After breakfast we walked onwards, expecting that the stream would lead
us into some considerable vale; but it soon became little better than a
common rivulet, and the glen appeared to be short; indeed, we wondered
how the river had grown so great all at once. Our horse had not been
able to eat his corn, and we waited a long time in the hope that he would
be better. At eleven o’clock, however, we determined to set off, and
give him all the ease possible by walking up the hills, and not pushing
beyond a slow walk. We had fourteen miles to travel to Kenmore, by the
side of Loch Tay. Crossed the same bridge again, and went down the south
side of the lake. We had a delightful view of the village of Killin,
among rich green fields, corn and wood, and up towards the two horns of
the vale of Tay, the valley of the Dochart, and the other valley with its
full-grown river, the prospect terminated by mountains. We travelled
through lanes, woods, or open fields, never close to the lake, but always
near it, for many miles, the road being carried along the side of a hill,
which rose in an almost regularly receding steep from the lake. The
opposite shore did not much differ from that down which we went, but it
seemed more thinly inhabited, and not so well cultivated. The sun shone,
the cottages were pleasant, and the goings-on of the harvest—for all the
inhabitants were at work in the corn fields—made the way cheerful. But
there is an uniformity in the lake which, comparing it with other lakes,
made it appear tiresome. It has no windings: I should even imagine,
although it is so many miles long, that, from some points not very high
on the hills, it may be seen from one end to the other. There are few
bays, no lurking-places where the water hides itself in the land, no
outjutting points or promontories, no islands; and there are no
commanding mountains or precipices. I think that this lake would be the
most pleasing in spring-time, or in summer before the corn begins to
change colour, the long tracts of hills on each side of the vale having
at this season a kind of patchy appearance, for the corn fields in
general were very small, mere plots, and of every possible shade of
bright yellow. When we came in view of the foot of the lake we perceived
that it ended, as it had begun, in pride and loveliness. The village of
Kenmore, with its neat church and cleanly houses, stands on a gentle
eminence at the end of the water. The view, though not near so beautiful
as that of Killin, is exceedingly pleasing. Left our car, and turned out
of the road at about the distance of a mile from the town, and after
having climbed perhaps a quarter of a mile, we were conducted into a
locked-up plantation, and guessed by the sound that we were near the
cascade, but could not see it. Our guide opened a door, and we entered a
dungeon-like passage, and, after walking some yards in total darkness,
found ourselves in a quaint apartment stuck over with moss, hung about
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