ACCOUNT OF THE HIGHLANDS.

HE Highlands are to the Lowlands of Scotland what Wales is to England - a generally mountainous district of country, inhabited by the remains of an ancient Celtic people. The High

lands include the larger portion of Scotland from the Firth of Clyde northwards, with the exception of the stripe of country on the east coast; the line of division with the Lowlands proceeding in an oblique direction from Ardmore in Dumbartonshire to Caithness. Within this Highland boundary are included part of the counties of Dumbarton, Stirling, Perth, Aberdeen, Banff, and Moray; also the whole of the counties of Bute, Argyle, Inverness, Cromarty, Ross, Sutherland, and Caithness. The whole of the Hebrides or Western Isles, which lie within these counties, likewise belong to the Highlands. Although thus a generally western and northern district, the Highlands do not comprehend the islands of Orkney and Shetland, these being of Scandinavian settlement, and noway connected with a Celtic people. With the stripe of country generally facing the German Ocean on the north-east coast of the mainland, these islands are considered to belong to the Lowlands.

In this manner, though divided by only an imaginary line, Scotland may be said to consist of two distinct regions-the Highlands, which are Celtic, and the Lowlands, that are Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon. While the Lowlands, therefore, are not to be distinguished, as respects manners, language, and other circumstances in their condition, from the adjoining parts of

England, the Highlands are remarkable for many features peculiar to themselves. The Lowlands are the scene of active industry and civilisation, improved husbandry, and the seat of many flourishing towns and cities. The Highlands are chiefly mountainous and pastoral, the population is generally poor and thinly scattered, and the only towns considered to belong to the district, though inhabited to a great extent by Lowlanders, are Inverness, Inverary, Campbeltown, and Rothesay, with two or three of lesser importance. Why the Highlands should differ socially from the Lowlands, is a matter of enlightened curiosity, which we propose to explain.

The Highlands and Western Isles, as has been said, are Celtic, and from all that can be learned, they were never otherwise since the period of their first settlement. The Celts of the Highlands are a deeply interesting branch of the human family. They are a section of the numerous Celtic people which once occupied Gaul and all the other parts of western Europe, but which, in the progress of time, was generally driven by Romans, and Teutons or Goths, into the more inaccessible parts of Spain, France, and the British islands. Thus the Basques of Spain, the Auvergnese and Bretons in France, the inhabitants of Wales, Anglesea, and the Isle of Man, the Irish and the Highlanders, are all radically one people; and, till the present day, have less or more a resemblance in language, manners, and physical features. First pushed back by the Romans, and then encroached upon by the AngloSaxons (Anglified Teutons), the Scandinavians, and some other invaders, the Celts were finally, about the ninth century, confined to the Highland districts in which we now find them.

That the Celts once occupied the whole of Britain, is placed beyond a doubt by the names of nearly all the places in Scotland, and a very large number in England. These names are Celtic, and are in all cases significant of the nature or appearance of the places to which they are applied. Many of the names of places in France are in like manner Celtic, although slightly disguised in modern orthography. How interesting to reflect on the antiquity and permanence of this bequest! Two thousand years ago the Romans drove back the Celts from the Straits of Calais; still the name they gave them remains. London at the same time ceased to be an exclusively Celtic or British city; yet its Celtic name hangs to it till the present hour. Thus also Dublin and Glasgow have, ages ago, been Anglo-Saxonised; but their Celtic appellation is unchanged, and likely ever to be so.

The battles which the Romans, Saxons, and Danes had with the aboriginal British or Celtic tribes are matter of history; and, from all we can understand, did not differ materially in character or results from the engagements fought in modern times between the English forces and the aborigines in the colonies. On the one side was a rude and tumultuary defence of ancient possessions, and on the other a skilfully-conducted encroachment

and vengeful extermination. The modern English, and their brethren the Lowland Scotch, are at this moment enjoying lands forcibly, and on no principle of justice, wrested from their Celtic predecessors. Displaced and driven among the inaccessible fastnesses of Wales and the Highlands, the Celts long waged a war of reprisals on the new-comers of the plain: and with how little success, is well known. In Scotland, where the government was later in attaining a firm and settled character than in England, the struggle with the Celts was proportionately protracted. The Scottish monarchs long waged petty wars with the Highland tribes, who were not without valiant leaders; but generally with little avail. The perplexity of the government was considerably increased by the cession of the Western Isles by Norway in 1266. From this epoch the Macdonalds, who assumed the title of Lords of the Isles, gave new troubles to the Sovereign. At length, after an age of strife, things came to a head. Donald, Lord of the Isles, aided by various chiefs and their followers, made the bold, and, as some will call it, gallant attempt to establish a Celtic independence, if not to reconquer the Lowlands from the Anglo-Saxon intruders. This proved a disastrous resolution. A battle, one of the greatest recorded in Scottish history, was fought at Harlaw in Aberdeenshire, between Donald and the Lowland forces, on the 24th of July 1411, in which the Highlanders were completely defeated. This battle was a finishing blow to all pretensions to Celtic independence; and ever afterwards, the Highland chiefs possessed no combined power of aggression, but confined themselves to local feuds and depredations.

