SCOTLAND, as the reader knows, is a small country. Its length from north to south is two hundred miles, but east and west the country is very narrow, no part of it being more than forty miles from the sea-coast. This small area is divided into what are known as the “Highlands” and “Lowlands,” the two sections being as unlike in the nature of the soil, the character of the scenery, the habits and industries of the people, as though they were a thousand miles apart. To the historian and tourist the Highlands, occupying the northern, or rather the northwestern, portion of Scotland, is by far the most interesting section. The term, Highlands, however, does not, as many people think, designate a broad, level, elevated table-land. On the contrary, the Highlands of Scotland are a wild, savage world by themselves, composed entirely of hills, morasses, mountains, glens, moors, lakes and rivers.

For the last fifteen days, I have been in the heart of this enchanted land, locked, as it were, in this rock-ribbed region. I have spent the time in walking through the country; rowing on the lochs, or lakes; climbing mountains; threading glens; exploring caves; talking to the people of high and low degree, thus gaining information of every kind and character, both as to the past and present condition of this wild country and its poverty-stricken people. Hard work this. A man walking through the mountains needs a good sole (soul)—spell it as you please. To me, however, the work (I can not call it by any other name half so appropriate) has been as pleasant as it has been difficult, and as profitable as both combined. When I become very tired, and that is no infrequent occurrence, I spread myself out on the soft side of some projecting rock, high on the mountain side, and there, while resting, I alternately feast my eager eyes on the outstretching landscape, or read from books which I have along for that purpose. I read the “History of Scotland,” “Heart of Midlothian,” “Rob Roy,” “The Lady of the Lake,” “The Lay of the Last Minstrel,” and “Marmion.” In this way I have read much of the history, poetry, and fiction of Scotland while on the spot, or in the immediate neighborhood about which it was written. It lends a new charm and gives an additional zest to what one reads, when he can lift his eyes from the book and behold the places and objects mentioned in its glowing pages.

I can never forget my experience of a week ago to-day. I was up at an early hour. The sky was cloudless and the morn calm and quiet. Across the lake stood Ben Lomond in its giant-like proportions. Its brow, grey with eternal snow, looked so inviting that I determined to ascend and sniff the mountain breeze. A friend, where I spent the night, and who knew the difficulties in the way, tried to dissuade me from my purpose; but when I take the bit between my teeth there is no bridle that can stop me. Johnson, who by this time had thoroughly recovered from his maiden effort at climbing mountains, and who is as fleet as a hart and spirited as a gazelle, agreed to accompany me. So, ere the warbler had finished his morning song, and while the dew was yet sparkling bright on the heath, we set out for that towering peak, “where snow and sunshine alone have dared to tread.”

For sixpence, a farmer’s lad rowed us across the loch, landing us at the foot of the mountain whose rocky cliffs and thunder-riven sides we were to climb. Seven hours’ toil brought us to the objective point, and rewarded us with one of the finest, wildest, and most romantic views to be had anywhere this side that deep and yawning gulf which separates time from eternity. I found myself surrounded by a thousand peaks, crags and cliffs, whose heads were white with the accumulated snows of fifty winters, they being of different heights, and of every conceivable shape, size and angle—all having been caused, apparently, by the upheaval of some mighty volcanic eruption of the under world. These iron-belted mountain sides are honey-combed with deep and dark dens, dangerous pits and caves, which once furnished shelter and security to those savage and lawless clans whose sole occupation was arms, and who, under cover of night, often swooped down upon the barns, flocks and herds of the Lowlanders like eagles upon their prey. When once hidden away in those dark recesses, it would take an hundred-eyed devil to discover their whereabouts; and, if discovered, it would require an iron-handed Hercules to rout and discomfit them.

