356 NETHER LOCHABER. 



in their pastures, wild-flowers seemed to laugh with quiet delight, 

 and the very boom of the big waves as they broke on the beach 

 had a pleasant music in it. It has continued to rain more or less 

 ever since, so that with regard to mere personal comfort one is 

 ready to cry " Hold, enough ! " but so far as the interests of agri- 

 culture and pasturage are concerned, not a drop too much has 

 fallen. The fact is that, frequent as is the complaint about what 

 people are pleased to speak about as our superabundant rainfall, we 

 require it all. We question if a diminution of our annual rainfall 

 by a third, say, or even by a fifth of its amount, would, from a 

 practical and utilitarian point of view, be any improvement, but 

 the reverse. A shrewd south country shepherd, with whom we 

 had a long crack on Saturday, was right when, speaking of the 

 rain, he remarked that " it would be a puir coimtry for sheep at 

 ony rate, if we had much less o't frae year's end to year's end." 

 How ill the drought of April and May agreed with us here may be 

 imderstood from the fact that there was an unusual amount of 

 sickness amongst the people ; while the leanness of sheep and 

 kine bore sad and emphatic witness to the scarcity of succxdent 

 pasture, and the general backwardness of the season is to this 

 moment noticeable from our window as we write, for neither the 

 lilac nor the hawthorn is yet in bloom, nor are potatoes, even the 

 earliest planted, any more than just becoming discernible in regular 

 drills. "We should say that vegetation is generally quite a fort- 

 night later than usual, and only an exceptionally fine summer and 

 early autumn can bring about a fairly seasonable harvest-time. 

 Diim spiro, spero, however, is a good maxim, and we shall hope 

 that, even if harvest is late, the ingathermg may be all the more 

 pleasant and abundant. The drought, however, and persistent east 

 wind, it is but fair to confess, were rather favourable than other- 

 wise to the fruit trees of all kinds in garden and orchard. Bud 

 and blossom were, to use a military term, held in check until after 



