2 20 Notes on Sport and Travel i 



and keepers, the renters of these shootings spend 

 large sums of money every year in parts of the 

 country where no reasonable being would willingly 

 pass four-and-twenty hours without a stronger in- 

 ducement than looking at scenery, which he very 

 probably might not see the whole of the season after 

 all. Remember, O tourist, that many a barren 

 mountain top, which under no other circumstances 

 could produce a penny a year either to peasant or 

 proprietor, becomes a valuable source of income to 

 both if it be but left undisturbed. 



From the remotest antiquity this Sutherland has 

 been essentially a country of deer, protected by the 

 sharpest laws. I fancy that it was a conquered 

 country, and that the conquerors imposed forest-laws 

 on the conquered, as the Normans did in England. 

 At any rate, never at any period of its history have 

 the deer been less protected than at present. Sir 

 Robert Gordon, who wrote a book in the seven- 

 teenth century, which I think has been prevented 

 from obtaining popularity by being described as 

 A Genealogical History of the Earls of Sutherland^ 

 being in reality the most wonderful collection of 

 legends and stirring Highland tales in existence, 

 positively boils over with excitement when he touches 

 on the ' vert and venaison ' of his native country. 



* All these forests and schases are verie profitable 

 for feeding of bestiall, and delectable for hunting. 

 They are full of reid deer and roes, woulfifs, foxes, 

 wyld catts, brocks, skuyrells, whittrets, weasels, otters. 



