composed of the most wretched hovels that can be imagined."[1] These have long been cleared away, so that there is now an unbroken view over a finely wooded lawn of the loch and the hills beyond. It was in the beginning of September, 1769, that he visited the place. "Every evening," he says, "some hundreds of boats cover the surface of Loch Fyne. 
ELIZABETH GUNNING. On the week-days the cheerful noise of the bag-pipe and dance echoes from on board; on the Sabbath each boat approaches the land, and psalmody and devotion divide the day." Our travellers were perhaps too late in the year to witness this curious scene; at all events they make no mention of it. Had they heard the psalm-singing on the Sunday they would not have left it unnoticed. The forenoon of that day they "passed calmly and placidly." Of all the Sundays which I passed in Scotland, nowhere did I find such an unbroken stillness as here. It was far quieter than the towns, for the people were as still as mice, and it was quieter than the country, for there was an absence of country noises. We were alone in our hotel. It was the last day of June, but there were scarcely any other strangers in the place to enjoy the beautiful scenery and the long summer days.
Boswell hesitated, or affected to hesitate, about calling on the Duke of Argyle. "I had reason to think," he writes, "that the duchess disliked me on account of my zeal in the Douglas cause; but the duke had always been pleased to treat me with great civility." The duchess was that famous beauty, Elizabeth Gunning,
- ↑ Tour in Scotland, ed. 1774, i. 218.
