broad vale, through which runs the stream from Loch
Ketterine, and came to Loch Vennachar, a larger lake than Loch Achray,
the small one which had given us such unexpected delight when we left the
Pass of the Trossachs. Loch Vennachar is much larger, but greatly
inferior in beauty to the image which we had conceived of its neighbour,
and so the reality proved to us when we came up to that little lake, and
saw it before us in its true shape in the cheerful sunshine. The
Trossachs, overtopped by Benledi and other high mountains, enclose the
lake at the head; and those houses which we had seen before, with their
corn fields sloping towards the water, stood very prettily under low
woods. The fields did not appear so rich as when we had seen them
through the veil of mist; but yet, as in framing our expectations we had
allowed for a much greater difference, so we were even a second time
surprised with pleasure at the same spot.

Went as far as these houses of which I have spoken in the car, and then
walked on, intending to pursue the road up the side of Loch Ketterine
along which Coleridge had come; but we had resolved to spend some hours
in the neighbourhood of the Trossachs, and accordingly coasted the head
of Loch Achray, and pursued the brook between the two lakes as far as
there was any track. Here we found, to our surprise--for we had expected
nothing but heath and rocks like the rest of the neighbourhood of the
Trossachs--a secluded farm, a plot of verdant ground with a single
cottage and its company of out-houses. We turned back, and went to the
very point from which we had first looked upon Loch Achray when we were
here with Coleridge. It was no longer a visionary scene: the sun shone
into every crevice of the hills, and the mountain-tops were clear. After
some time we went into the pass from the Trossachs, and were delighted to
behold the forms of objects fully revealed, and even surpassing in
loveliness and variety what we had conceived. The mountains, I think,
appeared not so high; but on the whole we had not the smallest
disappointment; the heather was fading, though still beautiful.

Sate for half-an-hour in Lady Perth's shed, and scrambled over the rocks
and through the thickets at the head of the lake. I went till I could
make my way no further, and left William to go to the top of the hill,
whence he had a distinct view, as on a map, of the intricacies of the
lake and the course of the river. Retur