THE HIGHLANDS. 145 



"Millbank, Dingwall, 

 Wednesday, \Zth August. 



" My dearest Jane : — I wrote you last from Abergeldy, and I 

 am afraid you may have been longing for a letter before this reaches 

 you. Such, I hope, is not my vanity, but mutual kind love ; may 

 it be our only blessing here and hereafter, and I am satisfied. 



" From Abergeldy I started (I think the day after I wrote you) 

 and proceeded to the head of the Don river. My burden was 

 truly insupportable. The same evening I got to Inchrory on the 

 river Aven or Avon, a most lovely place, perhaps the most so in 

 Scotland, where I slept. Next day (Thursday) I got to Tomin- 

 toul,* where I slept, a wild and moorland village. Next day was 

 the annual market, and it rained incessantly. My adventures there 

 I will give you afterwards, and they were not to my discredit. On 

 Saturday morning (still most rainy) I proceeded to Grantown, four- 

 teen miles, where I arrived at night, and slept comfortably; the 

 country most wild and desolate. About five miles from this live 

 the Miss Grants, of Lifforchy. Thither on Sunday morning I re- 

 paired, and found them all at home and well, with a brother lately 

 arrived from the East Indies. On Monday morning at three 

 o'clock, he and I started to the top of Cairngorm, one of the high- 

 est mountains in Scotland, and returned at eight o'clock in the 

 evening ; I tired, and he sick even unto death. On Tuesday morn- 

 ing, I left the house and walked on towards Inverness, to a place 

 called Craga, distance twenty-seven miles. It raiued incessantly, 

 and I had both toothache and earache. On Wednesday morning I 

 started from Craga, and this same Wednesday reached Millbank, 

 Mr. M'Kenzie's house, from which I now write after a walk of 

 twenty-five miles. So much then for a general sketch, which I will 

 fill up when I am once more with you. 



" I find from your letter that our sweet ones are all unwell, and 

 likely to be so. That last letter was dated Friday, August 8th. 1 

 am miserable about them. To-morrow, that is, Thursday, August 

 14th, and that one day, I must rest here, for the fatigue I have 

 lately undergone has been beyond any thing I ever experienced. 

 On Friday, the 15th, I shall start again, and hope to be at Achlian, 



* Of this place he says in the Nbctes :— " Drinking, dancing, swearing, and quarrelling goinj 

 on all the time in Tomintoul, James, for a fair there is a wild rendezvous, as we both know, sum 

 mer and winter; and thither flock the wildest spirits of the wildest clans." 



