The Sun.
London, England, 1851-09-30 00:00:00

.0
arty as har as wire, so that the toes of the sports-
man's shoes who forces his way amongst'it are speedily,
/unless they be thus doubly armed, reduced to a pitiful
condition of thineess and whiteness. In these' brogue-
shoes the nails which fortify the soles are driven in dia-
gonal lines across, the arrangement giving a surer foot-
ing to the wearer when scrambling among slippery rocks
or making his way amid the green and slimy pebbles of
a Highland burn, with the fierce stream shaking him by
his legs. For Highland sporting, and, in especial, High-
land fishing, requires that the adept shall be no more
afraid of water than a kelpie or a merman. Mr. Briggs
goes out a fishing in the quiet southern streams with a
pair of patent waterproof India-rubber goloshes, to keep
his precious feet dry; but if he adventures on a foaming,
rattling Highland river, and essays the noble salmon
Instead of the contemptible pike—he must make up his
mind to many a plunge, waist-deep or deeper, in the
stream, if he have the luck not to flounder over the slip-
pery stones and get carried off altogether by a current
running like a mill-sluice down into the next deep swir-
ling pool."
Speaking of the Highland ornaments exhibited, which
are certainly in very good taste, the writer takes oc-
casion to notice the splendid Cairngorms exhibited,
but he greatly understates their dimensions. One of
the crystals exhibited certainly exceeds twelve inches
in length, in place of six. The scene last year on the
beautiful range of mountains where these crystals are
obtained presented not a few of the features which
the gold bearing districts of California and Australia
new exhibit. The excitement, it is true, was on a
small scale, but it was, nevertheless, genuine fever—
a mania in diminutive. To those bare hills and deep
and solemn-glens hundreds hurried from all parts of
the Highlands ; they built themselves flight turf shiel-
ings—they subsisted, as Scotch soldiers did in the
olden time, each man drawing from his " ain meal
pock" the stuff wherewith to load his own girdle over
his own peat-fire; but though many fine stones
were got, and though some of >the natives of Strath-
spey, familiar with the land and its traditions and
signs,' obtained large quantities of the eagarly-sought
crystals, few of the strangers found themselves much
the richer when the storms of winter set in, and the
snow4adened winds nipping and howling over the
desert hill-sides told that the time of " the hunting"
was over. Speaking of a stuff in manufactures now
beconiipg very common, the writer proves an intimate
acquaintance with the Highlands, and the practised
hand of an able sketcher—
" Above the stall, and forming a central top ornament,
is a magnificent red deer's head, with no leas than four-
teen tynes or branches to his horns—an uncommon

xei;SWlteCt to
Lave a very libertql allowance of antlers. Beneath this
is ranged a curious collection of vary coarsely-woven and
peculiarly-tinted stuffs, more or less connected in pur-
pose with the monarch of the waste, and being, indeed,
cloth expressly intended for the use of the deer-stalker,
and dyed so as to resemble the most common patches of
hue which prevail upon the dun mountain aide.
Englishmen who form their notion of deer from the
delicate little creatures, no bigger than goats, but as
graceful as Italian greyhounds, which gambol upon the
smooth-shaven turf and the woodland vistas of our parks,
have little idea of the fierce, powerful, majestic, and
thoroughly savage animal known as the red deer.
It is but seldom that the ordinary traveller in the
Highlands gets a glimpse of him. Ile must be sought
for in hie own haunts—in the wildest, most rugged, and
inaccessible recesses of the hills—and his vigilance must
be evaded by the most careful and experienced ma-
nceuvering. The red deer has an eye like an eagle's,
and a nose like a bloodhound's, or even more delicate
still, as a human being passing him to windward a mile
off communicates a subtle taint to the keen air, which
his moist and quivering nostrils--a perfect ball of acute
nerves—catch in a moment, and Which is almost certain
to produce a rapid flight, the animal running perhaps a
dozen of miles ere it couches down again into the heather
and fern. At some seasons, however, the red deer shows
no such timidity or instinctive desire to take refuge in
flight. Unwary wanderers in the hills have been sud-
denly startled at finding themselves confronted in a.
moment with a magnificent stag, who, emerging from his
cover, stands, all save his gleaming eyes and dilated
nostrils, as rigid as a stag of bronze, gazing in grim si-
lence upon the profaners of his temple of the wilderness.
