ficient to survey the place. The house was bal Be other huts, of loose stones; but the part in whià r dined and slept, was lined with turf, and wattled with twigs, which kept the earth from falling. Near it was a garden of turnips, and a field of potatoes. It stands in a glen, or valley, pleasantly watered by a winding river. But this country, however it may delight the gazer, or amuse the naturalist, is of no great advantage to its owners. Our landlord told us of a gentleman who pos sesses lands, eighteen Scotch miles in length, and three in breadth; a space containing, at least, a hundred #quare English miles. He has raised his rents, to the danger of depopulating his farms, and he fells his timber, and, by exerting every art of augmentation, has obtained a yearly revenue of four hundred pounds, which, for a hundred square miles, is three halfpence an acre.

Some time after dinner we were surprised by the entrance of a young woman, not inelegant either in mien or dress, who asked us whether we would have tea. We found that she was the daughter of our host, and desired her to make it. Her conversation, like her appearance, Was gentle and pleasing. We knew that the girls of the Highlands are all gentlewomen, and treated her with Mivat respect, which she received as customary and due, and was neither elated by it, nor confused, but repaid my ervilities without embarrassment, and told me how much I honomed her country, by coming to survey it.

she had been at Inverness to gain the common female qualifications, and had, like her father, the English pro

HHCCATION I presented her with a book, which I happened to have about me, and should not be pleased to shook that she fugets me.

川

bu the evening the soldiers, n hom we had passed on the hond vine to gynd at our vin the little money that we They bad the true military impatience AM your De Plon posters, and had marched at least six mula to mind the n'st place where liquor could be bought. Rotow How vw Avar at a place so wild and unfre

quented, I was glad of their arrival, because I knew that we had made them friends; and to gain still more of their goodwill, we went to them, where they were carousing in the barn, and added something to our former gift. All that we gave was not much, but it detained them in the barn, either merry or quarrelling, the whole night, and in the morning they went back to their work, with great indignation at the bad qualities of whisky.

We had gained so much the favour of our host, that, when we left his house in the morning, he walked by us a great way, and entertained us with conversation, both on his own condition, and that of the country. His life seemed to be merely pastoral, except that he differed from some of the ancient Nomades in having a settled dwelling. His wealth consists of one hundred sheep, as many goats, twelve milk-cows, and twenty-eight beeves ready for the drover.

From him we first heard of the general dissatisfaction, which is now driving the Highlanders into the other hemisphere; and when I asked him whether they would stay at home, if they were well treated, he answered with indignation, that no man willingly left his native country. Of the farm, which he himself occupied, the rent had, in twenty-five years, been advanced from five to twenty pounds, which he found himself so little able to pay, that he would be glad to try his fortune in some other place. Yet, he owned the reasonableness of raising the Highland rents in a certain degree, and declared himself willing to pay ten pounds for the ground which he had formerly had for five.

Our host having amused us for a time, resigned us to our guides. The journey of this day was long, not that the distance was great, but that the way was difficult. We were now in the bosom of the Highlands, with full leisure to contemplate the appearance and properties of mountainous regions, such as have been, in many countries, the last shelters of national distress, and are every

VOL. IX.

D

where the scenes of adventures, stratagems, surprises, and

Mountainous countries are not passed but with difficulty, not merely from the labour of climbing; for to club is not always necessary: but because, that which is not mountain is commonly bog, through which the way must be picked with caution. Where there are hills, there as much min and the torrents, pouring down into the inRYMAĞIY Sures, seldom find so ready an outlet, as not MSR they have baken the texture of the mand

Of the his which our journey ofered to the view on either såa we bi me take the height, nor did we see wy the washed a ri dheir kitness. Towards the summit of eme, dere vos 1 vizite spot, which I should her culii a mkod mek, but the des who had better eves and were açanel mà de phenomena of the evamex, àvisoreleser. It had ready lasted to The one of Vagit, ind vs Haya mintain its contest Wet de son 2 x shall be naked by winter.

The dozent ze mamams, pin wydany considered. is pepced gampuni, bem the surface of the next sea; but, as i slova dhe qe ze mamaa f the passenger, as it miko ocht & stetice za èscade it must be gydomos Par The vice where dhe me begins to make a andonne ange via the van. In excesive continona the buni, max )« gadni, devideo, amzin great hoạch, withai ats scher woeicider thua that of a plain qemizh inclinsis ang 13 milk yieed to sưà nisel prung x axehoà a home for egale the what vay ahey dhe sex, the gestuda vi be full

As mundus mas de 10 meet each measured Fow the main MS ITS Me nad sveg the se

» Pryning Twich in vt crust. I

We passed many rivers and rivulets, which commonly ran, with a clear shallow stream, over a hard pebbly bottom. These channels; which seem so much wider than the water that they convey would naturally require, are formed by the violence of wintry floods, produced by the accumulation of innumerable streams that fall in rainy weather from the hills, and, bursting away with resistless impetuosity, make themselves a passage proportionate to their mass.

Such capricious and temporary waters cannot be expected to produce many fish. The rapidity of the wintry deluge sweeps them away, and the scantiness of the summer stream would hardly sustain them above the ground. This is the reason why, in fording the northern rivers, no fishes are seen, as in England, wandering in the

water.

Of the hills many may be called, with Homer's Ida, abundant in springs; but few can deserve the epithet which he bestows upon Pelion by waving their leaves. They exhibit very little variety; being almost wholly covered with dark heath, and even that seems to be checked in its growth. What is not heath is nakedness, a little diversified by now and then a stream rushing down the steep. An eye, accustomed to flowery pastures and waving harvests, is astonished and repelled by this wide extent of hopeless sterility. The appearance is that of matter incapable of form or usefulness, dismissed by nature from her care, and disinherited of her favours, left in its original elemental state, or quickened only with one sullen power of useless vegetation.

It will very readily occur, that this uniformity of barrenness can afford very little amusement to the traveller; that it is easy to sit at home and conceive rocks, and heath, and waterfalls; and that these journeys are useless labours, which neither impregnate the imagination, nor enlarge the understanding. It is true, that of far the greater part of things, we must content ourselves with such knowledge as description may exhibit, or analogy supply;

but it is true, likewise, that these ideas are always incomplete, and that, at least, till we have compared them with realities, we do not know them to be just. As we see more, we become possessed of more certainties, and, consequently, gain more principles of reasoning, and found a wider basis of analogy.

Regions, mountainous and wild, thinly inhabited, and little cultivated, make a great part of the earth, and he that has never seen them, must live unacquainted with much of the face of nature, and with one of the great scenes of human existence.

As the day advanced towards noon, we entered a narrow valley, not very flowery, but sufficiently verdant. Our guides told us, that the horses could not travel all day without rest or meat, and entreated us to stop here, because no grass would be found in any other place. The request was reasonable, and the argument cogent. We, therefore, willingly dismounted, and diverted ourselves as the place gine us opportunity.

I sat down on a bank, such as a writer of romance might have delighted to fign. I had, indeed, no trees Adiger over my bed but a clear rivulet streamed at MY NYE De day was in the air was soft, and all was mician and snake. Before me, and on either and men did Ak which y hindering the eye from tend the wind e ind entertainment for itself. Wave I ww her wi I know not; for here I bu enyor the dengki ofis numu Da nie & ease and by choice, and had o far, yet the tons excited

M

WẰN*I AM untraveled wilderness # de scheul sebraic of parks and