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by rocks rising in their way, and at last discharging all their violence of waters by a sudden fall through the horrid chasm.

The way now grew less easy, descending by an uneven declivity, but without either dirt or danger. We did not arrive at Fort Augustus till it was late. Mr. Boswell, who, between his father's merit and his own, is sure of reception wherever he comes, sent a servant before to beg admission and entertainment for that night. Mr. Trapaud, the governor, treated us with that courtesy which is so closely connected with the military character. He came out to meet us beyond the gates, and apologized that, at so late an hour, the rules of a garrison suffered him to give us entrance only at the postern.

FORT AUGUSTUS.

ANOCH.

EARLY in the afternoon we came to Anoch, a village in Glenmollison of three huts, one of which is distinguished by a chimney. Here we were to dine and lodge, and were conducted through the first room, that had the chimney, into another lighted by a small glass window. The landlord attended us with great civility, and told us what he could give us to eat and drink. I found some books on a shelf, among which were a volume or more of Prideaux's Connection.

This I mentioned as something unexpected, and perceived that I did not please him. I praised the propriety of his language, and was answered that I need not wonder, for he had learned it by grammar.

By subsequent opportunities of observation I In the morning we viewed the fort, which is found that my host's diction had nothing pecumuch less than that of St. George, and is said liar. Those Highlanders that can speak Ento be commanded by the neighbouring hills. It glish, commonly speak it well, with few of the was not long ago taken by the Highlanders. words, and little of the tone, by which a ScotchBut its situation seems well chosen for pleasure, man is distinguished. Their language seems to if not for strength; it stands at the head of the have been learned in the army or the navy, or lake, and, by a sloop of sixty tons, is supplied by some communication with those who could from Inverness with great convenience. give them good examples of accent and pronunWe were now to cross the Highlands towards-ciation. By their Lowland neighbours they the western coast, and to content ourselves with such accommodations, as a way so little frequented could afford. The journey was not formidable, for it was but of two days, very unequally divided, because the only house where we could be entertained was not farther off than a third of the way. We soon came to a high hill, which we mounted by a military road, cut in traverses, so that, as we went upon a higher stage, we saw the baggage following us below in a contrary direction. To make this way, the rock has been hewn to a level, with labour that might have broken the perseverance of a Roman legion.

The country is totally denuded of its wood, but the stumps both of oaks and firs, which are still found, show that it has been once a forest of large timber. I do not remember that we saw any animals, but we were told that, in the mountains, there are stags, roebucks, goats, and rabbits.

We did not perceive that this tract was possessed by human beings, except that once we saw a corn-field, in which a lady was walking with some gentlemen. Their house was certainly at no great distance, but so situated that we could not descry it.

Passing on through the dreariness of solitude, we found a party of soldiers from the fort, working on the road under the superintendence of a sergeant. We told them how kindly we had been treated at the garrison, and as we were mjoying the benefit of their labours, begged pave to show our gratitude by a small present.

would not willingly be taught; for they have long considered them as a mean and degenerate race. These prejudices are wearing fast away; but so much of them still remains, that when I asked a very learned minister in the islands, which they considered as their most savage clans: "Those," said he, "that live next the Lowlands."

As we came hither early in the day, we had time sufficient to survey the place. The house was built like other huts, of loose stones; but the part in which we dined and slept was lined with turf and wattled with twigs, which kept the earth from falling. Near it was a garden of turnips, and a field of potatoes. It stands in a glen or valley, pleasantly watered by a winding river. But this country, however it may delight the gazer or amuse the naturalist, is of no great advantage to its owners. Our landlord told us of a gentleman who possesses lands eighteen Scotch miles in length, and three in breadth; a space containing at least a hundred square English miles. He has raised his rents, to the danger of depopulating his farms, and he fells his timber, and by exerting every art of augmentation, has obtained a yearly revenue of four hundred pounds, which for a hundred square miles is three halfpence an acre.

Some time after dinner we were surprised by the entrance of a young woman, not inelegant either in mien or dress, who asked us whether we would have tea. We found that she was the daughter of our host, and desired her to make it. Her conversation, like her appear

ance, was gentle and pleasing. We knew that the girls of the Highlands are all gentlewomen, and treated her with great respect, which she received as customary and due, and was neither elated by it, nor confused, but repaid my civili. ties without embarrassment, and told me how much I honoured her country by coming to survey it.