Occasionally we have heard of largo herds of deer, the
hinds led by their magnificently-antlered lords and
masters, surrounding the astonished wayfarer, and after
gazing for an uncomfortable number of very long mi-
nutes at the intruder, as if giving him to understand, by
the silence and solemnity of the ceremony, the dreadful
sacrilege of which he had been guilty in penetrating
their enchanted domain—in an instant, upon a toss of
the head of the ancient leader of the herd, leaping
round, and in a moment disappearing in the cover of the
surrounding copse. The reader can conceive the diffe-
rence between these thoroughly wild creatures of the
wilderness, as perfectly savage in their nature as when
the boar and the Caledonian bull were their compeers in
the waste, and the half-tamed roe which form picturesque
groups in English parks, or the carted stag—Nelson or
Billy—which is turned out of a waggon and chased like
a hare across stubble and clover fields. All other game
must be shot, but the red-deer must be stalked. You
walk coolly over the stubbles or over the heath, and bid
the luncheon be ready by one o'clock under such a tree
or at the side of such a spring, and there you empty
your bag and count the partridge or grouse, as the case
may be. Not so with the red-deer ; you start, rifle in
hand and telescope slung across your hack, upon an in-
determinate expedition perhaps of days; you walk as
many miles over moss and moor, up vast sloping moun-
tain sides, or down wild and rugged mountain ravines,
as would suffice for many a tolerable.pedestrian in the
south over a turnpike-road ; you examine, hour after
hour, with the glass the great dun slope of the opposite
side of the glen. Then perhaps you have to make half-a-
score miles circuit to wind' the game, or to get to a ford
in a deep river, or a ferry over a narrow loch. Then ap-
proaching the slumbering herd, perhaps you have to
crawl a mile or so upon all fours, painfully dragging
your rifle with you, and hardly daring to breathe, far
less to speak; or you have to wade, waist-deep, double
the distance down some roaring stream, or up it, which
is worse; and, after all, it may chance, after fifteen
hours' good work of walking, running' climbing, creep-
ing, crawling, and wading, that some unexpected alarm
is taken, and that, in thorough anguish of heart, you see
the coveted antlers still beyond rifle reach, moving gaily
off above the cover. No help for it—dash yourself down
among the heather, execrate the whole race of stags,
deers, roes, hinds, and does, but bid Donald prepare the
braxy' and the kebbuck ; unsling your flask or little
anker' of mountain-dew; make your supper (it will
be sure to be a good one); speculate with the faithful
gillie about the likely whereabouts of the herd to-mor-
row, and then, rolling yourself from head to foot in as
many folds of the tartan plaid as the web will admit of,
fix your oyes for a space upon the dark mountain tops
cutting rounded or peaked slices out of the clear blue
skye, all twinkling with stars; and bidding bold defiance
to a distinct chilliness in the atmosphere, nay, perchance,
even to a touch of early frost, go soundly to sleep amid
the deer's-foot and the bracken to be on foot next
morning before ehe dew-dr, e lit by the sun are gem-
ming with diamonds the purple e‘' the heather."
This is a finely-touched picture; 'eut, alack the turn
and the change, from the wild excite:nent of the deer-
chase we descend again to cloth
" The proper style of costume for this - 'lnd of sport-
ing is peculiar. It is essential that it be sery strong,
very light, warm, and fleecy; not too easily soiled; (Ind
that the colour or the prevailing colour harmonise with
the most frequent shades of clustered vegetation upon
the mountain side. All these essentials are fulfilled b 7
the specimens of fabrics exhibited in the Highland stall,
and ail these fabrics have been manufactured from the
native productions of the hills—the wool, in some cases,
undyed, the coat of the blackfaced Highland sheep; the
tiectures in other cases applied to it, extracted from
Highland herbs, barks, and mosses, so as to impart to
the stuff the exact hue of the original plant or lichen;
the thread spun upon the distaff by old Highland
cronies and buxom Highland lasses; the warp and the
woof crossed by means of a hand-loom of the oldest
fashion; the entire work, indeed, done in the
hills, from the production of the hills, and by
the natives of the bills. The cloth thus produced
is well worthy of attention, from its stoutness,
elasticity, evenness of fabric, and honesty of manufac-
ture. You certainly might be looked at askance were
you to sport the stuff in Regent-street or the Boulevards;
but for the hill, the loch, and the moor, it is the beau
ideal of apparel. The cloth is shown of several colours,
each produced by native dye. Clad, then, in such gar-
ments, the sportsman has the best change of escaping
the vigilant eye of the red-deer, which may range over
the hill-side without being able to separate him from the
heather or the lichen in which he may be lying. Tho
cloth is, of course, excellent for sporting or country
purposes in general, as well as for deer-stalking; and as
such we would be glad to see its use made a fashion by
English sportsmen on their annual visit to the moors."
It is the fashion already ; little or nothing else is
worn now-a-days, and to the demand for this peculiar
stuff was partially attributed the rise in price of cer-
tain kinds of wool, essentially Highland by the way,
which occurred at the recent fairs. We fear, how-
ever, there is some reason to doubt that the jury en.
trusted with the examination of the goods with
which the Highland stall was classed, have been ig-
norant of many things which they ought to have con-
sidered when judging of the merits of these stuffs.
They were fit enough to pass a verdict on good fine
English broadcloths, but possibly not two of them
ever had foot on the heather; possibly not one of
them ever saw a deer even in the remotest
distance ; and therefore they could not form
the slightest conception of there being anything
particularly suited in the uncompromising
stuffs before them for any particular purpose. The
juries have been widely complained of; we do not
know what they have done in this instance, but we
fear an injustice has occurred, through the only thing
defective in the arrangements of the Exhibition—the
incapacity of many of the judges. The writer notices
at some length the various weapons and ornaments
attached to the Highland garb of the deer-stalkers'
outfit—alludes to the great benefit to the whole High-
lands which must result from extensive patronage of
the knitted products and home-made goods of the
Highlands, and concludes a lively and most pleasant
sketch with a wish which we cordiallyercond—
" Altogethlt presents us with favourable
er, then, the highland stall is, to a great
extent,
; t satisfactory.r infant local industries, and affords
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We could have wished for a collection of Highland agri-
cultural and fishing implements, and of specimens of the
ordinary furniture of the bothies, to show the low and