e foam of racing tides,
Rises in thought: from here to there,
Let Fancy's coinage pay the fare,--_

_Fancy, that wafts us o'er the main
To utmost Thule and home again,
Through mingled din of sea and sky,
Even in the twinkling of an eye._

_D. T. H._

_Ingleholm, Bridge of Weir,
16th January, 1909._

CONTENTS.

PAGE

CHAPTER I.--INTRODUCTORY, 9

Village libraries--Difficulties of travel--Literary Societies in
the Highlands--Gaelic books--Happiness and geniality of
natives--Oban to Gairloch--Winter sailing--A crofting
village--Horrors of the Minch--Notes on Lewis--Highland
doctors--Hotels and anglers--Recent books--Military--Moray
Firth--Among the miners--Handloom weaving--Professor Blackie and
the Highlands.

CHAPTER II.--MUSIC, SPEECHES, AND LITERATURE, 60

Scotch a reading nation--Hardships of students in old
days--Homer in Scalloway--When education ends--Objects of
chapter--Music--M.P.'s--Rural depopulation--Its
causes--Emigration--Village halls--The moon--A lecture in
Islay--Mental and material wealth--Real greatness--A Highland
laird on literature--Varieties of chairmen--"Coming to the
point"--Moral obligation--Compliment to Paisley--Oratory at
Salen--Lecture in a dungeon--Surprises--A visit to the
Borders--Tarbolton--Scotch language--Choice books--The
essayists--A Banff theory--Goldsmith in Gaelic--_Biblia
abiblia_--Favourites for the road--Horace--Shakespeare's
Sonnets--Xenophon--French literature and journalism--Romance and
Augustanism--Victorian writers--Celt and Saxon.

CHAPTER III.--ECCLESIASTICAL, 134

Sectarian feeling--Typical anecdotes--Music and
religion--Ethical teaching in schools--The Moderates--A savoury
book--The Sabbath--"The Men of Skye"--The auldest kirk--The
Episcopal Church--An interlude of metre--The Christian
Brethren--Drimnin in Morven--Craignish--A model
minister--Ministerial trials in olden times--An artful
dodger--Some anecdotes from Gigha--Growing popularity of Ruskin.

CHAPTER IV.--EDUCATIONAL, 180

Some Insular Dominies--Education Act of 1872--Education in the
Highlands