She had been at Inverness to gain the common female qualifications, and had, like her father, the English pronunciation. I presented her with a book, which I happened to have about me, and should not be pleased to think that she forgets me.

In the evening the soldiers, whom we had passed on the road, came to spend at our inn the little money that we had given them. They had the true military impatience of coin in their pockets, and had marched at least six miles to find the first place where liquor could be bought. Having never been before in a place so wild and unfrequented, I was glad of their arrival, because I knew that we had made them friends; and to gain still more of their good will, we went to them where they were carousing in the barn, and added something to our former gift. All that we gave was not much, but it detained them in the barn, either merry or quarrelling, the whole night, and in the morning they went back to their work, with great indignation at the bad qualities of whisky.

to contemplate the appearance and propertia d mountainous regions, such as have been, in many countries, the last shelters of national distress, and are every where the scenes of adventures, stratagems, surprises, and escapes.

Mountainous countries are not passed be with difficulty, not merely from the labour f climbing; for to climb is not always necessary but because that which is not mountain is com monly bog, through which the way must be picked with caution. Where there are hills. there is much rain, and the torrents pouring down into the intermediate spaces, seldom fini so ready an outlet, as not to stagnate, till they have broken the texture of the ground.

Of the hills, which our journey offered to to view on either side, we did not take the height, nor did we see any that astonished us with their loftiness. Towards the summit of one, there was a white spot, which I should have called a naked rock, but the guides, who had better eyes. and were acquainted with the phenomena a the country, declared it to be snow. It had already lasted to the end of August, and wa likely to maintain its contest with the sun, til it should be reinforced by winter.

The height of mountains philosophically con sidered, is properly computed from the surface of the next sea; but as it affects the eye or imsgination of the passenger, as it makes either a spectacle or an obstruction, it must be reckoned from the place where the rise begins to make considerable angle with the plain. In extensive

We had gained so much the favour of our host, that, when we left his house in the morning, he walked by us a great way, and enter-continents the land may, by gradual elevation, tained us with conversation both on his own condition, and that of the country. His life seemed to be merely pastoral, except that he differed from some of the ancient Nomades in having a settled dwelling. His wealth consists of one hundred sheep, as many goats, twelve milk-cows, and twenty-eight beeves ready for the drover.

attain great height, without any other appear ance than that of a plane gently inclined, and if a hill placed upon such raised ground be de scribed, as having its altitude equal to the whole space above the sea, the representation will be fallacious.

These mountains may be properly enough measured from the inland base; for it is not

From him we first heard of the general dissa- much above the sea. As we advanced at eventisfaction which is now driving the Highlandersing towards the western coast, I did not observe into the other hemisphere; and when I asked the declivity to be greater than is necessary for him whether they would stay at home, if they the discharge of the inland waters. were well treated, he answered with indignation, that no man willingly left his native country. Of the farm, which he himself occupied, he rent had, in twenty-five years, been advanced from five to twenty pounds, which he found himself so little able to pay, that he would be glad to try his fortune in some other place. Yet he owned the reasonableness of raising the Highland rents in a certain degree, and declared himself willing to pay ten pounds for the ground which he had formerly had for five.

Our host, having amused us for a time, resigned us to our guides. The journey of this day was long, not that the distance was great, but that the way was difficult. We were now in the bosom of the Highlands, with full leisure

We passed many rivers and rivulets, which commonly ran with a clear shallow stream over a hard pebbly bottom. These channels, which seem so much wider than the water that they convey would naturally require, are formed by the violence of wintry floods, produced by the accumulation of innumerable streams that fall in rainy weather from the hills, and bursting away with resistless impetuosity, make themselves a passage proportionate to their mass.

Such capricious and temporary waters cannot be expected to produce many fish. The rapidity of the wintry deluge sweeps them away, and the scantiness of the summer stream would hardly sustain them above the ground. This is the reason why, in fording the northern rivers, n

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fishes are seen, as in England, wandering in | hour well I know not; for here I first conthe water. ceived the thought of this narration.

