 cultivation, or even of population. All
is sublimity, silence, and solitude. The people live together in glens or
bottoms, where they are sheltered from the cold and storms of winter: but there
is a margin of plain ground spread along the sea side, which is well inhabited
and improved by the arts of husbandry; and this I take to be one of the most
agreeable tracts of the whole island; the sea not only keeps it warm, and
supplies it with fish, but affords one of the most ravishing prospects in the
whole world; I mean the appearance of the Hebrides, or Western Islands, to the
number of three hundred, scattered as far as the eye can reach, in the most
agreeable confusion. As the soil and climate of the Highlands are but ill
adapted to the cultivation of corn, the people apply themselves chiefly to the
breeding and feeding of black cattle, which turn to good account. Those animals
run wild all the winter, without any shelter or subsistence, but what they can
find among the heath. When the snow lies so deep and hard, that they cannot
penetrate to the roots of the grass, they make a diurnal progress, guided by a
sure instinct, to the sea-side at low water, where they feed on the alga marina,
and other plants that grow upon the beach.
    Perhaps this branch of husbandry, which requires very little attendance and
labour, is one of the principal causes of that idleness and want of industry,
which distinguishes these mountaineers in their own country - When they come
forth into the world, they become as diligent and alert as any people upon
earth. They are undoubtedly a very distinct species from their fellow-subjects
of the Lowlands, against whom they indulge an ancient spirit of animosity; and
this difference is very discernible even among persons of family and education.
The Lowlanders are generally cool and circumspect, the Highlanders fiery and
ferocious: but this violence of their passions serves only to inflame the zeal
of their devotion to strangers, which is truly enthusiastic.
    We proceeded about twenty miles beyond Inverary, to the house of a
gentleman, a friend of our conductor, where we stayed a few days, and were
feasted in such a manner, that I began to dread the consequence to my
constitution.
    Notwithstanding the solitude that prevails among these mountains, there is
no want of people in the Highlands. I am credibly informed that the duke of
Argyle can assemble five thousand men in arms, of his own clan and surname,
which is Campbell; and there is besides a tribe of the same appellation, whose
