It is always with unwillingness that the Highlander quits his deserts, and at this early period it was like tearing a pine from its rock, to plant him elsewhere.

Yet even then the mountain glens were over-peopled, although thinned occasionally by famine or by the sword, and many of their inhabitants strayed down to Glasgow--there formed settlements--there sought and found employment, although different, indeed, from that of their native hills.

This supply of a hardy and useful population was of consequence to the prosperity of the place, furnished the means of carrying on the few manufactures which the town already boasted, and laid the foundation of its future prosperity.
The exterior of the city corresponded with these promising circumstances.
The principal street was broad and important, decorated with public buildings, of an architecture rather striking than correct in point of taste, and running between rows of tall houses, built of stone, the fronts of which were occasionally richly ornamented with mason-work--a circumstance which gave the street an imposing air of dignity and grandeur, of which most English towns are in some measure deprived, by the slight, insubstantial, and perishable quality and appearance of the bricks with which they are constructed.
In the western metropolis of Scotland, my guide and I arrived on a Saturday evening, too late to entertain thoughts of business of any kind.
We alighted at the door of a jolly hostler-wife, as Andrew called her,--the Ostelere of old father Chaucer,--by whom we were civilly received.
On the following morning the bells pealed from every steeple, announcing the sanctity of the day.

Notwithstanding, however, what I had heard of the severity with which the Sabbath is observed in Scotland, my first impulse, not unnaturally, was to seek out Owen; but on inquiry I found that my attempt would be in vain, "until kirk time was ower." Not only did my landlady and guide jointly assure me that "there wadna be a living soul either in the counting-house or dwelling-house of Messrs.

MacVittie, MacFin, and Company," to which Owen's letter referred me, but, moreover, "far less would I find any of the partners there.