I A Gossip on a Sutherland Hill-side 273 



of the old hill men who had to be cheated and 

 bribed into a service they hated. 



If the brown moors of Sutherland bore you, go 

 somewhere else, but do not anathematise them as 

 barren and unproductive wastes. They bear sheep 

 to the utmost of their power, and every year shows 

 some improvement in the pasturage. Ask the West 

 Riding folks whether they consider Sutherland a 

 productive country or not ? and how much wool 

 they get off those moors ? And ask, — but no, don't 

 ask the sheep-farmers how many sheep they feed, 

 for they will regard you with a grim and defiant 

 countenance, and shut the portals of their mouths 

 with a snap like a fox-trap ; not that they have any 

 Jewish superstition against numbering their woolly 

 folk, but as they are only permitted to keep a 

 certain number by their leases, to prevent over- 

 stocking the land, they regard the question as doubt 

 thrown on their honesty. 



I wonder the ingenious tourist has never com- 

 plained that more than 32,000 acres of Sutherland 

 are kept under water for the purpose of producing 

 salmon and trout ; but this is a subject I cannot be 

 cross upon, for the glory of Sutherland is her lakes 

 and her rivers, and old Sir Robert says most truly, 

 that ' there is not one strype in all these forests that 

 wants trout, and other sorts of fishes.' Though the 

 salmon in some of the rivers may not reach the 

 average size of their cousins of the south, their 

 number, beauty, and powers of fighting compensate 



T 



