"papyro-metamorphosis," (as I presume it is called in those days of high-sounding names,) namely, a table, seat sideboard, and cupboard, and in which last-mentioned receptacle a scanty furnishing of crockery had been stowed away. An iron kettle hung from the rafters; and a stick of boxwood, fastened in the wall by patches of wet clay, did duty for candlestick.*

The bothie, however, such as it has been described, was beautifully situate upon a brae-side, surmounted on all sides by ranges of lofty hills, which gradually lost themselves in the distant horizon. The heather was in its thickest and deepest bloom; while a mountain torrent, or scaur, rushed down from the rocky steeps in bold and sudden sweeps and curves, was partly visible, and partly concealed by the foliage of some dwarf trees which clothed its lower

banks.

In the mean time, the herd of deer in which we were in search, sheltering themselves in the most remote and almost inaccessible re. cesses, rendered the task of overtaking or nearing them equally toil. some and precarious. After two hours' labor amongst the cliffs and crags, one of thein, a royal stag, came within shot. My hand trem. bled with the excess of my anxiety. I however pulled the trigger. The shot reverberated through the rocks, and I fancied that he fell.

Calling my dog Luith to my aid, I hallooed him on. With a bound like that of the startled stag, the noble animal is off and away,-he is racing with the winds. And now the deer bounds over rock and glen, or plunges onward through the mountain stream. Following the forester, I neared him, cheering, and I believe half maddened with excitement; when, lo! I now beheld to my utter consternation and dismay, my dog throttling and pulling down, not a royal stag, but-oh, shame be it spoken!-a shepherd's she.goat, and which, in spite of every exertion I could make, I was finally unable to extricate from the fangs of the ruthless Luith.

66

Hey! what a bonnie beastie ?" exclaimed my gilly at the sight. "He's mair flayed than hurt," replied the shepherd; "so never fash yourself about it."

A few shillings served to satisfy the old man, who, in the outpourings of his gratitude thus expressed himself:

"Ye need nae hae gi'en yourself sae much trouble: it's too much; it's just scandalous!" which said method of returning thanks sounded not a little ambiguous to my southern ears.

Such, then, was the consummation, undevoutly to be wished, which concluded this first day's hunting the stag.

A joke of the practical sort had been played off this morning upon my unsophisticated valet, which certainly created a laugh amidst his "handsmen in the hall." Antonio had unfortunately left my "Petersham mixture" in London, and, wishing to replenish my melancholy account of empty boxes, made inquiries for the nearest and best purveyor of snuff. Mc Sneezer, of Mull, in the town of Eeight miles off, was immediately recommended. His shop was de

A potent smell of farintosh, mountain dew, and peat, prevailed throughAs the poet of the heart does "not" say,

"You might do what you will,

But the scent of the whisky would cling to THEE still.”

scribed as being next door to that of one Mc Intoch, of Waterpruif, and opposite to Euchan Fairntosh, of Cogielogie. It was also insisted upon that, as the grouse were very quick-sighted, a few pounds of heather-colored shot would be very acceptable to his master. My Greek in the innocence of his nature,--especially after my heathercolored metamorphosis,-relied implicitly on this vague statement, and off he started on foot, being informed that at the bothie two miles off, he would, without any difficulty, procure "Shanks's sheltie." What occurred at E- I know not; suffice it to say, that my poor Greek returned from his expedition very much disconcerted. Waterpruif Mc Intosh was unknown; a "Hoot awa, mon! ye're daft; let's have none of ye'r clishmaclavers!" greeted him at the shot-shop, and Shanks's sheltie turned out to have meant but his own bipedal legs.

The

But to return to my sport. Emerging from the thicket, I found myself on a ledge of flat rock projecting over a chasm of not less than a hundred feet, where the dark mountain torrent made a rapid shoot over the precipice beneath. My gilly, stopping suddenly, hastily exclaimed, "Shoot! shoot!-a tod! a tod!" Looking towards the spot, to my great surprise I saw a fox bearing gallantly away. An involuntary "Tally ho! escaped me, and for a moment my thoughts wandered to Warwickshire. My mind's eye for the instant pictured to itself Hill Morton Gorse,-Tom Day's "Gone away!" was even sounding in my ears; when my reverie was put an end to by a shot whistling through the rocks. The forester's unerring aim had taken effect; and I watched, not without a sigh, the last struggles of poor Reynard, as he fell from the cliff, and was carried away by the force of the mountain waters.

