A JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND
And now to the mountains, to the interior of the country, to the region of the Gaelic language. Heavens above! never have I seen such a forlorn and sinister region; still the bare hills, but higher and direr; 
nothing but stunted birch-trees, and then not even those, but yellow gorse and heather, and then not even that, but oozing black peat, and on it only wisps of bog-cotton, which we call St. Ivan’s beard, and then not even that, but stones, stones, sheer stones with tough reedstems.
Clouds drag their way across the grey baldness of the hills, there is a spatter of cold rain, mists rise above the black rocks, and a
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