9G MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. III. 



be giving you advice!' I assured her I knew them as being 

 very skilly folks, and that I was half a Highlander myself, and 

 I at once craved her husband to sing me a Gaelic song. While 

 crossing, he told me he ' couldna sing' unless he ' had a glass o' 

 whisky ;' but as I had every reason to believe there was none in 

 the loch, my only accessible place for liquors, I had no means of 

 making him musical ; and so, with stories about Rob Hoy, and 

 jokes, and the like, we sat and talked while he rowed me across. 

 I had still five miles to walk, which was no cheering prospect 

 to me, who had already walked twenty-three ; and, in spite of 

 my invigorating drink of warm milk, I crept very laggingly on. 

 The road was a dull, sterile, rugged thing, only, every now and 

 then, I saw the party which had passed up the loch, moving 

 with ponies. I should have been very glad to have made up 

 to them, and should certainly have treated myself to a pony's 

 back had I reached them. At last, jaded and exhausted, I 

 arrived at the small clachan of Inversnaid. After resting, I 

 took off my collar and washed my face and hands in the cool- 

 ing waters of Lochlomond, along whose surface I very speedily 

 was moving in a comfortable little steamer. I was much 

 too weary to enjoy it as I should have done, had I been re- 

 freshed ; but it is truly a magnificent (that's the word) loch, 

 especially at the west end, where I was greatly delighted with 

 the fairy-like appearance of the scattered islands. We make a 

 work about our Arthur Seat and Calton Hill, and our Dudding- 

 ston and Lochend, the market here is quite glutted with them. 

 You might tumble Ben-Ledi or Ben-Lomond and fill up half a 

 dozen lochs, and the only effect would be to bring into view 

 twice as many more of hills, lochs, straths, gulleys, peaks, and I 

 know not what. I am just going off to Dunoon ; and with the 

 kindest love to all, I am, your affectionate son, 



" GEORGE." 



" To Miss MACKAY, GLASGOW. 



October 6, 1837. 



"Mv DEAR Miss MACKAY, Having finished the perusal of 

 some tomes treating of certain recondite philosophical and lite- 

 rary subjects, I gladly sit down to dispel all your anxious fears 



