272 CRUISES. 



from summer's heat and winter's snow. Now, suppose 

 you had actually come to Scotland last summer, and that 

 your mother had been sketching that very tree at that 

 very moment, the consequences are more easily imagined 

 than described. So let us be thankful for the past, and 

 look forward hopefully to the future. 



" The meeting of the British Association came on and 

 went off as usual, and occupied our time and thoughts so 

 far. I believe it was a good meeting. At all events the 

 weather was splendid, and kept the philosophers, who 

 sometimes lose their tempers like weaker people, in great 

 good humour ; and there were lots of dinners going, good 

 and bad. I was delighted to see my old friend Sir John 

 Richardson looking so welL Professor Airy was going 

 to Sutherland ; so I gave him an unpublished map for his 

 guidance, and such personal directions as I considered 

 useful. When his tour was ended, he wrote to me from 

 Inverness, with thanks for my map and information — 

 adding, that three things had greatly struck him in that 

 northern country: 1st, the extraordinary kindness of the 

 people; 2dly, the wildness and majesty of the scenery, 

 1 elsewhere unequalled ;' 3dly, ' the ferocity of the weather;' 

 and then he describes the water-spouts and storms of hail 

 which beset him and his wife as they proceeded in their 

 dog-cart over the wilderness." 



