It would be difficult to exceed the earnestness of Mr Ellice’s hospitality towards us. He had anxiously watched the heavens to see if they would be propitious to an expedition planned by him to Loch Home and thence in a boat on a water party. At first the signs were rather promising, so that two carriages started, containing Mrs Adams, Mary and myself— Mr Ellice senior, Mrs Ellice, Lady Harriet Sinclair, Miss Wortley and Mr Somerby. The distance is seven miles, through a very striking, romantic gorge. We kept ascending four miles and a half, and then came a rapid descent of two miles and a half to the level of the sea. Here was a little inlet between the mountain, quiet, lonely and secluded which looked very fit for the resort of adventurers or smugglers. This peculiar configuration seemed to explain the reasons of the extraordinary wetness of the region. Here on one side is evaporation from salt water the temperature of which depends on the action of warm currents from the gulf stream. On the land side, on the contrary is the lake water, the temperature of which depends on a wholly different class of causes. The evaporation thus going on unequally forms clouds which gather above the height of the separating gorge, and the precipitation in the form of rain naturally follows every concession of differing temperatures. Be this as it may, when we reached the bay, the promise of fine weather was at an end. We contented ourselves with a luncheon at the house and with the view of a draught of a net for fish. I decided to walk back, a feat I did not accomplish with a good share of wetting through the gorge. But it held up as I neared home, I regret that I have not been able to see this fine, wild place under the auspices of sunlight and fine weather. But such are the chances of travel. In general, we have not had cause to complain. The younger Mr Ellice who had been out in quest of deer came in we through—and poor Mr Moore who had gone on a search after gruse gave an amusingly grievous account of his mishaps. A comfortable dinner was no bad solace to our woes, and a little music from the ladies in the evening completely established good humor.439