A small wash-tub of a steamer carries you across Loch Fyne to Inverary in an hour. Arriving, you find the capital of the West Highlands a rather pretty place, with excellent inns, several churches, a fine bay, a ducal residence, a striking conical hill--Duniquoich the barbarous name of it--wooded to the chin, and with an ancient watch-tower perched on its bald crown. The chief seat of the Argyles cannot boast of much architectural beauty, being a square building with pepper-box-looking towers stuck on the corners. The grounds are charming, containing fine timber, winding walks, stately avenues, gardens, and through all, spanned by several bridges, the Airy bubbles sweetly to the sea. Scott is here. If the "Lady of the Lake" rings in your ears at the Trosachs, the "Legend of Montrose" haunts you at Inverary. Every footstep of ground is hallowed by that noble romance. It is the best guide-book to the place. No tourist should leave Inverary before he ascends Duniquoich--no very difficult task either, for a path winds round and round it. When you emerge from the woods beside the watch-tower on the summit, Inverary, far beneath, has dwindled to a toy town--not a sound is in the streets; unheard the steamer roaring at the wharf, and urging dilatory passengers to haste by the clashes of an angry bell. Along the shore nets stretched from pole to pole wave in the drying wind. The great boatless blue loch stretches away flat as a ballroom floor; and the eye wearies in its flight over endless miles of brown moor and mountain. Turn your back on the town, and gaze towards the north! It is still "a far cry to Loch Awe," and a wilderness of mountain peaks tower up between you and that noblest of Scottish lakes!--of all colours too--green with pasture, brown with moorland, touched with the coming purple of the heather, black with a thunder-cloud of pines. What a region to watch the sun go down upon! But for that you cannot wait; for to-day you lunch at Cladich, dine at Dalmally, and sleep in the neighbourhood of Kilchurn--in the immediate presence of Ben Cruachan. [Sidenote: Kilchurn Castle.]