There can be no doubt that most of this dispraise of the climate has been based on mere hear-say report, and that where it has been grounded on actual personal observation in Scotland, it has generally been the result of exceedingly brief experience, during short excursions into the country. It has in large measure arisen from the confounding of climate with weather. A man who comes into a country for a few weeks, and is unlucky enough to meet with a spell of bad weather which lasts most of the time of his visit, may be pardoned if he abuses what he has himself suffered from, but he has no right to pass any judgment on the climate of the country. Climate is the average of all the variations of weather during a long succession of years, and cannot be tested by any mere summer tour. A Scot may fairly claim that his country can boast of two or three climates, tolerably well marked off from each other, but all of them healthy, and on the whole, not disagreeable. There is the oceanic climate of the western isles and firths, under which in sheltered places many flowering shrubs and evergreens flourish luxuriantly, which can scarcely be grown elsewhere in the country save under glass. The eastern climate, being further removed from the warm Atlantic waters, and more directly exposed to the chilly east-wind, is less genial. The central climate of the mountains is one of greater extremes, the summer temperature in the valleys being sometimes high, while the frosts in winter are often severe, and the snow-rifts remain unmelted in the shaded corries all the summer. To these might perhaps be added the Shetland climate, characterised by the prevalence of winds and sea-fogs. The winds are there fierce, and always more or less laden with salt from the spindrift of the surrounding ocean, so that shrubs cannot grow above the limit of their sheltering wall, and true trees are not to be seen. The white sea-fogs spread rapidly over the islands during summer, and though dense enough to blot out the view, are not always so thick as wholly to obscure the sun. [Sidenote: SCOTTISH CLIMATES] To one accustomed to more southern latitudes the chief defect of the Scottish climate is the want of sunshine. The _nimbus Britannicus_ spreads too frequently as a grey pall across the sky. But the native who has been used to this canopy all his life, and has never seen the continuous unclouded blue of a southern clime, manages to enjoy good health, lives often a long and active life, and resents imputations on the meteorology of his country, though he reserves to himself, especially if he be a farmer, the privilege of a good grumble, when no stranger is at hand to overhear it. [Sidenote: HIGHLANDERS IN RAIN]