JUNEI4&I5«
JuHB 16.
R o s e n e a t h .
convey their ilate, timber, bark, &c. to the market; but alfo W
lowering the furface of the lake, recover fome thoufands of a c J
now covered with water.
The tide flows up the Leven two miles and a quarter. Fro»
thence as far as the lake is a rapid current, the fall being nineteen
feet in five miles : the water is alfo full of ihoals, fo that in drr
feafons it becomes tlnnavigable; and even at beil the v e fle ls art
drawn up by a number o f horfes.
I muft not leave the pariih of Drummond without faying, tli(
the celebrated Napier o f Merchifton, author of the logarithms,!
was born at Garlies, within its precinfts.
Still at Glafgow: am honored with the freedom of the city.
Set out for Greenock, pafs again through Renfrew: the coum
try very fine, the lanes for fome fpace well planted on b o t h iidts
Ride over Inchinnan bridge, near which Matthew Earl o f Ltmi
in 1506, built a magnificent palace: get upon fome high grounds,
and, above the feat of Lord Glencairn, have a fine view of M
Clyde, Dunbarton, and all the Northern fhore. Reach Gremdi
after dinner take boat and crofs into the Ihire of L e n o x , and
land where the pariih o f Rofneath juts out, and narrows th e bay
to the breadth o f three miles, forming in that part a fort o f ftrait:
the profpedt in the middle of this pafiage uncommonly fin e; a
contrail of fertility and favage vieWs : to the Eaft were th e riel
ihores of the ihires of Renfrew and Lenox, the pretty f e a t s on tit
banks, and the wooded peninfula of Ardmore', and to t h e Weil
appears the craggy tops of the hills of Argylefhire. V i f i t #
neath houfe ; a neat feat of the Duke of Argyle, d a t e d 16341:
the grounds well planted, the trees thriving: in one part of tl(
walks
Lalks am (hewn a precipitous rock, to which I was informed that
|he hero Wallace was purfued, and obliged to leap down to avoid
laptivity: his horfe periihed; the hero efcaped unhurt. This
Country was the feat o f the Mac-Aulays, who ftruggled long
tyith the Campbels in defence of their rights, but their genius
iiroved the weaker.
I Crofs over the mouth of Loch-gair, which runs to the N. fix or
Seven miles up the country, the end overhung with lofty ragged
j&ioimtains. Vifit Airden-capel, a new houfe of Lord Frederic
Mmplell, fituate on an eminence, commanding a moil beautiful
■Jew of the Renfrew ihore, and the profpeft of the ports of Port-
Glafgow and Greenock, continually animated with the movement
of fhips, and the bufy haunt of commerce. Ardin-capel was an-
tlently poifefled by a family of the fame name; but in the time of
Wtmes III. it was changed .to that of Mac-Aulay, from the word
Wkhy happening to be the chriftian name of the owner.
V O Y A G E .
■ G o cm board the Lady Frederic Campbell, a cutter of ninety
rjuns, Mr. Archibald Tbompfon mailer. Sail at half an hour pail
||wo in the afternoon •, pafs, on the left, the village and little bay
B?f Gourock, a place of failors and fiihermen; on the right, the
point of Rofeneath, in Lenox; between which, and that o f Strone,
Sin Cowal, a portion of Argylefhire, opens Loch-Lomg, or the loch
g p f ihips, which runs North many miles up the country. This is
Bne Skipafiord of the Norwegians, having in their tongue, the fame
■gnifkation. To this place, in 1263, Haco, King o f Norway, de-
A a 2 tached,
A r d i n - c a p e i .
Jone 17;
L. L ovng.