54 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY 



We shared the same bedroom, as was our custom, and before 

 retiring for the night both remarked that the arrangement of the 

 room and furniture was exactly the same as in the inn at Dalmally 

 on the previous evening. Early in the morning I was awakened 

 by a loud voice declaiming : ' Our travellers were now put into 

 a room in all respects like unto the former, and if anyone thinks 

 it was otherwise he is entirely mistaken. 5 Ramsay was delivering 

 a lecture in his sleep. He was very wroth when I woke him and 

 told him what he had said. For long afterwards, whenever he 

 was more emphatic in the assertion of an opinion than I thought 

 the occasion warranted, I used to remind him of his dream at 

 Oban and he always took the hint with perfect good humour. 

 From Oban we went by steamer to Fort William and the following 

 morning, the first of May, climbed Ben Nevis. We found the 

 upper part of the mountain covered with snow and had some 

 difficulty, and lost a good deal of time, in getting down into 

 Glen Nevis up which we proposed to walk to the hamlet of Kin- 

 lochmore near the head of Loch Leven. We expected to find 

 shelter there for the night, but in this we were disappointed, and 

 had to choose between crossing by a rough mountain track to 

 King's House near the head of Glencoe and walking to Leven 

 Hotel opposite Ballachulish, a distance of 26 miles reckoning 

 from our starting-point in Glen Nevis. As the daylight was 

 nearly gone when we reached Kinlochmore and there was no 

 moon, the former alternative was out of the question. We 

 therefore made our way as quickly as possible down to the loch, 

 not without difficulty in the failing light, and for more than two 

 hours had to march in pitch darkness before we came opposite 

 Ballachulish. The question then was how to find the hotel ? 

 Luckily we came upon a house in which a light was burning and 

 the occupier who had been kept up late by some domestic occasion 

 good naturedly guided us to the inn. After much banging and 

 rattling we succeeded in rousing the landlord, who not only found 

 us a room, but when he knew our plight, with true Highland 



