The shores look much more striking from
a rowboat, creeping along near the margin, than from a steamer in the
middle of the loch; and the ridge, beneath which Rob's cave lies, is
precipitous with gray rocks, and clothed, too, with thick foliage. Over
the cave itself there is a huge ledge of rock, from which immense
fragments have tumbled down, ages and ages ago, and fallen together in
such a way as to leave a large irregular crevice in Rob Roy's cave. We
scrambled up to its mouth by some natural stairs, and scrambled down into
its depths by the aid of a ladder. I suppose I have already described
this hole in the record of my former visit. Certainly, Rob Roy, and
Robert Bruce, who is said to have inhabited it before him, were not to be
envied their accommodations; yet these were not so very intolerable when
compared with a Highland cabin, or with cottages such as Burns lived in.
J----- had chosen to remain to fish. On our return from the cave, we
found that he had caught nothing; but just as we stepped into the boat, a
fish drew his float far under water, and J------ tugging at one end of
the line, and the fish at the other, the latter escaped, with the hook in
his month.
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