c=: 1 i i i i 1 i THE LIBRARIES COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY i 1 I 1 i 1 — -^ — i i 1 i i Ev nnlffijgrnnJipjiJrpjnirugfriJ^ i 1 i LETTERS FROM A GENTLEMAN IN THE NORTH OF SCOTLAND, SfC, Sfc, 8?TaTi S. Ckirtii, Camberwell Press. LETTERS FROM A GENTLEMAN IN THE NORTH OF SCOTLAND TO """""^ '"" HIS FRIEND IN LONDON ; ' CONTAINING THE DESORIPTION OT A CAPITAL TOWN IN THAT XGRTHEBV COUNTEV, WITH AX ACCOUNT OF SOME UNCOMMON CUSTOMS OF THE INHABITANTS ; LIKEWISE ^n ^aottttt of tl&e iS^igf)latttJ9, WITH THE CUSTOMS AND MANNERS OF THE HIGHLANDERS. TO WHICH IS ADDED, A LETTER RELATING TO THE MILITARY WAYS AMONG THE MOUNTAINS, BEGUN IN THE YEAR 1726. THE FIFTH EDITION, tVlTH A LARGE APPENDIX, CONTAINING VARIOUS IMPORTANT HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS, HITHEH'JO UNPUBLISHED ; WITH AN . INTRODUCTION AND NOTES, BY THE EDITOR, Rf JAMIESON, F. A. S. Lond. & Edix. Corresponding Member of the Scandinavian Literary Society of Ccfpenhagen, (5fc. AND THE HISTORY OF DON.\LD THE HAMMERER, FROM AN AUTHENTIC ACCOUNT OF THE FAMILY OF INVERNAHYLB. VOL. I. LONDON: PRINTED FOR REST FENNER, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1818. i f .4 At^ CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. Introduction to the Fifth Edition Page xv. LETTER L Introduction. — Familiarity the basis of this corre- spondence. — To be shown to one friend only. — Rea- sons for this stipulation. — Genius of a people known only by their native manners. — Folly of being of- fended at descriptions of one's country. — Highland- ers little known to the Low Country, still less to the English. — Scantiness of written information re- specting the Highlands. — Lowlands have been mis- represented. — Notice of a work called * A Journey through Scotland'— Old seats in Scotland— Plan of this correspondence — The descriptions mostly from personal knowledge-^Danger of letters being intercepted — Egotism excused ..1 — 10 VOL. I. b 64292 Tl CONTENTS. LETTER II. Manner m which the introductory part of these Let- ters originated— Passage of the Tweed at Kelso— The inn and its accommodations — Innkeeper a gen- tleman — Potted pigeons — Disgusted, and quit the inn — First impressions- -A specimen of cookery — Miser- able bedding — Excellent linen — Edinburgh — Height of houses there — Tavern — Description of the cook — City drum— A guide for protection in passing the streets — Public nuisance — Number of families in a house — Site lor a new city — Rejected, and why — Tedious mode of directing strangers — The cawdys and their constable — Leave Edinburgh — Glasgow, its uniformity and neatness — Church at Linlithgow — Formerly a cathedral — Its neglected state — A curious remark — Leave Glasgow — Road — Contradictory in- formation—Romantic appearance of the moun- tains—Poverty of the towns— Singular custom of quitting houses when old— Disagreeable smell of fishing-towns— Cattle smaller towards the North of Scotland 11—32 LETTER III. Melancholy situation of a town without manufacture and foreign trade— Ought to be particularly attend- ed to by governments — Poverty, simply considered, not a subject for ridicule — Insipid jests — Inverness — Its situation — A royal borough — Its government — Capital of the Highlands — Inhabitants speak Eng- lish — Castle — Formerly a regal palace — Discovery of a corpse— Conjecture of a native respecting it- Mary Queeu of Scots — Castle in danger — Bridge and CONTENTS. Yll toll — Country people wade the river rather than pay — Salmon — Seals — Their singular appearance — Occasion the fiction of a mermaid — Appearance of, on dissection — Mode of taking — Keen sight of — Silly notions respecting — Women washing linen at the river — Partiality for this mode — Tolbooth, or county gaol — Frequency of escapes — A guess at their cause — Arbitrary conduct of Chiefs — Their policy — A particular instance— Endeavour to keep clans poor — Mean Artifice— Military habits — Town-hall — Mar- ket-cross — Coffee-house — Churches — Anecdote — Church-yard and monuments — Style of building — Denomination of houses — Not lofty, and why — Roughness of building — Rats frequent — Their pro- digious numbers — Ignorant supposition respecting — Singular conveyance — Weasels — Houses internally described — 111 contrived — Windows 33 — 61 LETTER IV. Inferior houses-^-Pavement — Want of cleanliness — A singular practice — Remarkable inscriptions— Shops — Ridiculous affectation — Merchants — Their vanity — Pride of birth in the lower class — Singular conde- scension — Pride of birth exemplified in a piper — Ridiculous effect of this vanity on strangers — Evil of such conceits — Lower class — Their wretched po- verty — Laborious occupation of women— Brogues — Carts — Drivers — Harness — Horses unshod — Ill-con- trived wheels — Public curiosity at a chariot — Scar- i«ity of pasture — W retched state of horses in winter — Grass — Great scare iij of hay — Fairs at Inverness- Poverty ...,62—81 b2 VlU CONTENTS; LETTER V. Fairs continued — Dress —A curious precaution — Plaid the undress of ladies — Mode of wearing distinguish whig and tory — Handsome women— Maid-servants — Their poverty — Their labour and small wages — Strange habits — Seldom wear shoes — Reflection on their condition — Children of the poor — 'Their wretch- ed appearance— ^Their dress — Frequency of a loath- some distemper— Merchants and magistrates — Their narrow-mindedness — Suspicion — Mean artifices of shopkeepers — A candid proposal, and its effects — Will not lend without a pledge— Distinction between a measure for buying and selling— J ealousy^ — Sol- diers the best tradesmen — Education S2 — 101 LETTER VL Visit to a laird's lady — Conversation — Opinion of Eng- lish ladies —Comparison between the English and •Scotcli -^ Illustration — Insincerity — Indolence of working tradesmen — Want of encouragement-*-Best workmen emigrate — Fishermen — their indolence — Women bring them and their fish to land — Remark- able pride— Lower class object to particular trades — Backward in giving information — Their lodgings — Ludicrous appearance— Bedding — Opinion respect- ing the English in eating — Considered and refuted — Provisions, prices of — Anecdote— Indebted to the English originally for vegetables — Highlanders refuse to eat pork — Influence of chiefs — Animal food — English inn — Hares and birds numerous — Partridges — River fish — Inhabitants refuse to eat eels and pike — Do not engage in field exercises — Salmon, from its CONTENTS. iX plenty, considered a common food — Anecdote — Pa- rental distress , ,,....,.102—126 LETTER VII. Complaint against the English — Cheapness of provi* sions — Curious law respecting the green plover Highland baronet — Hospitality — Meanness — Higb^ land cookery — Anecdote — Comparison with theEng- ' lish — French claret— Brandy — The laird of Culloden — His hospitality — Humorous contrivance — Hounds, and hare-hunting — Foxes — Beggars, numerous and importunate — Police — A Frenchman's comment — Highland thriftiness — A diverting instance of-r^-Com mon sayings — Kitchens filthy — An instance of, and remarks on — Butter, — Filthy state of public inns — Landlords — Their want of ceremony — Pride of i^n\\\y—A ridiculous instance of 137 — 149 LETTER VIII, Correspondence interrupted— Reason of — Visit to o, Highland chief — Account of the excursion — Occur- rences on the way — Arrival at the castle — Reception — Entertainment — Musicians — Style of dinner — Os^ tentation--Number of Highlanders in ?ittendance — ^' -'^^ engrosses the conversation-^Departure — Re^ turn — Remarks — Wretched stables — Trial of patience •«— Highland ale — The pint stoop — A dialogue — Eng# lish spoken at Inverness— Irish in the Lowlands-^— Herring fishery — Instance of a plentiful season — Fraud on salt duty — Appoiatment of a new officer- Is bribed — Intimidated by a smuggler — Curious con- sequences — Importations — Attempt to prohibit brandy — Scarcity of port — Soldiers — Wretched quarters — A X CONTENTS. complaint — Honour among merchants — Ministers and their stipends — Style of discourses — Strongly object to personal decoration — Force of flattery 150—170 LETTER IX. Ministers appear to disregard morality in their ser- mons — Their prayers — Extempore preaching — Dan- ger of — Mistakes in — An instance of — Approval of a minister at Edinburgh — Extracts from a sermon — Lilly the astrologer — Improvement of young ministers — Ministers circumscribed in their intercourse — Their strict observance of the sabbath — Are much revered by the people — Their strictness — Instance of —In synod assume great authority — Neglect of the kirk — Its consequences — Meeting of synod — Whim- sical saying — Watchful of' the female character — Singular marriage by declaration — Power of the kirk to compel — Routine for enforcing — Penance — Injudicious application of — Fatal occurrence— Power of the presbytery — Instance of — Doing penance — Style of ministerial rebuke — Power of ministers with the bulk of the people — Instance of — Kirk treasurer —His spies — Frequent service on Sunday — Kirk bell— Music bells.., 171—197 LETTER X. A progress among the mountains — Guide and his dis- course — Mountain scenery — Extravagant gratitude of a Highlander — Reflection on the condition of Highlanders — Curious letter from a young High- lander in America— Remarks on 198—210. CONTENTS. XI LETTER XI. Episcopalians — Remarkable instance of disloyalty — Nonjuring ministers — Political cast of their instruc- tions — Weddings — Penny, or servant's wedding — — Do not use the ring — Custom of plunging infants into water — Christening — Admonition to parents Funerals — Mode of invitation to — Of procession — ^ Bagpipe — Funerals among the higher class — Enter- tainment at — Excessive drinking — Minister has no demand for christening, marrying, or burial — Incon- venience of burial fees in England — Oliver Crom- well's fort — His army — His colours 211 — 224 LETTER XII. The name of Cromwell disliked by the Highlanders — His successes — Inverness quay — A remarkable hill, said to be inhabited by fairies and frequented by witches — Notion of judges respecting witches — Trial at Hertford — Trial of two Highland women, a mo- ther and daughter, accused of witchcraft — Their condemnation and reputed confession — Gross ab- surdity of such imputations — Said to have been used as an engine of political power — Danger of ex- posing this notion-— Island on the river Ness — Plan- tation — Moor-stones — Soldiers raise immense blocks of stone — Anecdote — The laird of Fairfield — Fre- quency of mortgage — Daughter's portion — Usury prohibited 235—240 LETTER XIII. Castle of Culloden — Female courage — Parks— Dis- appoint an English officer— Arable land — Plowing XU CONTENTS. — Poverty o£ labourers — Corn cat while green — Wages of labourers — Kinds of grain— Scanty pro- duce — Trades — Improved by communication with the soldiers — Partiality of the Scotch for their coun- trymen — Distress during scarcity — Anecdote — De- scription of Fort- William and Maryburgh — Houses built of wood — These Letters designed to contain nothing that may be found elsewhere — Answer to an inquiry — Account of Inverness and country around concluded — White hares and small birds on the snowy mountains 241 — 267 LETTER XIV. Account of a Highlander executed for murder — Causes of its perpetration — His desperate resistance and concealment — Is visited by ministers — His singular conduct — His execution and desperate conduct — Incendiaries in Glengary — Origin of the occurrence — Failure of the attack — Visit to a laird — The com- pany — Witchcraft — Minister's opinion — A contro- versy — Ludicrous story of a witch and a Highland laird — Certified by four ministers — Author's incre- dulity — His remarks — Reply — Arguments — Witch of Endor — Copernicus and Psalms of David — Egotism excused — Moliere's physician — Bigotry of the clergy to received notions ».258— 277 LETTER XV. Retrospect — Difference between inhabitants of the Highlands and Lowlands — Extent of the Highlands — Natural Division — Language cannot describe scenery of — Appearance of the hills — Summits covered with snow — Proof of the deluge— Hills CONTENTS. Xlll covered with heath — Trees, difficulty of removing — Bridge of snow — Deep hollows — Gray mare's tail — Tremendous waterfalls Similarity of Highland scenery — Terrific view of hills from East to West — Ben-Nevis — Travellers seldom reach the top— Dif- ficulties of travelling — Contrast — Minerals — Use of mountains — The strath — The glen — Journal of two days' progress among the hills — Monts — Their im- mense number — Preparations for the journey— Ser- vant and guide — Danger of being lost — The ferry — Ancient boat— Horses swim well ^78—298 LETTER XVI. Steep and stony hills — A bourn — .Wood of fir — Bog — Danger from roots of trees — Grass rare — Discover a Highlander — A pleasure of the mind — Crossing a ford — Dangerous pass — Crossing a bog — Precaution — Horse sinks — Escapes with difficulty — Highland horses accustomed to bogs — New difficulties — Stony moors — Comforts of discovering a habitation — Dangerous ford — Best mode of passing — A whimsi- cal expedient — Highlanders wade the rivers — Dan- gers to which they are exposed — Frequent loss of life — Inn — Dangerous stabling — Oats — Dwelling- house—A Highland toast 299—310 LETTER XVIL Superioraccommodation— Landlord's intrusion — Trou- blesome interpreter — Inquisitive and curious conduct Smoke — Peat fire — Supper — Bed — Military exploits — Breakfast — New guide — A carne— Dangerous pass of tuc mountains — Effect of terror — Examples of — Highland horses — Eagles — Meet a Highland chief- XIV CONTENTS. tain — His behaviour — Arrival at an inn — A culinary insult — Hard eggs — Ignorant landlord — Highland huts — Dislike of trees — Fruit-trees — A tempest — Losing the way — Guide's distress — Dread of the English — Pleasing discovery — Danger from drifts of snow... ....311—326 LETTER XVIIL Whii'lwinds— Inn — Burlesque — Curious visitor — Peat smoke — Great fall of rain — Danger of being shut in by — A Hjighlander lost in the mountains— County of Athol — Part of ancient Caledonia — A tract well cultivated — Highlanders originally from Ireland — ' Spenser's View of Ireland ' — National pride — Sta- ture of the Highlanders — Deformity — Some general assertions ridiculous — Gasconade — Remedy against fever — Esculapian honour — Additional remarks — Frequent rain — Shallow and stony soil — Clouds — Pursuit of a rainbow — Teneriffe — Source of rivers — Lakes — Loch Ness — Its great depth — Cataracts — - Lakes on hills — Strath-Glass — A lake always frozen —-Waterfall — Danger and difficulty of crossing rivers — rUsky merchants — Agreeable company — Bogs — Hills— Dangers of — Scarcity of trees — Anecdote — Value of land 327—344 INTRODUCTION TO THE FIFTH EDITIOX The author of the following letters (the ge- nuineness of which has never been questioned in the country where the accuracy of his delinea- tions may best be appreciated) is commonly understood to have been Captain Burt, an officer of engineers, who, about 1730, was sent into Scotland as a contractor, &c. The cha- racter of the work is long since decided by the general approbation of those who are most masters of the subject; and so large a body of collateral evidence respecting the then state of the Highlands has been brought forward in the Appendix and Notes, that it will be here only necessary to add such notices and remarks as XVI INTRODUCTION. may tend to illustrate the subject in general, as well as to prepare the reader for what is to follow. And first, it may be expected that somewhat should be said of the antiquity of the High- landers, and the unmixed yurity of their Celtic blood and language^ of which they are more proud than of other more valuable distinctions to which they have a less questionable claim. Whence the first inhabitants of our moun- tains came, or who they were, it would now be idle to inquire. They have no written annals of their own ; and the few scattered notices respecting them that remain, are to be gathered from strangers, who cannot be sup- posed to have had any accurate knowledge oT their traditions concerning themselves. Tha^t a large portion of their population once was Celtic, cannot be doubted; but of this distinc- tion, there seems to be less understood than the learned have commonly supposed. The traditions, superstitions, and earliest impres- sions of all the nations of the west, of whom, in a less cultivated state, we have any knowledge. INTRODUCTION, XVU seem to point to the east, '' the great cradle of mankind>" as the hmd of their fathers; and we consider the Goths and Celts as deriving their origin as well as their language from the same source ; the Celts having been the earlier, and the Goths the later wanderers westward. Al- though their complexion, language, religion, and habits, formed uitder different skies, and in different circumstances, exhibited in the end different appearances ; yet, the farther back that we are able to trace them, the stronger the marks of identity are found to be ; and presumptive evidence must be admitted, where positive proof is not to be expected. Of this kind of evidence, a very curious ex- ample is to be found in the end of the seventh book of Temora, where the following striking apostrophe occurs : — " Ullin, a Charuill, a Raoinne, Guthan aimsir a dh' aom o shean, Cluinneam sibh an dorchadas Shelma, Agus mosglaibhse anam nan dan. Ni 'n cluinneaiB sibh, shll nam fonn: Cia an talla do neoil bheil ur suain ? XVm INTRODUCflOK. Na thribhuail sibh clarsach nach troDS^ An truGcan ceo maidne is gruaim, Far an eirich gu faimear a ghrian O stuaidh nan ceann glas? Literally thus in English : Ullin, CaiTuil, and Rouno, Voices of the time that has given way of old- Let me hear you in the darkness of Sehna, And awaken the spirit of songs. — 1 hear you not. childi'en of melody ; [In] what hall of clouds is your [rest] slumber ? Strike ye the harp that is not heavy, In the gloomy robes of the mist of the morning, Where the sun rises very sonorous From the grey-headed waves? Now, we know that all nations, having no light but that of nature to guide them, espe- cially when in difficult circumstances, look with fond aspirations towards the land of their fathers, to which they believe and hope that their souls after death will return. This was the belief of the Goths in their state of pro- bation in Scandinavia, and the hall of Odin was in Asgard; and here we find the Caledonian bard, in the true spirit of the ancient and original INTRODUCTION. XIX belief of his countrymen, supposing the hall of the rest of his departed friends to be in the east, where the sun i^ises.^ But whoever the first settlers were, their state was so precarious, that the same dis- tricts were continually changing their masters, sometimes in possession of one tribe, some- times of another, sometimes of Goths, some- times of Celts, and finally, of a mixed race composed of both. In the earliest periods of which history or tradition have preserved any memorials, the characters and habits of life of the inhabitants of the Scotish Highlands and Isles, and of the Northern Men^ with whom they had constant intercourse, so nearly re- sembled each other, that what is said of one, may be with equal justice applied to the other ; and even their languages bear the nearer re- semblance to each other, the further back that * This is only one of many passages in the poems ascribed to Ossian, which cannot reasonably be suspected, because they refer to things which the coPxipilers had no means of knowing ; the beauty of the poetry has preserved it ; but ii is in direct opposition to all their own idle theories^ and therefore al] the commentators Iiave passed it over ia silence XX INTRODUCTIOK'. they are traced. Almost all the great Highland clans know not only whence they came to their present settlements, whether from Ireland, Norway, or the Scotish Lowlands, but many of them know the precise time of their emigra- tion. Of those who came from Ireland, the Celtic origin may well be doubted. We know that the Goths had established themselves in that island as early as the third century, and that Cork, Dublin, Waterford, Limerick, &c. were built by them.* As the descendants of these colonists were mariners and pirates, like their fathers, they kept to the sea-coast, and were therefore more likely than up-landers to remove, in the case of distress, discontent, or * In the Irish legend of Gadelus and Scoia, their language is brought from Scythia, to which, in the lax sense in whieh that appellation was commonly used, we see no great objection ; artd Gadelus is called the son of Niull, a name which has from time immemorial been peeuliar to the Goths of the North and their descendants; so long ago was all distinction between Gothic and Celtic lost among the Irish ! — The Irish dictionary of O'Reilly Cso creditable to the zeal and industry of the com- piler) is a curious proof of this confusion of identity, as it con- tains, at least, ten Norse and Anglo-Saxon words, for one that is decidedly Celtic. INTRODUCTION. Xxi want of room at home, to the Scotish High- lands and Isles. That many of these isles were inhabited by Goths from Scandinavia, at a very early period, is evident from the tra- ditions, poetry, and tales, of the Highlanders. Indeed, with respect to some of them, no traces remain of their having ever had any other permanent inhabitants.^' With the his- tory of the more recent arrival of the Northern Men in Orkney, Shetland, Caithnes, Suther- land, &c. we are better acquainted from the Icelandic historians; and of the Hebridians and Highlanders, properly so called, the great clans of M^Leod, McLean, McNeill, Sutherland, M*Iver, Graham (Gram), Bruce (Bris), &c. are confessedly from the same quarter ; if the McDonalds and M'Kenzies (to the latter of whom we attach the M'Raas) came imme- ♦ The oldest appellation by which the Hebrides are known to have been designated was Innse nan Gall, " The isles of the strangers." The ancient kingdom of Galway in Ireland had its denomination from the same circumstance ; and the wild Scot of Galloway in Scotland can hardly be presumed to have been a Celt. VOL. I. C Xxii INTRODUCTION. diately from Ireland, their designations never- theless show that they were not originally Celtic; the Frazers (ck Fresale), and the Chisholms (whose real name is Cecil) went from the Lowlands, as did the Gordons, and the Stewarts of Appin and Athol ; the Ken- nedies (one of the last reclaimed of all the clans) were from Carrick and its neighbour- hood ; the Campbells (de campo bello) are al- lowed to be Normans ; the Murrays, as well as the M'Intoshes, M'Phersons, and other branches of the Clan Chattariy* are generally understood to have come from the interior of Germany; and, in short, with the exception of the Mac Gregors, their descendants the Mac Nabs, * The name of Cameron fLat. Camerorius) seems to have been at first a title of office, such as could not have originated in the Highlands. It answers to the Scotisli and English Chalmers, Chaumers, Chambers, Chamberlain, &c. M^Kay is spelt at least a dozen different ways; but, as it is uniformly pronounced by the Highlanders, it seems to mean the son of Guy. — But the three oldest worthies in the genealogical tree of the Reay family stand thus : Morgan Mac Magnus Vic Alaster (Alexander) ; a delectable jumble ©f British, Gothic, and Greek names, for the foundation of an hypothesis ! INTRODUCTION, XXlU the [/m^?] Mac Arthurs, and a few others of inferior note, there seem to be none of the ancient Celtic race remaining. How the men were thus changed, while the language continued, is easily accounted for. The frequent appeals made to the king by- chiefs at war among themselves, sometimes drew upon them the chastisement of the Scotish government, which was fond enough of seizing such opportunities of extending its own influ- ence. Expeditions were fitted out; encourage- ment was given to the neighbours of the devoted party to join their array, and wherever the army went, submission and order were pro- duced for the time ; but the state of the coun- try remained the same as before. The posses- sions of the parties against whom the vengeance of the invaders was directed, were given, partly to new settlers from the Lowlands, and partly to their more powerful or more politic neighbours, as a bribe to ensure their favour to the new arrangements. These colonists, being mostly young male adventurers, consulted their own interest and security by marrying women c 2 XXIV INTRODUCTION. of the country, and the children of such mar- riages, being left in childhood entirely to the care of their mothers, grew up perfect High- landers in language, habits, and ideas, and were nowise to be distinguished from their neigh- bours, except that, perhaps, they were less civilized, being strangers to the cultivation pe- culiar to the country of their fathers, without having acquired in its full virtue that of the country in which they were born. The Scandinavians, \vho over-ran a great part of the isles and adjacent districts of the main- land, brought few women from their own coun- try, and their descendants were naturalized in the same manner ; and the best dialect of the Gaelic is now spoken by those clans whose Gothic eMraction has never been disputed. Their tales, poetry, and traditions, continued with the lan- guage in which they had always been delivered down from one generation to another.