It is so shut in that you can see nothing beyond, nor
would suspect anything more to exist than this watery vale among the
hills; except that, directly opposite, there is the beautiful glen of
Invernglass, which winds away among the feet of Ben Crook, Ben Ein, Ben
Vain, and Ben Voirlich, standing mist-inwreathed together. The mists,
this morning, had a very soft and beautiful effect, and made the
mountains tenderer than I have hitherto felt them to be; and they
lingered about their heads like morning-dreams, flitting and retiring,
and letting the sunshine in, and snatching it away again. My wife came
up, and we enjoyed it together, till the steamer came smoking its pipe
along the loch, stopped to land some passengers, and steamed away again.
While we stood there, a Highlander passed by us, with a very dark tartan,
and bare shanks, most enormously calved. I presume he wears the dress
for the sole purpose of displaying those stalwart legs; for he proves to
be no genuine Gael, but a manufacturer, who has a shooting-box, or a
share in one, on the hill above the hotel.
We now engaged a boat, and were rowed to Rob Roy's cave, which is perhaps
half a mile distant up the lake. The shores look much more striking from
a rowboat, creeping along near the margin, than from a steamer in the
middle of the loch; and the ridge, beneath which Rob's cave lies, is
precipitous with gray rocks, and clothed, too, with thick foliage. Over
the cave itself there is a huge ledge of rock, from which immense
fragments have tumbled down, ages and ages ago, and fallen together in
such a way as to leave a large irregular crevice in Rob Roy's cave.
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