evening.—after breakfast at dumbarton, i went out to look at the town, which is of considerable size, and possesses both commerce and manufactures. there was a screw-steamship at the pier, and many sailor-looking people were seen about the streets. there are very few old houses, though still the town retains an air of antiquity which one does not well see how to account for, when everywhere there is a modern front, and all the characteristics of a street built to-day. turning from the main thoroughfare i crossed a bridge over the clyde, and gained from it the best view of the cloven crag of dumbarton castle that i had yet found. the two summits are wider apart, more fully relieved from each other, than when seen from other points; and the highest ascends into a perfect pyramid, the lower one being obtusely rounded. there seem to be iron-works, or some kind of manufactory, on the farther side of the bridge; and i noticed a quaint, chateau-like mansion, with hanging turrets standing apart from the street, probably built by some person enriched by business.
we left dumbarton at noon, taking the rail to balloch, and the steamer to the head of loch lomond.
wild mountain scenery is not very good to describe, nor do i think any distinct impressions are ever conveyed by such attempts; so i mean to be brief in what i saw about this part of our tour, especially as i suspect that i have said whatever i knew how to say in the record of my former visit to the highlands. as for loch lomond, it lies amidst very striking scenery, being poured in among the gorges of steep and lofty mountains, which nowhere stand aside to give it room, but, on the contrary, do their best to shut it in. it is everywhere narrow, compared with its length of thirty miles; but it is the beauty of a lake to be of no greater width than to allow of the scenery of one of its shores being perfectly enjoyed from the other. the scenery of the highlands, so far as i have seen it, cannot properly be called rich, but stern and impressive, with very hard outlines, which are unsoftened, mostly, by any foliage, though at this season they are green to their summits. they have hardly flesh enough to cover their bones,—hardly earth enough to lie over their rocky substance,—as may be seen by the minute variety,—the notched and jagged appearance of the profile of their sides and tops; this being caused by the scarcely covered rocks wherewith these great hills are heaped together.
our little steamer stopped at half a dozen places on its voyage up the lake, most of them being stations where hotels have been established. morally, the highlands must have been more completely sophisticated by the invention of railways and steamboats than almost any other part of the world; but physically it can have wrought no great change. these mountains, in their general aspect, must be very much the same as they were thousands of years ago; for their sides never were capable of cultivation, nor even with such a soil and so bleak an atmosphere could they have been much more richly wooded than we see them now. they seem to me to be among the unchangeable things of nature, like the sea and sky; but there is no saying what use human ingenuity may hereafter put them to. at all events, i have no doubt in the world that they will go out of fashion in due time; for the taste for mountains and wild scenery is, with most people, an acquired taste, and it was easy to see to-day that nine people in ten care nothing about them. one group of gentlemen and ladies—at least, men and women—spent the whole time in listening to a trial for murder, which was read aloud by one of their number from a newspaper. i rather imagine that a taste for trim gardens is the most natural and universal taste as regards landscape. but perhaps it is necessary for the health of the human mind and heart that there should be a possibility of taking refuge in what is wild and uncontaminated by any meddling of man's hand, and so it has been ordained that science shall never alter the aspect of the sky, whether stern, angry, or beneficent,— nor of the awful sea, either in calm or tempest,—nor of these rude highlands. but they will go out of general fashion, as i have said, and perhaps the next fashionable taste will be for cloud land,—that is, looking skyward, and observing the wonderful variety of scenery, that now constantly passes unnoticed, among the clouds.
at the head of the lake, we found that there was only a horse-cart to convey our luggage to the hotel at inverannan, and that we ourselves must walk, the distance being two miles. it had sprinkled occasionally during our voyage, but was now sunshiny, and not excessively warm; so we set forth contentedly enough, and had an agreeable walk along an almost perfectly level road; for it is one of the beauties of these hills, that they descend abruptly down, instead of undulating away forever. there were lofty heights on each side of us, but not so lofty as to have won a distinctive name; and adown their sides we could see the rocky pathways of cascades, which, at this season, are either quite dry, or mere trickles of a rill. the hills and valleys abound in streams, sparkling through pebbly beds, and forming here and there a dark pool; and they would be populous with trout if all england, with one fell purpose, did not come hither to fish them. a fisherman must find it difficult to gratify his propensities in these days; for even the lakes and streams in norway are now preserved. j——-, by the way, threatens ominously to be a fisherman. he rode the latter portion of the way to the hotel on the luggage-cart; and when we arrived, we found that he had already gone off to catch fish, or to attempt it (for there is as much chance of his catching a whale as a trout), in a mountain stream near the house. i went in search of him, but without success, and was somewhat startled at the depth and blackness of some of the pools into which the stream settled itself and slept. finally, he came in while we were at dinner. we afterwards walked out with him, to let him play at fishing again, and discovered on the bank of the stream a wonderful oak, with as many as a dozen holes springing either from close to the ground or within a foot or two of it, and looking like twelve separate trees, at least, instead of one.