Fatigued and disappointed with the day's multiplied disasters, I now expressed a desire to return once more to Ard-nam-bearn; on which my guide disappeared all at once from my side, till, nearing the precipice, I beheld him catching by notches, roots of heather, and slight projections of the rocks, rapidly descending the steepest sides of the chasm. I, however, though by a longer route, made good my own retreat; and, returning home, sleep and repose lulled my tired

senses to rest.

The next day was wet, or soft, as it is called; and the falling of a Scotch mist viz, a thick, drizzling, and uninterrupted rain, was by no means unacceptable as an excuse for refuge from further fatigue; to dine, therefore, and to dine in comfort, was now the chief desire of my heart. On leaving London I had provided myself with a few quarts of Peacock's best turtle, and a most Heliogabaline paté de foie gras. Wishing to create an agreeable surprise to some brother sportsmen who had consented to favor me with their company to dinner, I gave my gilly's spouse strict orders to prepare the soup by simply boiling the contents of the white jar, adding to it only a few glasses of madeira. My last injunctions were, "Remember the white jar!"

I proceeded to unkennel my dogs, revise my guns, overhaul my shot, &c. till, the day having happily wore through, I at last saw all my guests arrive. Our toilets were soon made, and down we sat to dinner. With what glee did I take off the soup-cover,-for the soup, be it known, was the only dish in my bill of fare that I thought it worth

while to announce, and with a large tea-cup, which served us for tureen-ladle, begin to help myself and friends! But judge of my horror when I perceived a white, greasy, unsavory-looking substance floating suspiciously on the top, and, on diving for the green fat, discovered certain hard black-looking truffles. The mystery was soon dissipated. A consultation of northern Mrs. Glass's had realised the proverb, "Meikle cooking spoils the broth." They had mistaken the jars and boiled the paté de foie gras in place of the turtle. Byron talks of

"The rage of the vulture,
The love of the turtle;"

mine equalled the former for the loss of the latter.

The morning after my dinner failure, a trusty messenger arrived, having, as he called it, "just stepped over" a distance of five-and-twenty miles with my letters. I read my English ones with avidity. How much might be written about a letter-bag! In a few lines, penned, perhaps, in all the carelessness of haste, we read that our hopes are baulked, or our ruin completed. Another may bring the death of a parent, or a friend, in whose affections we ourselves reigned paramount. At length, however, I turned me to the others, and, in addition to the announced return of my friend, I found invitations poured in upon me from all the surrounding families of title and distinction. Scottish hospitality had commenced. The season of visits had begun; and now, cured of my first awkwardness, I joined in all the sports of the country. Of the interior of noble castles, palaces, and shooting-lodges, I shall not here speak, as the subject might be endless; but, ere I part from my readers, I may safely say that the healthful beauty of the daughters of the North, the dulcet strains of their voice and harp, and their graceful bearing in the merry dance, must haunt my mind's remembrance till I, or both, become no more!

"Farewell to the Highlands! farewell to the North!
The birth-place of valor, the country of worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,

The heart of the Highlands for ever I love;"

for, in the words of the Jacobite song,

"Though rich be the soil where blossoms the rose,
And barren the mountains, and covered with snows,
Where blooms the red heather and thistle so green,
Yet for friendship sincere, and loyalty true,
And for courage so bold no foe can subdue,
Unmatch'd is our country, unrivall'd our swains,
And lovely and true are the nymphs of our plains,

Where rises the thistle, the thistle so green!"

THE INNKEEPER OF ANDERMATT.

SHORTLY after the general peace,-in common with troops of my compatriots, to whom the Continent had beea so long closed-I travelled to Switzerland. Little was then known of that country; the inns were few and bad: not so now. The inhabitants, too, have, since the period of which I speak, lost much of their individuality. The attrition of foreigners, and the corrupting influence of their gold, have, I am sorry to say, worn off much of that simplicity of manners, and most of the rugged virtues, bequeathed to the mountaineer by his an

cestors.

One of my first visits was to the Lake of the Four Cantons; that lake, the border of which gave birth to the heroes and patriots who shook off the yoke of foreign tyranny. The lakes of Switzerland have each a peculiar character of their own, and this owes its charm to its deep solitude and seclusion.

