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

In these bro,m,
„noes the nails which fortify the soles are driven in'Oia-
gm:al 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 leg,. For Highland sporting, and, in especial, High-
land fishing, requires that the adept shall be no mare
afraid of water than a kelpie or a merman. Mr. Briggs
goes out a fishing in the quiet southern streams with •
pair of patent waterproof India rubber goloshes, to keep
his precious feet dry; but if he adventures on a foaming.
rattling Highland river, and essa3a the noble salmon
instead of the contemptible pike—he must make up his
-micd to many a plunge, waist-cicee or deeper, iu tbv
stream, if he have the luck not to flounder over the slip-
i;rnt
rtt.;inyri
ieg ksea
andratei.tsicuaiell:
dedowenff
ianittoegtehteh
ne re
xbtydaeecpu:twe
ir-
lir:g pooh"
Speaking of the Highland orn:racnt3 pniaited, which
are certainly in wry good taste. the writer takes cc-

casion -to notice th; splendid Cairngorms exhibited,
but he greatly understates tivir diniensions. One of
the crystals exhibited certainly exce.lds twelve inches
is leilgth, in place of six. The se.ne last year or, the
r..., go of mountains where those crystals ore
t,:renr,tk.d n.i,t . few of the features which
the •gold.b,4..aring districts of California and Australts
new exhibit. The excitement, t true, was on a
sthall- scale, but it was, nevertb,lesf, genuine fever—
s mania in diminutive. To tho;e bare hills and deep
and solenui glens hundreds hurried. from all parts of
the Ilighlands ; they built themselves alight turf shiel.
ings—they subsisted, as Sntch soldiers did in the
olden tine, each man dra-Nia4g• from his ain meal
pock" the stuff wherewith to load his own girdle ever
his own peat-fire; but thOugh „`many fine stones
were got, and though some Of the'natives of Strat h.
spay, 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
snow-ladened winds nipping and howling over the
desert hill-sides told thatrihe time of 6e the hunting"
was over. Speaking of a stuff in manufactures now
becoming very common, the writer proves an intimate
acquaintance withigtlans„\and the practised
'hand .

