Scottish lochs form a striking feature in the landscape, and must have been still more fitted to arrest attention in ancient times when our land was more densely wooded than it is now. Dr. Hugh Macmillan, in his "Holidays on High Lands," alludes to the differences in the appearance of our lochs. "There are moorland tarns," he says, "sullen and motionless as lakes of the dead, lying deep in sunless rifts, where the very ravens build no nests, and where no trace of life or vegetation is seen--associated with many a wild tradition, accidents of straying feet, the suicide of love, guilt, despair. And there are lochs beautiful in themselves and gathering around them a world of beauty; their shores fringed with the tasselled larch; their shallows tesselated with the broad green leaves and alabaster chalices of the water-lily, and their placid depths mirroring the crimson gleam of the heather hills and the golden clouds overhead." Near the top of Mealfourvounie, in Inverness-shire, is a small lake at one time believed to be unfathomable. How this notion arose it is difficult to say, for when soundings were taken the depth was found to be inconsiderable. In the parish of Penpont, Dumfriesshire, about a mile to the south of Drumlanrig, is a small sheet of water called the Dow, or Dhu Loch, i.e., Black Loch. Till towards the end of last century the spot was much frequented for its healing water. A personal visit was not essential. When a deputy was sent he had to bring a portion of the invalid's clothing and throw it over his left shoulder into the loch. He then took up some water in a vessel which he carefully kept from touching the ground. After turning himself round sun-ways he carried the water home. The charm would be broken if he looked back or spoke to anyone by the way. Among the people of the district it was a common saying, when anyone did not respond to the greeting of a passer-by, that he had been at the Dow Loch. Pilgrimages to the loch seem to have been specially popular towards the close of the seventeenth century, for in the year 1695 the Presbytery of Penpont consulted the Synod of Dumfries about the superstitious practices then current. The Synod, in response to the appeal, recommended the clergy of the district to denounce from their pulpits such observances as heathenish in character. There were persons still alive in the beginning of the present century who had seen the offerings, left by the pilgrims, floating on the loch or lying on its margin. To the passer-by, ignorant of the superstitious custom, it might seem that a rather untidy family washing was in progress.