page_title: Bass Rock
section_title: Robert Louis Stevenson and Catriona
hierarchical_section_title: Bass Rock / Cultural references / Robert Louis Stevenson and Catriona
caption_attribution_description: English: View north-west from John Muir Country Park towards Belhaven Bay with North Berwick Law and Bass Rock in the distance.
context_page_description: The Bass Rock, or simply the Bass, is an island in the outer part of the Firth of Forth in the east of Scotland. Approximately 2 kilometres offshore, and 5 kilometres north-east of North Berwick, it is a steep-sided volcanic rock, 107 metres at its highest point, and is home to a large colony of gannets. The rock is uninhabited, but historically has been settled by an early Christian hermit, and later was the site of an important castle, which after the Commonwealth period was used as a prison. The island belongs to Sir Hew Hamilton-Dalrymple, whose family acquired it in 1706, and before to the Lauder family for almost six centuries. The Bass Rock Lighthouse was constructed on the rock in 1902, and the remains of an ancient chapel survive.
  The Bass Rock features in many works of fiction, including Robert Louis Stevenson's Catriona and The Lion is Rampant by the Scottish novelist Ross Laidlaw.
context_section_description: Robert Louis Stevenson had at least one strong connection with the Bass, as his cousin, David Stevenson, designed the lighthouse there. Amongst his earliest memories were holidays in North Berwick. He often stayed at Scoughall Farm, whence the Bass can be seen, and local lore is credited as the inspiration for his short story The Wreckers.
  Catriona is Stevenson's 1893 sequel to Kidnapped. Both novels are set in the aftermath of the Jacobite risings, in the mid-18th century. The first part of Catriona recounts the attempts of the hero – David Balfour – to gain justice for James Stewart – James of the Glens – who has been arrested and charged with complicity in the Appin Murder. David makes a statement to a lawyer, and goes on to meet Lord Prestongrange – the Lord Advocate – to press the case for James' innocence. However his attempts fail as he is once again kidnapped and confined on the Bass Rock, until the trial is over, and James condemned to death.
  The book begins with a dedication to Charles Baxter, a friend of Stevenson, written in his home in Western Samoa and says:
  There should be left in our native city some seed of the elect; some long-legged, hot-headed youth must repeat to-day our dreams and wanderings of so many years ago; he will relish the pleasure, which should have been ours, to follow among named streets and numbered houses the country walks of David Balfour, to identify Dean, and Silvermills, and Broughton, and Hope Park, and Pilrig, and poor old Lochend – if it still be standing, and the Figgate Whins [the area near Portobello] – if there be any of them left; or to push (on a long holiday) so far afield as Gillane or the Bass.  So, perhaps, his eye shall be opened to behold the series of the generations, and he shall weigh with surprise his momentous and nugatory gift of life.
  Chapter XIV is entitled simply The Bass, and gives a long description of the island, which is described as "just the one crag of rock, as everybody knows, but great enough to carve a city from".
  It was an unco place by night, unco by day; and there were unco sounds; of the calling of the solans [gannets], and the plash [splash] of the sea, and the rock echoes that hung continually in our ears. It was chiefly so in moderate weather. When the waves were anyway great they roared about the rock like thunder and the drums of armies, dreadful, but merry to hear, and it was in the calm days when a man could daunt himself with listening; so many still, hollow noises haunted and reverberated in the porches of the rock.
caption: View towards Belhaven Bay (John Muir Country Park) from Dunbar with North Berwick Law and Bass Rock in the distance
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