building, with excellent accommodation, and exceedingly comfortable.

On leaving the hotel we enter

a singularly picturesque and romantic defile, where nature is displayed in all her more rugged and irregular aspects. The whole forming a scene of

"Crags, knolls, and mounds, confus'dly hurl'd,

The fragments of an earlier world."

Combined with this, there is a rich and varied diffusion of vegetation,

Near the entrance of the gorge, at a place named Bealan Duine, is the death scene of Fitz-James' "gallant grey," and so imbued has the whole scenery become with the incidents related by the poet, that we are almost tempted to

look for the blanched bones of the generous steed; nor will the guide fail to show the exact spot where he fell, with true Highland precision.

Above the wooded precipices of the Trosachs on the north, Ben An towers upwards for 1800 feet, and its pyramidical summit is so steep as to preclude all access except from the north. On emerging from this wildering scene of mountains,

"With promontory, creek, and bay,
And islands that, empurpled bright,
Float amid the livelier light,
And mountains, that like giants stand,
To sentinel enchanted land.

A neat rustic pier has been made in that beautifully sheltered bay where the fair Ellen obtained her first interview with the Knight of Snowdoun.*

Taking the steamer † here, we sail close by the lovely island,

* There is now an excellent road along the northern margin of the loch by Glengyle, and continued from thence to Inverarnan, at Loch Lomond head. The whole road is picturesque, and if the tourist have time, he will obtain a beautiful (if not the best) view of the loch, from a wooded eminence a little to the left of the road, about a mile along. There is no path on the other side. The raising and improving of the road, at the Trosachs end of the loch, has been caused by the Glasgow Water Works.

The steamer sails at such times as enables passengers to meet the steamer at Loch Lomond. Fare 2s., return tickets 3s. From June to the end of September it generally makes three trips a day (Sunday excepted) from each end of the Loch; but as the hours of sailing and the number of trips are subject to changes, we think it better to leave the tourist to obtain local information on the subject. Small boats may be hired to go up or down the loch,-the charge is 10s., besides 2s. 6d. for the man that rows. To the Goblin's Cave and Helen's Isle is 5s., and 2s. 6d. to the man.

An abortive attempt was made in 1843, to establish a steamer in Loch Katrine. The enterprise naturally met with the strenuous opposition of the boatmen who row the boats on the lake-the proud spirit of Clan Alpine had not departed-and the steamer had plied only a few days when, during the night of the 18th July, it disappeared, and has never since been heard of. Although there can be no doubt that this daring outrage must have been the work of several accomplices, the perpetrators were never discovered.

and as the lake opens up beyond this, we obtain our first good view of the splendid mountain of Benvenue, (2388) rising high on the south,

"A wildering forest feather'd o'er

His ruin'd sides and summit hoar."

Few mountains can boast of an outline so nobly graduated, or combining such rich and singular beauty with alpine dignity.

The corries and crags, softened by distance, are blended with the luxuriant herbage; and the deep vertical gash of Coirnan-Uriskin, seems but a gentle opening in the sloping ridge.

*

Those conversant with the writings of Sir Walter Scott,

This remarkable specimen of the highland corry resolves itself, on nearer approach, into the dread Goblin's Cave, another of the scenes in "the Lady of the Lake." Climbing up through the mighty debris, a sort of rock-surrounded platform is reached, from which there is a beautiful view. On the other side of the hill from this, is Beal-ach-nam-Bo (the "pass of the cattle)," a magnificent glade overhung with birch trees, by which the cattle taken in forays were conveyed within the protection of the Trosachs, at the time when that place of refuge could only be passed by a ladder.