And after all, the hills, the vales and the lochs were there, and everywhere on the low green mountains grazed endless flocks of sheep.  They lay leisurely in the roadway or often trotted unconcernedly in front of the car, occasioning at times a speed limit even more unsatisfactory than that imposed in the more populous centers by the police traps.  Incidentally we learned that the finest sheep in the world—­and vast numbers of them—­are produced in Great Britain.  When we compare them with the class of animals raised in America it is easy to see why our wool and mutton average so greatly inferior.

[Illustration:  In the Scottish Highlands.

From Painting by D. Sherrin.]

A clean, quiet, charming city is Inverness, “the capital of the Highlands,” as the guide-books have it.  It is situated on both shores of its broad, sparkling river—­so shallow that the small boys with turned-up pantaloons wade across it in summer time—­while an arm of the sea defines the boundary on the northeast.  Though tradition has it that Macbeth built a castle on the site of the present structure, it disappeared centuries ago, and there is now little evidence of antiquity to be found in the town.  The modern castle is a massive, rambling, brown-stone building less than a hundred years old, now serving as a county court.  The cathedral is recent, having been completed in the last quarter of a century.  It is an imposing church of red stone, the great entrance being flanked by low, square-topped towers.  As a center for tourists, Inverness is increasingly popular and motor cars are very common.  The roads of the surrounding country are generally excellent, and a trip of two hundred miles will take one to John O’Groats, the extreme northern point of Scotland.  The country around has many spots of interest.  Cawdor Castle, where tradition says Macbeth murdered Duncan, is on the Nairn road, and on the way to this one may also visit Culloden Moor, a grim, shelterless waste, where the adherents of Prince Charlie were defeated April 16th, 1746.  This was the last battle fought on British soil, and the site is marked by a rude round tower built from stones gathered from the battlefield.

From Inverness an unsurpassed highway leads to Aberdeen, a distance of a little over one hundred miles.  It passes through a beautiful country, the northeastern Scottish Lowlands, which looked as prosperous and productive as any section we saw.  The smaller towns appeared much better than the average we had so far seen in Scotland; Nairn, Huntly, Forres, Keith and Elgin more resembling the better English towns of similar size than Scotch towns which we had previously passed through.  At Elgin are the ruins of its once splendid cathedral, which in its best days easily ranked as the largest and most imposing church in Scotland.  Time has dealt hardly with it, and the shattered fragments which remain are only enough to confirm the story of its magnificence.  Fire, and vandals who tore the lead from the roof for loot having done their worst, the cathedral served the unsentimental Scots of the vicinity as a stone-quarry until recent years, but it is now owned by the crown and every precaution taken to arrest further decay.