a huge
single stone, I believe three or four times the size of Bowder Stone.
{225b} The top of it, which on one side was sloping like the roof of a
house, was covered with heather. William climbed up the rock, which
would have been no easy task but to a mountaineer, and we constructed a
rope of pocket-handkerchiefs, garters, plaids, coats, etc., and measured
its height. It was so many times the length of William's walking-stick,
but, unfortunately, having lost the stick, we have lost the measure. The
ferryman told us that a preaching was held there once in three months by
a certain minister--I think of Arrochar--who engages, as a part of his
office, to perform the service. The interesting feelings we had
connected with the Highland Sabbath and Highland worship returned here
with double force. The rock, though on one side a high perpendicular
wall, in no place overhung so as to form a shelter, in no place could it
be more than a screen from the elements. Why then had it been selected
for such a purpose? Was it merely from being a central situation and a
conspicuous object? Or did there belong to it some inheritance of
superstition from old times? It is impossible to look at the stone
without asking, How came it hither? Had then that obscurity and
unaccountableness, that mystery of power which is about it, any influence
over the first persons who resorted hither for worship? Or have they now
on those who continue to frequent it? The lake is in front of the
perpendicular wall, and behind, at some distance, and totally detached
from it, is the continuation of the ridge of mountains which forms the
vale of Loch Lomond--a magnificent temple, of which this spot is a noble
Sanctum Sanctorum.

We arrived at Glenfalloch at about one or two o'clock. It is no village;
there being only scattered huts in the glen, which may be four miles
long, according to my remembrance: the middle of it is very green, and
level, and tufted with trees. Higher up, where the glen parts into two
very narrow ones, is the house of the laird; I daresay a pretty place.
The view from the door of the public-house is exceedingly beautiful; the
river flows smoothly into the lake, and the fields were at that time as
green as possible. Looking backward, Ben Lomond very majestically shuts
in the view. The top of the mountain, as seen here, being of a pyramidal
form, it is much grander than with the broken outline, and stage above
stage, as seen