love of mountain prospects, which was but the after result of his
imaginative recollections of that period.

"From this period" (the time of his residence in the Highlands) "I
date my love of mountainous countries. I can never forget the effect,
a few years afterwards in England, of the only thing I had long seen,
even in miniature, of a mountain, in the Malvern Hills. After I
returned to Cheltenham, I used to watch them every afternoon at
sunset, with a sensation which I cannot describe." His love of
solitary rambles, and his taste for exploring in all directions, led
him not unfrequently so far, as to excite serious apprehensions for
his safety. While at Aberdeen, he used often to steal from home
unperceived;--sometimes he would find his way to the sea-side; and
once, after a long and anxious search, they found the adventurous
little rover struggling in a sort of morass or marsh, from which he
was unable to extricate himself.

In the course of one of his summer excursions up Dee-side, he had an
opportunity of seeing still more of the wild beauties of the Highlands
than even the neighbourhood of their residence at Ballatrech afforded,
--having been taken by his mother through the romantic passes that
lead to Invercauld, and as far up as the small waterfall, called the
Linn of Dee. Here his love of adventure had nearly cost him his life.
As he was scrambling along a declivity that overhung the fall, some
heather caught his lame foot, and he fell. Already he was rolling
downward, when the attendant luckily caught hold of him, and was but
just in time to save him from being killed. It was about this period,
when he was not quite eight years old, that a feeling partaking more
of the nature of love than it is easy to believe possible in so young
a child, took, according to his own account, entire possession of his