adverse writers. Hill Burton went the length of asserting "that the Highlanders have ever shewn themselves peculiarly unconscious of the merits of their native scenery, and that a passion for it is an emotion of recent origin, growing up in the bosom of the Saxon Lowlander who visits it as a stranger." Happily a very slight knowledge of Highland character suffices to refute utterly such a statement. The chief traits of Celtic nature, in fact, are feeling and emotion. The history of the North, with its blood feuds and friendships, declares this at a glance; and it is well known that no race is more unwilling than the clansmen are to leave the shadows of their native glens. Tangible proof, besides, is easily found that sensitiveness to natural beauty is inherent in the character of the Celt. No monument of a language is more enduring than the names it has conferred on places. Even when a race itself has passed away, the names it gave to lake and river and mountain remain to keep green its memory. Now the Highland place-names are undoubtedly descended from the remotest antiquity, and every one of them describes some natural characteristic of the spot, while very many do so in figures of great poetic beauty, A few specimens are Fionn airitdh (Fiunary), the white shieling; Dubh ghlas (Douglas), the dark river; Achadh-nan-sian (Achnasheen), the field of tempests;
