LOCH LOMOND. 
The fir’ll view from Tarbat , of the mo ft beautiful of the Cah.doman lakes, prefents an 
extenfive ferpentine winding amidft lofty hills: on the north, barren, black, and ro cky, 
which darken with their (hade that contrafted part of the water. 
On the Weft fide, the mountains are cloathed near the bottoms with woods of oak 
quite to the water edge ; their fummits lofty, naked, and craggy. 
On the eaft fide, the mountains are equally high, but the tops form a more even 
ridge parallel to the lake, except where Ben Lomond, like Saul , amidft his companions, 
overtoos the reft. The upper parts were black and barren ; the lower had great marks 
of fertility, or at leaft of induftry, for the yellow corn was finely contrafted with the 
verdure of the groves intermixed with it. 
“ The road runs fometimes through woods, at others is expofed and naked ; in fome 
fo fteep as to require the fupport of a wall ; the whole the work of the foldiery : BlefTed 
exchange of inftruments of deftruftion for thofe that give fafety to the traveller, and a 
polifh to the once inacceffible native. 
A oreat headland covered with trees feparates the firft feene from one totally differ- 
ent On paffing this cape an expanfe of water burfts at once on your eye, varied with 
'dl the fofter beauties of Nature. Immediately beneath is a flat covered with wood and 
corn - beyond, the headlands flretch far into the water, and confift of gentle rifings ; 
many have their furfaces covered with wood, others adorned with trees loofely fcattered 
cither over a fine verdure, or the purple bloom of the heath. Numbers of iflands are 
difperfed over the lake of the fame elevated form as the .little capes, and wooded in the 
fame manner, others juft peep above the furface, and are tufted with trees ; and num- 
bers are fo dffpofed as to form magnificent viftos between, 
Oppofite Lujs, at a (mail diftance from fhore, is a mountainous ifle almoft covered with 
wood • it is near half a niile long, and has a moft fine effefl. I could not count the 
number of iflands, but was told there are twenty eight ; the largeft two miles long, and 
flocked with deer. 
The length of this charming lake is twenty-four Scotch miles., its greateft breadth eight : 
its greateft depth a hundred and twenty fathoms. 
The country from Lufs to the foutliern extremity of the lake continually improves ; 
the mountains fink gradually into final! hills ; the land is highly cultivated, well planted, 
and well inhabited. I was (truck with rapture at a fight fo new to me : it would have 
been without alloy, had it not been dallied with the uncertainty whether the mountain 
virtue, hofpitality, would flourifli with equal vigour in the fofter feenes upon which I 
was about to enter; for in th c Highlands every houfe gave welcome to the traveller. 
The vale between the end of the lake and Dunbarton is unfpeakably beautiful, very 
fertile, and finely watered by the great and rapid river Levin ; the dilcharge of the lake, 
which, after a (hort courfe, drops into the Firth of Clyde below Dunbarton : there is 
fcarcely a fpot on its banks but what is cultivated with bleacheries, plantations, and 
villas. Nothing can equal the contrail in this day’s journey, between the black barren 
dreary 