* * " How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land ?" is an exclamation, the pathos of which can never be fully ap- preciated by him, who has never quitted the land of his fathers. The bodies and understandings of men are more easily trans- INTRODUCTIOl^. XXV From the accounts to be found in various parts of this work, particularly in the Gartmore MS. it will be seen that, from the manner in which the lands, the superiority of whi«h be- longed to the chief of a clan, were portioned out by division and subdivision, according to proximity of blood, to the cadets of great fami- lies, the aboriginal inhabitants of the country must in the end have been actually shouldered out of existence, because no means were left for their support, and consequently they could not marry and be productive. These men, attached by habit, language, and prejudice, to ferred from one region to another, than their spirit, partioularly that spirit which is the sourc , soul, and essence of poetry; and we know of no colonists, properly so called, that have produced any good original poetry. The Greek colonies ceased to be poetical as soon as their identity with the parent states ceased ; the Goths, Lombards, Burgundians, Franks, Normans, Anglo- Saxons, and Danes, had plenty of mythic, heroic, and romantic poetry in their own country, which continued to be the delight of the generations that emigrated, while their original impressions remained ; but they produced nothing of the kind in their new settlements. It was the same with the Scandinavians, who settled in the Highlands and Isles ; and we are of opinion, that, of all the fine national poetry of the eld school, preserved till a iate period among our mountaineers, none was composed after XXVI INTRODUCTION, their native country, upon which they had little claim but for benevolence, became sorners and sturdy beggars, and were tolerated and sup- ported, as the Lazzaroni were in Naples, and as Abj^aham-men, and sturdy beggars of all sorts, were in England, after the suppression of the monasteries, and before there was any regular parochial provision for the poor. From this system it arose, that each Highland clan at last actually became what they boasted themselves to be — o?2e family, descended from the same founder, and all related to their chief, and to each other. If the chiefs of so many such clans ivere Goths, how is it possible that the pure Celtic the arrival of these strangers among them. The Goths lost their own poeti-y, with their language ; and although locality, "With the prejudices and enthusiasm thence arising, added to the astonishing retentiveness of memory, produced by constant habit and exercise (which disappears upon the introduction of letters), preserved among their descendants the Gaelic strains which they found in the country, with the language in which they were clothed ; the spirit, feeling, and irresistable impulse which first inspired them, died away, and nothing new of the same kind was afterwards attempted with any success. If these observations are allowed to be just, they will serve to throw considerable light upon a subject which has hitherto given rise to much unreasonable and ill-judged cavilling. TNTRODUCTIOX, XXVll blood should have continued its current, unpolluted, among them, till the present day? The Celtic form of their language has been sufficiently accounted for; and its identity icith the Irish proves nothing more than what we know to have been the case, that both dialects, having passed through nearly the same alembic, have come out of nearly the same form, with much more purity than could well have been ex- pected, and much less than their admirers have generally claimed for them. For the illustration of the characters and manners of our mountaineers, such as they were in the days of our author, it will not be neces- sary to go further back in time than the period when their condition began to differ from that of their neighbours, and submission and tribute were required of them by the kings of Scot- land, to whom they owed no homage, and whose general enmity was less to be feared than their partial protection. Their liberty, their arms, and the barren fastnesses of their country, were almost all that they could call their own ; a warlike race of men, under such XXVIU INTRODUCTION. circumstances, are not likely to give up their all with good will; and those who had not enough for themselves, must have been little disposed to contribute any thing for the support of a power which it was certainly not their in- 'terest to strengthen. Emigrants from Ireland, or from Scandina- via (most of whom had withdrawn from the usurpations of a sovereignty in their own coun- try, to which their proud spirits could not submit),* whether they obtained their settle- ments by conquest or by compact,' as they had been accustomed to consider their swords as the sole arbiters of their rights, were not likely to put their acquisitions at the mercy of a king to whom they owed no allegiance, so long as they had the means of asserting their inde- pendence. Of the state of our own moun- taineers when these strangers first arrived among them, we know very little; but the Irish, with whom they had constant intercourse. "* See Sxiorro's Keimskringla, Orkneyingasaga, the History of the Kings of Man and the Isles, ToTfceus, &c. INTRODUCTION. XXIX and who inhabited a much finer country,* must have been in a very rude state indeed, when they suffered themselves to be conquered by a handful of Englishmen. But whatever the pre- vious state oi the country was, such an acces- sion of ambitious and adventurous pirates and freebooters to their population, was not likely to contribute to the tranquillity of the neigh- bourhood ; and after the establishment of the English in Ireland, the constant intercourse between the Highlanders and Irish afforded the English an opportunity of making aUiances with the Highland chiefs, whom they engaged to make diversions in their favour by attacking the Scots, as the French stirred up the Scots against the English. The attempts made from time to time to civilize the country, by partial colonization from the Lowlands, had very little effect, as * It IS probable that tha poverty of the Scoto-Gael of that day was in their fivoiir, and that they were in many respects superior to the Irisli, becaase they were ahogether free from the debase- ment of character produced by the clergy of that age, in every country where they acquired such inSuence as they then had in Ireland, ** the Isfend of Saints." XXX . INTRODUCTION. the colonists imiformly adopted the spirit and habits of the natives, it being more agreeable and easy to lay aside the restraints imposed by an artificial state of society, than to adopt them; but some better results attended the policy of obliging the refractory chiefs to attend the court, or surrender themselves to some man of rank, under whose surveillance they were to re- main till pardoned ; after W'hich they were to present tiuemselves annually, either in Edin- burgh or elsewhere, to renew their assurances of " good behaviour." This produced at least a more intimate acquaintance, and consequent connection, between the gentry of the High- lands and Lowlands, and made the former am- bitious of acquiring those accomplishments, which might justify their pretensions to a dis- tinction and consideration, which they had no other means of supporting, beyond the range of their own mountains. Limited as the diffusion of book-karnbig certainly was among them, one thing is nevertheless unquestionable, that his- tori/, poetrj/y and 'music, were the favourite recre- {it ions of' their leisure, among the lowest vulgar ; INTRODUCTION. XXXi and their clergy and physicians, who were all gentlemen, read and wrote, both in their mother tongue, and in Latin. From the Privy Council record, at the beginning of the seventeenth cen- tury, it appears that the gentlemen of note, al- though they understood English, commonly signed their names in a bold distinct Irish Character (as it is called), which shows that they were accustomed to writing in their own language, and probably were, partly at least, educated in Ireland, to which country all who adopted either poetry or music as a profession, were uniformly sent to finish their education, till within the memory of persons still living. The disturbances in the reign of Charles the First, opened a new sera in the history of the Highlanders ; but it is much to be regretted, that, for a long period after, having no his- torians of their own, their friends durst not speak the truth of them, and their characters have therefore been entirely at the mercy of their bitterest enemies, who knew them only to hate them, in proportion as they feared them. Of all their virtues, courage was the only re- XXXU INTRODLCTfOX. spectable quality conceded to them, and this out of compliment to the best disciplined troops of the day, whom, with less than equal numbers, they had so often routed ; but even their cou- rage was disparaged, being represented as mere ferocity, arising from ignorance, and a blind and slavish submission to their chiefs. To speak of them otherwise, beyond the precincts of their own glens, was so unsafe, that in 1744 and 5, all the measures adopted and recommended by President Forbes, were near being frus- trated, and he himself persecuted as a Jacobite, because he spoke and wrote of them like a gentleman and a man of discernment, being al- most the only man of his party that had the liberal spirit and good sense to do so»* * It is no small recommerbdatioa of the " Report of Marshal Wade," that appears from internal evidence, as well as from other circumstances, to have "been drawn up in concert with Pre- sident Forbes (one of tlie first men of his time), if not by him. Indeed a sketch of such a report has lately been discovered among the Culloden papeis, a copy of which Colonel Stuart of Garth, Tvith his usual politeness and liberality, very kindly offered to communicate to ths present writer; and it has not been made use of, only because it does not differ materially fi*om the revised copy presented to Government. INTRODUCTION. XXXIU In one great and radical mistake, all our his- torians agree. They represent the attachment of the clans to the house of Stewart, as cherish- ing the ferocious habits, and retarding the civili- zation of the Highlanders ; whereas the very re- verse of this was the case. The real friends of the house of Stewart, in England, and more par- ticularly in Scotland, were distinguished by a refined education, high breeding, elevated sen- timents, a chivalrous love of fame, a noble and disinterested devotion to a cause which they believed to be good, and a social, warm-hearted, conviviality and frankness of character, totally different from the sour, intolerant, and acri- monious spirit of Presbyterian bigotry in the north,* and the heartless and selfish saving knowledge of the south — *' When the very dogs at the English court " Did bark and howl in German/ 'f * This is said of a century ago ; to which we are happy to add, that among the Presbyterians of the establishment in Scot- land, acrimonious bigotry is now about as rare as enlightened liberality then was. t It is much to be regretted, that Capt. Burt was, by his situa- tion in Scotland, precluded from all mtercourse with those who were suspected of attachment to the house of Stewart, and obliged XXxiv INTRODUCTION. From the state of their country, the political bias of the Highlanders, and the eclat which they had acquired under Montrose and Dundee, the eyes of all Europe were turned towards them as the only hope of the house of Stewart. Their chiefs were courted by, and had fre- quent personal intercourse with the friends of that family who were of most note, both in Scotland, England, and Ireland, and on the continent. Studying to accomplish themselves for the part they had to act, and always re- ceived with the greatest distinction in the best to depend for his information and experience, entirely upon the opposite party. If he had dared to associate with the Cavaliers, his opinion of the manners and spirit of the Scots, even in those times of common suffering, restless impatience, and general ani- mosity (political and religious, as well as national), w^ould have been very diflPerent. Of the kind of information to he derived from whigs of that day, an excellent specimen will be found in Graham of Gartmore's MS. quoted in the Appendix ; where, al- though the sentiments often favour of party spirit and personal dislike, the -particular statements are very curious and valuable, and being drawn up with considerable ability, make that article an important historical document. It will be remarked, that in the Letters w]?07i the Highlands, where our author depends chiefly upon his own observation, whicb was shrewd and discriminating, and upon his understanding, which was enlightened and liberal, there is little to be objected to. INTRODUCTIOI^. XXXV society, they became statesmen, warriors, and fine gentlemen. Their sons, after passing through the usual routine in the schools and universities of Scotland, were sent to France to finish their education. As the policy of the whig governments was to crush and destroy, not to conciliate, and they found neither coun- tenance nor employment at home, they entered into the French or Spanish service, and in those countries were, from political views* treated with a distinction suitable, not to their pecuniary circumstances, but to their import- ance in their own country. Great numbers of the more promising of the youth of their clans joined them ; and, in order that the luxurious indulgencies of a more favoured climate might not render them unfit or unwilling to settle in their own country, at the end of two or three years they returned for a time to their rela- tions, with all their accomplishments in know- ledge and manners, and, with their relish for early habits still unimpaired, resumed the quilted plaid and bonnet, and were replaced in their regiments abroad by another set of young XXXVl INTRODUCTION^. adventurers of the same description. Thus among the gentry, the urbanity and knowledge of the most polished countries in Europe were added to a certain moral and mental civiliza- tion, good in its kind, and peculiar to them- selves. At home, they conversed with the lower classes, in the most kindly and cordial manner, on all occasions, and gratified their laudable and active curiosity, in communicating all they knew. This advantage of conversing freely with their superiors, the peasantry of no other country in Europe enjoyed, and the consequence was, that in 1745 the Scotish Highlanders, of all descriptions, had more of that polish of jiiiiid and sentiment , which con- SLtitutes real civilization, than in general the inhabitants of any other country we know of, not even excepting Iceland. This a stranger, who, not understanding their language, could see only the outside of things, could never be sensible of. Book-learnings it is true, was con- fined to the gentry, because in a country so thinly peopled, schools would have been useless ; they were too poor to have private instructors ; INTRODUCTION. XXXVll and they had good reasons for looking with no favourable eye upon any thing that was Saxon. But most of the gentlemen spoke Gaelic, English, Latin,* and French, and many of them Spanish, having access to all the in- formation of which these languages were the vehicles. The lower classes were, each ac- cording to his gift of natural intellect, well acquainted with the topography of their own country, and with its history, particular as well as general^ for at least three cen- turies back; they repeated and listened to, with all the enthusiastic delight of a thorough feeling and perfect intelligence, many thousand lines ot poetry of the very highest kindf (for such they really had among them in abundance, notwithstanding the doubts which the disho- * Such of the foreign officers stationed in the Highlands, in 1746, as could not speak French, found themselves at no loss among the gentlemen of the country, who conversed with the^n in Latin; an accomplishment which, we fear, very few of their grandsons can boast of. t My very learned and excellent friend Mr. Ewen M'Lauch- ]an, now engaged in preparing a Dictionary of the Gaelic Lan- guage, a few years ago translated the first four books of Homer's . VOL. I. d XXXVm INTRODUCTION. nesty of Mac Pherson and his associates has raised on that subject) ; and their music (which, as it speaks the language of nature, not of nations, is more intelligible to a stranger) is allowed, when performed con amore, to be the production of a people among whom the better sympathies of our nature must have been cul- tivated to a great extent. These facts indicate a very high degree of intellectual refinement, entirely independent of the fashion of their lower garments,* from the sight of which, and Iliad into Gaelic vei-se. This translation he read, in the neigh- bourhood of Fort-William, to groups of men and women of the very lowest class, shepherds and mechanics, who had never learnt the power of letters. They listened to him with such enthusiasm as showed that the beauties of the composition had their full effect, and made such remarks as would have put to shame the comments of better instructed critics. We should hte to see an Englishman make a similar experiment upon a party of clowns^ or even of comfortable citizens^ of his own country. — Book-learning is sometimes over-rated. A High- lander now learns from books — to despise the lore of his fathers, whose minds were much more cultivated than his own; and this is almost all that he does learn. * Delicacy^ like civilization^ is a relative, and not an abso- kte term. A gentleman who, in the days of Henry the Seventh of England, had appeared in tight breeches or panta- loons, without a hrayette^ would have been puuished for an hi' INTRODUCTION. XXXlX the sound of a language which they did not understand, their neighbours were fully satisfied of their barbarity, and inquired no further. In justification of this account of their cha- racter in 1745, in addition to the information procured in the country, as well as in the Low- lands and in England, we can with confidence appeal to the letters of their chiefs, and to the public documents and periodical publications of the time, although these last were written by their bitterest enemies, with a view to in- fluence the public against them. From all the information we have been able to collect, it appears that in their whole progress to and from Derby, their conduct, all circumstances considered, was not only orderly and proper, but, in innumerable instances, in the highest degree humane and magnanimous.* In England, decent exposure of ki^ person. A Russian boor wears his shirt over his pantaloons, and considers our fashion as impu- dently indelicate. — Who is right? * Inconvenience from the presence of so many strange guests was unavoidable. They wanted horses and arms, which they received from their friends, and took from their unfriends, but with the assurance of indemnification as soon as King James d2 Xl INTIIODUCTION. the courtly elegance, in manners and conver- sation, of the Highland gentlemen, their dig- nified deportment, the discipline they preserved among their men, but, above all^ the kind- hearted, sensible, and considerate good-nature and indulgence which they everywhere mani- fested towards women and children (a strong was established on the throne. The common men, also, when not under the eye of their officers, sometimes took shoes which they did not always pay for ; but he that looked at their feet, and felt their purses, would have been more disposed to pity the necessity than complain of the outrage. If outrages did take place, it was not from the clansmen^ who were too jealous of the honour of their name, to do any thing that was discounte- nanced by their superiors. But in all cases of civil war, there are found in every country great numbers of loose and disorderly persons, who are always ready to take shelter under the standard of insurrection, from the vengeance of the laws which their crimes have jirovoked. Many such, chiefly from the Lowlands, accompanied the army of Charles, under circumstances that rendered the keeping up good discipline, with respect to tjieni, absolutely impossible. There were still greater numbers of these outlaws and hi'oken-men out in 1715, who, after the failure of the earl of Mar, found sympathy and shelter among the Jacobite clans ; and it was of such vagabonds that the rabble was composed who, in 1719, joined the 300 Spaniards, and were concerned in the skirmish at Glenshiel, of which the government made a handle for exercising all manner of tyranny and oppression upon these who had no concern in it. INTRODUCTION. xli feature in the Highland character, and the be>st proof true civilization), which was so different from what the English had been led to expect, made so favourable an impression, and formed such a contrast to the insolent brutality of the king's troops, officers and men, who marched down after them, that in many instances, which we know from the parties concerned, the women (for the men durst not speak out) could not help telling the latter, *' when the rehds, as they are called, were here, they behaved very differently — they behaved like gentlemen— quite like gentlemen — God help Ihem !'' Such reproaches, so justly provoked, and so often repeated, produced only aggravation of insult and abuse, and (such was the spirit of the time) ladies of the greatest respectability were, by officers of rank, damned for Jacobite b*****s, and told that they were all rebels together, if they durst avow it, and deserved to have their houses burnt over their heads !