After lunch we embarked on board the steamer, and came up the Clyde. Ben
Lomond, and other Highland hills, soon appeared on the horizon; we passed
Douglas Castle on a point of land projecting into the river; and, passing
under the precipitous height of Dumbarton Castle, which we had long
before seen, came to our voyage's end at this village, where we have put
up at the Elephant Hotel.
July 2d.--After tea, not far from seven o'clock, it being a beautiful
decline of day, we set out to walk to
DUMBARTON CASTLE,
which stands apart from the town, and is said to have been once
surrounded by the waters of the Clyde. The rocky height on which the
castle stands is a very striking object, bulging up out of the Clyde,
with abrupt decision, to the elevation of five hundred feet. The summit
is cloven in twain, the cleft reaching nearly to the bottom on the side
towards the river, but not coming down so deeply on the landward side.
It is precipitous all around; and wherever the steepness admits, or does
not make assault impossible, there are gray ramparts round the hill, with
cannon threatening the lower world. Our path led its beneath one of
these precipices several hundred feet sheer down, and with an ivied
fragment of ruined wall at the top.
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