LAST HOME OF THE WILD ANIMALS. 73 



the paths which connected them with other districts, 

 were thankful that the natural difficulties which 

 surrounded them rendered it unnecessary to break up or 

 to fortify the access from more open countries. Their 

 wants, with a very few exceptions, were completely 

 supplied by the rude and scanty produce of their own 

 mountains and holms, the last of which served for the 

 exercise of their limited agriculture, while the better 

 part of the mountains and forest glens produced pasture 

 for their herds and flocks. The recesses of the unex- 

 plored depths of these sylvan retreats being seldom 

 disturbed, especially since the lords of the district had 

 laid aside during this time of strife their constant 

 occupation of hunting, the various kinds of game had 

 increased of late very considerably, so that not only in 

 crossing the rougher parts of the hilly and desolate 

 country we are describing, different varieties of deer 

 were occasionally seen, but even the wild cattle peculiar 

 to Scotland sometimes showed themselves, and other 

 animals which indicated the irregular and disordered 

 state of the period. The wild cat was frequently sur- 

 prised in the dark ravines or swampy thickets ; and the 

 wolf, already a stranger to the more populous districts 

 of the Lothians, here maintained his ground against the 

 encroachments of man, and was still himself a terror to 

 those by whom he was finally to be extirpated." 



The above I consider an exact description of the 

 state of the wilder parts of Northern England and 

 Scotland during the exterminating wars which desolated 

 them for eleven hundred years. Scott omits to mention 

 the wild boar, which, however, in the subsequent account 

 of the day's hunting which followed, he names as 

 one of the objects of pursuit. 