=^ * One young widow lady in Cheshire, from whose daughter we had the anecdote, told a party of officers on such an occasion, " If I am not a Jacobite, it certainly is not your fault ;— ye Xlii INTRODUCTION. With the exception of Mrs. Grant's admirable Essays, and those of the Rev. Dr. Graham of Aberfoyl, almost all the accounts of the High- landers have been written either by enemies, with all the virulence of party spirit, or by strangers, from partial information ; and, con- sequently, hardly any thing has been said of them but to their disadvantage. Hence the vague and idle declamations about deadly feuds between clan and clan, bloody conflicts, desperate encounters, deprcdationSf robberies, imo'ders, as^ sassinations, " and all manner of licentiousness J^ In answer to all which, we shall only observe, that every clan was a little community by itself, under circumstances by no means favourable to quiet life among a poor, free, bold, ai>d hardy race of men ; and ask the dispassionate reader, what all the great and polished nations of the earth were doing, while the mountaineers of Scotland have done all ye could to make me one !" An observation, the truth of which would have been sensibly felt by the king's troops, bad the Highland army been in a condition once more to enter England, and avail themselves of the favour which their own good conduct and the insolence of their enemies had pro- cured them in that country. INTRODUCTION. Xliii were thus murdering one another? Amid the proud triumphs of that civilization under which we are now supposed to live, it is mortifying to reflect, that in the course of twenty years, during the last war, there was twice as much Highland blood spilt [upwards of 13,000 have been enlisted into one single regiment!] as was shed by Highlanders on their own account, in any way whatsoever, during the three centuries that preceded the abolition of the feudal system among them in 1748 !* * This is a melancholy truth, not a political reflection. We are sensible that the war in which they were engaged could not have been avoided, without giving up all that ought to be dear to a brave and free people ; and that the unshaken firmness with which it was prosecuted, under the most discouraging circum- stances, has been the means of saving Europe from the last state of political and moral degradation, in which the voice of nature, truth, and honour, would have been utterly stifled, and no ex- ample of freedom left for the regeneration of mankind. At the breaking out of the French revolution, France was called ths most civilized country in the worlds and this insulting jargon still continues in the mouths of a party ; but surely Rob Roy and the Clangregor, at a time when their neighbours hunted them down with blood-hounds, were humane and gallant fellows, when compared with Buonaparte, Maasena, Suchet, Davouf^t, ami Vandamme I Xliv INTRODUCTION, That they lifted cattle is true, — and this was so common, that the poor beasts, like their fellow- denizens of the wilderness, the deer and roe, seldom knew to what glen they belonged ; — but these things were managed in a way peculiar to themselves, and so seldom occasioned blood- shed, that with all their her ships, riefs, hot-trods, and rescues, we may venture to affirm, that ten Yorkshiremen lost their lives for horse-stealing, for one Highlander that died in a case of cattle- lifting. Private robbery, murder, and petty theft were hardly known among them. It has been said that " there was nothing to steal;" but there was comparative wealth and poverty in their country, as well as elsewhere ; and the poorer the people were, the stronger was the tempta- tion, and the stronger must the principle have been that enabled them to resist it. And here, for the sake of illustration, it may not be out of place to say somewhat of the heavy accusations brought against the Clangregor, particularly in Graham of Gartmore's MS. quoted in the Appendix. As there is no end to the clamours INTRODUCTION. xlv which have been echoed from one generation to another, against this disorderly tribe, we shall state a few simple facts, to show the nature of their irregularities. They had long been de- prived of their lands, their name, their political existence, and the protection of the laws, and left to provide for, and protect themselves as best they might. Their lands had been appro- priated by their more powerful and politic neighbours, particularly the predecessors of the duke of Montrose. This, and that nobleman's new-fangled whig politics,* had exposed him particularly to their indignation, which he shared with Graham of Gartmore, and other gentlemen of the clan, who, having adopted the same principles, were regarded as recreant Grahams. When they lifted the duke's cattle, took his rents from his steward, or emptied his girnel of the farm-meal after it had been paid in, they considered themselves as only taking what ought to have been their oxen. The manner in which this was commonly done, shows how * See the character of the first whig marquis of Montrose, in Lockhart of Carnwath's Memoirs of Scotland, published in 1714. Xlvi INTRODUCTION'. ■unjustly they were accused of general cruelty and oppression to their neighbours. On one oc- casion, Rob Hoy, with only one attendant , went to the house in which the duke's tenants had been convened to pay their rents; took the money from the steward in their presence ; gave them certificates that all had been duly paid before he seized it, which exonerated them from all further claim ; treated them liberally with whiskey ; made them swear upon his dirk, that not one of them would stir out of the house, till three hours after be was gone ; took a good- humoured leave of them; and deliberately re- turned to the Braes. Those who know the spirit of the Grahams of that day, will be sa- tisfied that this could never have taken place had the tenants not been very well pleased to see their money come into Rob's hands* When called out by the duke to hunt down Rob and his followers, they always contrived to give him timely warning, or to mislead the scent, so that the expedition came to nothing. When the duke once armed them for defence, they sent notice to Rob's nephew, Glengyle, to come INTRODUCTION. xlvii round with such a force as would be a decent excuse for their submission, and collect the arms, which they considered as a disagree- able and dangerous deposit; and when the McGregors took the field in 1715, the cava- lier spirit of the Grahams rose, and many of the duke's dependants, scorning their superior and his politics, followed their standard. This showed that they did not consider the Braes of Balquhidder as a bad neighbourhood. In all the thinly-peopled districts by which the McGregors were surrounded, the whole property of the tenants was constantly at the mercy of thieves, if there had been such in the country. The doors of their houses were closed by a latch, or wooden bolt ; and a man with a clasp-knife might in a few minutes have cut open the door, or even the wicker walls of the house. Detached from the dwelling-house, from fear of fire, was a small wicker barn, or store-house, still less carefully secured, in which they kept their whole stock of hams, butter, cheese (for they then had such things), corn, meal, blankets, webs, yarn, wool, &c. Xlviii INTRODUCTION. These houses and barns were often left unpro- tected for days together, when the people were abroad cutting and ivinning turf, making hay or reaping for their superior, or tending their cattle in distant pastures. This was the case all over the Highlands; yet nothing was ever stolen or disturbed! — Of what civilized country, in the best of times, can as much be said? A ^piiit of revenge has too often been attri- buted to them, as a distinguishing feature of character; and the ancient prejudice on this subject remains, long after the habits in which it originated have disappeared,* In a certain * Campbell of Glenlyon lived to a good old age, and died a natuml death, in the midst of the relations and friends of tke M'Donalds of Glenco, in whosf^ massacre he had acted such an infamous part. In 1745, when the Highland army was en- camped in the neighbourhood of the house of the earl of Stair, ^Yhose father had been the chief author and orderer of that mas- sacre, and who himself commanded a regiment in the king's ser- vice. Prince Charles, apprehensive of some outrage from the Glenco-men, sent a guard to protect the earl's house ; on which the M'Donalds immediately quitted the camp; and although at that time utter ruin must have been the certain consequence of a separation from the army, they were with great difficulty pre- vailed upon to return, so strong was their virtuous indignation at being thought capable of a cowardly revenge, and visiting the iniquities of the father upon the children ! INTRODUCTTOX. xlix state of society, in all countries^ revenge has been not only accounted manly and honourable, but has been bequeathed as a sacred trust, from father to son, through ages, to be wreaked as an indispensible duty of piety. This was particularly the case among the Scandinavians, from whom many of the Highlanders are de- scended ; and as they remained longer than their neighbours in a state in which they had no laws to appeal to, there can be no doubt that many things were done in the way of retaliation, which would now be considered as lawless and violent ; but, as the sum of in- fliction from wilful resentment among tliem bore no proportion to the sum of infliction from outraged laws in other countries, the balance in favour of humanity and forbearance, even in the most turbulent times we are acquainted with, will be found to be considerably in their favour. A man killed at his own fire-side by him whom he had injured, was talked of for ages, while five hundred such persons hanged at Tyburn were forgotten as soon as cut down !^ * If a robbery, murder, or assassination did take place, they showed their horror of the deed by raising a ccdrn of memorial 1 INTRODUCTION. Men of strong and lively feelings are gene- rally earnest in their likings and dislikings; but notwithstanding the constant provocations they have been receiving, during the last thirty years, from their landlords, land-stewards, (ge- nerally English or Lowland attornies!) Lowland tacksmen, farm-appraisers, and farm-jobbers, who live among them, or occasionally visit them, like the pestilence, with oppression, insult, and misery in their train, " Destruction before thani, and sorrow behind ;'* in the midst of these grievous and daily wrongs, wilful fire-raising, houghing of cattle, and as- on the spot, to point a sahitary moral to all succeeding generations. The deep and lasting impression made by such occurrences showed how rare they were ; but when the delinquencies of many cen- turies were (for want of other news) related to a stranger, in the course of a single evening, with as much minuteness of detail as if they had occurred but yesterday, neither his own feelings, nor his report to others, were likely to be favourable to a people among whom he had heard of so many enormities. But who would look for the character of the English nation in the New- gate Calendar ? Captain Burt saw a murderer hanged at Inver- ness : the hangman was eighty years old, and had not yet learned his trade, from w^ant of practice ! In the populous county of Murray, in which the present writer was born, there have been only two executions in his time, being a space of forty-six years. INTRODUCTION. li sassination, so common among their neighbours, are unheard of among them ! On the subject of drunkenness, of which they have been so often accused, we refer the reader with confidence to Mrs. Grant's Essays, which are written in the true spirit of candour and of truth, and from an intimate and thorough knowledge of her subject.-^ Donald is a lively, warm- hearted, companionable fellow; likes whiskey when he wants it, as others learn to do who yisit his country ; and is no enemy to a hearty jollification upon occasion ; but we never knew in the Highlands an habitual drunkard, who had learnt that vice in his ov/n country, if we except such, about Fort- William and Fort-Augustus, as had been corrupted by the foreign soldiers re- sident among them. This was the case about thirty years ago, but a melancholy change has since taken place. At that time, the privilege of distilling at Farrintosh had not been with- drawn from the Culloden family, and good whiskey was so cheap (about tenpence an Eng- lish quart), that there was no temptation to illicit distillation. At present, the poor dis- lii INTRODUCTION"* tressed and degraded peasants (who would still do well if they could, and cling to their native glens, the land of their fathers, to the last) are compelled, by hard necessity, to have recourse to smuggling, in order to raise money to gratify the insane avarice of their misguided and de- generate landlords, who, with a view to imme- diate gain, connive at their proceedings, with- out considering that their own ruin must be the consequence of the demoralization of their tenants. Illicit stills are to be found every- where ; encouraging drunkenness, is encourag- ing trade ; and the result is such as might be expected. But that the Highlander, when he has fair means of showing himself, is still averse to such profligacy, is proved by the conduct of the Highland regiments,* which, amid the con- tagion of bad examples, and all the licences peculiar to camps and a military life, have "^ Of these regiments, from their first establishment, it is to be hoped that a very complete account will soon appear, which will throw much light on the past, as well as present state and cha<* racter of the Highlanders ; as Colonel Stewart of Garth has for several years been collecting materials for that purpose. The present writer is much indebted to that gentleman's communica* tNtRODUCTIO^r. liii always been distinguished above all others wherever they have been stationed^ for their sobriety, honesty, and kindly good nature and good humour. It is almost pecuhar to this people, that the greatest beauties in their character have com- monly been considered as blemishes. Among these, the most prominent are family pride, the love of kindred, even to the exclusion of justice , and attachment to a country which seems to have so few charms to the inhabitants of more favoured regions. A family consisting of four or five thousand souls, all known to, connected with, and depending upon, each other, is certainly something that a man may be justified in con- sidering as of some importance ; and if a High- lander could neither be induced by threats nor promises to appear in a criminal court against a kinsman, or give him up to the tive frankness, liberality, and politeness; and \vith confidence ap- peals to his extensive collection of unquestionable facts, for the confirmation of such theories and statements, however novel they may sometimes appear, as are found in the Introduction and Notes to this work. VOL. I. e KV rNTRODUCTION. vengeance of the law,* as is so common else- where, we may admire and pity, but can hardly in our hearts blame him. — Who that has done such things ever did any good afterwards ?t The Highlander loves his country, because he loves heartily well every thing that has ever been interesting to him, and this his own coun- try was before he knew any other. Wherever he goes, he finds the external face of nature, or the institutions, language, and manners of the people, so different from what was dear to him in his youth, that he is everywhere else a stranger, and naturally sighs for home, with all its disadvantages, which, however formidable they may appear to others, are with him con- nected with such habits and recollections, that he would not remove them, if a wish could do it. * The Lowland laws were always held in abhorrence by the Highlanders, whom their vengeance often reached, but their pro- tection never. t Let those applaud the stoical sternness of Roman justice and Roman virtue, wtio admire it ; to us, it has, in general, appeared a cold-blooded parade of theatrical ostentation, with which nature and truth had no connection. INTRODUCTION. Iv Some of the usages mentioned in the follow- mg work, may give rise to misapprehension. To strangers, the children of the gentry ap- peared to be totally neglected, till they were of an age to go to school; and this, in some measure, continued even to our own times ; but ?t IV as the ivisdom and affection of their parents that put them in such situations. Aware of the sacredness of their trust, those with whom they were placed never lost sight of their future destiny ; and as they were better acquainted with the condition of their superiors than per- sons of the same rank in life had means of being in other countries, no habits of meanness or vulgarity were contracted from such an education. Delicacy, with respect to food, clothing, and accommodation, would have been the greatest curse that could be entailed upon them : from early association, they learnt to feel an interest in all that concerned those among whom they had spent those years to which all look back with fond regret ; and this intimate practical acquaintance with the coiidition, habits, and feelings of their dependants, produced after- e2 ivi INTRODUCTION. wards a bond of union and endearment in the highest degree beneficial to all parties ; at the same time that they could, with less inconve- nience, encounter such difficulties and priva- tions as the future vicissitudes of life might expose them to. The ostentatiousness of the public, and beggar, liness of the private economy of their chiefs, has been ridiculed. — If they stinted themselves, in order to entertain their guests the better, they surely deserved a more grateful return. They lived in a poorxountry, where good fare could not be found for every day; and after half a dozen servants had waited at table, while the chief and his family were making a private meal of hasty-pudding and milk, crowdy (gradden- meal and whipt cream), curds and cream, bread and cheese, fish, or what they might chance to have, those servants retired to the kitchen, cheerful and contented to their homely dinner, without any of those heart-burnings produced by the sight of luxuries in which they could have no share. Their fare might be hard, but their superiors were contented with it, and so INTRODUCTION. Ivii were they. Such self-denial in the chiefs reconciled their dependants to disadvantages which they had no means of surmounting, and was equally humane and considerate. Their submissmi to their cinefs has been called slavish ; and too many of the chiefs of the pre- sent day are willing enough to have this be- lieved, because they wish to impute their own want of influence to any cause rather than the true one ; but the lowest clansman felt his own individual importance as well as his chief, whom he considered as such only *' ad vitam aut ad culpam ;" and although there was cer- tainly a strong feeling in favour of the lineal descendant of the stem-father of their race, which prevented them from being rash, harsh, or unjust to him, there was also a strong feeling of honour and independence, which prevented them from being unjust to themselves.* When a chief proved unworthy of his rank, he was • We believe the Highlands of Scotland to be the only country in Europe where the veiy imme of slavery was unknown, and where the lowest retainer of a feudal baron enjoyed, in his place, the importance of a member of the community to whfch he be- iviii INTRODUCTION. degraded from it, and (to avoid jealousy and strife) the next in order was constituted in his room — but never a low-born man or a stranger; as it was a salutary rule among them, as in other military establishments, not to put one officer over the head of another. But it was not with a Highland chief as with other rulers ; " when he fell, he fell like Lucifer, never to rise again ;" his degradation was complete, because he owed it to a common feelmg of re- probation, not to the caprice, malice, or ambi- tion of a faction ; for every one was thoroughly acquainted with the merits of the cause, and while there was any thing to be said in his favour, his people had too much respect for themselves to show public disrespect to him. The same dignified feeling prevented their re- sentment from being bloody ; he was still their kinsman, however unworthy ; and having none longed. The Gaelic language has no word s^nonimous to slax^e, for train is Norse (trael, in English, thrall) ; and the thralls whom the Norwegians brought with them soon had their chains decomposed by the free air of our mountains. INTRODUCTION. Hx among them to take his part, was no longer dangerous.* Th^u affectation of gentry (if such a term may be allowed) has been treated with endless ri- dicule, because it did not (much to the credit of their liberality) include the idea of ivealth ; but we believe few gentlemen in the Hisfhlands, however poor, would have been flattered by being classed, as to civilization, with the gefitle- man, our author's friend, icho attempted to ride i?2to the rainbow. The humane, indulgent, and delicate atten- tion of people of fortune in the Highlands to their poor relations was one of the finest fea- tures in their character, and might furnish a very edifying example to the inhabitants of more favoured regions ; and, to an honourable mind, there are surely considerations of higher importance than fine clothes and good eating. It has been imputed to their pride and stupidity, * In one instance, it is true, a deposed chief was killed in battle by his clan, but it \Yas in an attempt to force himself upon them by the assistance of a neighbouring tribe to which he was allied by maniage. Ik introduction. that they did not flee from the poverty of their own country, and try their fortunes, as labour- ers and mechanics, among strangers, where they might, in time, have obtained better food and accommodation ; but to give up their rank in society, with all the endearing offices and sympathies of friendship and affection to which they had been accustomed at home, and which were so soothing and so flattering to their feelings, and to go where they were sure to be degraded beneath the lowest of the low, and continually exposed to contempt, ridicule, and insult, for their ignorance of the arts and habitudes of those among whom they lived ; — in short, to sell their birth-right for a mess ofpottagey —would have argued a beggarliness of soul and spirit, which, happily, their worst enemies da not accuse them of. The foregoing remarks, which seemed ne- cessary for illustrating the characters of a very singular and interesting people, have already extended this preface to a much greater length than was at first intended, which will be the l§s^ regretted, if the honest wish by which INTRODUCTION. 