Persian traveller, now a zealous rural improver, and whose "Highland home” may challenge comparison, in natural beauty, with any of the Oriental scenes of his early wanderings.

The ruined Priory of Beauly should also be visited. It is an interesting monument of the monastic times, when the crosier staff was stronger than the sceptre. A few lofty and venerable trees form an avenue to the sacred edifice. One of these, a beech tree, measures thirteen feet in circumference; a gigantic plane-tree is still larger, and there are some fine elms and ashes. Gray properly designates the elm as rugged; its trunk is generally covered and disfigured with excrescences. We are afraid we cannot, notwithstanding their appearance, cherish the idea, that these fine trees ever waved over the inmates of the Priory, though they may have braved the summer's heat and winter's storms for more than a century. The healthy period of the ash and elm does not exceed a hundred and twenty or thirty years; and it was in the year 1571, at the dissolution of the monasteries, after the Reformation, that a grant of the lands held by the Priory was conferred upon Hugh, Lord Fraser of Lovat. The monks of Beauly were of the Cistercian order; and, by their rules, none but the superior and procurator were allowed to go without the precincts of the monastery. They endeavoured to compensate for this by an ample range at home; the mouldering walls and old fruit trees that surround the building at a considerable distance, show that their possessions were extensive. The area of the Priory is now used as a burying-ground, and contains the ashes of

"Beneath those rugged elms, that yew tree's shade,

Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,

Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep."

many of the chiefs and other members of Highland families, as the Frasers, the Chisholms, and the Mackenzies of Gairloch. Of all churchyards in the Highlands, the small sequestered burying-grounds up among the hills, like pinfolds, apart from all human habitations, seem to us the most striking and affecting. Yet, in the churchyard of Beauly— where priest and warrior mingle together under the shade of walls consecrated by the piety of our ancestors, and once regarded with superstitious awe and veneration—we are moved by the genius of the place, and figure to ourselves, alternately, the austere devotion and penance of the solitary monks, and the savage heroism and combats of the chiefs.

The burial of a Highland chief in Beauly Priory so late as 1817, was marked by that enthusiasm and excess which once unhappily distinguished such scenes. On this occasion the tenantry and people repaired to a neighbouring granary to celebrate the dirge; the lairds and tacksmen (or principal leaseholders) occupied the upper floor, while the humbler classes were congregated below. Claret flowed in streams; and the whisky was so plentiful that the women of the village carried it off in pails. As the fiery beverage operated on the ground-floor, the men began to envy their feudal lords above, and they made an attempt to storm their quarters. They were repulsed; and, in revenge, they cut off the flaps of the gentlemen's saddles, to make brogues to themselves. A heavy fall of snow set in on this wild unhallowed revelry, and some of the clansmen, while straggling home, fell to rise no more. Such excesses are fast disappearing. The funeral of Glengarry, for example, in 1828, was orderly and decorous; and he sleeps by his native Loch Oich, the acknowledged Last of the Chiefs of the ancient mind and manners.

The Falls of Kilmorack are situated about a mile and a

half to the west of Beauly. The first view of them excites no great expectation or surprise. We see a considerable breadth of water broken into numerous cascades of from four to eight feet in height, with steep overhanging banks, clothed with birch trees and plants. On a nearer approach, the beauty of the spot gains upon the spectator; he visits the clergyman's garden and summer-house, and from this point, the river, pent between precipitous banks, and rolling over a ledge of rocks, has a striking appearance. The banks are rich with foliage; and it is this exuberance of vegetation, joined to the towering height of the rocks above the dark convulsed river, that lends its chief glory to Kil morack. The author of the "British Naturalist" compares the spot to a zoological and botanical garden of nature's own preparing, in which there are very ample collections.

