sacrifice to
the general demand for bow staves in that warlike age, the bow being a
weapon much used by the mountaineers, though those which they employed,
as well as their arrows, were, in shape and form, and especially in
efficacy, far inferior to the archery of merry England. The dark and
shattered individual yews which remained were like the veterans of a
broken host, occupying in disorder some post of advantage, with the
stern purpose of resisting to the last. Behind this eminence, but
detached from it, arose a higher hill, partly covered with copsewood,
partly opening into glades of pasture, where the cattle strayed,
finding, at this season of the year, a scanty sustenance among the
spring heads and marshy places, where the fresh grass began first to
arise.

The opposite or northern shore of the lake presented a far more Alpine
prospect than that upon which the glover was stationed. Woods and
thickets ran up the sides of the mountains, and disappeared among the
sinuosities formed by the winding ravines which separated them from each
other; but far above these specimens of a tolerable natural soil arose
the swart and bare mountains themselves, in the dark grey desolation
proper to the season.

Some were peaked, some broad crested, some rocky and precipitous, others
of a tamer outline; and the clan of Titans seemed to be commanded by
their appropriate chieftains--the frowning mountain of Ben Lawers, and
the still more lofty eminence of Ben Mohr, arising high above the rest,
whose peaks retain a dazzling helmet of snow far into the summer season,
and sometimes during the whole year. Yet the borders of this wild and
silvan region, where the mountains descended upon the lake, intimated,
even at that early period, many traces of human habitation. Hamlets were
seen, especially on the northern margin of the lake, half hid among the
little glens that poured their tributary streams into Loch Tay, which,
like many earthly things, made a fair show at a distance, but, when more
closely approached, were disgustful and repulsive, from their squalid
want of the conveniences which attend even Indian wigwams. They were
inhabited by a race who neither cultivated the earth nor cared for
the enjoyments which industry procures. The women, although otherwise
treated with affection, and even delicacy of respect, discharged all the
absolutely necessary domestic labour. The men, excepting some reluctant
use of an ill formed plough, or mo