Of the hills many may be called, with We were in this place at ease and by choice, Homer's Ida, abundant in springs, but few can and had no evils to suffer or to fear; yet the deserve the epithet which he bestows upon imaginations excited by the view of an unknown Pelion, by waving their leaves. They exhibit and untravelled wilderness are not such as arise very little variety; being almost wholly covered in the artificial solitude of parks and gardens, a with dark heath, and even that seems to be flattering notion of self-sufficiency, a placid inchecked in its growth. What is not heath is dulgence of voluntary delusions, a secure exnakedness, a little diversified by now and then a pansion of the fancy, or a cool concentration of stream rushing down the steep. An eye acthe mental powers. The phantoms which customed to flowery pastures and waving har- haunt a desert are want, and misery, and danvests, is astonished and repelled by this wide ex- ger; the evils of dereliction rush upon the tent of hopeless sterility. The appearance is thoughts; man is made unwillingly acquainted that of matter incapable of form or usefulness, with his own weakness, and meditation shows dismissed by Nature from her care, and disin-him only how little he can sustain, and how herited of her favours, left in its original ele-little he can perform. There were no traces of mental state, or quickened only with one sullen inhabitants, except perhaps a rude pile of clods power of useless vegetation. called a summer hut, in which a herdsman had

with hardship, before he could have found either food or shelter. Yet what are these hillocks to the ridges of Taurus, or these spots of wilderness to the deserts of America?

It will very readily occur, that this unifor-rested in the favourable seasons. Whoever had mity of barrenness can afford very little amuse- been in the place where I then sat, unprovided ment to the traveller; that it is easy to sit at with provisions, and ignorant of the country, home and conceive rocks, and heath, and water- might, at least before the roads were made, have falls; and that these journeys are useless la-wandered among the rocks, till he had perished bours, which neither impregnate the imagination, nor enlarge the understanding. It is true, that of far the greater part of things, we must content ourselves with such knowledge as description may exhibit, or analogy supply; but it is true, likewise, that these ideas are always incomplete, and that, at least, till we have compared them with realities, we do not know them to be just. As we see more, we become possessed of more certainties, and consequently gain more principles of reasoning, and found a wider basis of analogy.

Regions mountainous and wild, thinly inhabited, and little cultivated, make a great part of the earth, and he that has never seen them, must live unacquainted with much of the face of nature, and with one of the great scenes of human existence.

As the day advanced towards noon, we entered a narrow valley not very flowery, but sufficiently verdant. Our guides told us, that the horses could not travel all day without rest or meat, and entreated us to stop here, because no grass would be found in any other place. The request was reasonable, and the argument cogent. We therefore willingly dismounted, and diverted ourselves as the place gave us opportunity.

I sat down on a bank, such as a writer of romance might have delighted to feign. I had, indeed, no trees to whisper over my head, but a clear rivulet streamed at my feet. The day was calm, the air was soft, and all was rudeness, silence, and solitude. Before me, and on either side, were high hills, which, by hindering the eye from ranging, forced the mind to find entertainment for itself. Whether I spent the

It was not long before we were invited to mount, and continued our journey along the side of a lough, kept full by many streams, which with more or less rapidity and noise crossed the road from the hills on the other hand.

These currents, in their diminished state, after several dry months, afford, to one who has always lived in level countries, an unusual and delightful spectacle; but in the rainy season, such as every winter may be expected to bring, must precipitate an impetuous and tre→ mendous flood. I suppose the way by which we went is at this time impassable.

GLENSHEALS.

THE lough at last ended in a river broad and shallow like the rest, but that it may be passed when it is deeper, there is a bridge over it. Beyond it is a valley called Glensheals, inhabited by the clan of Macrae. Here we found a village called Auknasheals, consisting of many huts, perhaps twenty, built all of dry-stone, that is, stones piled up without mortar.

We had, by the direction of the officers a✦ Fort Augustus, taken bread for ourselves, and tobacco for those Highlanders who might show us any kindness. We were now at a place where we could obtain milk, but must have wanted bread if we had not brought it. The people of this valley did not appear to know any English, and our guides now became doubly necessary as interpreters. A woman, whose

bog has firmness to sustain them: besides that, mountaineers have an agility in climbing and descending, distinct from strength or courage, and attainable only by use.

