THE AMATEUR TRAMP IN SCOTLAND 153 



welcome the chimneys of your place of destination, 

 where you have prudently timed yourself to anticipate 

 the advent of the cross-country mail and the tourist- 

 laden steamers. 



There are people who turn up their noses at Scotland 

 as a touring country, which of course is absurd. Per- 

 haps the chief objection to it, as it appears to us, 

 besides the preponderating type of tourist, who is not 

 to be ignored, and the climate, which often is not to be 

 defended, is the tantalising character of your most 

 romantic walks. The grouse rise whirring from the 

 heather around you, skimming the knolls in their swift 

 flight, and dropping provokingly ahead ; the black 

 game may be seen towards dusk gathering in clusters 

 on the boughs of the fir trees ; the stately hart, sending 

 his hinds before him, goes trotting leisurely over the 

 forest-steeps, to show his antlered profile on the sky- 

 line before vanishing from view. The salmon are 

 leaping in their favourite pools, and the lively little 

 trout on the feed in the lochs are rippling the surface 

 in widening circles. Deer and game-birds seem to 

 show by their indifferent familiarity that they know 

 you are there upon sufferance and impotent to harm 

 them. A simple wayfarer, without gun, rifle, or rod 

 among your belongings, you are apt half to forget the 

 beauty of those mountain preserves while walking 

 through them with hands that are innocent of blood- 

 shed ; and you are envying the inmates of the shooting- 

 boxes and the lodges, whom you see abroad with their 

 rods, their dogs, and their gillies. In your walks on 