1x1 these details were prompted has been in ansy degree fulfilled. Of undue partiality, it is hoped the writer will not be rashly accused, for he is not a Highlander ; and, having gone to the mountains, at the age of fifteen, from the Laigh of Murray (" whence every man had a right to drive a prey ;" and where, of course, the character of their neighbours was not very popular), he carried among them prejudices which nothing but the conviction arising from observation and experience could have re- moved. Of what he then heard, saw, and felt, he has since had sufficient leisure to form a cool and dispassionate estimate, during a residence of many years in various parts of England, Wales, the north of Europe, and the Lowlands of Scotland. As he had no Celtic enthusiasm to struggle with, and his deductions have all been made from facts, it is hoped they may be received by strangers with suitable confidence. To what good purpose he has availed himself of the advantages he enjoyed, in fitting himself for his present task, every reader will judge for Ixii INTRODUCTION. himself; but when he makes it known that it was first recommended to him by Mr. Scott (to whom both he and this pubHcation, as well as the world in general, are so much indebted), his vanity will readily be pardoned, as, even if it should be found that that gentleman's kind- ness for the man has over- stepped his discretion as to the writer, the general conclusion will not be dishonourable to either party. As a close affinity in manners, habits, and character, between the ancient as well as pre- sent mountaineers of Norway and Scotland has frequently been alluded to, these prolusions may be closed, not unaptly, with a fragment of High- land biography, which may be regarded as a great curiosity, particularly by such as are ac- quainted with the Icelandic and Norse Sagas, which it so strongly resembles. Of Hammer Donald, we shall only observe, that although the circumstances of his early life made him (like Viga Glum, and other celebrated kemps and homicides of the North) a very unmanageable and dangerous neighbour, there were then va- INTRODUCTION. Ixiii rieties of character in the Highlands as well as elsewhere. Donald's clan had been but lately introduced into the country ; hisfathei\ although a brave man, was denominated "the Peaceful;" and his son narrowly escaped being murdered in the very act of teaching his servants how to cultivate the ground. THE HISTORY DONALD THE HAMMERER. From an authentic Account of the Family of Invemahyle. [MS. communi- cated by Walter Scott, Esq.] Alexander, the first Invernahyle, commonly called Saoileach, or '' the Peaceful," was son of Allan Stewart, third laird of Appin. He mar- ried Margaret McDonald, daughter of Donald M'Dqnald of Moidart, commonly called Donald an Lochan, or Donald of the Lakes ; but a deadly feud arose between Invernahyle and the family of Dunstaffnage, which, in the first instance, caused the overthrow of both. Alexander walked out early in a summer morning from Island Stalker, and stepped over to Isle-nan-gall, where he laid himself down on the grass, with his Lochaber axe beside him, a weapon, at that period, more used in the High- lands than the broad-sword. Whilst he there INTRODUCTION. IxV reposed, apprehensive of no danger, the cele- brated Cailen Vaine, or Green Colin, arrived at the island in his barge, with a number of men, whom he had brought from Dunstaifnage to assist him in destroying his brotlier's enemy. Upon being observed by Alexander, he ad- vanced in the most friendly manner, and was about to salute him, when, seeing the axe lying on the ground, he grasped it, and said, '' This is a good axe, Alexander, if there were peace enough in it." To which Alexander quickly re- plied, "Do you think there is not that in it ?" and laid hold of the axe likewise, being fully sensible of the spirit of Colin's remark. During the struggle, Colin's men surrounded Alexan- der, and basely murdered him. They then proceeded to Island Stalker, and after killing every one of Alexander's friends that they could find, took possession of Invernahyle and all his other property. Not one person escaped the fury of Green Colin and his men, except the nurse, who hap- pened to be out walking in the fields with Alex- ander's only child in her arms, who had been Ixvi INTRODUCTION. named Donald, from his mother's father. The nurse was the blacksmith's wife of Moidart, and being an old acquaintance of Alexander's wife, was brought by her into Appin. Upon hearing what had happened to the family in which she was engaged, and that dihgent search was made for her by Green Colin and his gang, in order to put the child to death, she fled home to her own country ; and, upon discovering to her husband what had happened to the family of Invernahyle, they agreed to bring up the child as one of their own. [It is said, the icoman, being pursued in her flight , and knowing the in- fant'' s life was aimed at, hid it in a cave, having first tied a piece of lard round ifs neck. The nurse ivas made prisoner, and detained for several days. On her release, she went to the cave, expecting only to find the reliques of her charge ; but the infant ' zvas alive and well, the lard being reduced to the size of a hazel-nut.— W. S.] When young Donald had acquired some strength, he was called to assist his supposed father in carrying on his trade ; and so uncom- mon was his strength, that when only eighteen INTRODUCTION. IxVu years of age, he could wield a large fore-ham- mer in each hand, for the length of the longest day, without the least seeming difficulty or fatigue. At last the blacksmith and his wife resolved to discover to Donald the secret they had so long kept, not only from him, but from the world. After relating the mournful tale of his parents' death, the smith brought a sword of his own making, and put it into Donald's hand, saying, " 1 trust the blood that runs in your veins, and the spirit of your fathers, will guide your actions ; and that this sword will be the means of clearing the difficulties that lie in the way of your recovering your paternal estate." Donald heard with surprise the story of his birth and early misfortune ; but vowed never to put the sword into a scabbard until he had swept the murderers of his parents from the earth.* His mother's father, who still lived in Moidart, upon being satisfied that Donald was his grand- son, and seeing his determination of recovering * The blacksmith also presented Donald with his sobs, to aid him in recovering his natural rights. W. S. Ixviii INTRODUCTION. his father's property, gave him a few men, with whom he proceeded to Appin. Upon arriving at Island Stalker, Donald de- clared himself the son of the late Invernahyle, and sent Green Colin a challenge to fight him singly; but, instead of complying with the chal- lenge, Colin gathered all his retainers, and ad- vanced with them in the order of battle ; but Donald and his men commenced the attack, and, after a desperate engagement, succeeded in killing not only Green Colin, but nearly the whole of his men, by which Invernahyle became his property without any further trouble. Donald's history being now made public, he got the appellation of Doiml nan Orel, or " Do- nald the Hammerer," by which he was ever after known. Resolving to revenge the wrongs his father had suffered from the family of DunstafF- nage, Donald mustered all his fighting-men, and attacked the Campbells wherever he could find any of that name. Argyle came at last to be interested in the distress that Donald was bringing on his clan, and employed several par- ties to cut him off, but in vain. Donald, seeing INTRODUCTION. Ixix Argyle's intention, instead of being intimidated, penetrated, with his trusty band, into the heart of Argyle's country, spoiled his tenants, and carried away a considerable booty from the side of Lochow, which at that time gave a title to the chief of the clan. There is handed down a little roundlet which narrates this transaction : Donul nan Ord, dallta Ghobhain, Ailleagan nan Luireach leathar, Thog a Creach 'o thaobh Locli A ; i. e, " Donald the Hammerer, the smith's foster-son, the ornament of the leathern apron, lifted a prey from the side of Lochow." Argyle, much enraged at this transaction, be- gan to think seriously of revenge, by raising his whole clan, and following to destroy him ; but wisely seeing that this could not be done without much noise in the country, and aware that Donald might be supported by the Camerons, and other powerful clans with whom Argyle was at war, set on foot a negociation with the laird of Appin, to try and get Donald to make restitution, and to be peaceful. The result was, that Appin and his other friends insisted with Donald, that unless he came to terms with Argyle. VOL. I. / IXX IXTRODUCTION. they would leave him to his own fate. Donald, unwilling to split with his friends, and thinking that he had just done enough to revenge the death of his parents, actually went to Inverary, with a single attendant, to hold a conference with Argyle at his own place. Argyle had too much honour to take advantage of this bold step of Donald ; but conceived, from his rusticity, that he might soon get him into a scrape that might prove fatal to him. Upon arriving at Inverary, Donald met Argyle in the fields, and is said to have accosted him thus : — A mic Cailen ghriomaich ghlais. Is beg an hachd a thaead dhiom ; 'S nan a philleach mi air mi ais, Ma's a ma th'again dhiot,* i. e. " Son of sallow, sulky Colin, Small's the grace will go from me ; And if I get but back again, 'Tis all the boon I want from thee." In the course of some indifferent conver- sation, Donald frequently indulged in a loud * This is given in the orthography in which we found it, as are all the other scraps of Gaelic. INTRODUCTION. Ixxi horse-laugh (a habit which some of his de- scendants are noted for as far down as the eighth generation); to rally Donald a little on this, Argyle desired him to look at a rock on a hill above Ardkinglas, then in their view, which resembles a man's face reclined back- wards, with the mouth widely expanded, and asked him if he knew the name of that rork ? Donald answered in the negative. Argyle then told him, it was Gairc Grannda (ugly laugh.) Donald perceiving the allusion, and, with his other qualifications, being a good poet, replied off hand — Gaire Grannda s' ainm do'n chreig ; "S fanaudh i mirr sin do ghna; Gheibhead tu lethid agad fein, Na n sealladh tu 'n euden do mhna ; z. e, " ^^^y Laugh is the name of the rock ; An ugly mocker 'twill ever be ; But if you will look on your own w^ife's face, As ugly a sight you at home may see." When at length they came to talk of business, the terms upon which Argyle offered peace were, that Donald should raise a hership (plun- /2 Ixxii INTRODUCTION^ dering) in Moidart, and another in Athol, thinking probably that Donald would be cut off in some of these attempts, or, if successful against such powerful people, his own disgrace would be less in what was done to his own lands. Donald readily agreed to the terms, and set out instantly for Moidart to inform his uncle of the engagement he had come under, and asked his advice. His uncle told him, the people of certain farms had offended him much ; and if Donald would attack them, he, to save the appearance of being in the plot, would assist them in striving to recover the spoil, but would not be in such haste that Donald would run any risk of being overtaken. Donald soon ga- thered his men, and set fire to nearly all the farm-houses in Moidart, and got clear off with the spoil. This affair made great noise in the country. He went next to Athol, and carried desolation through that country with equal suc- cess ; which intimidated Argyle so much, that he made peace with Donald on the terms pro- posed by the latter. Not content with plundering the Highlands ixTRODUCTioN. Ixxiii from one end to the other, Donald often de= scended into the Low-country. One time, as returning from Stirlingshire, on passing through Monteith, his party called at a house where a wedding dinner was preparing for a party, at which the earl of Monteith was to be present ; but, not caring for this, they stepped in and ate up the whole that was intended for the wedding party. Upon the earfs arriving with the mar- riage people, he was so enraged at the affront put upon his clan, that he instantly pursued Donald, and soon came up with him. One of the earl's men called out ironically, Stewartich cliui nan t A pan, A cheiradhich glass air a chal. One of Donald's men, with great coolness, drawing an arrow out of his quiver, replied. Ma tha 'n tApan againn mar dhucha, 'S du dhuinn gun tarruin sin farsid ; i. e. *' IfAppinis our country, we would draw thee [thy neck], wert thou there ;" and with this took his aim at the Monteith man, and shot him through the heart. A bloody en- gagement then ensued, in which the earl and XXIV INTRODUCTION. nearly the whole of his followers were killed, and Donald the Hammerer escaped with only a single attendant, through the night coming on.^ Donald married a daughter of John Stew^art Ban Rannoch, alias, Jan Mac Roibeart, by whom he had four sons, first, Jan Moi^e, who died at Taymouth when young ; second, Dun- can, who succeeded him ; third, Allan, of whom the present Bailechelish; fourth, James nan Gka?in, who had the lands of Lettershuna. Donald the Hammerer had only one daughter, who was married to Archibald Campbell, called Gillisbiiegdie, of whom the present Achalladair, During Donald's life- time, the feud that sub- sisted between him and the family of DunstafF- nage did not entirely subside ; but it was pru- dently concluded, in order to put a final end to to it, that Duncan should pay his addresses to * This skirmish took place betwixt Loch Katrine and the liOch of Monteith. (See Dr. Graham, on the scenery of these districts.) As the quarrel began on account of the poultry de- voured by the Highlanders, which they plundered from the earl's offices, situated on the side of the port of Monteith, to accommo- date his castle in the adjacent island, the name of Gramoch an gerig, or Grmnes of the kens, was fixed on the family of the Grames of Monteith. W. S. IXTRODUCTTOX. IXXV Helena, a daughter of Dunstaffnage, which he did with success. This was carried on unknown to Donald ; and when the marriage took place, he was in very bad blood with his son ; and Duncan, not having any thing to support him- self and his young wife, went to live with the smith's wife of Moidart, who had nursed his father, upon the farm of Inverfalla, which her husband had received from Douiil nan Orel as a grateful recompence for his former kindness; but, the smith being dead, the old woman now lived by herself. Being more inclined to live by cultivating the arts of peace than by plundering his neigh- bours, Duncan spent much of his time in im- proving the farm of Inverfalla, which his father considering as far below the dignity of a High- land gentleman^ could not brook to see. Once, as Donald was walking upon the green of Invernahyle, he looked across the river, and saw several men working upon the farm of Inverfalla. In the meantime Duncan came out, and took a spade from one of the men, seem- ingly to let him see how he should perform the IXXVi INTRODUCTION. work in which he was employed. This was too much for the old gentleman to bear. He launched the currach (a wicker boat covered with hides) with his own hand, and rowed it across to Inverfalla. As he approached, Dun- can, being struck with the fury of his counte- nance, fled from the impending storm into the house ; but the old man followed him with a naked sword in his hand. Upon entering a room that was somewhat dark, Donald, think- ing his degenerate son had concealed himself tinder the bed-clothes, made a deadly stab at his supposed son ; but, instead of killing him, the sword went through the heart of his old nurse, who was then near eighty years of age. After this unfortunate accident Donald be- came very religious ; he resigned all his lands to his sons, and went to live at Columkill, where he at last died at the age of eighty-seven. LETTERS, &c. LETTER I.* Inverness, Ix the course of evidence, or other examin- ation, one slight accidental hint maybe the cause of along and intricate inquiry; and thus the bare mention I lately made of a few notes I had taken, relating to these parts and to the Highlands, will * The English are certainly the first people in the world, and their good qualities are too well known to require any eulo- giam here ; but if it were asked, by what one general charac- teristic^ more than another, they are to be distinguished, per- haps the answer ought to be, that they do not like to he put out of their laay. This peculiarity, in their own country, produces a good deal of habitual grumbling, in which there is no great harm, as it gives rise to an attention to convenience, propriety, and comfort, which is nowhere else to be met with. But an Eng- lishman, to be seen to advantage, must be seen at home ; when he goes abroad, he assumes a compliance with his habits as ari VOL. I. B 2 LETTER 1. be the occasion of some employment for me : but I am far from making a merit of any trouble I can take to gratify your curiosity; and more especially in this; for to tell you the truth, I have at present little else to do; my only fear is, my endeavour will not answer your ex- pectation. Our friendship is as old as our acquaintance, which you know is of no inconsiderable stand- ing, and complimental speeches between us were, by consent, banished from the beginning, as being unsuitable to that sincerity which a strict friendship requires. But I may say, with great truth, there is but one other in the world could prevail with me to communicate, in writing, such circumstances as I perfectly fore- see will make up great part of this correspond- ence ; and therefore I must stipulate, even exclusive privilege, expecting the whole population of every country he visits, to put themselves out of their way, lest A e should be put out of his. This makes the manners of the Eng- lish much less acceptable in other countries than those of the Irish and Scots, who are less fastidious, and have more social and good humoured pliancy of character. The Englishman pur- sues his own beaten path firmly and with dignity ; but if turned out of it, he is miserable and helpless. The Irishman and Scots- man, accustomed to less indulgence at home, take the path that is most convenient if it is not so good as might be wished, the Irishman comforts himself that it is no worse, and the Scotsman sets about devising how he may mend it. LETTER I. 3 with you, that none of my future letters, on this subject, may be shown to any other than our common friend , in whom you know we can confide. I have several reasons for this precaution, which I make no doubt you will approve. First, The contrary might create inconveni- ences to me in my present situation. It might furnish matter for disobliging com- parisons, to which some of our countrymen are but too much addicted. This again might give offence, especially to such who are so national as not to consider, that a man's native country is not of his own making, or his being born in it the effect of his choice. And lastly, It would do me no great honour to be known to have made a collection of inci- dents, mostly low, and sometimes disagreeable. Yet even in this I have a common observation on my side, which is. That the genuine character of any particular person may be best discovered, when he appears in his domestic capacity ; when he is free from all restraint by fear of foreign observation and censure; and, by a pa- rity of reason, the genius of a whole people may be better known by their actions and in- clinations in their native country, than it can be from remarks made upon any numbers of B 2 4 LETTER T. them, when they are dispersed in other parts of the world. In public, all mankind act more or less in disguise. If I were to confine myself to the customs of the country and the manners of the people, I think it would need but little apology to the most national; for the several members of every community think themselves sufficiently fur- nished with arguments, whereby to justify their general conduct ; but in speaking of the country, I have met with some, who, in hearing the most modest description of any part of it, have been suddenly acted upon by an unruly passion, complicated of jealousy, pity, and anger : this, I have often compared in my mind to the yearn- ings of a fond mother for a misshapen child, when she thinks any one too prying into its de- formity. If I shall take notice of any thing amiss, either here or in the Mountains, which they know to be wrong, and it is in their power to amend, I shall apply, in my own justification, what is said by Spenser upon a like occasion : " The best (said he) that I can you advise, Js to avoid the occasion of the ill : For, when the cause whence evil doth arise Removed is, the effect surceaseth still.*' The Highlands are but little known even to LETTER I. O the inhabitants of the low country of Scotland, for they have ever dreaded the difficulties and dangers of travelling among the mountains; and v^hen some extraordinary occasion has obliged any one of them to such a progress, he has, generally speaking, made his testament before he set out, as though he v^ere entering upon a long and dangerous sea voyage, wherein it was very doubtful if he should ever return. But to the people of England, excepting some few, and those chiefly the soldiery, the High- lands are hardly known at all : for there has been less, that I know of, written upon the subject, than of either of the Indies ; and even that little which has been said, conveys no idea of what a traveller almost continually sees and meets with in passing among the mountains ; nor does it communicate any notion of the temper of the natives, while they remain in their own country. The verbal misrepresentations that have been made of the Lowlands are very extraordinary ; and though good part of it be superior in the quality of the soil to the north of England, and in some parts equal to the best of the south, yet there are some among our countrymen who are so prejudiced, that they will not allow (or not own) there is any thing good on this side the Tweed. On the other hand, some flattering 6 LEITER I. accounts that have been published, what with commendation, and what with concealment, might induce a stranger to both parts of the island, to conclude, that Scotland in general is the better country of the two ; and I wish it were so (as we are become one people) for the benefit of the whole. About a week ago, I borrowed a book called * A Journey through Scotland,' published in the year 1723; and having dipped into it in many places, I think it might with more propriety be called, * A Journey to the Heralds Office, and the Seats of the Nobility and Gentry of North- Britain.' He calls almost all their houses palaces. He makes no less than five in one street, part of the suburbs of Edinburgh,^ besides the real palace of Holyrood-House ; but if you were to see them with that pompous title, you would be surprised, though you would think some of them good houses when mentioned with modesty. But I think every one of the five would greatly suffer by the comparison, if they stood * People commonly denominate the house of a duke, as they do an episcopal residence, a palace ; and before the Union, many of the principal nobility of Scotland had houses in the Canongait of Edinburgh, to which a common tradesman would now be ashamed to invite his friends. LETTER I. 7 near Marlborough-House in St. James's Park ; and yet nobody ever thought of erecting that building into a palace. It would be contrary to my inclination, and even ridiculous to deny, that there is a great number of noble and spacious old seats in Scotland, besides those that were kings' palaces, of both which some are built in a better taste than most of the old seats in England that I have seen : these I am told were built after the models of Sir William Bruce, who was their Inigo Jones; but many of them are now in a ruinous condition. And it must be confessed there are some very stately modern buildings : but our itinerant author gives such magnificent descriptions of some of his palaces, as carry with them nothing but disappointment to the eye of the travelling spectator. He labours the plantations about the country- seats so much, that he shows thereby what a rarity trees are in Scotland ; and indeed it has been often remarked, that here are but few birds except such as build their nests upon the ground, so scarce are hedges and trees.