LOCH LOMOND DESCRIBED BY SMOLLETT. 167 Lago di Gardi, Albano, De Vico, Bolsena, and Geneva,' a preference, he adds, that is certainly owing to the verdant islands that seem to float upon its surface, affording the most enchanting visions of repose to the excursive view. Nor are the banks destitute of beauties which even partake of the sublime. On this side they display a sweet variety of woodland, corn fields, and pasture, with several agreeable villas emerging, as it were, out of the lake, till, at some distance, the prospect terminates in huge mountains, covered with heath, which being in bloom, affords a very rich covering of purple. Everything is romantic beyond imagination.' The woodland scenery must be tame to what it once was, for the western banks of Loch Lomond were formerly covered with large forests; and Professor Cosmo Innes, in his Sketches of Early Scotch History,' shows that Maurice, Lord of Luss, sold the timber from there wherewith to build the steeple and thesaury of the church' of Glasgow, in 1277. CHAPTER XVI. BEN LOMOND. Village of Luss-The Birch; useful and ornamental— S seen from the steamer, the village of Luss is one of the prettiest collections of houses on the borders of the Loch. The shores of the lake, up to this spot, have been comparatively low and meadow-like; but immediately northward of Luss the rocks here and there rise precipitously from the water, and on all sides soar upwards into mountains, which press around the now narrowed surface of the Loch, and contract it to a width varying from three-quarters of a mile to a mile and a half. This brings the varied scenery of either bank within near view, and enables those on board the steamer to note those lesser objects of the landscape which distance would have hidden from our eyes on the sea-like surface of the southern portion of the Loch. Now, we not only clearly discern all the houses, but even the people also-to wit, the fisherman who is flogging the Luss water almost as lustily as an irate woman in a mob-cap, which shines lustrous in the sun, who is belabouring a small boy with a birch. That graceful tree grows as ornamentally and usefully near to the cottagers' huts by Loch Lomond as it did by the house of Shenstone's schoolmistress. Three miles farther on, and as our steamer approaches Inveruglas Ferry, the Loch would appear to become still more contracted, and yet more beautiful. Tiny cataracts are hurled down the rocky ramparts of the Loch, and lose themselves amid the trees with a most musical murmur, a veritable performance by dame Nature of La Pluie de Perles. At Inveruglas we set down some of our passengers; for from hence is the usual spot (by means of the ferry to the Rowardennan Hotel on the opposite bank of the Loch) where tourists start for Ben Lomond; and to-day is a most propitious day for the ascent, the view being clear in all directions. But the ascent from Rowardennan to the summit of Ben Lomond is a toilsome march of six miles, and will therefore consume several hours of the day; and at present I am bound for Tarbet, so I defer my ascent to another day, which, alas, never came; for on the morrow (which happened to be the only day at my command) the pelting storms and shrouding mists had well nigh blotted out Ben Lomond from base to summit, and the view of him, as seen from the Tarbet Hotel, was simply nil. I therefore had to take to heart that cosmopolitan carpe-diem proverb of making hay while the sun shines,' of which the German version says, 'one to-day is worth ten to morrows.' As seen from the various points of the Loch, however, and especially from Tarbet (weather permitting), Ben Lomond is a truly magnificent object in the landscape -a giant amid giants-a mountain that lifts its head. amongst its fellows, - that, like giants stand, To sentinel enchanted land. The height of Ben Lomond is stated at various altitudes, ranging from 3,091 to 3,262 feet. Its name appears to have been derived from the British word Llummon, 'a beacon; and, in the thirteenth century, the mountain lent its name to the lake, which had previously been called Loch Leven, still retained by the river which flows out of the lake into the Clyde at Dumbarton. Ben Lomond well deserves its name of "The Beacon;' for from its summit can be discerned the distant mountains of Arran and Cantire, Ben More, Ben Lawers, the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, the vales of the Clyde and the Forth, and the Atlantic Ocean. In modern days it has literally been turned into a beacon; for when the Ordnance Survey for Scotland was being made, the engineers placed a limelight as a station-mark on the highest peak of the mountain, which was said to have been plainly visible at Knock Layd, nearly 100 miles distant. The bonfire lighted on the Malvern Hills (not half the height of Ben Lomond), in January 1856, was also said to have been visible from the distance of 100 miles-even from Snowdon, which is 105 miles distant; although it was altogether invisible at a distance of only three miles to the north and east; * a discrepancy which may be partly ac * So I found, not only from hearsay, but personal observation. A strong wind beat down the flames, and carried them out horizontally towards the Herefordshire side of the hill. Thus the bonfire was altogether invisible to the thousands who were watching for it at Worcester; and when my sketch of the bonfire appeared in the Illustrated London News, the Radical paper of the county did not scruple to say that the BAILIE NICOL JARVIE. 171 counted for by supposing that the distant watchers were provided with Sam Weller's 'extra super doublemilled million magnifying optics.' Sir Walter Scott makes Frank Osbaldistone thus to describe his approach to Loch Lomond in company with Bailie Nicol Jarvie: The lofty peak of Ben Lomond, here the predominant monarch of mountains, lay on our right hand, and served as a striking landmark. We emerged through a pass in the hills, and Loch Lomond opened before us. I will spare you the attempt to describe what you would hardly comprehend without going to see it. But, certainly, this noble lake, boasting innumerable beautiful islands, of every varying form and outline which fancy can frame—its northern extremity narrowing until it is lost among dusky and retreating mountains—while, gradually widening as it extends to the southward, it spreads its base around the indentures and promontories of a fair and fertile land-affords one of the most surprising, beautiful, and sublime spectacles in nature.' The beauties of the scene were lost upon Bailie Nicol Jarvie, who, as he was rowed over the lake, was mentally engaged in the calculations necessary for the drainage of the Loch, undertaking that it was a possible experiment, and that, while a portion of the water should be left just deep enough and broad enough for a canal for coal-barges and gabbards, there would be giving to plough and harrow many hundred, aye, many a thousand acres, from whilk no man could get earthly gude e'enow, unless it were a gedd, or a dish of perch now and then.' This notable idea of the bailie has been drawing was the result of my own imagination. For stations where the Malvern bonfire was said to have been visible, see Notes and Queries, 2nd S. iv. 411, 476; v. 55, 93. |