Such are the main features of the Highlands of Scotland at the present day, and, to a considerable extent, the description might have applied to the country at the time of the Roman invasion. Still, in the graphic words of Stuart,[2] “To form an idea of the general aspect of Scotland, as it was some eighteen hundred years ago, we must, in imagination, restore to its now varied surface the almost unbroken gloom of the primeval forest; her waving mantle of sombre hue, within which the _genius loci_ may be supposed to have brooded over the seclusion and the poverty of ‘ancient Caledon.’ In a bird’s-eye view, if such a thought may be indulged, the greatest part of the country presented, in all probability, the appearance of one continuous wood; a mass of cheerless verdure resting on hill and dale--the sameness of its dark extent broken only where some lake or green-clad morass met the view, or where the higher mountains lifted their summits above the line of vegetation. In some districts, considerable tracks of open moorland might, doubtless, be seen clad in the indigenous heather of the North; while, in others, occasional spots of pasture-land would here and there appear;--but, on the whole, these must have formed a striking contrast to the wide expanse of the prevailing forest.” As the present work is concerned only with the Highlands of Scotland, it would of course be out of place to give any minute account of the transactions of the Romans in the other parts of the island. Suffice it to say that from the time, B.C. 55, when Julius Cæsar first landed on the coast of South Britain, until A.D. 78, when, under the Emperor Vespasian, Cnæus Julius Agricola assumed the command in Great Britain, the greater part of midland and south England had been brought under the sway of the Romans. This able commander set himself with vigour and earnestness to confirm the conquests which had been already made, to reduce the rest of the country to subjection, to conciliate the Britons by mild measures, and to attach them to the Roman power by introducing among them Roman manners, literature, luxuries, and dress. Agricola was appointed to the command in Britain in the year 78 A.D., but appears not to have entered Scotland till his third campaign in the year 80. He employed himself in the years 80, 81, and 82, in subduing the country south of the friths of Forth and Clyde,--the _Bodotria_ and _Glotta_ of Tacitus,--erecting, in 81, a series of forts between these two estuaries. Having accomplished this, Agricola made preparations for his next campaign, which he was to open beyond the friths in the summer of 83, he in the meantime having heard that the Caledonians--as Tacitus calls the people north of the Forth--had formed a confederacy to resist the invader. [Illustration: Fig. 1. Sculptured Stone in the Church of Meigle. Fig. 2. From a Sculptured Stone found at St. Andrews.]