When shut out from sight-seeing we turned our attention to the etymology of the word Lomond; we tried to answer the question why it was that Loch Loamin means “a lake of islands,” and Ben Lomond “the bare green mountain.” They are both correct and true to nature, but why so? And we had to give it up; we had to admit that Gaelic is unfavourable to philological accuracy. Its words admit of so many changes in form, and from their vocality coalesce so readily together, that a very little ingenuity is sufficient to discover many different radiations in the same compound. But once more the sun shone out, and, turning from these dry roots to something more savoury, we discussed our bill of fare and made up for the liquid loss sustained in the climb. We sympathised with the party who wrote on the window-pane of the Balloch Hotel long ago—
O Scotland, grand are thy mountains!
But why on their summits
Are there not fountains
Of good bitter beer
From Burton-on-Trent?
’Twould add to their value
A hundred per cent.
Looking northward we have the country of the Clan Gregor before us, stretching along the Trossachs to Balquhidder, and on the north and west to the heights of Rannoch and Glenorchy, a clan which was formerly known as the Clan Alpine, which traced its origin from Alpine, an early Scotch king. In an ancient Celtic chronicle, relating to the proceedings of the Clan Macnab, it is said that “there is nothing older than the Clan Macarthur except the hills and the rivers and the Clan Alpine.” They were for long the dread of the Lowland part of the Lennox district. The upper district of Loch Lomond, which belonged to the Macfarlane clan in the days of old, is seen to great advantage. Far up are seen the huge forms of Ben Voirlich and Ben Achray, and those of numerous kindred giants. There is Inversnaid, and its memories of Wordsworth and his “Sweet Highland Girl.” The hotel at Tarbet, and the village and the road over to Arrochar, appear in Lilliputian proportions. And lower down is Stuckgown House, a favourite residence of the late Lord Jeffrey, who was, as Lord Cockburn says, “an idolater of Loch Lomond, and used often to withdraw there and refresh himself by its beauties.” Immediately opposite this, at the rocky foot of the giant on whose head we stand, is Rob Roy’s prison, an arched cavern in a rock some height above the water, which can be easily seen from the steamer. It was said that he was in the habit of convincing those whom other arguments failed to reach by giving them a dip in the loch at this point; and it is generally understood that they did not need a second.