“Let others think and rove as they please; for my own part, I look upon the Highlands of Scotland as the most delightful country in the world during the summer-season: where one cannot fail to be seized with a kind of religious veneration, when viewing, with an heedful eye, the high hills and lofty mountains, whose summits are in the clouds, and their sides covered over with the verdant grass, the flowery heath in its purple glow, or the tall trees, particularly the towering firs, waving their tops in the heavens; the awful rocks hanging over the heads of the travellers, and threatening, as it were, to tumble down upon them; the fine natural falls of water here and there, cascading with a mighty, noisy, and resounding rush; the large extended lakes, enriched with innumerable finny tribes of different kinds, and their grassy banks forming beautifully-spangled lawns; and sometimes the curling waves, or the roaring billows, of the majestic and far sounding-ocean. “What a delightful jaunt is it to move, for some miles together, through a wood of the fragrant birch, bending down its leaves to regale the nose of the traveller. The beauties of a country-seat, wood and water, are here in the greatest abundance. But if we pass from the inanimate to the animate part of the creation, exhibited here in a luxuriant valley, the sylvan scene is completed. “The gentleman can beat up all kinds of game; the deer and the roe bounding up and down; the partridge, the tarmachan, the muir-fowl, the wood-cock, the black-cock, and the heath-hen, and many others I cannot name, whirling through the air, or whidding up and down upon the ground; the wild-goose, gagling, and the wild-duck quack-quaking, in their watery regions, or in their soaring flights. “The feathered choir vie with one another to regale the ear of the listening traveller, hopping from leafy spray to trembling twig, swelling their throats, and warbling out their lays in a wild variety of harmonious notes. “The primitive simplicity and the open hospitality of the natives, are past all description, though set off, either in the flowers of the orator, or in the flash of the poet, enough to make the citizen, the court-bred gentleman, and the delicate lady, stand amazed, and even to furnish them with a new lesson in life. Common decency and natural good manners are daily to be seen amongst the vulgar in the Highlands of Scotland; and their conduct is marked with a penetrating sagacity. Their apparent devotion at public worship is extremely remarkable and affecting, so as to draw tears of joy and admiration from the eyes of a stranger!” ---------------------------- THE REVEREND PATRICK GALLOWAY TO KING JAMES VI. 7th APRIL, 1607.