THE PEOPLE OE SUTHERLAND. 187 



tain limestone, and is so bare and craggy on its sides and 

 summit for many thousand acres, that there is scarcely 

 even a blade of grass or a bunch of heather to be seen. 

 Yet there are sweet little birds chirping and singing 

 among the rocks, and just as merry as if they were hopping 

 among the beautiful bushes at Corstorphine Hill. God, 

 who takes care of all His creatures, has given them happy 

 hearts ; and I suppose there is little sorrow where there is 

 no sin. 



" This is a very wild country. I have sometimes tra- 

 velled through it for a whole dav without seeing a single 

 house, or meeting with a single human being. There 

 were many more people in it formerly ; but, a good many 

 years ago, the Countess of Sutherland, to whom it all 

 belongs, was advised to tell all the cottagers and other 

 poor people who lived in the valleys and on the sides of 

 the hills, to go away down to the sea-shore, and become 

 fishermen, that she might let all the land to rich English 

 farmers, who, she was told, would give her far more money. 

 But the people, some of whom were very old, and all of 

 whom loved the little sheltered spots where their fathers 

 and grandfathers had lived for hundreds of years before 

 them, did not wish to live by the sea-shore all together, 

 in little dirty streets, and to learn to fish. They were not 

 afraid of the sea; because the mountain shepherds are 

 just as brave as sailors; and often in the stormy nights of 