* * The Scots have all the birds of song that are found in Eng- land, except the nightingale ; like the Germans, they are par- ticularly fond of them as pets, and never kill them for the table. Some have supposed that, before the disforesting of the north of England and the lowlands of Scotland, and when the climate 8 LETTER I. The post-house at Haddington, a \vretched inn, by comparison, he says, is inferior to none on the London road. In this town he says there are coffee-houses and taverns as in England ; — Who would not thence infer, there are spacious rooms, many waiters, plentiful larders, &c. ? And as to the only coffee-room we have, 1 shall say something of it in its proper place. But the writer is held greatly in esteem by the people here, for calling this the ' pretty town of Inverness.' How often have 1 heard those words quoted with pleasure ! Here I am about to premise something in relation to the sheets which are to follow : And C first, I intend to send you one of these letters every fortnight, and oftener if I find it conve- nient, till I have, as I may say, writ myself was certainly better than it has been for some time back, they had the nightingale also. The meaning of the name of this bird in the French, Italian, &c. is beautifully poetical. It is Celtic, and is still preserved in the Scots-Gaelic and Irish, Ros- AN-CEOL, the rose-music ; the melody finely substituted for the melodist; the former being often heard, whilst the latter is seldom seen. The oriental fable of the Nightingale and the Rose is well known, and needs no other explication than simply observ- ing, that the queen of sylvan melodists, and the queen of flowers, come and go together ; and that nightingales sing only while roses blow. LETTER I. " quite out. In doing this, I shall not confine myself to order or method, but take my para- graphs just as they come to hand, except where one fact or observation naturally arises iVom another. Nor shall I be solicitous about the elegancy of style, but content myself with an endeavour only to be understood ; for both or either of those niceties would deprive me of some other amusements, and that, I am sure, you do not expect, nor would you suffer it if you could help it. There will be little said that can be appli- cable to Scotland in general ; but if any thing of that nature should occur, I shall note it to be so. All parts of the Highlands are not exactly alike, either in the height of the country or the customs and manners of the natives, of whom some are more civilised than others. Nothing will be set down but what I have personally known, or received from such whose information I had no reason to suspect; and all without prejudice or partiality. And lastly, 1 shall be very sparing of the names of particular persons (especially when no honour can be dispensed by the mention of them), not only as they are unknown to you, but, to tell you the truth, in prudence to myself ; for, as our letters are carried to Edinburgh the Hill-way, by a 10 LEiTELi 1. foot post, there is one who makes no scruple to intrude, by means of his emissaries, into the affairs and sentiments of others, especially if he fancies there is any thing relating to himself; so jealous and inquisitive is guilt. And there- fore I shall neglect no opportunity of sending them to Edinburgh by private hands. But if you should be curious at any time to know the name of some particular person ; in that case, a hint, and the date of my letter, will enable me to give you that satisfaction. But I must add, that the frequent egotisms which I foresee I shall be obliged to use in passages merely relating to myself, incline me to wish that our language would sometimes (like the French) admit of the third person, only to vary the eternal (I). This is all I have to say by way of preface : what apologies I may have occasion to make in my progress, I do not know; but I promise, that as they are drj/, so shall they be Vis/ew as possible. LETTER II. About a twelvemonth after I first came to this town, and had been twice to Edinburgh by the way of the Hills, I received a letter from an old acquaintance, desiring me to give him an account of my first journey hither, the same to commence from the borders of Scotland. I could not, you may imagine, conceive the meaning of a request so extraordinary ; but however I complied implicitly. Some time afterwards, by a letter of thanks, I was given to understand, it was an expedient, agreed upon between him and another, whereby to decide a dispute. Now all this preface is only to introduce my request to you, that you will absolve me from the promise I made you last week, and in lieu of what you might demand, accept of a copy of that letter. I should not have waved my promised design, but for an affair which something related to myself, and required my attention, and there- fore I could not find time to tack together so 12 many memorandums, as such letters, as 1 in- tend to send you, require ; for if they are not pretty long, I shall be self-condemned, since you know I used to say, by way of complaint against — — , That letters from one friend to another should be of a length proportioned to the distance between them. After some compliments, my letter was as follows : *' According to your desire, I shall begin my account with the entertainment I met with after passing the Tweed at Kelso, but shall not trouble you with the exaction and intolerable insolence of the ferrymen, because I think you can match their impudence at our own horse- ferry : I shall only say, that I could obtain no redress, although I complained of them to the principal magistrate of the town. " Having done with them, my horses were led to the stable, and myself conducted up one pair of stairs, where I was soon attended by a handsome genteel man, well dressed, who gave me a kindly welcome to the house. ** This induced me to ask him what I could have to eat : to which he civilly answered. The good wife will be careful nothing shall be want- ino- : but that he never concerned himself about any thing relating to the jjublic (as he called it) : that is, he would have me know he was a gentle- LF.TTER IT. 13 wan, and did not employ himself in any thing so low as attendance, but left it to his wife.^ Thus he took his leave of me ; and soon after came up my landlady, whose dress and appear- ance seemed to me to be so unfit for the wife of that gentleman, that I could hardly believe she was any other than a servant ; but she soon took care, in her turn, by some airs she gave herself, to let me know she was mistress of the house. " I asked what was to be had, and she told me potted pigeons; and nothing, I thought, could be more agreeable, as requiring no wait- * There are several people still living who remember " mine host" of Kelso, and his manner, just such as they are described here ; but there were many such in the country at that time, who urged no pretensions to gentility. It was in Scotland, as on the bye-roads in England a few years back, where there were few travellers, and little profit for inn-keepers; the husband was obliged to follow some other avocation for the support of his fa- mily, and leave the concerns of the house entirely to his iiife, who was too sensible of the importance of her charge to share it with any body. It was from her alone, that the inn took its de- nomination ; and she was emphatically called the brewster-wife, because the character of her charge depended chiefly upon her skill in brewing, and the quality of her ale. — Sometimes the husband''s politeness, and sometimes, no doubt, his for wa7'dness, led him to do the honours in his own house ; but there was no affectation in his saying that he never meddled with the manage- ment of it ; for a brewster^wife who would have suffered ^ which seldom fails with a stranger, as their appearance generally shows how much they stand in need of it. LETTER VII. 141 these people, who have not such a word as police in their language !" By what I have seen, the people here are something cleaner in their houses than in other parts of this country where I have been ; yet I cannot set them up as patterns of cleanliness. But in mere justice to a laird's lady, my next- door neighbour, I must tell you that in her per- son, and every article of her family, there is not, I believe, a cleaner weman in all Britain; and there may be others tlie same, for aught I know, but I never had the satisfaction to be ac- quainted with them. I shall not enter into particulars ; only they are, for the most part, very cautious of wearing out their household utensils of metal ; insomuch that I have sometimes seen a pewter vessel to drink out of not much unlike in colour to a leaden pot to preserve tobacco or snuff. I was one day greatly diverted with the grievous complaint of a neighbouring woman, of whom our cook had borrowed a pewter pudding- pan (for we had then formed a mess in a pri- vate lodging), and when we had done with it, and she came for her dish, she was told, by the servants below stairs, that it should be cleaned, and then sent home. This the woman took to be such an intended .injury to her pan, that she cried out— ^^ Lord ! 142 LETTER VII. you'll wear it out!" and then came up stairs to make her complaint to us, which she did very earnestly. We perceived the jest, and gravely told her it was but reasonable and civil, since it was borrowed, to send it home clean. This did not at all content her, and she left us ; but at the foot of the stairs she peremptorily demanded her moveable ; and when she found it had been scoured before it was used, she lost all pa- tience, saying she had had it fifteen years, and it never had been scoured before ; and she swore she would never lend it again to any of our country. But why not to any'^. sure the wo- man in her rage intended that same any as a na- tional reficction. And, without a jest, I verily think it was as much so as some words I have heard over a bottle, from which some wrong- headed, or rather rancorous, coxcombs have wrested that malicious inference; though, at the same time, the affront was not discovered by any other of the company. But this does not happen so often with them on this side the Tweed as in London, where I have known it to have been done several times, apparently to raise a quereUe (T Alkmand. Not only here, but in other parts of Scotland, I have heard several comm.on sayings very well adapted to the inclination of the people to save LETTER VII. 143 themselves pains and trouble ; as, for one instance, *' A clean kitchen is a token of poor housekeep- ing." Another is, *' If a family remove from a house, and leave it in a clean condition, the succeeding tenant will not be fortunate in it." Now I think it is intended the reverse of both these proverbs should be understood, viz. That a foul kitchen is a sign of a plentiful table (by w^hich one might conclude that some live like princes) ; and that a dirty house will be an ad- vantage to him that takes it. But I shall give you an example of the fallacy of both these maxims, i. e. from a filthy kitchen without much cookery, and the new tenant's ill-fortune to be at the expence of making a dirty house clean (I cannot say sweet), and paying half-a- year's rent without having any benefit from it. — This happened to a friend of mine. Some few years ago he thought it would be his lot to continue long in the Lowlands ; and accordingly he took a house, or floor, within half a quarter of a mile of Edinburgh, which was then about to be left by a woman of dis- tinction ; and it not being thought proper he should see the several apartments while the lady was in the house, for he might judge of them by those beneath, he, immediately after her removal, went to view his bargain. The floor of the room where she saw company was 144 LETTER VII. clean, being rubbed every morning according to custom; but the insides of the corner-cup- boards, and every other part out of sight, were in a dirty condition ; but, when he came to the kitchen, he was not only disgusted at the sight of it, but sick with the smell, which was in- tolerable; he could not so much as guess whe- ther the floor was wood or stone, it was covered over so deep with accumulated grease and dirt, mingled together. The drawers under the ta- ble looked as if they were almost transparent with grease ; the walls near the servants' table, which had been white, were almost covered with snufF spit against it ; and bones of sheeps' heads lay scattered under the dresser. His new landlord was, or affected to be, as much moved with the stench as he himself; yet the lodging apartment of the two young ladies adjoined to this odoriferous kitchen. Well, he hired two women to cleanse this Augean part, and bought a vast quantity of sweet-herbs wherewith to rub it every where ; and yet he could not bear the smell of it a month afterwards.' — Of all this I was myself a witness.* * " Muck brings luck." This proverb we now begin to apply to better purpose in our fields and stable-yards, instead of our houses. Still a family that enters a house that has been left by another has not much to boast of the order in which they find LETTER Vir. 145 You know very well that a thorough neat- ness, both in house and person, requires ex- pence ; and therefore such as are in narrow cir- cumstances may reasonably plead an excuse for the want of it ; but when persons of fortune will suffer their houses to be worse than hog- styes, I do not see how they differ in that par- ticular from Hottentots, and they certainly de- serve a verbal 'punishment, though I could very wilHngly have been excused from being the executioner : but this is only to you ; yet, if it were made public (reserving names), I think it might be serviceable to some in whatever part of this island they may be. As to myself, I profess I should esteem it as a favour rather than an offence, that any one it. This fiuperstition is convenient for such as are not in the habit of doing any thing of which another is to reap the benefit with- out sharing in the expence ; and there are still too many of this sort in Scotland; but, as their means increase, they are improving fast. — God mend them ! In the days of Henry the Eighth and Queen Elizabeth, in the palaces and castles of England, the floors of the rooms were strewed with fresh rushes now and then. The guests, who used no forks, threw their bones, gristles, and fat (when they met with a bit), under the table among the rushes, where it lay for weeks among. swarms of toads, newts, beetles, earwigs, and fleas! These " golden days," it seems, remained in North Britain till our author's time — if not in the dining-room and drawing-room, at least in the kitchen and hall. VOL. I. L 146 LETTER VII. would take the trouble to hold up a mirror to me, in which I could see where to wipe off those spots that would otherwise render me ridiculous. I shall only trouble you with one more of these saving sayings, which is, " That if the butter has no hairs in it the cow that gave the milk will not thrive." But on this occasion I cannot forbear to tell you, it falls out so a-propos, that an English gentleman, in his way hither, had some butter set before him in which were a great number of hairs;* whereupon he called to the landlady, desiring she would bring him some butter upon one plate and the hairs upon another, and he would mix them himself, for he thought they were too many in proportion for the quantity of butter that was before him. Some of the inns in these remote parts, and even far south of us, are not very inviting : your chamber, to which you sometimes enter from without-doors, by stairs as dirty as the streets, is so far from having been washed, it has hardly ever been scraped, and it would be no wonder if you stumbled over clods of dried dirt in * Those who have read the genuine and admirable pictures in '• The Cottagers of Glenburnie," will find that the clan of M'Clarty, although much reduced in numbers and rank, and under a sort of proscription, is still more powerful among us than were to be wished. LETTER VII. 147 going from the fire-side to the bed, under which there often is lumber and dust that almost fill up the space between the floor and the bed- stead.* But it is nauseous to see the walls and inside of the curtains spotted, as if every one that had lain there had spit straight forward in whatever position they lay. Leonardo da Vinci, a celebrated painter, and famous for his skill in other arts and sciences, in a treatise written by himself on the art of painting, advises those of his profession to con- template the spots on an old wall, as a means to revive their latent ideas ; and he tells them they may thereby create new thoughts, which might produce something purely original. I doubt not he meant in the same manner as people fancy they see heads and other images in a decaying fire. This precept of his has sometimes come in my mind when I cast my eye on the various forms and colours of the spots I have been speaking of; and a very little * Where the climate is unkind and the ground penurious, so that the most fruitful years produce only enough to maintain themselves, life, unimproved and unadorned, fades into some- thing little more than naked existence ; every one is busy for himself, and without attention to those arts by which the pleasure of others may be increased. — Johnsons Tour, Works, vol. viii. 378. L 2 148 LETTER VII. attention has produced the eifect proposed by the painter. My landlord comes into the room uninvited, and, though he never saw you before, sits him- self down and enters into conversation with you, and is so sociable as to drink with you ; and many of them will call, when the bottle is out, for another ; but, like mine host at Kelso, few will stir to fetch any thing that is wanting. This behaviour may have been made, by custom, famihar to their own countrymen ; but I wonder they do not consider that it may be disagreeable to strangers of any appearance, who have been used to treat their landlords in quite another manner,* even permitting an inn- keeper, worth thousands, to wait at table, and never show the least uneasiness at his humility ; but it may be said he was no gentleman. Pride of family, in mean people, is not pecu- liar to this country, but is to be met with in others ; and indeed it seems natural to mankind, when they are not possessed of the goods of fortune, to pique themselves upon some ima- ginary advantage. Upon this remark I shall so far anticipate (by way of postcript) my High- * The keeper of a poor whiskey hovel in Lochaber could know very little how strangers treated landlords, except that, when they came to his hut, he met with less respect from theiix than from his neighbours. LETTER VII. 149 land account as to give you a low occurrence that happened when I was last among the hills. A young Highland girl in rags, and only the bastard daughter of a man very poor and em- ployed as a labourer, but of a family so old that, with respect to him and many others, it was quite worn out. This girl was taken in by a corporal's wife, to do 'any dirty work in an officer s kitchen, and, having been guilty of some fault or neglect, was treated a little roughly ; whereupon the neighbouring Highland women loudly clamoured against the cook, saying, '' What a monster is that to mal-treat a gentle- vians bairn F' and the poor wretch's resentment was beyond expression upon that very account.* * If, in those days, the termagant wife of a Highland cQV^om\j wlio could not speak a word of English, had treated a little roughly the bastard daughter of an English gentleman in reduced circumstances, in any small country town in England, what would the women of the place, and and the poor wretch herself, have said on that very account ? The love of kindred, so ho- nourable to the Highland character, procures for natural children in that country a kindness and attention which they do not meet with elsewhere. A married lady in the Highlands would consi- der her children as disgraced if their half-brothers and half-sisters were not suitably provided for in the world ; and, as they come out first, they not unfrequently fare the best, and are very often useful afterwards to the younger branches of the family. LETTER VIII. As I have, in point of time, till the last post, been perfectly punctual in this my tattling cor- respondence, though not so exact in my letters upon other subjects, you may possibly expect I should give you a reason for this failure, at least I am myself inclined to do so. Several of us (the English) have been, by in- vitation, to dine v^ith an eminent chief, not many miles from hence, in the Highlands ; but i do assure you it was his importunity (the effect of his interest) and our own curiosity, more than any particular inclination, that in- duced us to a compliance. We set out early in the morning without guide or interpreter, and passed a pretty wide river, into the county of Ross, by a boat that we feared would fall to pieces in the passage. This ex- cursion was made in order to a short visit on that side the Murray Frith, and to lengthen out the way, that we might not be too early with our noble host. Our first visit being dispatched, we changed LETTER Vlir. 151 our course, and, as the sailor says, ^/oofi? directly, as we thought, for the castle of our inviter ; but we soon strayed out of our way among the hills, where there was nothing but heath, bogs, and stones, and no visible track to direct us, it being across the country. In our way we inquired of three several High- landers, but could get nothing from them but Haniel Sasson uggit. We named the title of our chief, and pointed with the finger ; but he was known to none of them, otherwise than by his patronymic, which none of us knew at that time. (I shall have something to say of this word, when I come to speak of the Highlands in ge- neral.) But if we had been never so well ac- quainted with his ancestry name, it would have stood us in little stead, unless we had known likewise how to persuade some one of those men to show us the way. At length we hap- pened to meet with a gentleman, as I supposed, because he spoke English, and he told us we must go west a piece (though there was no ap- pearance of the sun), and then incline to the north; that then we were to go along the side of a hill, and ascend another (which to us was then unseen), and from the top of it we should see the castle. I should have told you, that in this part of our peregrination we were upon the borders of the 152 LETTER VIII. mountains only; and the hills, for the most part, not much higher than Hampstead or High- gate. No sooner had he given us this confused di- rection, but he skipped over a little bog, that was very near us, and left us to our perplexed consultations. However, at last we gained the height; but when we were there, one of our company began to curse the Highlander for de- ceiving us, being prepossessd with the notion of a castle, and seeing only a house hardly fit ^or one of our farmers of fifty pounds a-year ; and in the court-yard a parcel of low outhouses, all built with turf, like other Highland huts. When we approached this castle, our chief, with several attendants* (for he had seen us on the hill), came a little w^ay to meet us ; gave us a welcome, and conducted us into a parlour pretty well furnished. After some time, we had notice given us that dinner was ready in another room ; where we * " Among other singular customs,"'' says Martyn, " every chieftain had a bold armour-bearer, ^Yhose business was always to attend the person of his master night and day, to prevent any sur- prize ; and this man was called Galloglach : he had likewise a double portion of meat assigned him at every meal. The measure of meat usually given him is called to this day hieysir. that is, a man's portion, meaning thereby an extraordinary man, whose strength and courage distinguished him from the common sort." — Martyn s Westmi Islands, 104. LETTER VIII. 153 were no sooner sat down to table, but a band of music struck up in a little place out of sight, and continued playing all the time of dinner. These concealed musicians he would have had us think were his constant domestics ; but I saw one of them, some time after dinner, by mere chance, whereby I knew they were brought from this town to regale us with more magnifi- cence. Our entertainment consisted of a great num- ber of dishes, at a long table, all brought in under covers, but almost cold. What the greatest part of them were I could not tell, nor did I in- quire, for they were disguised after the French manner; but there was placed next to me a dish, which I guessed to be boiled beef; — I say that was my conjecture, for it was covered all over wdth stewed cabbage, like a smothered rabbit, and over all a deluge of bad butter. When I had removed some of the encum- berance, helped myself, and tasted, I found the pot it w^as boiled in had giv en it too high a gout for my palate, which is always inclined to plain eating. I then desired one of the company to help me to some roasted mutton, which was indeed de- licious, and therefore served very well for my share of all this inelegant and ostentatious plenty. 