Published April 1906
Reprinted with slight corrections, July 1907

Preface

In Bonnie Scotland was promised a further volume that should be devoted to the sterner and wilder aspects of Caledonia. That book dealt with the main body of Highlands and Lowlands, more familiar to the gentle tourist for whose patronage it was a candidate. This one, whose title might have been qualified as West Highlands, deals with the less visited side that is still Highland indeed, both in ruder natural features and in a life holding out longer against the trimming and taming of Sassenach intromissions. The author, as before, has tried to weave a pattern of entertaining stripes and checks upon a groundwork of information, all making a darker-hued tartan than is worn in the centre of Bonnie Scotland. Another metaphor would put it that he has prepared a brisk, perhaps frothy, but, it is hoped, not unpalatable, brew of “heather ale,” which contains in solution more solid ingredients than may be manifest to every reader.