Free 69 Things to Do With a Dead Princess by Stewart Home Page B

the steep and direct route to Mither Tap with Dudley strapped to Alan’s back. The first part of the ascent is a relatively gentle forest walk and as we wended our way through the pines, Alan discoursed on the relative merits of Grampian Region as opposed to the Highlands proper. Aberdeenshire had plenty of rich farmland, as well as mountains and forests. Where it differed from the western side of Scotland was in its relatively small number of lochs. While the sea was never far away, the mountains didn’t interact with water or rise sheer from it in the spectacular fashion that made the Highlands and Islands such a tourist trap.
    The scenery of Grampian and the Hebrides present some remarkable contrasts. Every observant traveller in the Western Isles will readily acknowledge that the beauty of their rugged shores is greatly enhanced by the sea and its surroundings. In this aspect both Sutherland and the Hebrides outdo even the peaks of Switzerland. Grand as are the snow-clad peaks of the Alps, the absence of the ocean in the land of John Calvin cannot fail to be regarded as a serious want by anyone who has been accustomed to watch the various aspects of that wondrous element. While Aberdeenshire was blessed with the picturesque influence of the sea on its eastern shore, it lacked the illimitable effect found in the west of Scotland where mountains rose sheer from the water. The sublime charm of the scenery of the Western Isles is founded on the three greatest powers in nature – the sky, the sea and the mountains.
    The west of Scotland and the Hebrides had held pride of place in the imagination of the tourist and the bohemian since the roads to the isles had been opened up in the 18th century. Among the earliest published works to kindle this interest were Martin Martin’s Voyage To St Kilda and A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland. The former was first published in 1697 and the latter in 1703. As Dudley explained to me while we gazed down at the countryside spread beneath us from the heights of Mither Tap, Martin has traditionally been credited with inspiring Boswell and Johnson to make their much-celebrated tour of Scotland. However, Dudley hastened to add, the influence of works such as Thomas Pennant’s A Tour Of Scotland in 1769 is often underestimated. Like Pennant, Boswell and Johnson visited Aberdeen but their recorded impressions of the town are supercilious indeed when contrasted with those of the Welshman who visited it four years before them.
    ‘Aberdeen, a fine city, lying on a small bay formed by the Dee, deep enough for ships of two hundred tons. The town is about two miles in circumference, and contains thirteen thousand souls, and about three thousand in the suburbs; but the whole number of inhabitants between the bridges Dee and Don, which includes both the Aberdeens, and the interjacent houses, or hamlets, is estimated at twenty thousand. It once enjoyed a good share of the tobacco trade, but was at length forced to resign it to Glasgow, which was so much more conveniently situated for it. At present, its imports are from the Baltic, and a few merchants trade to the West Indies and North America. Its exports are stockings, thread, salmon, and oatmeal: the first is a most important article, as appears by the following state of it. For this manufacture, 20,800 pounds worth of wool is annually imported, and 1600 pounds worth of oil.
    ‘Of this wool is annually made 69,333 pairs of stockings, worth, at an average, one pound and ten shillings per dozen. These are made by the country people, in almost all parts of this great county, who get four shillings per dozen for spinning and fourteen shillings per dozen for knitting; so that there is annually paid sixty-two thousand three hundred and twenty-nine pounds and fourteen shillings. And besides this there is about two thousand pounds value of stockings manufactured from the wool of the county, which encourages the breed of sheep much; for even