HIS VISIT TO FORRES. 341 



variably precipitous, the river more turbulent. Every 

 trace of the labour and skill of man has disappeared 

 there are no impressions, not even the slightest, on the 

 rocks, the stream, or the forest, of the refinement or 

 civilization of the present age. The low country is 

 all over stamped with these ; we see them in the fields, 

 the houses, the villages, the gardens. Here, on the 

 contrary, Nature is still as much in her infancy as when 

 the naked huntsman of two thousand years ago, his 

 long beard whistling to the wind, and his breast and 

 limbs stained blue, and tattooed with rude figures of 

 the moon and the stars, first broke through the tangled 

 underwood as he pursued the stag, and met the animal 

 at bay on the steep edge of a yet unknown and name- 

 less stream. But why unroll the whole web ? I cannot 

 add to the vividness of your impressions, but I can show 

 you the distinctness of my own. 



1 My imagination had been busy for a whole month 

 before I set out for Torres, in drawing pictures of all I 

 was to be there brought acquainted with. I had a 

 Kndhorn of my own, and a Relugas, and a Churchyard 

 of Altyre, and a Dr Brande, and a Mr Grant ; and now 

 I have both the real and the imaginary landscapes and 

 portraits placed side by side, just like the two rainbows 

 we saw side by side, a bright and a fainter, when 

 returning from our excursion. But the real and imagin- 

 ary scenes and images are, in many respects, strikingly 

 dissimilar. You yourself, and you only, are altogether 

 what I had conceived- Previous, indeed, to our meeting 

 at Torres, some parts of my transcript of the character 

 were defined by only faint outlines, and these outlines 

 are now filled up ; but for the truth of my general concep- 

 tion of it, I appeal to the letter I wrote you in March last. 



' I shall not be out of Cromarty (if I but live so long) 



