Of this happy change in the weather I of course took immediate advantage. About five o'clock in the afternoon my dog-cart was brought to the door; and after a parting cup with Mr M'Ian--who pours a libation both to his arriving and his departing guest--I drove away on my journey to remote Portree, and to the unimagined country that lay beyond Portree, but which I knew held Dunvegan, Duntulm, Macleod's Tables, and Quirang. I drove up the long glen with a pleasant exhilaration of spirit. I felt grateful to the sun, for he had released me from rainy captivity. The drive, too, was pretty; the stream came rolling down in foam, the smell of the wet birch-trees was in the brilliant air, every mountain-top was strangely and yet softly distinct; and looking back, there were the blue Cuchullins looking after me, as if bidding me farewell! At last I reached the top of the glen, and emerged on a high plateau of moorland, in which were dark inky tarns with big white water-lilies on them; and skirting across the plateau I dipped down on the parliamentary road, which, like a broad white belt, surrounds Skye. Better road to drive on you will not find in the neighbourhood of London itself! and just as I was descending, I could not help pulling up. The whole scene was of the extremest beauty--exquisitely calm, exquisitely coloured. On my left was a little lake with a white margin of water-lilies, a rocky eminence throwing a shadow half-way across it. Down below, on the sea-shore, was the farm of Knock, with white outhouses and pleasant patches of cultivation, the school-house, and the church, while on a low spit of land the old castle of the Macdonalds was mouldering. Still lower down and straight away stretched the sleek blue Sound of Sleat, with not a sail or streak of steamer smoke to break its vast expanse, and with a whole congregation of clouds piled up on the horizon, soon to wear their evening colours. I let the sight slowly creep into my study of imagination, so that I might be able to reproduce it at pleasure; that done, I drove down to Isle Oronsay by pleasant sloping stages of descent, with green hills on right and left, and along the roadside, like a guard of honour, the purple stalks of the foxglove. [Sidenote: Mr Fraser's trouts.]