at this day. For more has
been planted than cut down; Glenmore will soon be populous as ever with
self-sown pines, and Rothiemurchus may revive; the shades are yet deep
of Loch Arkaig, Glengarry, Glenmoriston, Strathglass, Glen-Strathfarrar,
and Loch-Shiel; deeper still on the Findhorn--and deepest of all on the
Dee, rejoicing in the magnificent pine-woods of Invercauld and Braemar.

We feel that we have spoken feebly of our Highland forests. Some,
perhaps, who have never been off the high-roads, may accuse us of
exaggeration too; but they contain wondrous beauties of which we have
said not a word; and no imagination can conceive what they may be in
another hundred years. But, apparently far apart from the forests,
though still belonging to them, for they hold in fancy by the tenure of
the olden time, how many woods, and groves, and sprinklings of fair
trees, rise up during a day's journey, in almost every region of the
North! And among them all, it may be, scarcely a pine. For the oak, and
the ash, and the elm, are also all native trees; nowhere else does the
rowan flush with more dazzling lustre; in spring, the alder with its
vivid green stands well beside the birk--the yew was not neglected of
yore, though the bow of the Celt was weak to that of the Saxon; and the
holly, in winter emulating the brightness of the pine, flourished, and
still flourishes on many a mountain-side. There is sufficient sylvan
scenery for beauty in a land of mountains. More may be needed for
shelter--but let the young plants and seedlings have time to grow--and
as for the old trees, may they live for ever! Too many millions of
larches are perhaps growing now behind the Tay and the Tilt; yet why
should the hills of Perthshire be thought to be disfigured by what
ennobles the Alps and the Apennines?

Hitherto we have hardly said a word about Lochs, and have been doing our
best to forget them, while imagining scenes that were chiefly
characterised by other great features of Highland Landscape. A country
thus constituted, and with such an aspect, even if we could suppose it
without lochs, would still be a glorious region; but its lochs are
indeed its greatest glory: by them its glens, its mountains, and its
woods, are all illumined, and its rivers made to sing aloud for joy. In
the pure element, overflowing so many spacious vales and glens profound,
the great and stern objects of nature look even more sublime or more
beautiful in their reflected