" Above the stall, and forming a central ton ornament,
is a magnificent red deer's head, with no lees than four-
teen types or branches to his horns—an uncommon
quantity, a ' stag of ten' being generally reckoned tb
have a very liberal allowance of antlers. Beneath this
is ranged a curious collection of very coarsely-woven and
peculiarly-tinted stuffs, more cr less connected in pur-
pese with the monarch of the waste, and being, indeed,
cloth exnressly intended for the use of tho deer-stalker,
and de -A so as to resemble the most common patches of
hue which prevail upon the dua mountain aide.
Englishmen who feral their notion of deer from the
delicate little creatures, no bigger then goats, but as
graceful as Italian greyhounds, which gambol upon the
smeoth-shaven turf arid the woodland vistas ot our parks,
thhaovreo ulgi :fiy tl° idea of the fierce, powerful, majestic, and
savage animal known us the red deer.
It is but seldom that the ordinary traveller in the
Highlands gets a glimpse of Lim. Ho must be sought
for in his own haunts—in the wildest, most rugged, and
inaccessible recesses of the Bills—head his vigilance must
LI)
cets
aovav ad b y the e irl
ins.
. T moat
The careful
rcddeerhand ie
has an
ane,ceexihike.reunuceeil maglef&-
and a nose like a bloocihound's, or oven 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 cacao seasons, however, the red deer shows
no such timidity or instinctive desire to take refuge in
flight. Unwary wanderers in the hills hare been cud-
eerily startled at finding themselves confronted in a
moment with a magnificent stag, who, emerging from his
cover, staeds, all save his gleaming eyes and dilated
nostrils, as rigid as a stag ot bronze, gezhag in grim ohs
knee upon the profaners of his temple of the wilderness.
Occasionally wo have heard of large herds of deer, the
hinds led by their magnificently-antlered lords and
masters, eurrouneling, the astonished wayfarer, and after
gazing for an uncomfortable number of very long mi-
nutes at the intruder, us if giving him to understand, by
tin silence and solemnity of the ceremony, the dreadful
sacrilege of which he had teen guilty in penetrating
their enchanted domain—in an iustarn, upon a toss of
the head of the ancient leader of the herd, leapieg
round, and in a moment disappcalieg in the cover ot the
surreunding copse. The reader can conceive the diffe-
rence between these thoroughly wild creature, of the
wilderness, as perfectly savage in their mauls) 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 fieldie All other game
must be shot, but the red-deer must be stalked. You
walk coolly over the stubblios or over the heath, and led
the luncheon be ready by one o'clock under such a tree
or at the side of such a spring, and there you empty
}cur bag and count the penrid4l or grouse, as,the case
maybe. Not so with the rod-deer ; you re art. rifle ,a
hand tee.d telesc-Te slung ':cross your heck, upon all in•
determinate expedition perhaps ot days; you walk As
many miles over moss and tn.:Kir, t>p vast :loping mot, ea
tain sides, or down wild and rugged mountain ravin. s,
as would sod:lice for many a toltrahl, 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-4-
:-.cure miles circuit to 'Wind' the (game, cr to get to a ford
in a-deep river, or a feu.), ever a narrow loch. Then ap-
proaching the slumbering herd, perhau you Lave to
crewl a mile or so upon all fours, paimully dragging
your riiie with you, cud hardly daring to hreathe, f.r
less to speak; or you have to wed..., waist deep, double
the distance down some resting stream, or up it, whien
is worse; and, after all, it may chance, after fifieeu
hours' good work of walking, running' climbing, creep-
ieg, 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, rees, hinds, and doer, but bid Donald prepare the
' braxy' and the kebbuck; unsling your flask or little
' anker' of mountain-den; make your supper (it will
be sure to be a good one); speculate with the .faithful
Billie 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 eyes for a space upon the dark mountain tops
cutting rounded or peaked slices out of the clear blue
skne, all twinkling with stars; and bidding bold defiassoe
to a distinct chilliness in ;he atmespliere, nay, perchunoe,
even to a touo'n of early frost, go soundly to sleep amid
the deer's-foot and the bracken, to be on foot next
morning before she claw-angl lit by the sums are gent-
ming with diamonds the purple ,of the heather."
This it a finely-touched picture; but, clack the tura
and the change, from the wild excitement of the deer-
chase we descend again to cloth!—
" The proper style of costume for this kind of sport-
ing is peculiar. It is essential that it be very strong,
very light, warm, and fleecy; not too easily soiled; and
that the colour or the prevailiuo colour harmonise with
the most frequent shades of clustered vegetation upon
the mountain side. All these essentials are fulfilled by
the specimens of fabrics exhibited in the Highland stall,
and all these fabrics have been manufactured from the
native productions of the hills—tho wool, in some cases,
undyed, the coat of the blackfaccd Highland sheep; the
tit Mures in other cases applied to it, extracted trout
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 send the
woof crossed by means of a hand-loom of the oldest
t inhion; the entire WWI:, indeed, done in the
hills, from the production of the hills, and by
the natives of the hills. The cloth thus produced
is well worthy of attention, from its stoutnees,
elasticity, evenness cf fabric, and honesty of mautifae-
lure. You certainly might be looked at askance were
you to sport the stuffia llagent-street or the Boulevards;
but for the hill, the loch, and the moor, it is the team
ideal of apparel. The cloth is shown o 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 hilt-aide without being able to separate him from the
heather or the lichen in which ho may be lying. The
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 bf
English sportsmen on their annual visit to the moors.'
It is the fashion already ; little or nothing else is
worn now-it-days, and to the demand far this, peculiar
stuff was partially attributed the use 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 wits classed, have been ig-
norant of many things which they ought to has/noon.
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 fo7m
the slightest conception of there being anything
harticalerly suited in the uncornpnputising
stuffs before them for any particular purpose. 'lire
I juries have been widely compleined ofe; we do scot
know what they have done in this instance, but sit)
fear en injustice has occurred, through the 91y tidng
defective in the arrangements of the Exhibition—tile
, incapacity of many of the judges. The writer nolti:::
at some length the various vveaphics and 0113::ers,
ateacelea to the Highland glib ht the deehr7se dd_o_
e of
lands which must result from
outfit—alludes to the great beneelxittetnostihvee
au I land= and concludes a lively and • most p i
ee; 1 -, pWatcrol njalgi
the knitted products tend home-made goodsioLtlirt
stall is to a are at
" Altogether, then, the Highland ,
~ . _ _
sketch with a wish which we cordially !mond—
extent, satisfactory. It presents us with tatecuialle
specimens of certain infant local ieclustriesg and eftords
samples
not only of new materials of textile
ruaaufa o-
ways of combining and colonting theta.
Iv t ii roe ,c
cf:uultdo
if,
anvowev,.
-isheid for a collccion of Highland aggi-
cultural.
lanti fishing implements, and of specimens of the
' ordinary furniture of the bothies, to show the low and