Many of these peaks and cliffs are separated only by narrow and gloomy glens hundreds of feet deep. The glen may be ten, fifteen, or twenty-five feet wide at the bottom, but the rough and irregular sides tower up so high, and come so near closing at the top, that the rocky chasm is dark and gloomy. I have, I think, very little superstition about me; yet I confess that while walking through these silent halls, where the sun has never shone, I felt half inclined to look around me for hissing serpents, for hobgoblins and rats. While in one of these unseemingly—I had almost said unearthly—places, a dreamy, far-away spell came over me. I fell into an absent-minded mood. Just as I reached a dark, horrible-looking place, I paused. I stood still, my eyes resting upon the stone floor; I was thinking about—I do not know what. All at once I heard a furious noise; and, turning suddenly around, I beheld a huge wildcat rushing down the glen, with eyes glaring like balls of fire. By this time he was within five feet of me, and gave the most unearthly yell that I have ever heard. It seemed as if it would rend the very rocks. Every hair on my head was a goose-quill, and they were all on ends. For a moment I was still as death, and pulseless as a statue, while the noise that startled me was rolling, ringing, and reverberating down the glen like the mutterings of distant thunder. As John Bunyan would say, “I departed, and was seen, there no more.”

Having gotten out of the glen, I went back upon Ben Lomond and enjoyed the picture. I said it was a grand sight, and so it was. Turn my eyes as I would, I could see mountain streams fed by melting snow, the water being churned into madness as it leaped from rock to rock, until it was lost in the abyss below. Looking beneath me, I could see several of the Scottish lakes, which were as beautiful as the mountains were grand. I saw Loch Lomond, on whose calm bosom many islands float, winding around like a silver thread among the mountains for twenty miles.

All this made a picture that I can never forget. It is indelibly stamped on the imperishable tablets of memory; and there it will remain, an object of interest and admiration, until the flood-gates of life are shut in eternal rest.

We visited Rob Roy’s cave, the land of the Macgregors, the house in which Helen Macgregor was born, Loch Katrine where Scott wrote “The Lady of the Lake,” and many other places known to history and to song.

Johnson and I found no difficulty in walking twelve to twenty miles a day. We sometimes obtained lodgings with peasants, and at others with “gentlemen,” or landlords. The peasants call themselves “servants,” and always speak of the landlord as “master.” This nomenclature is suggestive of the real relationship existing between the two classes. It is none other than that of master and slave. These peasants are still plodding along in the same old grooves whose rough edges wore their fathers out. Many of them, like the dumb ass in the tread-mill, expect only their bread, and verily they are not disappointed. I almost wonder that the very stones in the streets do not rise in mutiny, and clamor for justice until their cry is heard by the dull ears of power.

While walking from Loch Lomond to Loch Katrine, I saw several peasants spading up the ground. They had dug several holes, each large enough to swallow a good-sized house. The dirt was taken out in square blocks, much the size of three bricks put side by side, or about the shape of a Mexican adobe. In appearance, these blocks resembled soft, sticky, black prairie mud. Seeing them spread out to dry, I thought they were to be used as building material. Upon making inquiry, I found that it (the dirt) was preparing for fuel. The peasants call it moss. They dry it and stack it, as we stack fodder or oats. They say it burns well.

The Scotch people, as a whole, have impressed me very favorably. They have a straightforward way of doing business. Almost every face wears on it the stamp of genuine honesty. The better classes of people are social, kind and accommodating in their nature, though somewhat stiff and dignified in their bearing.

Religiously, most Scotchmen are Presbyterians in belief and devout in spirit. They are no people for innovations or change, even though the new be superior to the old. I would as soon undertake to turn the Amazon from its wonted channel as to swerve these Scotch people from their fixed modes of thought and habits of life. As the boy said of his father’s horse that would go no farther, they are “established.”

Just twenty years ago, the main body of our Baptist people of this country formed what is known as the “Baptist Union of Scotland.” They now have eighty-five churches and ten thousand members. Though few in number, they expect, like Gideon’s band of old, to come off conquerors at last. All the Baptist ministers whom I have chanced to meet have received me into their confidence, into their homes and families. They have extended to me every act of kindness and of courtesy that I could ask or wish.

In a month from now, the people of Scotland will have very little night. In the latter part of June they have twilight until eleven o’clock, and the sun rises about two o’clock in the morning. It is now almost ten o’clock at night, and I can see to write without artificial light, and the moon is not shining.