s, and there was again a threatening of rain, but it did not come
on. I wanted much to go to the old ruin, but the boatmen were in a hurry
to be at home. They told us it had been a stronghold built by a man who
lived there alone, and was used to swim over and make depredations on the
shore,--that nobody could ever lay hands on him, he was such a good
swimmer, but at last they caught him in a net. The men pointed out to us
an island belonging to Sir James Colquhoun, on which were a great
quantity of deer.

Arrived at the inn at about twelve o'clock, and prepared to depart
immediately: we should have gone with great regret if the weather had
been warmer and the inn more comfortable. When we were leaving the door,
a party with smart carriage and servants drove up, and I observed that
the people of the house were just as slow in their attendance upon them
as on us, with one single horse and outlandish Hibernian vehicle.

When we had travelled about two miles the lake became considerably
narrower, the hills rocky, covered with copses, or bare, rising more
immediately from the bed of the water, and therefore we had not so often
to regret the want of inhabitants. Passed by, or saw at a distance,
sometimes a single cottage, or two or three together, but the whole space
between Luss and Tarbet is a solitude to the eye. We were reminded of
Ulswater, but missed the pleasant farms, and the mountains were not so
interesting: we had not seen them in companies or brotherhoods rising one
above another at a long distance. Ben Lomond stood alone, opposite to
us, majestically overlooking the lake; yet there was something in this
mountain which disappointed me,--a want of massiveness and simplicity,
perhaps from the top being broken into three distinct stages. The road
carried us over a bold promontory by a steep and high ascent, and we had
a long view of the lake pushing itself up in a narrow line through an
avenue of mountains, terminated by the mountains at the head of the lake,
of which Ben Lui, if I do not mistake, is the most considerable. The
afternoon was showery and misty, therefore we did not see this prospect
so distinctly as we could have wished, but there was a grand obscurity
over it which might make the mountains appear more numerous.

I have said so much of this lake that I am tired myself, and I fear I
must have tired my friends. We had a pleasant journey to Tarbet; more
than half of it on foot, for the road was