If the war be not soon concluded, the invaders are dislodged by hunger; for in those anxious and toilsome marches, provisions cannot easily be carried, and are never to be found. │The wealth of mountains is cattle, which, while the men stand in the passes the women drive away. Such lands at last cannot repay the expense of conquest, and therefore, perhaps, have not been so often invaded by the mere ambition of dominion, as by resentment of robberies and insults, or the desire of enjoying in security the more fruitful provinces.

hut was distinguished by greater spaciousness and better architecture, brought out some pails of milk. The villagers gathered about us in considerable numbers, I believe, without any evil intention, but with a very savage wildness of aspect and manner. When our meal was over, Mr. Boswell sliced the bread, and divided it amongst them, as he supposed them never to have tasted a wheaten loaf before. He then gave them little pieces of twisted tobacco, and among the children we distributed a small handful of halfpence, which they received with great eagerness. Yet I have been since told, that the people of that valley are not indigent; and when we mentioned them afterwards as needy and pitiable, a Highland lady let us know, that we might spare our commiseration; for the As mountaineers are long before they are con dame whose milk we drank, had probably more quered, they are likewise long before they are than a dozen milk-cows. She seemed unwill- civilized. Men are softened by intercourse muing to take any price, but being pressed to make tually profitable, and instructed by comparing a demand, at last named a shilling. Honesty their own notions with those of others. Thus is not greater, where elegance is less. One of Cæsar found the maritime parts of Britain made the by-standers, as we were told afterwards, less barbarous by their commerce with the advised her to ask more, but she said a shilling Gauls. Into a barren and rough tract no stran was enough. We gave her half-a-crown, and I ger is brought either by the hope of gain or of hope got some credit by our behaviour; for the pleasure. The inhabitants having neither comcompany said, if our interpreters did not flat-modities for sale, nor money for purchase, selter us, that they had not seen such a day since the old laird of Macleod passed through their country.

The Macraes, as we heard afterwards in the Hebrides, were originally an indigent and subordinate clan, and having no farms nor stock, were in great numbers servants to the Maclellans, who, in the war of Charles the First, took arms at the call of the heroic Montrose, and were, in one of his battles, almost all destroyed. The women that were left at home, being thus deprived of their husbands, like the Scythian ladies of old, married their servants, and the Macraes became a considerable race.

THE HIGHLANDS.

As we continued our journey, we were at leisure to extend our speculations, and to investigate the reason of those peculiarities by which such rugged regions as these before us are generally distinguished.

Mountainous countries commonly contain the original, at least the oldest, race of inhabitants, for they are not easily conquered, because they must be entered by narrow ways, exposed to every power of mischief from those that occupy the heights; and every new ridge is a new fortress, where the defendants have again the same advantages. If the assailants either force the strait, or storm the summit, they gain only so much ground; their enemies are fled to take possession of the next rock, and the pursuers stand at gaze, knowing neither where the ways of escape wind among the steeps, nor where the

dom visit more polished places; or if they do visit them, seldom return.

It sometimes happens that by conquest, intermixture or gradual refinement, the cultivated parts of a country change their language. The mountaineers then become a distinct nation, cut off by dissimilitude of speech from conversation with their neighbours. Thus in Biscay, the original Cantabrian, and in Dalecarlia, the old Swedish still subsists. Thus Wales and the Highlands speak the tongue of the first inhabitants of Britain, while the other parts have received first the Saxon, and in some degree afterwards the French, and then formed a third lan guage between them.

That the primitive manners are continued where the primitive language is spoken, no nation will desire me to suppose, for the manners of mountaineers are commonly savage, but they are rather produced by their situation than derived from their ancestors.

Such seems to be the disposition of man, that whatever makes a distinction produces rivalry. England, before other causes of enmity were found, was disturbed for some centuries by the contests of the northern and southern counties; so that at Oxford the peace of study could for a long time be preserved only by choosing annually one of the proctors from each side of the Trent. A tract intersected by many ridges of mountains naturally divides its inhabitants into petty nations, which are made by a thousand causes enemies to each other. Each will exalt its own chiefs, each will boast the valour of its men, or the beauty of its women, and every

claim of superiority irritates competition; in- access, that they are very little under the in juries will sometimes be done, and be more in-fluence of the sovereign, or within the reach juriously defended; retaliation will sometimes be attempted, and the debt exacted with too much interest.