154 LETTER VIII. We had very good v^nne, but did not drink much of it ; but one thing I should have told you was intolerable, viz. the number of Highlanders that attended at table, whose feet and foul linen, or woollen, I don't know which, were more than a match for the odour of the dishes. The conversation was greatly engrossed by the chief, before, at, and after dinner; but I do not recollect any thing was said that is worth repeating. There were, as we went home, several de- scants upon our feast ; but I remember one of our company said he had tasted a pie, and that many 2i peruke had been baked in a better crust. When we were returned hither in the even- ing we supped upon beef-steaks, which some, who complained they had not made a dinner, rejoiced over, and called them a luxury. I make little doubt but, after our noble host had gratified his ostentation and vanity, he cursed us in his heart for the expence, and that his family must starve for a month to retrieve the profusion ; for this is according to his known character.* * There is little doubt that their noble host was Lord Lovat 5 a bad man, but of considerable talents, various and extensive knowledge of men and things, consummate address, and the most polished manners, and intimately acquainted with the modes and usages of courtly life both in France and England. He was LETTER VIII. 155 Toward the conclusion of my last letter T gave you some account of the loclgmg-rooms of many of the inns in this country, not forgetting my landlord ; and now I shall descend to the stables, which are often wretched hovels, and, instead of straw for litter, are clogged with such an accumulated quantity of dung, one might almost think they required another Hercules to cleanse them. There is another thing very inconvenient to the traveller, which I had omitted. He is made to wait a most unreasonable while for every thing for which he has occasion. I shall give you only one instance among a hundred. pompous and splendid from policy, wishing to enhance the price of his assumed consequence ; but, like other artificial characters, he was apt to overdo the part he was acting. It was his study, at that time, to ingratiate himself with both political parties, par- ticularly with the friends of government, because he bore them least good-will ; and no man understood the business of a courtier better. With his intimate knowledge of the character and ha- bits of the English, it is not to be imagined that he invited them to a feast, at which they could find nothing that was fit to be eaten. Our author dined on delicious mutto?i ; and had his companions been entertained by the king of France, or the em- peror of Germany, they would have made like complaints, and roared for beef-steaks when they got to their lodgings. Jf Lo- vat, at his own table, was not entertaining, it must have been through the faults of his guests. The recd^ but ostentatious su- periority of their host, in addition to his suspected politics, was probably the tru« cause of their splenetic jealousy and discontent. 156 • LETTER VIII. At the blair of Athol, benighted, tired, and hungry, I came to the inn, and was put into a room without any light; where, knowing the dilatory way of those people, I sat patiently waiting for a candle near half an hour ; at last, quite tired with expectation, I called pretty hastily, and, I must confess, not without anger, for a light and some wine ; this brought in a servant maid, who, as usual, cried out, *' What's your will?" I then again told her my wants; but had no other answer than that her mistress had the keys, and was at supper, and she could not be disturbed. Her mistress, it is true, is a gentle- looman, but before she was married to the stately beggar who keeps that house she lived in this town, and was humble enough to draw tico-periny. The two-penny, as they call it, is their com- mon ale ; the price of it is two-pence for a Scots pint, which is two quarts. In sliding thus from the word two-penny to a description of that liquor, there came to my memory a ridiculing dissertation upon such kind of transitions in one of the Tatlers, ibr those books I have with me, which, indeed, are here a good part of my library. This liquor is disagreeable to those who are not used to it ; but time and custom will make almost any thing familiar. The malt, which is dried with peat, turf, or furzes, gives to the LETTER VIII. 157 drink a taste of that kind of fuel : it is often drank before it is cold out of a cap, or coif,^ as they call it: this is a wooden dish, with two ears or handles, about the size of a tea-saucer, and as shallow, so that a steady hand is neces- sary to carry it to the mouth, and, in windy weather, at the door of a change, 1 have seen the liquor blown into the drinker's face. This drink is of itself apt to give a diarrhoea ; and therefore, when the natives drink plentifully of it, they interlace it with brandy or usky. I have been speaking only of the common ale ; for in some few gentlemen s houses I have drank as good as I think I ever met with in any part of England, but not brewed with the malt of this country. t The mention of their capacious pint pot, which they call a stoup, puts me in mind of part of a dialogue between two footmen, one English the other Scots. Says the English fellow, " Ye sorry dog, your shilling is but a penny." " Aye," says * Coif — qitech, in Gael, cuock, which signifies simply a dish. t The best malt used in Scotland is still brought from England. In Scotland and the north of England the crops of barley are often luxuriant, but, from the moisture of the climate, it pushes up to straw, and the grain is of inferior quality, and the husk much thicker than in the south. 158 I.ETTERVIII, Sawny, who, it seems, was a lover of ale, '* 'tis true ; but the de el tak him that has the least pint-scoup.'" They tell me, that in Edinburgh and other great towns, where there are considerable brew- ings, they put salt into the drink, which makes it brackish and intoxicating. The natives of this town speak better Eng- lish than those of any other part of Scotland, having learned it originally from the troops in the time of Oliver Cromwell ;* but the Irish accent that sometimes attends it is not very agreeable. The Irish tongue was, I may say lately, univer- sal even in many parts of the Lowlands ; and I have heard it from several in Edinburgh, that, before the Union, it was the language of the shire of Fife, although that county be separated from the capital only by the Frith of Forth, an arm of the sea, which from thence is but seven miles over; and, as a proof, they told me, after that event (the Union) it became one condition of an indenture, when a youth of either sex was to be bound on the Edinburgh side of the water, * All over the Highlands people of education speak English very correctly, because they learn it in the schools, and not in the nursery. It is hook English, somewhat stiff, but free from provincialisms, vulgarisms, and cant expressions. LETTER VIII, 159 that the apprentice should be taught the English tongue.^ This town is not ill situated for trade, and very well for a herring- fishery in particular; but except the shoals would be so complaisant as to steer into some part of the Murray Frith near them, they may remain in safety from any attempts of our adventurers : yet, notwithstand- ing they do not go out to sea themselves, they are continually complaining of the Dutch, who, they say, with their vast number of busses, break and drive the shoals from coming nearer to them. There was lately a year in which they made a considerable advantage (I think they say five or six thousand pounds) from the quantity of fish, which, as I may say, fell into their mouths ; but this happens very rarely, and then their nets and vessels are in a bad condition. Their excuse is, that they are poor ; and when they have been asked. Why then does not a greater number contribute to a stock sufficient to carry on a fishery effectually ? to this they have an- swered frankly, that they could not trust one another. * It is so long since Gaelic was the language of Fifeshire, that nothing is known concerning it ; but there is no reason to suppose that in that country they ever used any Celtic dialect which would have been intelligible to a Highlander or Irishman during the last five centuries. 160 LETTER VIIT. Some of the honester sort have complained, that when they had a good quantity of fish to send abroad (for the sake of the boimty on salt exported), the herrings have not swam much thicker in the barrel than they did before in the sea, and this brought their ships into disrepute at foreign markets. I have heard, from good authority, of a piece ofJi?i€sse that vv^as practised here, which must have been the product of some very fertile brain, viz. the screwing of wool into a cask, and laying over it some pieces of pickled salmon, separated by a false head, and by that means, and an oath, obtaining the bounty upon salt ex- ported, as if the whole was salmon, and at the same time running the wool ; but to this, the connivance of the collector of the customs was necessary. This fraud (among others) was made a handle to procure the appointment of an inspector-ge- neral at the salary of 200 /. pe?^ aujium, which was done at the representation and request of a cer- M of D , who had been, as the cant is, a good boy for many years, and never asked for any thing ; but at first the M r made strong objections to it, as it was to be a new- created place, which was generally the cause of clamour, and particularly with respect to the person proposed, who had formerly been lETTER VI It. 161 condemned to be hanged for perjury relating to the customs, and was a Jacobite. But, in order to remove all these scruples, the gentleman who solicited the affair first acknowledged all that to be true. '' But, sir," said he, " the laird is fa- in ilar with the man's wife." — '' Nay then," says the M r, " he must have it." Not long afterwards, there was information given that a considerable quantity of wine and brandy was run, and lodged in a house on the north side of the Murray Frith, and the new- made officer applied accordingly for a serjeant and twelve men to support him in making the seizure. When he arrived at the place, and had posted his guard at some small distance from the house, he went in and declared his business : whereupon the owner told him, that if he pro- ceeded further he w^ould ruin him ; for that he knew of a sum of money he had taken, on the other side of the water, for his connivance at a much greater cargo. Upon this, with guilt and surprise, the custom- house officer said, '* But what must I do with the soldiers?" — '' Nay," says the other, ''do you look to that*" Then he went out, and having mused awhile, he returned in better spirits, and said, " Now I have got it! You have fire-arms, 1 suppose?" • — " Yes," says the other. — " Then do you arm VOL. I. M 162 ^ LETTER VIII. yourself and your servants, and come resolutely to the door, and swear to me that you will all 'die upon the spot rather than your house should be ransacked, unless an authentic warrant be produced for that purpose." This was done ; and the officer immediately fell to fumbling in his pockets, till he had gone through the whole order of them; and then, turning to the serjeant, he cried out, ** What an unfortunate dog am I ! what shall 1 do ? I have left my warrant at home !" To conclude : after all this farce had been w^ell acted, he told the Serjeant there could nothing be done, by reason of this unlucky accident, but to return to Inver- ness, giving him half-a-crown, and to each of the soldiers one shilling.* Some time ago insurance was the practice, which the Royal Exchange soon discovered; but * This story is told of a Jacobite ; but the secret of such a transaction must have remained exclusively with those who knew better than to divulge it. The rogue who exported the wool, perhaps, furnished the hint to those who export cargoes of rum, &c. from London, in puncheons filled with water, except at the end where the false bottom is. There are, in all countries, too many custom-house casuists like the ship-captain, who being re- proached for an oath which he had just taken, knowing it to be false, — " What I" said he, " don't you know that when I got the command of a ship, I took a solemn oath never to swear truth at the custom-house, but when it was convenient? — Would yuii have me -perjure myself?^' LETTER VI I r. 163 this imputation was brought upon the town, as I have been assured, by one single person. But what am I talking of? I am mentioning to you four or five illicit dealers, when you can tell me of great part of our own coast, where almost all degrees of men are either practis- ing, encouraging, or conniving at the same ini- quity. The principal importation of these parts con- sists in wines, brandy, tea, silks, &c. which is no great advantage to those who deal that way, when their losses by bad debts, seizures, and other casualties, are taken into the account : and it is injurious to the community, by exchanging their money for those commodities which are consumed among themselves, excepting the soldiery and a few strangers, who bring their money with them. Every now and then, by starts, there have been agreements made among the landed men, to banish, as much as in them lay, the use of brandy in particular. By these contracts they have promised to confine themselves to their own growth, and to enjoin the same to their families, tenants, and other dependants; but, like some salutary laws made for the public, these reso- lutions have not been long regarded. . I wish the reformation could be made for the good of the country (for the evil is universal) ; M 2 1G4 LETTER VIII. but I cannot say I should even be contented it should extend to the claret, till my time comes to return to England and humble port, of which, if I were but only inclined to taste, there is not one glass to be obtained for love or money, either here or in any other part of Scotland that has fallen within my knowledge : but this does not at all excite my regret. You will say I have been giving you a pretty picture of patriotism in miniature, or as it relates to myself. Sometimes they export pretty handsome quantities of pickled salmon,* and the money expended by the troops is a good advantage to the town and the country hereabouts ; of which they are so sensible, that, unlike our own coun- trymen, who think the soldiery a burden, they have several times solicited for more companies to be quartered in the town; though, God knows, most of the quarters are such as, with you, would hardly be thought good enough for a favourite dog. It was but the other day that a grenadier came to the commanding officer, and begged of him to take a view of his bed ; and, with tears in his eyes, told him' he had always been a clean fellow (for those were his words), but here he could not keep himself free from vermin. * One nobleman in Scotland is said to derive 10,000/. a year from his salmon-fisheries alone. LETTER VIII. 165 As I happened to be present, the officer de- sired me to go along with him. 1 did so; and what the man called a bed proved to be a little quantity of straw, not enough to keep his sides from the hardness of the ground, and that too laid under the stairs, very near the door of a miserable hovel. And though the magistrates have often been applied to, and told that the very meanest among the soldiers had never been used to such lodging, yet their favourite town's people have always been excused, and these most wretched quarters continued to them.* And I cannot doubt but this has con- tributed greatly to the bloody-flux, which sweeps away so many of them, that, at some seasons, for a good while together, there has hardly a day passed but a soldier has been buried. Thus are they desirous to make their gains of the poor men without any regard to * Billets were given upon private housekeepers ; but as those who could pay so much a-\veek were excused, the soldiers were quartered upon such only as had little accommodation for them- selves. What curses such insolent and profligate guests must have been, particularly to the female part of the quiet and re- ligious family of a poor Scotish cottager at that time, may be easily conceived. And what must their discipline and conduct in general have been, when our author tells us that the officers made the natives speak English^ by beating them with a stick ? The bloody-fiux is said to be produced by the water of Inverness upon strangers, particularly English, 166 LETTER VIII. their ease or their health, which I think is some- thing to the purpose of a profligate saying I have heard, — '' Give me the fortune, and let the devil take the woman!" But when the new barracks are completed, the soldiers will have warm quarters, and the town lose great part of their profit by provision made for them from more distant parts. There is one practice among these merchants which is not only politic but commendable, and not to be met with every where, which is, that if a bill of exchange be drawn upon any one of them, and he fails in cash to make payment in due time, in that case the rest of them will con- tribute to it rather than the town should re- ceive any discredit. In a former letter I took notice that there are two churches in this town, one for the English, the other for the Irish tongue. To these there are three ministers, each of them, as I am told, at one hundred pounds a-year. It is a rule in Scotland, or at least is generally understood to be so, that none shall have more than that stipend, or any less than fifty ; yet I have been likewise informed, that some of the ministers* in Edinburgh and other cities make * The stipend for ministers at the very lowest, should, by act of parliament, be eight chalders of victual, or eight hundred merks Scots; and the stipend of the ministers of Edinburgh, til LETTER VIII. 167 of it near two hundred, but how the addition arises has not come to my knowledge. What I shall say of the ministers of this town is, that they are men of good lives and sober conver- sation, and less stiff in many indifferent matters than most of their brethren in other parts of Scotland ; and, to say the truth, the Scotish cler- gy (except some rare examples to the contrary) lead regular and unblamable lives. What I have further to say on this head shall be more general, but nothing of this kind can be applied to all. The subjects of their sermons are, for the most part, grace, free-will, predestination, and other topics hardly ever to be determined : they might as well talk Hebrew to the common people, and I think to any body else. But thou shalt do no manner of work they urge with very great suc- cess. The text relating to Caesar's tribute is seldom explained, even in places where great part of the inhabitants live by the contrary of that example. In England, you know, the minister, if the people were found to be negligent of their clothes when they came to church, would re- of late, two thousand five hundred merks: but now it is enacted, by the town-council of that city, that none who shall hereafter be- come ministers there, shall have more than two thousand merks^ or one hundred and eleven pounds two shillings and two-pence sterling. — Ckamberlaynes History, part ii. p. 69. 168 LETTER Vlll. commend decency and cleanliness, as a mark of respect due to the place of worship ; and indeed, humanly speaking, it is so to one another. But, on the contrary, if a woman, in some parts of Scotland, should appear at kirk dressed, though not better than at an ordinary visit, she would be in danger of a rebuke from the pulpit, and of being told she ought to purify her soul, and not employ part of the sabbath in decking out her body ; and I must needs say, that most of the females in both parts of the kingdom follow, in that particular, the instructions of their spiritual guides religiously. The minister here in Scotland would have the ladies come to kirk in their plaids, which hide any loose dress, and their faces too, if they would be persuaded, in order to prevent the wan- dering thoughts of young fellows, and perhaps some young old ones too ; for the minister looks upon a well-dressed woman to be an ob- ject unfit to be seen in the time of divine service, especially if she be handsome.* The before-mentioned writer of a '' Journey * This, in the Preshyterian clergy, was mere spirit of opposition, because, in Roman Catholic times, acts of par- liament had been made, at the request of the clergy, forbidding women appearing at church moussaled (muzzled), or muffled up in veils, &c. as such concealment was sometimes made subser^ vientto intrigues. — How near extremes come to each other! LETTER VIIT. 169 through Scotland," has borrowed a thought from the Tatler or Spectator, I do not remem- ber which of them. Speaking of the ladies' plaids, he says — '' They are striped with green, scarlet, and other colours, which, in the middle of a church on a Sunday, look like a parterre dejleursr In- stead of striped he should have said chequered, but that would not so well agree with his flowers ; and 1 must ask leave to differ from him in the simile, for at first I thought it a very odd sight ; and, as to outward appearance, more fit to be compared with an assembly of harlequins than a bed of tulips. But I am told this traveller through Scotland was not ill paid for his adulatian by the extra- ordinary call there has been for his last volume. The other two, which I am told relate to Eng- land, I have not seen, nor did I ever hear their character. They tell me this book is more common in this country than I shall say ; and this, in par- ticular, that 1 have seen was thumbed in the opening where the pretty toicn of Inverness is mentioned, much more than the book we saw at a painter's house in Westminster some years ago; which you will remember (to our diversion) was immoderately soiled in that important part where mention was made of himself. 