The mountaineer is a true gentleman. However poor, however ignorant or superstitious, one perceives in him a refinement of manner which cannot fail to command admiration. His readiness to share his best with the stranger and to render any service in his power are pleasing traits in his character. But there is one sad feature about mountaineers of the present day which one frequently notices in districts where many tourists come,--especially English or American. They are, we regret to say, losing their independence, their simple, old-fashioned ways, and becoming servile and greedy,--at least in the towns and villages. Such changes seem, alas! inevitable when rich townspeople, bent on pleasure or sport, invade the recesses of the hills where poverty usually reigns. On the one hand, we have people, often with long purses, eager for enjoyment, waiting to be fed, housed, or otherwise entertained; on the other hand, poor people, anxious to "make hay while the sun shines" and to extract as much money as possible from "the visitors," who often allow themselves to be unmercifully fleeced. Then there are in the Highlands the sportsmen, who require a large following of "gillies" to attend them in their wanderings, pay them highly for their services, and dismiss them at the end of the season; and so the men are in many cases left without employment all the winter and spring. Is it, then, surprising that they give way to a natural tendency to idleness, and fall into other bad habits? Any visitor who spends a winter, or part of one, in the Highlands will be better able to realise the extent of this evil, which is by no means small; and one cannot help regretting that the sportsmen's pleasure and the tourist's holiday should involve results of such grave consequence. We are inclined to think that in these days sport is overdone, and wish it could be followed without taking the hillman away from the work he would otherwise find, and which would render him a more useful member of society. With the agitation going on in some parts against deer-forests we do not feel much sympathy, because they are based on the erroneous idea that "crofters" could make a living out of the land thus enclosed; whereas those who know the land and its value for agricultural purposes tell us that with the exception of a few small patches here and there, hardly worth mentioning, it could not possibly be made to produce enough to maintain crofters and their families. Nevertheless, another way of looking at the matter is this: that the man who merely ministers to the pleasure of others richer than himself loses some of the self-respect and independence which he would acquire by working in his own way for a living. The same changes for the worse are still more manifest in Switzerland; and even in some parts of Norway the people are being similarly spoiled. Mr. Ruskin, speaking of the former country, says: