As a matter of curiosity, I could have no great objection to seeing another such battle as the one I had witnessed near Corunna between those long-established fighting-cocks, the French and English; but to look on while honest Pat and Tim were breaking one another’s heads upon abstract political grounds, and English soldiery interposing with grapeshot and fixed bayonets to make them friends again, was what I had no mind for.  I tried, therefore, to extricate myself forthwith from this unhappy struggle; but my horse being tired, I was forced to sleep in a village which, for aught I knew, might be sacked and burned before morning; nothing occurred, however:  nevertheless, I felt far from easy till out of reach of the furious factions; the strangest thing of all being that some quiet folks, a few miles distant, with whom I took breakfast, seemed scarcely to mind it, although the country round them was all on fire.  From thence the course lay across a wild range of mountains, one of them having on its top a sheet of fresh water called Loch Salt.  Nothing can be conceived more desolate or dreary than this part of the country; and as there were few inhabitants upon it at any time, and none at all at this moment, I had no small difficulty in making good my way.  On coming nearer to the noble bay or lough, on the banks of which the country-seat of my unknown friends was to be found, the aspect of things changed as if by magic.  A slight inequality in the ground concealed this “jewel in the desert,” as it was often called, till the whole of its rare beauties could be seen to the greatest advantage.  Even without the contrast of wild moors, the singular beauties of the spot claimed the highest admiration; but after such a preparative they appeared doubly grateful to the senses, and I put spurs to my horse, anxious to come nearer to such a delicious scene.

The mansion of my future friend, of which only partial glimpses could be caught now and then, was well guarded on every side by fine old trees, rising from the surface of carefully-dressed grounds, richly stocked flower-gardens, long and wide avenues, and graceful terraces, some of which reached to the very water’s edge, along a delicate beach on which the ripple scarcely broke.  This charming domain occupied a narrow spit of land, or promontory, jutting forwards into a landlocked bay, or arm of the sea, in which the water appeared to lie always asleep, and as smooth as if, instead of being a mere branch uniting with the stormy Atlantic, it had been some artificial lake.  Nothing, indeed, which the most fertile imagination could suggest seemed to be wanting.