a melancholy people. The prospects which perpetually engage the eye in this country, have a natural tendency to tinge the spirits with a dash of pensive susceptibility. "Ye woods and wilds whose melancholy gloom accords with my soul's sadness!" was the very natural exclamation of Lady Randolph; indeed, I have felt myself impressed with sentiments of awful sublimity, when viewing the rugged precipices and extensive lakes of Scotland. Long tracts of mountainous desert, covered with dark heath, and often obscured by misty weather; narrow valleys thinly inhabited, and bounded by precipices resounding with the fall of torrents; a soil so rugged and a climate so dreary, as in many parts to admit neither the amusements of pasturage, nor the labours of agriculture; the mournful dashing of waves along the friths and lakes that intersect the country; the portentous noises which every change of the wind, and every increase and diminution of the waters, is apt to raise in a lonely region, full of echoes and rocks and caverns; the grotesque and ghastly appearance of such a landscape by the light of the moon:Objects like these, (says Dr. Beattie,) diffuse a gloom over the fancy, which may be compatible enough with occasional and social merriment, but cannot fail to tincture the thoughts of a native in the hour of silence and solitude.

Little employed in cultivating the ground, the mind of the Highlander is not fettered by soul-contracting avocations; the world is all

before him, and he surveys the grandest objects "toss'd graceful round by Nature's careless hand." He drives his flocks over extensive moors, he traverses the gloomy forest, and scales the lofty mountain, while the impetuous torrent thunders incessantly on his ears, and the angry voice of the storm howls among the deep and narrow valleys. If, in his perambulations, he meets with a brother shepherd, their conversation does not dispel the melancholy which hangs over the mind; but generally dwells on the horrors of the tempest, a dream of supernatural augury, or some terrific story about ghosts, that "make the eyes, like stars, start from their spheres.'

The superstition of the Highlanders, (of which I will speak hereafter,) naturally calls forth sentiments which are unfavourable to frivolousness of thought. The solitary being who feeds his cattle on the dark unfrequented heath, and who is often exposed to all the inclemencies of the weather during the most stormy nights,-listens with feelings of awful emotion to the howling of the winds and the dashing of the torrents, and fancies that he sees apparitions, and hears the portentous shriekings of the spirits of the night.

Dr. Johnson* noticed the decisive manner with which the Highlanders usually make assertions. The Highlander gives to every question, (says the Dr.) an answer so prompt and

* Journey through the Hebrides.

peremptory! that scepticism itself is dared into silence, and the mind sinks before the bold reporter in unresisting credulity; but, if a second question be ventured, it breaks the enchantment; for it is immediately discovered, that what was told so confidently was told at hazard, and that such fearlessness of assertion was either the sport of negligence, or the refuge of ignorance. I have often been deceived by them, in asking the distance between places. In walking from Dunkeld to Logierait, (which is 8 miles,) when we were approaching the Tay, I asked the distance; 2 miles was the answer the next person asserted it was 34!and, when I was within a mile of Logierait, I was told it was nearly 3 miles off!

The philosophic traveller in the Highlands, will soon perceive what insuperable barriers Nature has opposed to the diffusion of knowledge in this country: extensive and pathless moors, dark glens, immense lochs like inland seas, wide and stormy friths jutting from the sea into the heart of the country. How can the humanizing spirit of Christianity be spread among such a diffused, isolated population? In those dreary regions, the inhabitants, sunk under the power of the most abject ignorance and poverty, must feel callous to the attractions of a mild religion, or must, on the other hand, abandon their gloomy souls to the most horrid superstition.

A silly law was passed, obliging the Highlanders to change their dress-and this has

been obeyed to a certain degree. The plaid however appears to be universally worn-it is merely a sheet of some cloth hanging loose on the shoulders, and it is chiefly used as a cloak during the rain, and to wrap themselves in, when they take a nap on their "blasted heaths." The woolen bonnet is also universal. The philibeg, or lower garment like a petticoat cut short, is common. The tartan hose, or sandal, is sometimes worn. It was with extreme impatience that they bore the prohibition of the ancient Highland dress; and they consider the privilege of again wearing it, as doubly valuable; since the removal of this degrading prohibition, was obtained at the request of the present Duke of Montrose, a chieftain of their own race. I saw a wee fellow at Kenmore, dressed completely in the national style. He wore a neat striped bonnet, cocked to one side of his head, and giving him a very smart look. Over his shoulders fluttered the chequered plaid, and the philibeg waved downwards-his knees were naked, and his legs were covered with the Tartan hose. The little urchin strutted about the streets with much self-complacency, and afforded our party great diversion from the tavern window.

The music of the Highlanders is congenial with their peculiar turn of mind. It is plaintive and even melancholy: "the music was like the memory of joys that are past, (says Ossian,) pleasant and mournful to the soul"Laments, or funeral dirges, are favourite airs

with the Highlanders; some of them are ex quisitely beautiful, producing that voluptuous melancholy which is so congenial to persons of a romantic turn of mind. The bagpipe, when played in the valleys during a fine evening, produces a delightful effect, by the reverberation of the tones from the mountains and glens. I shall never forget the evening I spent near Loch Katrine. The low murmuring of the distant waters was blended with the soft notes of the bag pipe, whose music floated in the air at a distance. What the Ettrick Shepherd finely calls

"Great Nature's hum

Voice of the desert never dumb”—

was confounded with the noise of the sweeping winds and far-off stream; but when the bag pipe poured forth its melody in its highest strain, all the music of nature seemed hushed into silence-and the rich harmonious tones floated at a distance "like a meteor streaming to the wind"-while the rocks and nodding groves re-echoed to the sound.

Dr. Johnson distinguishes the Highland habitations into huts and houses: a house being a building of two stories, a hut being a dwelling with one floor. These huts are miserable hovels, without chimney or window, the door being used for entrance to the light and exit to the smoke. They are built of loose stones adapted to each other, or by a double wall of stones, with an intermedium of earth, and the