142 COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



sky. Small wonder is it that, after several such evenings, the 

 visitor bears away lively reminiscences of Sutherlandshire. 



Thanks to the careful regulations and wise policy of the 

 Duke, Sutherlandshire, when once reached, can offer fair ac- 

 commodation to tourists, together with plentiful, if homely fare, 

 and rooms of perfect cleanliness. To such minute matters of 

 detail does the Duke's supervision extend, that it is a capital 

 crime for an innkeeper to cheat or overcharge a visitor. Con- 

 sequently, no one need go north with the melancholy forebod- 

 ings which Boswell entertained when he dined for the first 

 time with Johnson " I supposed we should scarcely have 

 knives and forks, and only some strange, uncouth, ill-drest 

 dish." The result is sure to agree with the model biographer's 

 experience, who found everything fc in very good order." The 

 larger holdings are mostly let on a nine-years' lease, while 

 smaller farms are held on a yearly agreement. This enables a 

 prompt change of tenants to be effected, should any house be 

 troublesome for poaching. By these and similar measures 

 keepers find their office a sinecure, so far as detecting poachers 

 is concerned. None of those lawless midnight brawls occur 

 which disgrace more thickly populated districts of England. 

 A couple of keepers are enough for a stretch of land thirty 

 miles across ; and the Duke is known familiarly as the " good 

 Duke," " the best of all the Dukes we have had." The cordiality 

 of the relations subsisting between him and his numerous 

 tenantry greatly adds to the pleasure of residing in his domains. 

 Yet few tourists, pure and simple, find their way so far north. 

 Naturalists and, above all, fishermen, form the bulk of the 

 visitors. The talk is everywhere of "flees" and "sawmon 

 powles ; " of lochs and burns, and fishing-days and spates. 

 The salmon-rivers are let ; but all lochs and burns and rivers 

 may be whipped by trout-fishers, with a few exceptions, which 

 may be learnt from the different landlords of the inns. Trout 

 appear at every meal, and salmon is so often served that the 



