from the parishes of Roseneath and Cardross about the year 1646. That part of it which extends from Shandon to the east boundary of Helensburgh, belonged to Roseneath. From Shandon to Garelochhead and the Strath of Glenfruin, belonged to Cardross; and from Garelochhead to the boundary of the parish of Arrochar is mentioned in the report of the Commissioners appointed for the valuation of Teinds, in 1630, as lying in the parish of Inshalloch, an old parish which is now unknown even by name in the district, and seems to have merged into the parish of Cardross. The district now comprehended as the parish of Row, though not a parish till 1646, possessed several places of worship. One at Faslane, where the Lennox family had a castle, and a considerable part of which yet stands; another at Glenfruin, to which considerable church lands were attached, but the only remnant of which is the stone baptismal font, built into a thatch cottage—the schoolmaster’s house; and another at Kirkmichael, in Helens-burgh, of which no vestige now remains, but religious service is said to have been performed in it in the early part of last century by an indulged Episcopal minister.

At the time the parish was formed, the most populous portion of it was the now almost lonely glen of the Fruin, where it was at first intended the parish church should be placed; but the tenantry succeeded in getting it erected where it now is by giving land for the church, churchyard, and glebe. The first minister was chosen in consequence of his ability to preach in Gaelic; but that tongue has long ceased to be used in preaching or conversation in the district. The last minister who used it was Mr. Allan, who, along with his son as his successor, were ministers of the parish for about a century previous to 1813. The present beautiful church appears to be the third that has been erected since the formation of the parish. More than half of its cost was subscribed by a few of the parishioners on Garelochside, as an inducement to the heritors to build it. Its immediate predecessor had been built in 1762, and remained unseated for a year after it was occupied, the parishioners bringing stools and chairs or other conveniences with them on the Sundays, according to taste or resources. The present esteemed minister, the Rev. John Laurie Fogo, has laboured acceptably and efficiently since 1832. Beyond the church, a long peninsula, called the Point, stretches out into the loch, encircling the village with an arm. On the neck of Row Point stands a beautiful Italian villa, built some years since by Daniel Walkinshaw, Esq., and which forms a most appropriate ornament to the landscape here, redeeming the otherwise bare point of its former bleak and unpromising aspect. A clump of fir plantation clothes the remainder of the point, lying above tide mark; and from thence at ebb water a long narrow strip of gravelly channel reaches almost across the loch, leaving but a narrow passage betwixt and the opposite ferry of Roseneath, in which the pent waters at ebb and flood boil and toss about at times with great fury. Standing on this narrow isthmus one cannot fail to note the contrast the waters on each side present. With a breeze blowing freshly down the loch, or upwards, the tide on the one hand is fretting and angrily lashing against the opposing barrier, the waves raking down, with each returning grasp, the loose sand and pebbles, only to dash them back again on the shore. On the other hand, not a breath disturbs the placid surface; the leaves of the ebbed sea grasses and tangle float listlessly on the surface, and the medusa stretches out its hundred fibrous threads in quest of its minute prey, and the water spider skims to and fro on its glittering pathway. How narrow and how frail the boundary between the bitter, bleak shore of worldly trial and adversity, and the calm rest of peaceful life! To what slight interposition, which men meaninglessly term chance, are we often preserved from the storm, and our bark rides safely in tranquil and untroubled waters! And as one stands on this point and watches the fishing crafts on the lake beyond, he cannot fail to feel a measure of sympathy and interest in the humble lives of those who earn a livelihood from the treacherous deep: the poetry and peril of which have formed an exhaustless theme of past and present literature. The fisherman’s boat itself, under the eloquent pen of Mr. Ruskin, becomes a very poem. How graphic and how true the description involuntarily rising before us as we write,—“All ashine with the sea she plunges and dips into the deep green purity of the mounded waves more joyfully than a deer lies down among the grass of spring, the soft white cloud of foam opening momentarily at the bows, or fading and flying high into the breeze where the sea-gulls toss and shriek; the joy and beauty of it all the while so mingled with the sense of unfathomable danger, and the human effort and sorrow going on from age to age—waves rolling for ever, and winds moaning for ever, and faithful hearts trusting and sickening for ever, and brave lives dashed away about the rattling beach like weeds for ever; and still at the helm of every lonely boat, through starless night and hopeless dawn, His hand who spread the fisher’s net over the dust of the Sidonian palaces, and gave into the fisher’s band the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”