Of The Farm, Which He Himself Occupied, The
Rent Had, In Twenty-Five Years, Been Advanced From Five To Twenty
Pounds, Which He Found Himself So Little Able To Pay, That He Would
Be Glad To Try His Fortune In Some Other Place.
Yet he owned the
reasonableness of raising the Highland rents in a certain degree,
and declared himself willing to pay ten pounds for the ground which
he had formerly had for five.
Our host having amused us for a time, resigned us to our guides.
The journey of this day was long, not that the distance was great,
but that the way was difficult. We were now in the bosom of the
Highlands, with full leisure to contemplate the appearance and
properties of mountainous regions, such as have been, in many
countries, the last shelters of national distress, and are every
where the scenes of adventures, stratagems, surprises and escapes.
Mountainous countries are not passed but with difficulty, not
merely from the labour of climbing; for to climb is not always
necessary: but because that which is not mountain is commonly bog,
through which the way must be picked with caution. Where there are
hills, there is much rain, and the torrents pouring down into the
intermediate spaces, seldom find so ready an outlet, as not to
stagnate, till they have broken the texture of the ground.
Of the hills, which our journey offered to the view on either side,
we did not take the height, nor did we see any that astonished us
with their loftiness. Towards the summit of one, there was a white
spot, which I should have called a naked rock, but the guides, who
had better eyes, and were acquainted with the phenomena of the
country, declared it to be snow. It had already lasted to the end
of August, and was likely to maintain its contest with the sun,
till it should be reinforced by winter.
The height of mountains philosophically considered is properly
computed from the surface of the next sea; but as it affects the
eye or imagination of the passenger, as it makes either a spectacle
or an obstruction, it must be reckoned from the place where the
rise begins to make a considerable angle with the plain. In
extensive continents the land may, by gradual elevation, attain
great height, without any other appearance than that of a plane
gently inclined, and if a hill placed upon such raised ground be
described, as having its altitude equal to the whole space above
the sea, the representation will be fallacious.
These mountains may be properly enough measured from the inland
base; for it is not much above the sea. As we advanced at evening
towards the western coast, I did not observe the declivity to be
greater than is necessary for the discharge of the inland waters.
We passed many rivers and rivulets, which commonly ran with a clear
shallow stream over a hard pebbly bottom. These channels, which
seem so much wider than the water that they convey would naturally
require, are formed by the violence of wintry floods, produced by
the accumulation of innumerable streams that fall in rainy weather
from the hills, and bursting away with resistless impetuosity, make
themselves a passage proportionate to their mass.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 23 of 110
Words from 11485 to 12034
of 56696