158 SCOTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 



COUNTY OF SUTHERLAND. 



THE extensive province on which we now enter, though naturally wild and 

 mountainous, has latterly undergone so many favourable changes in its moral 

 and physical aspect, that we can hardly recognise the features by which it was 

 so strongly marked, even at the close of the last century. Of Sutherland it might 

 then have been said with little exaggeration 



" La nature maratre, en cesaffreux climats, 



Ne produit, au lieu cl'or, que du fer, des soldats, 

 Tout son front herisse n'offre aux desirs de I'homme, 

 Rien qui puisse tenter 1'avarice de Rome."* 



But, in the present day, a complete revolution has taken place ; fields once 

 covered with heath or sand, are now waving with grain. The mountain pastures 

 are stocked with cattle ; the coasts sprinkled with villages ; the plough has 

 superseded the cascrom]- and the spade ; the inhabitants, once rude as their soil, 

 but rescued at last from the dominion of prejudice, have been taught the 

 blessings of industry, peace, and independence. Districts, that once bore the 

 stamp of almost unconquerable sterility, have been brought into a state of 

 successful cultivation, and, with their thriving population, now afford the most 

 unequivocal testimony that indolence is the bane, and industry the blessing of 

 society. Sutherland has now all the appearance of a new country that has 

 suddenly risen into life and importance, rewarding those who had the courage 

 and perseverance to examine its resources, and to bring its hidden treasures 

 into light. There are few settlements even in the New World, probably, where, 

 within so short a period, so much has been done to ameliorate the present gene- 

 ration, and to insure a comfortable provision for the next. Whenever we can 

 effectually inculcate habits of industry, and teach an individual to earn his 



* CREBII.LON. lihadamiste. Nolker le Begue, a monk of St. Gall, desirous of painting the rugged 

 character of Switzerland in a single line, thus described it : 



" Duraviris, et dura fide, durissima sede." 



To which another monk replied, in testimony of its improved condition 

 " Dura fuit quondam, sed nunc est mollis utunda, 



Exceptaque./Wt 1 , quam corde fatetur et ore." 



It would he difficult to find three lines which could depict more forcibly the state of Sutherland as it 

 was, and as it is. 



t The ancient foot-plough. See the previous notice of it in this work. 



