moss. The Highlander made a pause, saying, 'This place is much changed
since I was here twenty years ago.' He told us that the heap of stones
had been a hut where a family was then living, who had their winter
habitation in the valley, and brought their goats thither in the summer
to feed on the mountains, and that they were used to gather them together
at night and morning to be milked close to the door, which was the reason
why the grass was yet so green near the stones. It was affecting in that
solitude to meet with this memorial of manners passed away; we looked
about for some other traces of humanity, but nothing else could we find
in that place. We ourselves afterwards espied another of those ruins,
much more extensive--the remains, as the man told us, of several
dwellings. We were astonished at the sagacity with which our Highlander
discovered the track, where often no track was visible to us, and
scarcely even when he pointed it out. It reminded us of what we read of
the Hottentots and other savages. He went on as confidently as if it had
been a turnpike road--the more surprising, as when he was there before it
must have been a plain track, for he told us that fishermen from Arrochar
carried herrings regularly over the mountains by that way to Loch
Ketterine when the glens were much more populous than now.

Descended into Glengyle, above Loch Ketterine, and passed through Mr.
Macfarlane's grounds, that is, through the whole of the glen, where there
was now no house left but his. We stopped at his door to inquire after
the family, though with little hope of finding them at home, having seen
a large company at work in a hay field, whom we conjectured to be his
whole household--as it proved, except a servant-maid, who answered our
inquiries. We had sent the ferryman forward from the head of the glen to
bring the boat round from the place where he left it to the other side of
the lake. Passed the same farm-house we had such good reason to
remember, and went up to the burying-ground that stood so sweetly near
the water-side. The ferryman had told us that Rob Roy's grave was there,
{229} so we could not pass on without going up to the spot. There were
several tomb-stones, but the inscriptions were either worn-out or
unintelligible to us, and the place choked up with nettles and brambles.
You will remember the description I have given of the spot. I have
nothing here to add, except the following poem which