the first time, some houses with fruit-trees about
them. The improvements of the Scotch are for immediate profit; they do
not yet think it quite worth their while to plant what will not produce
something to be eaten, or sold, in a very little time. We rested at
Foris.

A very great proportion of the people are barefoot; shoes are not yet
considered as necessaries of life. It is still the custom to send out
the sons of gentlemen without them into the streets and ways. There are
more beggars than I have ever seen in England; they beg, if not
silently, yet very modestly.

Next day we came to Nairn, a miserable town, but a royal burgh, of which
the chief annual magistrate is styled lord provost. In the neighbourhood
we saw the castle of the old thane of Cawdor. There is one ancient
tower, with its battlements and winding stairs, yet remaining; the rest
of the house is, though not modern, of later erection.

On the 28th we went to Fort George, which is accounted the most regular
fortification in the island. The major of artillery walked with us round
the walls, and showed us the principles upon which every part was
constructed, and the way in which it could be defended. We dined with
the governour, sir Eyre Coote, and his officers. It was a very pleasant
and instructive day; but nothing puts my honoured mistress out of my
mind.

At night we came to Inverness, the last considerable town in the north,
where we staid all the next day, for it was Sunday, and saw the ruins of
what is called Macbeth's castle. It never was a large house, but was
strongly situated. From Inverness we were to travel on horseback.

August 30th. We set out with four horses. We had two highlanders to run
by us, who were active, officious, civil, and hardy. Our journey was,
for many miles, along a military way, made upon the banks of Lough Ness,
a water about eighteen miles long, but not, I think, half a mile broad.
Our horses were not bad, and the way was very pleasant; the rock, out of
which the road was cut, was covered with birch-trees, fern, and heath.
The lake below was beating its bank by a gentle wind, and the rocks
beyond the water, on the right, stood sometimes horrid, and wild, and
sometimes opened into a kind of bay, in which there was a spot of
cultivated ground, yellow with corn. In one part of the way we had trees
on both sides, for, perhaps, half a mile. Such a length of shade,
perhaps Scotland cannot show in any other place.

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