Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland .. - National Library of Scotland

':LOMONDdeed, to the E and S completely so) ; but here are all theIjeautifully-wooded islands, to the number of twenty-four.. . . To the left we passed some very pretty villas.. . . Then Tarhet, a small town, where dearest Albertlanded in 1847 ; and here began tlie highest and finestmountains, with splendid passes, richly wooded, andthe highest mountains rising behind. A glen leadsacross from Tarhet to A rrochar on Loeh Long, and hereyou see that most singularly-shaped hill called theCobbler, and a little further on the splendid Alps ofArrochar. All this, and the way in which the hills runinto the lake, reminded me so much of the Nasen onthe Laie of Luccrjie. The head of the lake, with thevery fine glen (Glen Falloch), along which you can driveto Oban, is magnificent. We (Louise and I) sketched asbest we could. ' In 1875, on her way back from Inveraray,she drove along the bank of the loch from Tarhet toBalloch.'The drive along Loch Lomond, which wecame upon almost immediately after Tarbet, was perfectlybeautiful. We wound along under trees on bothsides, with the most lovely glimpses of the head of theloch, and ever and anon of Loch Lomond itself below theroad ;the hills which rose upon our right reminding meof Aberfoyle near Loch Ard, and of the lower part of thePilatus. Such fine trees, numbers of hollies gi'owingdown almost into the water, and such beautiful capesand little bays and promontories ! The loch was extremelyrough, and so fierce was the wind that the foamwas blown like smoke along the deep blue of the water.The gale had broken some trees. The sun lit up thewhole scene beautifully, but we had a few slight showers.It reminded me of Switzerland. I thought we saw everythingso much better than we had formerly done fromthe steamer. As we proceeded, the hills became lower,the loch widened, and the many wooded islands appeared.We next changed horses at Luss, quite a small village—indeed, the little inn stands almost alone. . .From here we drove along past the openings of Glen Lussand Gle7i Finlas, which run up amongst the fine hills tothe right, the loch being on our left, and the road muchwooded.In consequence of its size and beautiful scenery LochLomond is often styled the Queen ' of Scottish lakes,'a title which it certainly deserves. At the S end thebanks have none of that bleakness and wildness thatcharacterise so many of the lakes of the Highlands ofScotland. 'I have seen,' says BxaoWfitt in HiimphreyClinker, ' the Lago di Gardi, Albano, De Vico, Bolsena,and Geneva, and on my honour I prefer Loch Lomondto them all ; a preference which is certainly owing to theverdant islands that seem to float on its surface,aff'ording the most enchanting objects of repose to theexcursive view. Nor are the banks destitute of beautieswhich even partake of the sublime. On this side theydisplay a sweet variety of woodland, cornfields, andpasture, with several agreeable villas emerging as itwere out of the lake, till, at some distance, the prospectterminates in huge mountains, covered with heath,which, being in the bloom, affords a very rich coveringof purple. Everything here is romantic beyond imagination.This country is justly styled the Arcadia ofScotland ; and I don't doubt but it may vie with Arcadiain everything but climate : I am sure it excels in verdure,wood, and water. What say you to a natural basin ofpure water nearly thirty miles long, and in some placesseven miles broad, and in many above an hundredfathoms deep, having four-and-twenty habitable islands,some of them stocked with deer, and all of them coveredwith wood ; containing immense quantities of deliciousfish, salmon, pike, trout, perch, flounders, eels, andpowans, the last a delicate kind of fresh-water herringpeculiar to this lake. ' He also adds that the powannever descends the Leven. These are probably theanimals that the writer in Blaeu's Atlas calls paones,though he is incorrect in confusing them with vipers.They belong to the Salmonidae, and the species isscientifically known as Coregonus La Cefcdei (Parnell)or C. clupeoides (Lacepede). The level and well woodedground at the S end of the loch and the number and552LOMONDbeautifully wooded condition of the islands gives thispart great softness, and it presents an appearance moreakin to that of the Lakes of Killarney than any othersheet of water in Scotland. Above Luss, where the lochcontracts and the hills rise more steeply from the waterand at the same time lose somewhat of the green colourthey have further to the S, the scenery becomes wilder,but by no means savage. Many parts of the lowerskirts of the hills are still well wooded, and the slopesthemselves have smooth rounded outlines, which theheight, however, prevents from being tame. Everywhere,too, Ben Lomond towers above the lake, andfills up or borders the view.Dr Johnson (who, however, visited it late in the yearand during rain) expresses his opinion of the sceneryin terms of great dissatisfaction ; but Boswell, outhe other hand, declares that the Doctor was very muchpleased with the scene. Wordsworth, who visitedLoch Lomond in his Scottish tours in 1803, 1814, and1S31, had all manner of faults to find with it. Hetliought 'the proportion of diffused water was toogreat, ' and wished for ' a speedier termination of thelong vista of blank water, ' and ' the interposition ofgreen meadows, trees, and cottages, and a sparklingstream to run by his side. ' He thought that ' a notionof grandeur as connected with magnitude has seducedpersons of taste into a general mistake upon this subject.It is much more desirable for the purposes of pleasurethat lakes should be numerous and small or middlesized,than large, not only for communication by walksand rides, but for variety and for recurrence of similarappearances. ' This may be true, but one hardly seesthat the proposition that everything great is not magnificentalso implies the opposite that everything magnificentis not great. Dorothy Wordsworth, his sister,who, along with Coleridge, accompanied him in 1803,was no more satisfied. The hills were not such as a'Cumbrian would dignify with the name of mountains,'nor was Ben Lomond ' seen standing in such companyas Helvellyn.' Everything was too good for them; itwould not submit to be measured by the spirit ofUllswater, but doubtless things have changed for thebetter in many ways about the shores of the loch sincethen, for the Luss of that time, with not ' a singleornamented garden,' must have been a very differentplace from the Luss of to-day, in midsummer, brightwith rhododendron bloom. Dissatisfied, however, asshe was, she had to admit beauty. They crossed toInchtavannach, from which the view is thus described—'We had not climbed far before we were stopped by asudden burst of prospect so singular and beautifid thatit was like a flash of images from another world. Westood with our backs to the hill of the island which wewere ascending, and which shut out Ben Lomondentirely and all the upper part of the lake, and welooked towards the foot of the lake, scattered over withislands without beginning and without end. The sunshone, and the distant hills were visible, some throughsunny mists, others in gloom, with patches of suushine ;the lake was lost under the low and distant hills, andthe islands lost in the lake, which was all in motionwith travelling fields of light or dark shadows underrainy clouds. There are many hrUs, but no commandingeminence at a distance to confine the prospect so thatthe land seemed endless as the water. What I hadheard of Loch Lomond, or any other place in GreatBritain, had given me no idea of anything like what webeheld : it was an outlandish scene—we might havebelieved ourselves in North America. The islands wereof every possible variety of shape and surface—hilly andlevel, large and small, bare, rocky, pastoral, or coveredwith wood. . . . There were bays innumerable,straits or passages like calm rivers, land-locked lakes,and, to the main water, stormy promontories. ' Thescene'was throughout magical and enchanting—a new worldin its great permanent outline and composition, andchanging at every moment in every part of it by theefl'ect of sun and wind, and mist and shower andcloud, and the blending lights and deep shades which