among mountaineers many noble qualities,—such as patience, honesty, simplicity of life, thrift, a dignified self-reliance, together with true courtesy and hospitality. This is high praise; but who that knows mountain peasants would say it is undeserved? How many a tired traveller among the hills of Scotland or Wales has had reason to be grateful for welcome, food, and rest in some little cottage in a far-away glen! How many friendships have thus been formed! How many a pleasant talk has beguiled the time during a storm or shower! The old feuds are forgotten now that the Saxon stranger and invader is at peace with the Celtic people whom his forefathers drove into the hills. The castles, once centres of oppression or scenes of violence, lie in peaceful and picturesque ruins, and add not a little to the interest of one's travels in the North. What true courtesy and consideration one meets with at the hands of these honest folk, among whom the old kindly usages have not died out! Often too poor to be afflicted with the greed and thirst for wealth, which frequently marks the man of the plain as compared with the man of the hills,—the Lowlander as compared with the Highlander,—they exhibit many of those simple virtues which one hardly expects to meet with among busy townspeople, all bent on making money, or as the phrase is, "getting on in life."

BEN LOMOND. From a Photograph by J. Valentine

Mr. Skene, the Scotch historian, records a touching case of the devotion of Highlanders to their chief. He says,—

"There is perhaps no instance in which the attachment of the clan to their chief was so strongly manifested as in the case of the Macphersons of Cluny after the disaster of 'the Forty-five.' The chief having been deeply engaged in that insurrection, his life became of course forfeited to the laws; but neither the hope of reward nor the fear of danger could induce any one of his people to betray him. For nine years he lived concealed in a cave a short distance from his own house; it was situated in the front of a woody precipice of which the trees and shelving rocks concealed the entrance. The cave had been dug by his own people, who worked at night and conveyed the stones and rubbish into a neighbouring lake, in order that no vestige of their labour might appear and lead to the discovery of the retreat. In this asylum he continued to live secure, receiving by night the occasional visits of his friends, and sometimes by day, when the soldiers had begun to slacken the vigour of their pursuit. Upwards of one thousand persons were privy to his concealment, and a reward of £1,000 was offered to any one who should give information against him.... But although the soldiers were animated by the hope of reward, and their officers by promise of promotion for the apprehension of this proscribed individual, yet so true were his people, so inflexibly strict in their promise of secrecy, and so dextrous in conveying to him the necessaries he required in his long confinement, not a trace of him could be discovered, nor an individual base enough to give a hint to his detriment."

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:

"I believe that every franc now spent by travellers among the Alps tends more or less to the undermining of whatever special greatness there is in the Swiss character; and the persons I met in Switzerland whose position and modes of life render them best able to give me true information respecting the present state of their country, among many causes of national deterioration, spoke with chief fear of the influx of English wealth, gradually connecting all industry with the wants of strangers, and inviting all idleness to depend upon their casual help, thus resolving the ancient consistency and pastoral simplicity of the mountain life into the two irregular trades of the innkeeper and mendicant."