ASSTNT. 423 



time. I must apologize to you for this letter, which is 

 not at all so amusing as it might be ; but the day is 

 rainy and dull, and I am dull too.' 



TO HIS SON WILLIAM.* 



' Cromarty, August 24th, 1851. 



' On the morning of Saturday I rose at five o'clock, 

 and set out on foot (from Assynt) on my way to the 

 Low Country, with the purpose of examining the marble 

 quarries of Ledbey ere the mail-gig, with which I was 

 to travel, should come up. The morning was lovely 

 beyond description. While all was in deep shade in 

 the valleys, the tops of the tall mountains gleamed like 

 fire to the rising sun ; and Loch Assynt, that seemed as 

 black and as polished as a jet brooch, had here and 

 there its patches of reflected flame. I passed one other 

 very pretty loch, not of great extent, but speckled with 

 green islands waving with birch and hazel, and abound- 

 ing in fish, that as I went by were dimpling it with a 

 thousand rings, and leaping for a few inches into the 

 air. I here met an English manufacturer in kilt and 

 hose, surrounded by half-a-dozen Highland gillies all 

 tightly breeched. I found the marble, white and grey, 

 rising amid the heath and long grass, like old snow on a 

 mountain-top in midsummer, and detached several speci- 

 mens. But I was fairly beaten off from examining the 

 deposit as thoroughly as I could have wished, by armies 

 of midges, that rose in clouds about my face every time 

 I bent down to strike a blow, and made it feel as if it 

 had been bathed in boiling water. There is perhaps no 

 place in the world in which these little creatures are 

 more troublesome than in the western parts of Suther- 

 land. I travelled on by the gig to Lairg, which I 



* Now Lieutenant in the 37th Grenadiers in India. 