In the Highlands it was a law, that if a robber was sheltered from justice, any man of the same clan might be taken in his place. This was a kind of irregular justice, which, though necessary in savage times, could hardly fail to end in a feud; and a feud once kindled among an idle people, with no variety of pursuits to divert their thoughts, burnt on for ages, either sullenly glowing in secret mischief, or openly blazing into public violence. Of the effects of this violent judicature, there are not wanting memorials. The cave is now to be seen, to which one of the Campbells, who had injured the Macdonalds, retired with a body of his own clan. The Macdonalds required the offender, and being refused, made a fire at the mouth of the cave, by which he and his adherents were suffocated together.

Mountaineers are warlike, because by their feuds and competitions they consider themselves as surrounded with enemies, and are always prepared to repel incursions, or to make them. Like the Greeks in their unpolished state, described by Thucydides, the Highlanders, till lately, went always armed, and carried their weapons to visits, and to church.

Mountaineers are thievish, because they are poor, and having neither manufactures nor commerce, can grow richer only by robbery. They regularly plunder their neighbours, for their neighbours are commonly their enemies; and having lost that reverence for property by which the order of civil life is preserved, soon consider all as enemies whom they do not reckon as friends, and think themselves licensed to invade whatever they are not obliged to protect.

national justice. Law is nothing witho power; and the sentence of a distant court could not be easily executed, nor perhaps very safely promulgated, among men, ignorantly proud, and habitually violent, unconnected with the general system, and accustomed to reverence only their own lords. It has therefore been necessary to erect many particular jurisdictions, and commit the punishment of crimes, and the decision of right, to the proprietors of the cour try who could enforce their own decrees. immediately appears that such judges will often ignorant, and often partial; but in th immaturity of political establishments no better expedient could be found. As government advances towards perfection, provincial judicature is perhaps in every empire gradually abolished.

Those who had thus the dispensation of law, were by consequence themselves lawless. Their vassals had no shelter from outrages and oppressions; but were condemned to endure, without resistance, the caprices of wantonness and the rage of cruelty.

In the Highlands, some great lords had an hereditary jurisdiction over counties; and some chieftains over their own lands; till the final conquest of the Highlands afforded an opportunity of crushing all the local courts, and of extending the general benefits of equal law to the low and the high, in the deepest recesses, and obscurest corners.

While the chiefs had this resemblance of royalty, they had little inclination to appeal, on any question, to superior judicatures. A claim of lands between two powerful lairds was decided like a contest for dominion between sovereign powers. They drew their forces into the field, and right attended on the strongest. This was, in ruder times, the common practice, which the kings of Scotland could seldom con

By a strict administration of the laws, since the laws have been introduced into the High-trol. lands, this disposition to thievery is very much repressed. Thirty years ago no herd had ever been conducted through the mountains without paying tribute in the night to some of the clans; but cattle are now driven, and passengers travel, without danger, fear, or molestation.

Even so lately as in the last years of king William a battle was fought at Mull Roy, on a plain a few miles to the south of Inverness, between the clans of Mackintosh and Macdonald of Keppoch. Colonel Macdonald, the head of a small clan, refused to pay the dues demanded

They disdained the interposition of judges and laws, and calling each his followers to maintain the dignity of the clan, fought a formal battle, in which several considerable men fell on the side of Mackintosh, without a complete victory to either. This is said to have been the last open war made between the clans by their own authority.

Among a warlike people, the quality of high-from him by Mackintosh, as his superior lord. testeem is personal courage, and with the Astentatious display of courage are closely connected prompitude of offence, and quickness of resentment. The Highlanders, before they were disarmed, were so addicted to quarrels, that the boys used to follow any public proession or ceremony, however festive or howver solemn, in expectation of the battle, which was sure to happen before the company dispersed.

Mountainous regions are sometimes so remote from the seat of government, and so difficult of

The Highland lords made treaties, and formed alliances, of which some traces may still bɔ found, and some consequences still remain as lasting evidences of petty legality. The terms

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