Three regions of Europe are celebrated for the exceptional beauty of their mountain landscapes: the first is Switzerland, the second Italy, the third Scotland. Westerners enjoy walking and love mountain scenery. They are tireless in visiting distant places, even if the roads are winding and the hills steep. When the Scots find themselves in faraway places, it is said, they recall the mountain landscapes of their homeland and become heartsick with longing. All peoples think of their homelands with affection, but this trait is particularly marked in the Scots. Perhaps this is because of the strength of the bonds with which the soul of the landscape binds them to it; or perhaps it is accounted for by the honest simplicity of spirit of this nation.

Since leaving London, day after day we had endured spatters of mud thrown up by carriage wheels and dust kicked up by horses' hooves when travelling by road, and thick smoke and acrid smells when travelling by rail. The view of the flat English landscape and of the Scottish lowlands was one of unrelieved monotony. The hills of Edinburgh were pretty enough, but there was more than this to the beauties of the Scottish landscape. Sir Harry Parkes had urged the ambassador to seek the mountains of the Highlands, so a party of seven of us left Edinburgh at eight o'clock on the morning of the seventeenth to travel north-west by train.