This description seems to follow the coast, as the central districts of Gowry, Atholl, Stratherne, and Menteath are omitted, as well as the district of Arregaithel or Argyll, and the enumeration of the castles is very imperfect. Fordun, however, gives a view of Scotland in his day which is probably equally applicable to the time of Alexander the Third, and in which he seems to break out into enthusiastic admiration of his native country. ‘It is a country,’ he says, ‘strong by nature, and difficult and toilsome of access. In some parts it towers into mountains; in others it sinks down into plains. For lofty mountains stretch through the midst of it from end to end, as do the tall Alps through Europe, and these mountains formerly separated the Scots from the Picts, and their kingdoms from each other,’—a very accurate description of the Drumalban chain, extending through Scotland from south to north. ‘Impassable as they are on horseback, save in very few places,’ he proceeds, alluding here to the passes into Argyll, ‘they can hardly be crossed even on foot, both on account of the snow always lying on them, except in summer-time only, and by reason of the boulders torn off the beetling crags, and the deep hollows in their midst. Along the foot of these mountains are vast woods, full of stags, roe-deer, and other wild animals and beasts of various kinds.... Numberless springs also well up, and burst forth from the hills and the sloping ridges of the mountains, and trickling down with sweetest sound in crystal rivulets between flowery banks, flow together through the level vales, and give birth to many streams; and these again to large rivers, in which Scotia marvellously abounds beyond any other country; and at their mouths, where they rejoin the sea, she has noble and secure harbours. Scotia also has tracts of land bordering on the sea, pretty level and rich, with green meadows, and fertile and productive fields of corn and barley, and well adapted for growing beans, peas, and all other produce; destitute, however, of wine and oil though by no means so, of honey and wax. But in the upland districts, and along the highlands, the fields are less productive, except only in oats and barley. The country is there very hideous, interspersed with moors and marshy fields, muddy and dirty. It is, however, full of pasturage grass for cattle, and comely with verdure in the glens along the watercourses. This region abounds in wool-bearing sheep, and in horses; and its soil is grassy, feeds cattle and wild beasts, is rich in milk and wool, and manifold in its wealth of fish in sea, river, and lake.’[10]