THE

MOOR AND THE LOCH

CORRACH-BAH; OR, A PLEA FOR THE WASTES

How shrunk are Scotland's rugged untamed desolations! We see those mushroom larch-plantations skirting the steeps of our brown mountains, with their luxuriant verdure. The subsoil-plough, tile-draining, and all the ingenious etceteras of modern invention, have reclaimed many a bleak and barren moor, which once only served for pasture to the hardy black cattle the unhoused hirsel of the hills. Thriving fields of yellow grain, and glancing sickles, and merry voices swelling the autumn gale, now enliven those wastes, once the chosen haunts of the bittern and the whaup. Many of the lords of the heather themselves have caught the improvement mania, and either modernise their "own grey tower," or pull it down; building a splendid mansion in its honoured stead. The wild feudo-Highland grounds and scenery must, of course,

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be made to fit this upstart of a house; and many a knoll, covered with its tangled brushwood, and blazing with the yellow gold of the whin and the broom, must be levelled and swept away, to convert the whole into an English lawn.*

In addition to this we have the new law of entail, which will go a good way to destroy our famed nationality; and by introducing moneyed strangers who know nothing, and feel less, of sympathy with the Highland character, will (unwittingly, perhaps,) do all they can to extirpate it altogether. It is melancholy to hear some "nouveaux riches," at Radical meetings, spouting forth their untutored volubility upon this (to me) painful subject-"If the hereditary feudal lairds and lords cannot improve their estates, they ought to sell them to those who can!"-to those pioneers of civilisation, whose chief idea of a Highland estate is that of a good bargain, and whose notion of raising the Highland character consists in assimilating it to their own! They may give employment,† and money for money's worth, but all their efforts will be unavailing to transform the Gael into their beau idéal of a peasant; and never can they gain that place in his heart, only to be

* "Fortunately for mankind, as some counterbalance to that wretched love of novelty, which originates in selfishness, narrowness, and conceit, and which especially characterises all vulgar minds, there is set in the deeper places of the heart such affection for the signs of age, that the eye is delighted even by injuries which are the work of time."Modern Painters, by a Graduate of Oxford.

A great outcry has been raised against the "Highland clearances," and much obloquy cast upon the proprietors of these remote islands and

occupied by his feudal chief of ages past. Our Queen better knew her northern people, when, upon her first memorable visit to this land of Catarans, she, like the great chieftainess, cast herself freely, fully, upon the unbought devotion of her clans.

Perhaps I feel too strongly on this subject; and I know I am open to the remark that feudalism implies dependence, while no feeling of that sort is compatible with improvement in character or country. But are we sure that all we term improvement is more than simply alteration? And is there one mountain-born son of Albyn who will not agree with me in preferring our unspoiled, unplanted glens, our wild game, and our national distinctness, to all the busy important bustle of modern civilisation, which has already transformed many of our most romantic nooks into models of "suburban villas"? I well recollect offering to show an exquisite specimen of real Highland taste and beauty, with all its wild character preserved, to a worthy metropolitan his answer was, "Ah, thumthing in the Englith thtyle!!" He had ascended Ben Lomond shortly before, the day lovely, only a few light clouds flitting over

localities for turning adrift their dependents. Many of these poor creatures, although suffering every privation, refuse to emigrate, even when given all reasonable encouragement. It is a hard case, but what can the lairds do? To give employment, by reclaiming such land, is out of the question, and to support such numbers of starving people would ruin the estate. The only resource, now that the kelp-trade has failed, is to reduce the population, at the same time enlarging the grazing farms, (the surest return in the Highland districts,) and giving leases to respectable Highland tenants.

the brown heath or scattered rocks, between long intervals of brilliant sunshine: the lights and shadows upon the opposite mountains seemed formed to call up feelings and recollections long gone by. Our citizen, however, returned vastly delighted at having rather called up so good an appetite for dinner. After having satisfied his craving, he abruptly broke out, "Would it be pothible to fill up Loch Lomond?" His own genius anticipated the reply-" Ah! by tumbling Ben Lomond into it, I thuppothe! Now, how many acres of good land would you gain?" "Well,” thought I, "this is improvement with a vengeance;" and I should, with great pleasure, have pitched in his little fat body, by way of a sleeping partner to the doomed mountain! However, upon thinking over his strange proposal, it struck me that it was a plain, matter-of-fact, poundsshillings-and-pence view of the subject; and if I was fairly attacked upon that point, I should not stand half a chance in the argument. No doubt the country will be richer the more it is cultivated; but few Highlanders, with any touch of imagination, would barter, even for this, its former lonely and desolate grandeur, with its accompaniments of wild birds and animals; or would, without a pang, change the bold heart and ready hand of the natives into those of passive and obedient serfs. If driven to make a choice, I must shelter myself under the shrewd logic of a fellow-countryman, who, having affirmed that the grapes of Scotland were better than those of England, and being asked to prove it, coolly answered, "I maun premeese, I like them soor!" Like him, I must also premise, that I

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would not give the frowning crag or barren fell for all the rich slopes and verdant valleys of the Lowlands.

There are two kinds of wild scenery pre-eminently deserving the epithet "sublime;" but to feel their overpowering effect, they must be seen with every associated object. You cannot view the sea-cliff in perfection unless there is nothing before you but the boundless, fathomless ocean. An arm of the sea, or a firth, will not do; their waves are never those rolling, booming surges, which impress one with the vastness from which they come. There must also be the countless variety of sea-birds,* some thickly studding every jagged projection, and others riding the swelling billow, their bright plumage glancing in the beams of the morning sun. My greater favourite, however, is the wild and lonely mountain, with its crags, its bare heath, its solitary moor-loch, and, above all, the eyrie of the golden eagle, dread monarch of the mist. Spring is the season to enjoy both in perfection, as all the winged tenants have then taken possession of their temporary abodes. Every variety may be seen and studied; while from their tameness a nearer view may be obtained than at any other time. Few springs have passed without my enjoying either a marine or mountain treat, sometimes

* The white-tailed eagle, or erne, not unfrequently hatches on the overhanging rocks of the sea, and by her gallant swoops and screams, when her territory is invaded, adds much to the impression of wildness and grandeur. As congenial a haunt for its nidification is the island of a moor-loch, if there are any old trees to fix the eyrie upon, finding its hunting-ground in the neighbouring morasses; whence it has acquired the name of the bog-eagle.