that of Loch Katrine and the Trosachs, which
we reached next day, Scott has described exactly in "The Lady of
the Lake"; nor is it possible to appreciate that poem, without going
thither, neither to describe the scene better than he has done after
you have seen it. I was somewhat disappointed in the pass of the
Trosachs itself; it is very grand, but the grand part lasts so
little while. The opening view of Loch Katrine, however, surpassed,
expectation. It was late in the afternoon when we launched our little
boat there for Ellen's isle.

The boatmen recite, though not _con molto espressione_, the parts of
the poem which describe these localities. Observing that they spoke of
the personages, too, with the same air of confidence, we asked if they
were sure that all this really happened. They replied, "Certainly; it
had been told from father to son through so many generations." Such
is the power of genius to interpolate what it will into the regular
log-book of Time's voyage.

Leaving Loch Katrine the following day, we entered Rob Roy's country,
and saw on the way the house where Helen MacGregor was born, and Rob
Roy's sword, which is shown in a house by the way-side.

We came in a row-boat up Loch Katrine, though both on that and Loch
Lomond you _may_ go in a hateful little steamer with a squeaking
fiddle to play Rob Roy MacGregor O. I walked almost all the way
through the pass from Loch Katrine to Loch Lomond; it was a distance
of six miles; but you feel as if you could walk sixty in that pure,
exhilarating air. At Inversnaid we took boat again to go down Loch
Lomond to the little inn of Rowardennan, from which the ascent is made
of Ben Lomond, the greatest elevation in these parts. The boatmen
are fine, athletic men; one of those with us this evening, a handsome
young man of two or three and twenty, sang to us some Gaelic songs.
The first, a very wild and plaintive air, was the expostulation of a
girl whose lover has deserted her and married another. It seems he is
ashamed, and will not even look at her when they meet upon the road.
She implores him, if he has not forgotten all that scene of bygone
love, at least to lift up his eyes and give her one friendly glance.
The sad _crooning_ burden of the stanzas in which she repeats this
request was very touching. When the boatman had finished, he hung his
head and seemed ashamed of feeling the song too much; then, when we
asked for another, he said he would sing another