From Altorff I crossed the Mount St. Gothard, and, fortunately for me, saw it before the new road, in imitation of that of the Simplon, was begun. The mechanical arts and civilization are the death of sentiment, despair to the artist, but still more to the poet. There was then no hideous steam-boat, with its blackening column of smoke, to destroy the connection of the present with the past. A bateau of the same construction as that from which Tell, leaping on the rock,-where the chapel now stands to commemorate the exploit,-winged the arrow into the heart of Gesner, conveyed me to the foot of St. Gothard. It then afforded no practicable way for carriages, with their imperials, their couriers, and femmes de chambre, all packed together at the top. The pass that had been trodden for centuries, deep-worn and precipitous, ad. mitted only of being traversed on foot, or à mulet; that pass, the most terrible in its sublimity of all the rest, with its deafening torrent, and its sides thick with giant pines, that yet gradually diminished into pigmies as they lost themselves among the clouds above our heads.

It was the month of April, and near ten o'clock at night, when, after a long march, I reached an inn in the outskirts of the small town that bears the same name of sonorous and musical sound,Lugano. It was not the best hostel in the place; but, after the chalets in which I had been lodging, I had become very indifferent on the score of accommodation, and glad to find shelter anywhere. The landlord seemed to have little respect for foot-passengers, for he did not move from his chair to give me welcome as I entered his door. He was seated in the chimney corner with a traveller, who looked like an old soldier, to judge from his grey moustache and half. military costume; while a girl of eighteen or twenty was preparing his supper.

Our host's manners were certainly not prepossessing, and he seemed but little inclined to afford me that paid hospitality which Goldsmith so much vaunted. He told me sulkily that his house was full, that his guests had retired, and that the gentleman who had just arrived, and to whom he pointed, had engaged his last chamber.

The fire-place was one of that kind still common in farm-houses in England, and universal in Wales, with wooden benches on each side extending the length of the chimney. I told him, therefore,

that if he would give me a couple of blankets, I would sleep sur le dur.

The stranger politely offered me half his bed; but, our host having acceded to my proposition, I declined to share it, with the best grace I could.

Some excellent vermicelli soup, delicious red trout, and an omelet aux herbes, consoled me for the modicum hospitium in other ways. I sat down with a true Alpine appetite. Discovering that the cellar contained one excellent bottle of Bourdeaux, the stranger and myself ordered a second.

At the

My companion was an agreeable person. We communicated to each other whither we were bound and whence we had come. I spoke with raptures of St. Gothard, and of the green valley of Andermatt. name of Andermatt I saw a change come over the stranger's counte. nance, as though it were clouded by some painfu! retrospect ; and, after drinking two bumpers of the claret in rapid succession, as if to give him courage, he thus began:

"You may have heard of Suwarrow, and the dreadful privations he and the Russians endured in that memorable retreat over St. Gothard. I was a conscript in the French army at that time, and being on the rear-guard, composed of a company of chasseurs, in charge of stores lately come up, we bivouacked for the night at Andermatt. You remember well-and who can forget?-that green valley, and the peaceable and quiet stream flowing through it, which by a strange caprice of Nature presents a startling contrast to the chaos of rocks and turbulence that marks the headlong course of the torrent till it mingles with the blue waters of the Lake of the Quatre Cantons.

“Well, there is, or was, at Andermatt a solitary inn."

The landlord, who had been half asleep for some time from the effects of intoxication, here gave a start, and threw down his glass. I had scarcely till then remarked the man or his countenance: but, as the fire-light flashed upon him, I wondered I had not done so before. He was fifty five or sixty years of age. His person, short and thick-set, bespoke the mountaineer; his hair had been almost as flaxen as an Albino's, but grey now predominated, his eyes, too, like theirs, were of a bright grey, much inflamed with hard drinking; his cheek was pale with the leprosy of drunkenness; his features betrayed an habitual gloom, as though he were engaged in the continual contemplation of crime, or a prey to some deep and secret remorse,—at least such was the impression he gave me and I was possessed with an indefinable feeling that he was in some way connected with the tale to which he was listening.

There is in ourselves, if we did not repress it, an internal consciousness, a sense independent of our external senses, that gives us a prophetic insight into the truth of things, a secret power of divination that makes a look an interjection, a gesture eloquent; thus with the throwing down of that glass; it was an echo that responded to my mind. I determined to watch him narrowly.

Whilst I was thus reasoning with myself, the French officer had been going on to say,

"This solitary inn, or rather hostel, was at that time a mere refuge, such as we see on the Simplon and the other great passes, and had been built by the government for the sheiter of travellers.