170 LETTER VIII. O, Flattery ! never did any altar smoke with so much incense as thine ! — thy female votaries fall down reversed before thee; the wise, the great — whole towns, cities, provinces, and king- doms — receive thy oracles with joy, and even adore the very priests that serve in thy temples ! * * 111 addition to what has been said of the livings of the clerg:y, it may be added, that every one has a parsonage, garden, and glebe consisting of a few acres of land. Of the stipends, the minimum at present is 150/. a-year ; the medium^ about 250/. which is considerably higher than the medium of church- livings in England and Wales taken together ; and there is no maximum. The country clergymen in general, if not ambitious of public notice, are most at their ease. Few livings exceed 500 1. but North Leith, near Edinburgh, ?s at present worth about 1 ,200 /. a-year, and will soon be worth considerably more, in eon- sequence of the glebe being feued out for building docks, &c. From a similar cause, a clergymen in Greenock has about 800/. a-year, which, it is said, will soon be nearly doubled. The widows of clergymen are divided into three classes, w-ho receive pensions according to the class in which they have been entered by their husbands; the lowest receive 15/. a-year; the middle 20/.; and the highest 25/. This arises from a fund esta- blished by the clergy themselves, to which each pays so much a-year. There is also a fluctuating surplus-fund, arising from other sources, from which a distribution is annually made to each according to her class; but none of the highest class have ever, in any one year, received more than between thirty-six and thirty-seven pounds. LETTER IX. I WISH these ministers would speak oftener, and sometimes more civilly than they do, of morality. To tell the people they may go to hell with all their morality at their back, — this surely may insinuate to weak minds, that it is to be avoided as a kind of sin ; — at best that it will be of no use to them : and then no wonder they neglect it, and set their enthusiastic notions of grace in the place of righteousness. This is in general; but I must own, in particular, that one of the ministers of this town has been so care- ful of the morals of his congregation that he earnestly exhorted them, from the pulpit, to fly from the example of a wicked neighbouring nation. Their prayers are often more like narrations to the Almighty than petitions for what they want ; and the sough, as it is called (the whine), is unmanly, and much beneath the dignity of their subject. I have heard of one minister so great a pro- 172 LETTER IX. ficient ill this sough, and his notes so remarkably flat and productive of horror, that a master of music set them to his fiddle, and the wag used to say, that in the most jovial company, after he had played his tune but once over, there was no more mirth among them all the rest of that evening than if they were just come out of the cave of Trophonius. Their preaching extempore exposes them to the danger of exhibiting undigested thoughts and mistakes ; as, indeed, it might do to any others who make long harangues without some previous study and reflection ; but that some of them make little preparation, I am apt to con- clude from their immethodical ramblings. I shall mention one mistake, — I may call it an absurdity : The minister was explaining to his congrega- tion the great benefits arising from the sabbath. He told them it was a means of frequently renewing their covenant, &c. ; and, likewise," it was a worldly good, as a day of rest for them- selves, their servants, and cattle. Then he re- counted to them the different days observed in other religions, as the seventh day by the Jews, &c. *' But," says he, *' behold the particular wisdom of our institution, in ordaining it to be kept on the first; for if it were any other day, it would make a hrolicn iveek I " LETTER TX. 173 The cant is only approved of by the ignorant (poor or rich), into whom it instils a kind of enthusiasm, in moving their passions by sudden starts of various sounds. They have made of it a kind of art not easy to attain; but people of better understanding make a jest of this drollery, and seem to be highly pleased when they meet with its contrary. The latter is ma- nifest to me by their judgment of a sermon preached at Edinburgh by a Scots minister, one Mr. Wishart. Several of us went to hear him, and you would not have been better pleased in any church in England. There was a great number of considerable people, and never was there a more general approbation than there was among them at going from the kirk. This gentleman^ as I was afterwards in- formed, has set before him Archbishop Tillot- son for his model ; and, indeed, I could dis- cover several of that prelate's thoughts in the sermon. One of the ministers of this town (an old man, who died some time ago) undertook one day to entertain us with a dialogue from the pulpit, relating to the fall of man, in the fol- lowing manner, which cannot so well be con- veyed in writing as by word of mouth : — 174 LETTER IX. First he spoke in a low voice — — " And the L. G. came into the garden, and said — " Then loud and angrily " Adam, where art?" Low and humbly " Lo, here ami. Lord!" Violently " And what are ye deeing there ? " With a fearful trembling accent " Lord, 1 was nacked, and I hid mysel." Outrageously " Nacked! And what then? Hast thou eaten, &c/' Thus he profanely (without thinking so) de- scribed the omniscient and merciful God in the character of an angry master, who had not pa- tience to hear what his poor oftending servant had to say in excuse of his fault. And this they call speaking in a familiar way to the un- derstandings of the ordinary people. But perhaps they think what the famous as- trologer, Lilly, declared to a gentleman, who asked him how he thought any man of good sense would buy his predictions. This ques- tion started another, which was — What propor- tion the men of sense bore to those who could not be called so ? and at last they were reduced to one in twenty. '' Now," says the conjurer, '' let the nineteen buy my prophecies, and then," snapping his fingers, " that! for your one man of good sense." LETTER IX. 175 Not to trouble you with any more particulars of their oddities from the pulpit, I shall only say, that, since I have been in this country, I have heard so many, and of so many, that I really think there is nothing set down in the book, called " Scot's Presbyterian Eloquence," but what, at least, is probable. But the young ministers are introducing a manner more decent and reasonable, which irritates the old stagers against them ; and therefore they begin to preach at one another. If you happen to be in company with one or more of them, and wine, ale, or even a dram is called for, you must not drink till a long grace be said over it, unless you could be contented to be thought irreligious and unmannerly. Some time after my coming to this country I had occasion to ride a little way with two mi- nisters of the kirk ; and, as we were passing by the door of a change, one of them, the wea- ther being cold, proposed a dram. As the alehouse-keeper held it in his hand, I could not conceive the reason of their bowing to each other, as pleading by signs to be ex- cused, without speaking one word. I could not but think they were contending who should drink last, and myself, a stranger, out of the question ; but, in the end, the glass was forced upon me, and I found the compli- 176 LETTER IX. ment was which of them should give the pre- ference to the other of saying grace over the brandy. For my part, I thought they did not well consider to whom they were about to make their address, when they were using all this ceremony one to another in his presence ; and, to use their own way of argument, concluded they would not have done it in the presence at St. James's.* They seem to me to have but little know- ledge of men, being restrained from all free conversation, even in coffee-houses, by the fear * These peculiarities are now rarely to be met with, except among Presbyterian seceders, and not always among them, and among the remnant that is left of the Covenant, called Camero- nians. These last are mostly of the very lowest class: but even MeiV rigour begins to relax; they have discontinued their annual pilgrimage to the Pentland Hills, to vent their impatience and rage against their Maker for not " avenging the blood of his saints upon the posterity of their persecutors ;''' they condescend to preach m houses when the weather is bad; and many of them have even used fanners to winnow their corn, although that wicked machine was long anathematized as a daring and impious invention, suggested by the devil for raising artificial wind of their own making, in contempt and defiance of Him who made the wind to blow where it listeth ! — As to the " Presbyterian Eloquence," the anecdotes in the first edition were authentic, and made but a small portion of an immense collection of the same sort made by the nonjurors, which could not be published on ac- count of the horrible impieties and indecencies which they con- tained. LETTER IX. 177 of scandal, which may be attended with the loss of their hvelihood ; and they are exceed- ingly strict and severe upon one another in every thing which, according to their way of judging, might give offence. Not long ago, one of them, as I am told, was suspended for having a shoulder of mutton roasted on a Sunday morning ; another for powdering his peruke on that day. Six or seven years ago, a minister (if my information be right) was suspended by one of the presby- teries — The occasion this: He was to preach at a kirk some little way within the Highlands, and set out on the Satur- day ; but, in his journey, the rains had swelled the rivers to such a degree, that a ford which lay in his way was become impassable. This obliged him to take up his lodging for that night at a little hut near the river ; and getting up early the next morning, he found the waters just enough abated for him to venture a passage, which he did with a good deal of ha- zard, and came to the kirk in good time, where he found the people assembled and waiting his arrival. This riding on horseback of a Sunday was deemed a great scandal. It is true, that when this affair was brought, by appeal, before the general assembly in Edinburgh, his suspension VOL. r. N , 178 LETTER IX. was riemoved, but not without a good many de- bates on the subject. Though some things of this kind are carried too far, yet I cannot but be of opinion, that these restraints on the conduct of the ministers, which produce so great regularity among them, contri- bute much to the respect they meet with from the people ; for although they have not the ad- vantage of any outward appearance, by dr^ss, to strike the imagination, or to distinguish them from other men who happen to wear black or dark gray, yet they are, T think I may say, ten times more reverenced than our ministers in England. Their severity likewise to the people, for matters of little consequence, or even for works of necessity, is sometimes extraordinary. A poor man who lodged in a little house where (as I have said) one family may often hear what is said in another ; this man was complained of to the minister of the parish by his next neighbour, that he had talked too freely to his oioi icife, and threatened her with such usage as we may reasonably suppose she would easily forgive. In conclusion, the man was sentenced to do penance for giving scandal to his neighbours : a pretty subject for a congregation to ruminate upon ! LETTER IX. 179 The informer's wife, it seems, was utterly against her husband's making the complaint ; but it was thought she might have been the in- nocent occasion of it, by some provoking words or signs that bore relation to the criminal's of- fence. This was done not far from Edinburgh. One of our more northern ministers, whose parish lies along the coast between Spey and Findorn, made some fishermen do penance for sabbath-breaking, in going out to sea, though purely with endeavour to save a vessel in dis- tress by a storm.* But behold how inconsistent with this pious zeal was his practice in a case relating to his own profit. Whenever the director of a certain English undertaking in this country fell short of silver wherewith to pay a great number of workmen, and he was therefore obliged on pay-day to give gold to be divided among several of them, then this careful guardian of the sabbath ex- acted of the poor men a shilling for the change of every guinea,! taking that exorbitant advan- tage of their necessity. * Had this ever taken place, it would have been contrary to the most rigid rules of presbyterian discipline in the severest time?. Works of necessity and mercy were never considered as a breach of the Sabbath in Scotland. t This was a common trick in country places in the north ut Scotland, as long as guineas were in circuiatioii, under pretence :s 2 180 LETTER IX. In business, or ordinary conversation, they are, for the most part, complaisant ; and I may say, supple, when you talk with them singly ; — at least I have found them so ; but when col- lected in a body at a presbytery or synod, they assume a vast authority, and make the poor sinner tremble. Constantly attending ordinances, as they phrase it, is a means with them of softening vices into mere frailties ; but a person who neglects the kirk, will find but little quarter. Some time ago two officers of the army had transgressed with two sisters at Stirling : one of these gentlemen seldom failed of going to kirk, the other never was there. The affair came to a hearing before a presbytery, and the result was, that the girl who had the child by the kirk-goer was an impudent baggage, and deserved to be whipped out of town for se- ducing an honest man; and that he who never went to kirk, was an abandoned wretch for de- bauching her sister. Whether the ordinary people have a notion that when so many holy men meet together upon any occasion, the evil spirits are thereby provoked to be mischievous, or what their that the guinea might he Ught^ and they had no scales to weigh it. The change being from the weekly collections for the poor, it k to be hoped that they were the gainers. LETTER IX. 181 whimsical fancy is I cannot tell, but it is with them a common saying, that when the clergy assemble the day is certainly tempestuous.* If my countrymen's division of the year were just, there would always be a great chance for it without any supernatural cause; for they say, in these northern parts, the year is composed of nine months winter and three months bad wea- ther; but I cannot fully agree with them in their observation, though, as I have said before, the neighbouring mountains frequently convey to us such winds as may not improperly be called tempests. In one of my journeys hither, I observed, at the first stage on this side Berwick, a good deal of scribbling upon a window ; and, among the rest, the following lines, viz. Scotland ! thy weather's like a modish wife, Thy winds and rains for ever are at strife ; So termagant, awhile her bluster tries, And when slie can no longer scold — she cries j A.H. By the two initial letters of a name, I soon * This sneer at the clergy is not peculiar to Scotland. Every one who has been at sea knows what an aversion sailors have to 3. parson as a passenger. If bad weather comes, he is sure to be considered as the Jonas, who ought to be sacrificed to the winds. They have, for the same reason, an aversion to a corpse ofl board. 182 LETTLR IX. concluded it was your neighbour, Mr. Aaron Hiil/'^ but wondered at his manner of taking leave of this country, after he had been soex- ceedingly complaisant to it, when here, as to compare its subterraneous riches with those of Mexico and Peru. There is one thing I always greatly dis- approved, which is, that when any thing is whispered, though by few, to the disadvantage of a woman's reputation, and the matter be never so doubtful, the ministers are officiously busy to find out the truth, and by that means make a kind of publication of what, perhaps, was only a malicious surmise — or if true, might have been hushed up ; but their stirring in it possesses the mind 6f every one, who has any knowledge of the party accused, to her disad- vantage : and this is done to prevent scandal ! I Will not say what I have heard others allege, that those who are so needlessly inquisitive in matters of this nature must certainly feel a * Aaron Hill was an enlightened traveller, who had visited pjany countries, and learnt fairly to appreciate their advantages and disadvantages. Had he come, drenched and weary, into the Old Hall, at Buxton, in Derbyshire, where they have rain during 300 days in the year, and Scotch mist during the other sixty-five, he would not have teen in much better humour with their climate, however well he might have fiked their coeds, moor-game, and muffins. LETTER IX. 183 secret pleasure in such-like examinations ; and the joke among the English is, that they highly approve of this proceeding, as it serves for a direction where to find a loving girl upon occa- sion. I have been told, that if two or more of these ministers admonish, or accuse a man, concern- ing the scandal of suspected visits to some wo- man, and that he, through anger, peevishness, contempt, or desire to screen the woman's repu- tation, should say, she is my wife, then the ministers will make a declaration upon the spot to this purpose, viz.* ** In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, we pronounce you, A. B. and C. D., to be man and wife; " and the marriage is valid, at least so far as it relates to Scotland ; but whether * In Scotland a mutual acknowledgment before ^Yitnesses con- stitutes marriage, and Gretna Green has no privilege. In a recent case, Avhere an earldom, and the fate of another wife and child, depended upon the decision, it was awarded in an English court, after consulting the first law authorities in Scotland, that the marriage was lawful, because a certificate, written upon a scrap of paper, and signed by the gentleman, was produced by the lady ; and it was proved that they had afterwards been to- gether long enough to render the consummation of the marriage probable. In one respect, the law of Scotland is more liberal and humane than that of England; the man who marries the mother of his children legitimates those born before marriage^ and puts them on exactly the same footing with those born after. 184 LETTER IX. this kind of coupling would be binding when the parties are in any other country has not come to my knowledge. If a woman of any consideration has made a slip, which becomes visible, and her lover be a man of some fortune, and an inhabitant, the kirk will support her, and oblige him either to marry her, to undergo the penance, or leave the country; for the woman in that circumstance always declares she was deceived under pro- mise of marriage ; and some of them have spread their snares with design by that means to catch a husband.* Nay, I have known English gentlemen, who have been in govern- ment employments, that, after such an affair, have been hunted from place to place, almost from one end of Scotland to the other by the women, who, wherever they came, have been favoured by the clergy ; and, at best, the man has got rid of his embarrassment by a composi- tion : and, indeed, it is no jesting matter ; for * Mons. de St. Evremont, in a letter to the Marquis de Cre- qui, says much the same thing of the young unmarried Dutch women: — " A la verite oune trouve pas a redire a la galanterie des filles, qu'on leur laisse employer bonnement comme une aide innocente a se procurer des epoux." That is, it is certain, young maids are not censured for granting the last favour, but are left to use it honestly, as an innocent means to procure themselves husbands. But first he makes it verv' rare that they are after- ^vards left by their lovers. LETTER IX. 185 although his stay in this country might not be long enougii to see the end of the prosecution, or, by leave of absence, he might get away to England, yet the process being carried on from a kirk session to a presbytery, and thence to a synod, and from them to the general assembly, which is the dernier ressort in these cases ; yet from thence the crime and contempt may be re- presented above ; and how could any particular person expect to be upheld in the continuance of his employment, against so considerable a body as a national clergy, in transgression against the laws of the country, with a contempt of that authority by which those laws are sup- ported ? I mention this, because I have heard several make a jest of the kirk's authority. When a woman has undergone the penance, with an appearance of repentance, she has wiped off the scandal among all the godly; and a female servant, m that regenerated state, is as well received into one of those families as if she had never given a proof of her frailty. There is one kind of severity of the kirk which I cannot but think very extraordinary ; and that is, the shameful punishment by pen- ance"^ for antc-miptial fornication, as they call * When the disastrous and bloody straggle of Scotish reforma- tion was over, all that escaped the wreck of original genius and peculiar cast of character, was •' the stool of repentance.'' — This 186 LETTER IX. ' it ;^^ for the greatest part of male transgressors that way, when they have gratified their curi- osity, entertain a quite different opinion of the former object of their desire from what they had while she retained her innocence, and regard her with contempt if not with hatred. And therefore one might think it a kind of vir- tue, at least honesty, in the man who afterwards makes the only reparation he can for the injury done, by marrying the woman he has other- wise brought to infamy. Now may not this stool of terror was fashioned like an arm-chair, and was raised on a pedestal nearly two feet higher than the other seats, directly fronting the pulpit. When the kirk bell was rung, the culprit ascended the chair, and the bell-man arrayed him in the black sackcloth gown. Here he stood three Sundays successively, his face un- covered, and the awful scourge hung over him, •' A fixed figure for the hand of scorn To point his slow unmoving finger at." Croniek's Remains, 266. * Not long since, in a certain parish in Ayrshire, a serious, sober citizen, in good circumstances, had the misfortune to have his first child born within six months after marriage. The Dr. \\a.s powerful in rebuke, and consequently fond of it. No com- position would be admitted. In vain the poor culprit protested that he could not marry publicly sooner \ she was his wife in the sight of God, and he implored that she might not be put to shame in the sight of her neighbours. The Dr. was inexorable ; they had no alternative but satisfaction or excommunication ; so they mounted the stool. The Dr. commenced with a tremendous tirade against the monstrous, horrible, and damnable abomination of LETTER IX. 187 public shame deter many from making that ho- nest satisfaction? But the great offence is against the office, which formerly here was the prero- gative of the civil magistrate as well as the minister, till the former was jostled out of it by clamour. There happened, a very few years ago, a fatal instance of the change of opinion above-men- tioned : — A young gentleman (if he may deserve the (tnte-nuptial fornication. The poor man, who had never heard such a portentous word before, imagining, from the doctor's fury, that it meant something extraordinary and unnatural, in great agi- tation, cried out, " Hoot! hoot awa, Sir — hand! haud! No sae bad as that neither — not ante-nuptial — nothing of the kind Sir ; indeed you've been misinformed ; — it was only jnst fornie. Sir, — phmfornie, so help me — !" The mirth which this unexpected rejoinder excited in the congregation, gave a lesson to the clergy- man not to be rash in bringing such a subject before them after- wards. It is now only in what is called the west country (which the readers of Burns are pretty well acquainted with) that the cutty-stool is in any degree of vogue. In many country places, the clergy cannot get rid of the penance altogether ; but the culprits stand up in their private seal, or wherever they please, and it is merely announced to the congregation, as tran- siently as possible, that they stand, &c. for the first, second, or third, time. Of the trouncers, it is remarked every where, that they have wonderful success in cutting out work for themselves ; the more they do, the more they have to do ; like travelling tinkers, w o rriend one old hole in a kettle and make three new ones. 881 LETTER IX. title) made his addresses to the only daughter of a considerable merchant in a city of the Low- lands; and one evening as the young people were alone together, being supposed to be just upon the eve of marriage, and the young wo- man's father and mother in the next room, which was separated only by a slight partition, the eager spark made his villanous attempt with oaths and imprecations, and using the common plea, that they were already man and wife be- fore God, and promising the ceremony should be performed the next day, and perhaps he meant it at that instant. By these means he put the poor girl under a dilemma, either to give herself up, or, by resisting the violence, to expose her lover to the fury of her parents. Thus she was — what shall I say ?