"It is a vaunting name enough," replied the General.--"Yet I hope to meet you both alive and merry as conquerors within its works. Meanwhile, gentlemen, pray get your Highlanders under march for the boats with as little delay as possible." Not another word but the necessary words of command were now uttered. The regiment moved off steadily, and the embarkation on Lake George was speedily effected, with the most perfect regularity and order, on the 5th of July, 1758. It must have been a beautiful sight indeed, to have beheld that immense flotilla of boats moving over the pellucid surface of that lovely sheet of water--not a sound proceeding from them save that of the oars,--the unruffled bosom of the lake every where reflecting the serene sky of a July evening, together with all the charms of its bold and varied shores, and its romantic islands;--its stillness affording a strange prelude to that tempest of mortal contest which was about to ensue. Its breadth is about two miles--so that the boats nearly covered it from side to side. As they moved on, they were occasionally lost to the eyes of those who looked upon them from the shores, as they disappeared into the numerous channels formed by its islands, or were again discovered, as they emerged from these narrow straits. There were snatches of scenery, and many little circumstances in the features of nature around them, that called up the remembrance of their own Loch Awe to both the Laird of Inverawe and young Donald, as the sun went down; and the pensiveness arising from these home recollections, at such a time, kept both of them silent. At length, after a safe, and easy, and, on the part of the enemy, an unobserved navigation, the boats reached the northern end of the lake early on the ensuing morning; and the landing having been effected without opposition, the troops were formed by General Abercromby into two parallel columns.