The river Beauly is famous for its salmon fishing, and rents, we believe, at £1600 per annum. As Kilmorack is at the head of the run, and only a short distance from the sea, the pool below the Fall is thronged with fish; and the curious may here, as at Glenmorriston, witness the frequent and arduous attempts of the fish to leap the rock and pass the Fall. They sometimes light upon the rock and are captured. This suggested to the former lairds of Lovat the well-known feat with which they used to regale their visitors: a kettle was placed upon the flat rock beside the Fall, and kept full of boiling water. Into this the fish sometimes fell, in their attempts to ascend, and being boiled in the presence of the company, were presented to dinner. This was a delicacy in the gastronomical art unknown to Monsieur Ude. Meg Dods states, that a fish boiled in the pickling kettle, when, perhaps, some dozens of cut fish are preparing for the London market, is superbly done, meltingly rich, and of incomparable flavour. Such a treat is to be procured only at the fishing stations; at which, Mrs Margaret slyly

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remarks, assizes and presbyteries are always held. The Kilmorack kettle was, we have no doubt, inferior to this charmed cauldron; yet it must have been a luxury of no ordinary description to sit on the rock, under a canopy of trees, by the side of the chief, and partake of a voluntarily cooked salmon. The conversation of old Lord Lovat would have been a piquant sauce to the fish; for he had travelled and seen much, and possessed a rich vein of humour and caustic observation.

* Simon Lord Lovat, to his other qualities, added inordinate vanity. In 1736 he erected a monument (still extant) in the old church of Kirkhill, within a few miles of his residence, to the memory of his father, in which he took occasion to say of himself, that, "both at home and abroad, by his eminent actions in the war and the state, he had acquired great honours and reputation." Sir Robert Munro, who fell at Falkirk, being on a visit to Lord Lovat, they went together to view this monument. Sir Robert, upon reading the inscription, in a free manner, said, "Simon, how came you to put up such boasting romantic stuff?" To which the wary old lord replied-" The monument and inscription are chiefly for the Frasers, who must believe whatever I, their chief, require of them; and their posterity will think it as true as the Gospel !"

Lovat's strain of moralising is as rich and peculiar as his notions of morality. To his friend, "the dear Laird of Culloden," he writes as follows, 10th April 1731 :—

"I am much indisposed since I saw you at your own house; many marks appear that shew that the tabernacle is failing-the teeth are gone; and now the cold has so seized my head, that I am almost deaf with a pain in my ears; those are so many sounds of trompette that call me to another world, for which you and I are hardly well prepared; but I have a sort of advantage of you, for if I can but dye with a little of my old French belief, I'll get the Legions of Saints to pray for me; while you will only get a number of drunken fellows, and the innkeepers and tapister lasses of Inverness, and Mr Macbean, the holy man," &c.

Leaving the Falls, the road leads to Strathglass, through superb mountain scenery. The high banks are covered with birch trees, ascending to a great height, with occasionally rocks, fir plantations, and mountain paths, to vary the scene; and the river, foaming and breaking into numerous falls, below. The rocks sometimes project into the bed of the stream, forming sphinx-like and fantastic figures. This magnificent tract, which extends about three miles, is termed "the Dream," a name that seems to harmonise with the wild beauty of the landscape. The true orthography, however, is the Drhuim, signifying, in the Gaelic language, a ridge.

In the river, at this point, is a small picturesque island, named Eilean Aigas, on which Lord Lovat has erected a handsome house, the residence of two gentlemen, descendants of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, who wear the Highland costume, and are animated with true Celtic enthusiasm. The house of Eilean Aigas is a small, low, crow-stepped building, in the old Scottish style; but, passing from the little porch, decorated with bows, horns, and deers' heads, the visitor is surprised to enter a long sort of gallery apartment, seventy feet in length, hung with crimson damask, and covered with pictures, arms, and curiosities. The interior of the house is fitted up with great taste. The collection of Highland antiquities rivals that of Captain Grose, so humorously described by Burns, and adds not a little to the inte rest with which the solitary mansion, with its rustic bridge and foaming waterfall, is viewed, in the midst of scenery the most splendid for variety, richness, and magnificence. The island contains about fifty acres-rock, wood, and field—and is composed, like the whole of the rocks of this river, of a mass of conglomerate. It is bounded on the north by lofty crags, which overhang one branch of the river, which flows through the deep gorge on that side, and on the east by