We dwell with pleasure on this picture; and shall present the reader, in our next chapter, with a picture of similar character, taken from observation, of the homes in which these soldiers were reared. The reverse is all too stern, but we must exhibit _it_ also, and show how the influence which the old Earls of Sutherland employed so well, has been exerted by their descendants to the ruin of their country. But we must first give one other extract from General Stewart. It indicates the track in which the ruin came. 'Men like these,' he says, referring to the Sutherland Highlanders, 'do credit to the peasantry of the country. If this conclusion is well founded, the removal of so many of the people from their ancient seats, where they acquired those habits and principles, must be considered a public loss of no common magnitude. It must appear strange, and somewhat inconsistent, when the same persons who are loud in their professions of an eager desire to promote and preserve the religious and moral virtues of the people, should so frequently take the lead in approving of measures which, by removing them from where they imbibed principles which have attracted the notice of Europe, and placed them in situations where poverty, and the too frequent attendants, vice and crime, will lay the foundation of a character which will be a disgrace, as that already obtained has been an honour, to this country. In the new stations where so many Highlanders are now placed, and crowded in such numbers as to preserve the numerical population, while whole districts are left without inhabitants, how can they resume their ancient character and principles, which, according to the reports of those employed by the proprietors, have been so deplorably broken down and deteriorated--a deterioration which was entirely unknown till the recent change in the condition of the people, and the introduction of that system of placing families on patches of potato ground, as in Ireland--a system pregnant with degradation, poverty, and disaffection, and exhibiting daily a prominent and deplorable example, which might have forewarned Highland proprietors, and prevented them from reducing their people to a similar state? It is only when parents and heads of families in the Highlands are moral, happy, and contented, that they can instil sound principles into their children, who, in their intercourse with the world, may once more become what the men of Sutherland have already been, "an honourable example, worthy the imitation of all.'" CHAPTER III.