It was David Napier, one of the pioneers of steamships on the Clyde, who opened up the route to Inveraray by Loch Eck and Strachur. In 1827, he placed the iron-bottomed Aglaia on Loch Eck and the old Marion from Loch Lomond, renamed Thalia, to sail between Strachur and Inveraray. In 1829, he introduced steam carriages on the connecting roads from his pier at Kilmun to the foot of the Loch and from its head to Strachur. The steam carriages were quickly withdrawn as too heavy for the road surfaces, but the route proved popular with coaches instead of the steam carriages, and the whole road along the side of Loch Eck was improved at this time. At the end of the season in 1835, Napier sold his steamboats on the Clyde and moved his enterprise to London. Among the steamboats sold was the Aglaia, and her subsequent adventures on Loch Fyne as Strachur, and on the Clyde as the James Gallacher...