nderbore.' That is a bad
way to put it, and so I have told him, because I should be horribly
ungrateful to tire of him. But he says he dislikes gratitude and
thinks it an overestimated virtue.

I suppose you have often been in Scotland before, and you are not
Scottish yourself, so perhaps you can't quite feel as I do about
it. Basil, who has travelled so much, says that Scotland has in
miniature almost all the picked bits of scenery of other countries;
but they do not _appear_ to be in miniature when you're motoring
through them. They seem on an enormous scale; and each beauty spot
is different from every other. You can't help remembering and
keeping them apart in your mind, though there are so many that they
are crowded together, all over the map. I think of the map of
Scotland being purple, like heather, don't you? And if I have to
live anywhere else, I shall always be homesick for this country
now. If we are not in some fairy-like, green glen, we are in a wild
and awesome mountain pass; or else in a blue labyrinth of lochs; or
we come out upon endless, billowing moorlands; or suddenly we find
ourselves on a long road like an avenue in some great private park,
with the singing of a river in our ears.

Poor Basil sometimes feels ashamed of Blunderbore, and certainly
it _is_ different from travelling in Mr. Somerled's Gray Dragon.
With the Dragon, spirits of the wind used to rush out of forests to
meet and dash ozone in our faces. With Blunderbore, if they come at
all, they merely spray us lazily.

Going from Stirling to Crieff we crossed the borderline of the
Highlands. There was a park-like world round the Bridge of Allan:
and at Ardoch, the greatest Roman station left in Britain, lots of
turfed banks showing still where 26,000 Romans tried to bridle the
Northern Caledonians, the red-haired people. I'm glad they never
quite succeeded!

Crieff was sweet, and all round it, half hidden in woods, the most
beautiful houses. But Basil had forgotten to wire, so we couldn't
get into one of the nice hotels, but stayed in a very funny one.
When Mrs. Vanneck asked for communicating rooms, the landlady said,
'Oh, _no_, Madam, we've no such things as _that_ in _our_ house!'

We went on to Perth early next morning, and every minute along the
roa