The view from Ben Lomond is nearly twice as extensive as that from Catskill, being uninterrupted on every side, but it wants the glorious forest scenery, clear, blue sky, and active, rejoicing character of the latter.  We stayed about two hours upon the summit, taking refuge behind the cairn, when the wind blew strong.  I found the smallest of flowers under a rock, and brought it away as a memento.  In the middle of the precipice there is a narrow ravine or rather cleft in the rock, to the bottom, from whence the mountain slopes regularly but steeply down to the valley.  At the bottom we stopped to awake the echoes, which were repeated four times; our German companion sang the Hunter’s Chorus, which resounded magnificently through this Highland hall.  We drank from the river Forth, which starts from a spring at the foot of the rock, and then commenced descending.  This was also toilsome enough.  The mountain was quite wet and covered with loose stones, which, dislodged by our feet, went rattling down the side, oftentimes to the danger of the foremost ones; and when we had run or rather slid down the three miles, to the bottom, our knees trembled so as scarcely to support us.

Here, at a cottage on the farm of Coman, we procured some oat cakes and milk for dinner, from an old Scotch woman, who pointed out the direction of Loch Katrine, six miles distant; there was no road, nor indeed a solitary dwelling between.  The hills were bare of trees, covered with scraggy bushes and rough heath, which in some places was so thick we could scarcely drag our feet through.  Added to this, the ground was covered with a kind of moss that retained the moisture like a sponge, so that our boots ere long became thoroughly soaked.  Several considerable streams were rushing down the side, and many of the wild breed of black Highland cattle were grazing around.  After climbing up and down one or two heights, occasionally startling the moorcock and ptarmigan from their heathery coverts, we saw the valley of Loch Con; while in the middle of the plain on the top of the mountain we had ascended, was a sheet of water which we took to be Loch Ackill.  Two or three wild fowl swimming on its surface were the only living things in sight.  The peaks around shut it out from all view of the world; a single decayed tree leaned over it from a mossy rock, which gave the whole scene an air of the most desolate wildness.  I forget the name of the lake; but we learned afterwards that the Highlanders consider it the abode of the fairies, or “men of peace,” and that it is still superstitiously shunned by them after nightfall.