358 MAN OF SCIENCE. 



together the appearance is that of one vast straggling 

 village. Depend on it, if the Poor Laws be introduced 

 into Scotland, the extra profits derived to the Duke of 

 Sutherland from his sheep farms will go but a small way 

 in supporting his paupers. He will find his northern 

 injustice taking to itself the form, not of a mere crime, 

 for that would be nothing, but of a very terrible 

 blunder. 5 



' Sunday, 9th July. 



' I have just returned from Helmsdale, where I have 

 been hearing a sermon in the open air with the poor 

 Highlanders. The sun was very hot, and the portion of 

 my forehead that used to be best sheltered by my hat 

 is all blotched with red, and will, I dare say, be blistered 

 to-morrow. The congregation was numerous, from six 

 to eight hundred at least, and all seemed serious and 

 attentive. It must have been the mere power of asso- 

 ciation, but- 1 thought their Gaelic singing, so plaintive 

 at all times, even more melancholy than usual. It rose 

 from the green hill-side like a wail of suffering and 

 complaint. Poor people ! There stretched inland in 

 the background a long, deep strath, with a river winding 

 through it. It had once been inhabited for twenty 

 miles from the sea, but the inhabitants were all removed 

 to make way for sheep, and it is now a desert, with no 

 other marks of men save the green square patches still 

 bearing the mark of the plough that lie along the 

 water-side, and the ruined cottages, some of them not 

 unscathed by fire, with which these are studded. But 

 though thus desolate within, the sides of the two hills, 

 in which it terminates at the sea, are so thickly mottled 

 by little dwellings that it would seem as if the people 

 who had been forced out through its entire length had 

 stuck at its mouth. The inmates of these poor dwellings 



