They then sang, in a rude manner, a Gaelic song.  The only word I could distinguish was Inch Caillach, the burying place of Clan Alpine.  They told us it was the answer of a Highland girl to a foreign lord, who wished to make her his bride.  Perhaps, like the American Indian, she would not leave the graves of her fathers.  As we drew near the eastern end of the lake, the scenery became far more beautiful.  The Trosachs opened before us.  Ben Ledi looked down over the “forehead bare” of Ben An, and, as we turned a rocky point, Ellen’s Isle rose up in front.  It is a beautiful little turquoise in the silver setting of Loch Katrine.  The northern side alone is accessible, all the others being rocky and perpendicular, and thickly grown with trees.  We rounded the island to the little bay, bordered by the silver strand, above which is the rock from which Fitz-James wound his horn, and shot under an ancient oak which flung its long grey arms over the water; we here found a flight of rocky steps, leading to the top, where stood the bower erected by Lady Willoughby D’Eresby, to correspond with Scott’s description.  Two or three blackened beams are all that remain of it, having been burned down some years ago, by the carelessness of a traveler.

The mountains stand all around, like giants, to “sentinel this enchanted land.”  On leaving the island, we saw the Goblin’s Cave, in the side of Benvenue, called by the Gaels, “Coirnan-Uriskin.”  Near it is Beal-nam-bo, the pass of cattle, overhung with grey weeping birch trees.  Here the boatmen stopped to let us hear the fine echo, and the names of “Rob Roy,” and “Roderick Dhu,” were sent back to us apparently as loud as they were given.  The description of Scott is wonderfully exact, though the forest that feathered o’er the sides of Benvenue, has since been cut down and sold by the Duke of Montrose.  When we reached the end of the lake it commenced raining, and we hastened on through the pass of Beal-an-Duine, scarcely taking time to glance at the scenery, till Loch Achray appeared through the trees, and on its banks the ivy-grown front of the inn of Ardcheancrochan, with its unpronounceable name.

CHAPTER IV.

The Burns festival.

We passed a glorious summer morning on the banks of Loch Katrine.  The air was pure, fresh and balmy, and the warm sunshine glowed upon forest and lake, upon dark crag and purple mountain-top.  The lake was a scene in fairy-land.  Returning over the rugged battle-plain in the jaws of the Trosachs, we passed the wild, lonely valley of Glenfinlas and Lanric Mead, at the head of Loch Vennachar, rounding the foot of Ben Ledi to Coilantogle Ford.  We saw the desolate hills of Uam-var over which the stag fled from his lair in Glenartney, and keeping on through Callander, stopped for the night at a little inn on the banks of the Teith.  The next day we walked through Doune, over the lowlands to Stirling.  Crossing