The mountaineers being now for the first time subdued, James I., on ascending the Scottish throne (1424), began to attempt the introduction of order and civilisation among the clans; but, as may be supposed, on no humane or comprehensive plan. According to the fashion of the period, confiscations, fire and sword, and the gallows, were the engines employed to secure a result which can only be effectually achieved by a long course of considerate kindness. One of the first acts of the king's authority was to seize upwards of forty of the chiefs, and put the greater number of them to death-the remainder being bound over under heavy penalties to cease their predatory habits. The traditionary tales told of the ferocity of the Celts, and the vengeance executed on them about this period, are horrible in the extreme. Sir Walter Scott relates the following:-" Macdonald, head of a band in Ross-shire, had plundered a poor widow woman of two of her cows, and who, in her anger, exclaimed repeatedly that she would never wear shoes again till she had carried her complaint to the king for redress, should she travel to Edinburgh to seek him. 'It is false,' answered the barbarian; 'I will have you shod myself before you reach the court.' Accordingly, he caused a smith to nail shoes to the poor woman's naked feet, as if they had

been those of a horse; after which he thrust her forth, wounded and bleeding, on the highway. The widow, however, being a woman of high spirit, was determined to keep her word; and as soon as her wounds permitted her to travel, she did actually go on foot to Edinburgh, and throwing herself before James, acquainted him with the cruelty which had been exercised on her, and in evidence showed her feet still seamed and scarred. James heard her with that mixture of pity, kindness, and uncontrollable indignation which marked his character, and, in great resentment, caused Macdonald and twelve of his principal followers to be seized, and to have their feet shod with iron shoes in the same manner as had been done to the widow. In this condition they were exhibited to the public for three days, and then executed."

After the extinction of the powerful family of the Lords of the Isles, which was effected by the forfeiture of the last chief in the year 1493, the Highlanders became even more lawless and ungovernable than before. Till then, although yielding no obedience to the Scottish monarchs, they had recognised at least the authority of one or two paramount chiefs; but the extinction of the lines of these chiefs left them without any general government a mere multitude of tribes huddled together, to live by mutual pillage and violence. Perhaps the most savage period in the history of the Highlands, is that from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the union of the crowns of England and Scotland, or a little later. "The strict, vigorous, and, considering the state of the people, the beneficial government of the great chiefs," says Mr Skene, was gone, while the power of the royal government had not yet extended far beyond the Highland line; and the system of clanship which, in its perfect state, was the only one at all compatible with the peculiar condition of the Highlanders was, when broken in upon, and amalgamated with feudal principles, singularly ill adapted to improve their condition."

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The following anecdote is told by Sir Walter Scott, as illustrative of the terrible feuds which the clans carried on at this period with each other:-"The Macleods, a powerful and numerous clan, who had extensive estates on the mainland, made themselves masters, at a very early period, of a great part of the large island of Skye, seized upon much of the Long Island, as the isles of Lewis and Harris are called, and fought fiercely with the Macdonalds and other tribes of the islands. About the end of the sixteenth century, a boat, manned by one or two of the Macleods, landed in Eigg, a small island peopled by the Macdonalds. They were at first hospitably received; but having been guilty of some incivility to the young women on the island, it was so much resented by the inhabitants, that they tied the Macleods hand and foot, and putting them on board of their own boat, towed it to sea, and set it adrift, leaving the wretched men, bound as they were, to perish by famine, or by

the winds and waves, as chance should determine. But fate so ordered it that a boat belonging to the Laird of Macleod fell in with that which had the captives on board, and brought them in safety to the laird's castle of Dunvegan in Skye, where they complained of the injury which they had sustained from the Macdonalds of Eigg. Macleod, in a great rage, put to sea with his galleys, manned by a large body of his people, which the men of Eigg could not entertain any rational hope of resisting. Learning that their incensed enemy was approaching with superior forces, and deep vows of revenge, the inhabitants, who knew they had no mercy to expect at Macleod's hands, resolved, as the best chance of safety in their power, to conceal themselves in a large cavern on the sea-shore.

This place was particularly well calculated for that purpose. The entrance resembles that of a fox-earth, being an opening so small, that a man cannot enter save by creeping on hands and knees. A rill of water falls from the top of the rock, and serves, or rather served at the period we speak of, wholly to conceal the aperture. A stranger, even when apprised of the existence of such a cave, would find the greatest difficulty in discovering the entrance. Within, the cavern rises to a great height, and the floor is covered with white dry sand. It is extensive enough to contain a great number of people. The whole inhabitants of Eigg, who, with their wives and families, amounted to nearly two hundred souls, took refuge within its precincts.

"Macleod arrived with his armament, and landed on the island, but could discover no one on whom to wreak his vengeance-all was desert. The Macleods destroyed the huts of the islanders, and plundered what property they could discover; but the vengeance of the chieftain could not be satisfied with such petty injuries. He knew that the inhabitants must either have fled in their boats to one of the islands possessed by the Macdonalds, or that they must be concealed somewhere in Eigg. After making a strict but unsuccessful search for two days, Macleod had appointed the third to leave his anchorage, when, in the gray of the morning, one of the seamen beheld from the deck of his galley the figure of a man on the island. This was a spy whom the Macdonalds, impatient of their confinement in the cavern, had imprudently sent out to see whether Macleod had retired or not. The poor fellow, when he saw himself discovered, endeavoured, by doubling, after the manner of a hare or fox, to obliterate the track of his footsteps on the snow, and prevent its being discovered where he had re-entered the cavern. But all the arts he could use were fruitless; the invaders again landed, and tracked him to the entrance of the den.

"Macleod then summoned those who were within it, and called upon them to deliver up the individuals who had maltreated his men, to be disposed of at his pleasure. The Macdonalds, still confident in the strength of their fastness, which no assailant

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