— one must not say undone, for fear of a joke, though not from you. And as that kind of conquest, once obtained, renders the vanquished a slave to her conqueror, the wedding was delayed, and she soon found herself with child. At length the time came when she was delivered, and in that feeble state she begged she might only speak to her deceiver ; who, with great difficulty, was prevailed with to see her. But w^hen she put him in mind of the circumstances she was in when he brought her to ruin, he, in a careless, indolent manner, told her she was as willing as LETTER TX. * 189 himself; upon which she cried out, "Villain, you know yourself to be a liar!" and imme- diatly jumped out of bed, and dropped down dead upon the floor. But I must go a little further, to do justice to the young gentlemen of that town and the neigh- bourhood of it; for as soon as the melancholy catastrophe was known, they declared to all the keepers of taverns and coffee-houses where they came, that if ever they entertained that fellow they would never after enter their doors. Thus, in a very little time, he was deprived of all society, and obliged to cjuit the country. I am afraid your smart ones in London would have called this act of barbarity only a piece of gallantry, and the betrayer would have been as well received among them as ever before. I know I should be laughed at by the liber- tines, for talking thus gravely upon this subject, if my letter were to fall into their hands. But it is not in their power, by a sneer, to alter the nature of justice, honour, or honesty, for they will always be the same. What I have said is only for repairing the ef- fect of violence, deceit, and perjury; and of this, every one is a conscious judge of himself. 190 • LETTER IX. If any one be brought before a presbytery,* &c. to be questioned for sculduddery , i. e. forni- cation or adultery, and shows a neglect of their authority, the offender is not only brought to punishment by their means, but will be avoided by his friends, acquaintance, and all that know him and his circumstance in that respect. I remember a particular instance in Edin- burgh, where the thing was carried to an ex- traordinary height. A married footman was accused of adultery with one of the wenches in the same family where he served ; and, before a kirk session, was required to confess, for nothing less will satisfy ; but he persisted in a denial of the fact. This contempt of the clergy and lay elders, or, as they say, of the kh^k, excited against him so much the resentment and horror of the or- * Every parisii in the Western Isles has a church judicature, called the consistory, or kirk session, where the minister preside.?, and a competent number of laymen, called elders, meet with him. They take cognizance of scandals, censure faulty persons, and with that strictness as to give an oath to those who are sus- pected of adultery, or fornication, for whicli they are to be pro- ceeded against according to the customs of the country. They meet after divine service; the chief director of the parish is pre- sent to concur with them; and enforce their acts by his authority^ "vhich is irresistible within the bounds of his jurisdiction. Martms Wester}] Islands^ 126- LETTER IX. 191 dinar y people (who looked upon him as in a state of damnation while the anathema hung over his head), that none of them would drink at the house where his wife kept a change. Thus the poor woman was punished for the obstinacy of her husband, notwithstanding she was innocent, and had been wronged the other way.* I was told in Edinburgh that a certain Scots colonel, being convicted of adultery (as being a married man), and refusing to compound, he was sentenced to stand in a hair cloth at the kirk door every Sunday morning for a whole year, and to this he submitted. At the beginning of his penance he concealed his face as much as he could, but three or four young lasses passing by him, one of them stooped down, and cried out to her companions, " Lord ! it's Colonel ." Upon which he suddenly threw aside his disguise, and said, *' Miss, you are right; and if you will be the subject of it, I will wear this coat another twelvemonth." . Some voun^ fellows of fortune have made slight of the stool of repentance, being attended by others of their-age and circumstances of life, who, to keep them in countenance, stand with * This, however, vva3 making '* partial evil universal good.'' 192 LETTER IX. them in the same gallery or pew fronting the pulpit; so that many of the spectators, stran- gers especially, cannot distinguish the culprit from the rest. Here is a long extemporary re- proof and admonition, as I said before, which often creates mirth among some of the congre- gation. This contempt of the punishment has occa- sioned, and more especially of late years, a composition in money with these young rakes, and the kirk treasurer gives regular receipts and discharges for such and such fornications. As I have already told you how much the mi- nisters are revered, especially by the com- monalty, you will readily conclude the mob are at their devotion upon the least hint given for that purpose ; of which there are many riotous instances, particularly at the opening of the playhouse in Edinburgh, to which the clergy were very averse, and left no stone unturned to prevent it. I do not, indeed, remember there was much disturbance at the institution of the ball or assembly, because that meeting is chiefly com- posed of people of distinction ; and none are admitted but such as have at least a just title to gentility, except strangers of good appear- ance. And if by chance any others intrude they are expelled upon the spot, by order of LETTER IX. 193 the direcirice, or governess, who is a woman of quality. — I say, it is not in my memory there was any riot at the first of these meetings ; but some of the ministers published their warnings and admonitions against promiscuous dancing ; and in one of their printed papers, which was cried about the streets, it was said that the devils are particularly busy upon such occasions. And Asmodeus was pitched upon as the most dan- gerous of all in exciting to carnality. In both these cases, viz. the playhouse and the assem- bly, the ministers lost ground to their great mortification; for the most part of the ladies turned rebels to their remonstrances, notwith- standing the frightful danger. I think I never saw so many pretty women of distinction together as at that assembly, and therefore it is no wonder that those who know the artful insinuations of that fleshly spirit should be jealous of so much beauty. But I have not done with my kirk treasurer : — this in Edinburgh is thought a profitable em- ployment. I have heard of one of them (severe enough upon others) who, having a round sum of money in his keeping, the property of the kirk, marched off with the cash, and took his neigh- bour's wife along with him to bear him com- pany and partake of the spoil. VOL. I. o 194 LETTER IX. There are some rugged hills about the skirts of that city, which, by their hollows and wind- ings, may serve as screens from incurious eyes; but there are sets of fellows, enemies to love and lovers of profit, who make it a pait of their business, when they see two persons of diifeient sexes walk out to take the air, to dog them about from place to place, and observe their motions, while they themselves are concealed. And if they happen to see any kind of freedom between them, or perhaps none at all, they march up to them and demand the hulling- si Her* (alluding to the money usually given for the use of a bull) ; and if they have not something given them (which to do would be a tacit confession), they, very likely, go and inform the kirk trea- surer of what perhaps they never saw, who certainly makes the man a visit the next morning. And as he (the treasurer), like our informing justices formerly, encourages these wretches, people lie at the mercy of villains who w^ould perhaps forswear themselves for six-pence a- piece. * This tax in England is called socket ; a venerable old La- tino-Saxon law term, not to be found in Sir Henry Spelman. It means the acAnowledgment given by a tenant to his I ^ndlord, on- the occasion of putting the sock^ or ploughshare, in new ground. At Oxford, where a proctor is as terrible as a kirk treasurer^ it is levied with great rigour from freshmen and under graduates. LETTER IX. 195 The same fellows, or such like, are peeping about the streets of Edinburgh in the night-time, to see who and who are together; and sometimes afiront a brother and sister, or a man and his wife. I have known the town-guard, a band of men armed and clothed in uniforms like soldiers, to beset a house for a whole night, upon an infor- mation that a man and a woman went in there, though in the day tim.e. In short, one would think there was no sin, according to them, but fornication, or other virtue besides keeping the sabbath. People would startle more at the humming or whistling part of a tune on a Sunday, than if any body should tell them you had ruined a family. I thought I had finished my letter ; but step- ping to the window, I saw the people crowding out of the kirk from morning service ; and the bell begins to ring, as if they were to face about and return. And now I am sitting down again to add a few words on that subject ; — but you have perceived that such occasional additions have been pretty common in the course of this prattle. This bell is a warning to those who are going out, that they must soon return; and a notice to such as are at home, that the afternoon service is speedily to begin. They have a bell in mof^. o2 196 LETTER IX. of the Lowland kirks ; and as the Presbyterians and other sectaries in England are not allowed to be convened by that sound (of their own), so neither are those of the episcopal church in Scot- land. But I need not tell you, that every where the reigning church will be paramount, and keep all other communities under. The people, in the short interval between the times of service, walk about in the church-yard, the neighbouring fields, or step home and eat an egg or some little ready-dressed morsel, and then go back to their devotions. But they fare better in the evening; which has given rise to a common saying in Scotland, viz. " If you would live well on the sabbath, you must eat an episcopal din- ner and a presbyterian supper." By this it should seem, that the Episcopalians here pro- vide a dinner, as in England ; — I say it seems so, for I never was at one of their meetings, or dined with any of them at their houses on a Sunday. I have just now taken notice that each church has but one bell ; which leads me to acquaint you, that on a joy-day, as the king's birth-day, &c. (we will suppose in Edinburgh, where there are nine churches), the bells are all rung at a time, and almost all of them within hearing. This causes a most disagreeable jangling, by their often clashing one with another. And thus their joy is expressed by the same means as LETTER IX. 197 our sorrow would be for the death of a good king. But their music bells (as they call them) are very entertaining, and a disgrace to our clock- work chimes. They are played at the hours of exchange, that is, from eleven to twelve, upon keys like an organ or harpsichord ; only, as the force in this case must be greater than upon those instru- ments, the musician has a small cushion tQ each hand, to save them from bruising. He plays Scots, English, Irish, and Italian tunes to great perfection, and is heard all over the city. This he performs every week-day, and, I am told, receives from the town, for this service, a salary of fifty pounds a-year. LETTER X. I AM now to acquaint you that I have not at this time sufficient provision for your usual repast. But, by the way, I cannot help accusing myself of some arrogance, in using such a metaphor ; because your ordinary fare has been little else beside hrochan, cale, stirabout, sowings, kc. (oat- meal varied in several shapes) : but, that you may be provided with something, I am now about to give you a haggass, which would be yet less agreeable, were it not to be a little seasoned with variety; The day before yesterday, an occasion called me to make a progress of about six or seven miles among the mountains ; but before I set out, I was told the way was dangerous to stran- gers, who might lose themselves in the hills if they had not a conductor. For this reason, about two miles from hence, I hired a guide, and agreed with hiai for six-pence to attend me the whole day. This poor man went barefoot, some- times by my horse's side, and in dangerous places leading him by the bridle, winding about LETTER X. 199 from side to side among the rocks, to such gaps where the horses could raise their feet high enough to mount the stones, or stride over them. In this tedious passage, in order to divert my- self (having an interpreter with me), I asked my guide a great many questions relating to the Highlands, all which he answered very properly. In his turn, he told me, by way of question, to hear what I would say, that he believed there would be no war ; but I did not understand his meaning till I was told. By roar he meant re- hellion; and then, with a dismal countenance, he said he was by trade a weaver, and that in the year 1715, the sddir roy, or red soldiers, as they call them (to distinguish them from the Highland companies, whom they call seidir dou, or the black soldiers)—! say he told me, that they burnt his house and his loom, and he had never been in a condition since that time to pur- chase materials for his work, otherwise he had not needed to be a guide ; and he thought his case very hard, because he had not been in the affair, or the scrape, as they call it all over Scot- land, being cautious of using the word Rebel- lion. But this last declaration of his, I did not so much depend on. When he had finished his story, which, by in- terpreting, took up a good deal of time, I re- 200 LETTER X. counted to him the fable of the pigeon's fate that happened to be among the jackdaws, at which he laughed heartily, notwithstanding his late grief for his loss ; and doubtless the fable was to him entirely new. I then asked his reason why he thought there would not be another war (as he called it) ; and his answer was, he believed the English did not expect one, because they were fooling away their money, in removing great stones and blow- ing up of rocks. Here he spoke his grievance as a guide ; and indeed, when the roads are finished according to the plan proposed, there will be but little occasion for those people, except such as can speak English, and may by some be thought necessary for interpreters in their journeys : — I say they will be useless as guides alone, reckon- ing from the south of Scotland to this town the mountain way (for along the coast hither, the road can hardly be mistaken), and counting again from the Lowlands to the west end of the open- ing among the mountains that run from hence quite across the island. But all the Highlands north of this town and the said opening will remain as rugged and dan- gerous as ever. At length I arrived at the spot, of which I was LETTER X. 201 to take a view, and found it most horrible ; but in the way that 1 went being the shortest cut going southward, it is not to be avoided. This is a deep, narrow hollow, between very steep mountains, into which huge parts of rocks have fallen. It is a terrifying sight to those who are not accustomed to such views ; and at bot- tom is a small but dangerous burn, running wildly among the rocks, especially in times of rain. You descend by a declivity in the face of the mountain, from whence the rocks have parted (for they have visibly their decay), and the rivulet is particularly dangerous, when the passenger is going along with the stream, and pursued by the torrent. But you have not far to go in this bottom before you leave the cur- rent, which pursues its way, in continued wind- ings, among the feet of the mountains ; and soon after you ascend by a steep and rocky hill, and when the height is attained, you would think the most rugged ways you could possibly conceive to be a happy variety. When I had returned to the hut where I took my guide, being pleased with the fellow's good humour, and frankness in answering my ques- tions, instead of six-pence I gave him a shilling. At first he could not trust his own eyes, or thought I was mistaken; but being told what it was, and that it was all his own, he fell on his 202 LETTER X. knees and cried out, he never, in all his life be- fore, knew any body give more than they bar- o-ained for. This done, he ran into his hut, and brought out four children almost naked, to show them to me, with a prayer for the English.* Thus I had, for so small a price as one six- pence, the exquisite pleasure of making a poor creature happy for a time. Upon my Highlander's lamentation of his loss and present bad circumstances, I could not for- bear to reflect and morahze a little, concluding, that ruin is ruin, as much to the poor as to those that had been rich. Here's a poor Highlandman (whose house, * That this poor rogue of a Highlander should be astonished at receiving a benevolence of any kind from an English seidir roy, is not at all to be wondered at, any more than that he should wish his four naked children also to get something extra- ordinary. That he had not been out in 1715 is very probable. He was evidently no hero, or he would never have been a wea- ver. — The labours of the loom have been in all countries, at one time or other, confined entirely to the female sex, and consequently considered as in the highest degree degrading to a maii. The machine at present in use for weaving is inconvenient and unfa- vourable to the female form, and at some times dangerous ; yet, even now, much of the weaving in the Highlands is done by wo- men ; a man weaver seldom establishes himself among his kin- dred ; and his profession is ranked lower than even that of a tailor. The weaver here mentioned had evidently lost his caste, otherwise the kindness of his clan and kindred would have! enabled him to procure the implements of his trade in less than LETTER X. 203 loom, and all his other effects were, it is likely, not worth thirty shillings) as effectually undone, by the loss he sustained, as one that had been in the possession of thousands ; and the burn- ing of one of their huts, which does not cost fifteen shillings in building, is much worse to them than the loss of a palace by fire is to the owner. And were it not for their fond attach- ment to their chiefs, and the advantage those gentlemen take of their slave-like notions of patriarchal power, I verily believe there are but few among them that would engage in an en- terprize so dangerous to them as rebellion ; and as some proof of this, I have been told by se- veral people of this town, that in the year 1715, from ten to fifteen years. His feelings as a guide were very na- tural. About four years ago, the present writer met, on the top of Ben Lomond, an old Highlander, who said he had been a guide ivom the north side of the mountain for upwards of forty years; " but that d— d Walter Scott, that every body makes such a work about," exclaimed he with vehemence ; " I wish I had him to ferry over Loch Lomond, I should be after sinking the boat, if I drowned myself into the bargain ; for ever since he wrote bis * Lady of the Lake,' as they call it, every body goes to see that filthy hole Loch Catrine, then comes round by Luss, and I have had only two gentlemen to guide all this blessed season, which is now at an end. I shall never see the top of Ben Lo- mond again !-The d-1 confound his ladies and his lakes, say I!" This guide had in every respect the exact appearance which I had always imagined of Red Murdoch, in the Lady of the Lake. 204 LETTER X. the then earl of Mar continued here for near two months together before he could muster two hundred Highlanders, so unwilling were these poor people to leave their little houses and their families to go a king-making.* But when a number sufficient for his present purpose had been corrupted by rewards and promises, he sent them out in parties from hut to hut, threatening destruction to such as re- fused to join with them. But it may be necessary to let you know that these men, of whom I have been speaking, were not such as were immediataly under the eye of their respective chiefs, but scattered in little dwellings about the skirts of the moun- tains. * He waited till the clans should take the field. The unex- pected death of Queen Anne, and the harsh and impolitic measures adopted against the ejected Tory ministry, had disconcerted all the schemes of the Jacobites, who were altogether unprepared for an insurrection. The earl of Mar was a mere disappointed place- man, with no better principle than his discontent to recommend him to the confidence of a warlike and adventurous people ; yet, in little more than the time here specified, he was able to take the field at the head of an army of 10,000 men, which was a proof that they were at all times much too forward to engage in such enterprizes. Distinguished as they have always been by their attachment to " their little houses and their families," that very attachment was their chief incentive to hazardous undertakings ; for theu's were no homes blessed with plenty and peace, w^ere LETTER X. 205 Here follows the copy of a Highlander's letter, which has been lately handed about this town, as a kind of curiosity. When I first saw it, I suspected it to be sup- posititious, and calculated as a lure, whereby to entice some Highlanders to the colony from whence it was supposed to be written ; but I was afterwards assured, by a very credible per- son, that he knew it to be genuine. Endorsed — Letter from Donald M'Pherson a young Highland lad, who was sent to Virginia with Captain Toline, and was born near the house of Culloden where his father lives. they could sit at ease, " every man under his own vine, and under his own fig-tree." And here there was a more generous sentiment connected with their rising, which was much too ho- nourable to their characters to he branded with the stigma ot re- hellion ; — commiseration for their unfortunate chief (for in this light they viewed King James), driven from his throne and his country, and his place filled by a stranger, who had, with scorn and reproach, rejected their offers of acquiescence, and, by so doing, put them in a state of proscription. This glaring indica- tion of hatred, defiance, and unrelenting persecution in the new government, was sufficient to account for their taking arms, in- dependent of their attachment to a family which, during the three reigns preceding the abdication, had shown them peculiar favour, and for which they had so often fought and bJed. 206 LETTEll X. Portohago in Marilante, Z June 17 — . Teer Lofen Kynt Fater. Dis is te lat ye ken, dat I am in quid healt, plessed be Got for dat, hoiipin te here de lyk frae yu, as I am yer nane sin, I wad a bine ill leart gin 1 had na latten yu ken tis, be kaptin Rogirs skep dat geangs to Innerness, per cunnan I dinna ket sika anither apertunti dis towmen agen. De skep dat I kam in was a lang tym o de see cumin oure heir, but plissit pi Got for a ting wi a kepit our heels unco weel, pat Shonie Magwillivray dat hat ay a sair heet. Dere was saxty o's a kame inte te quintry hel a lit an lim an nane o's a dyit pat Shonie Magwillivray an an otter Ross lad dat kam oure wi's an mai pi dem twa wad a dyit gin tey hed bitten at hame. Pi mi fait T kanna komplin for kumin te dis quintry, for mestir Nicols, Lort pliss hem, pat mi till a pra mestir, dey ca him Shon Bayne, an hi lifes in Marylant in te rifer Potomak, he nifer gart mi wark ony ting pat fat I lykit mi sel : de meast o a mi wark is M^aterin a pra stennt hors, an pringin wyn an pread ut o de seller te mi mestir's tebil. Sin efer I kam til him I nefer wantit a pottle petter ele nor is in a Shon Glass hous, for I ay set toun wi de pairns te dennir. LETTER X. 207 Mi mestir seys til mi, fan I can speek lyk de fquk hier dat I sanna pe pidden di nating pat gar his plackimors wurk, for de fyt jouk dinna ise te wurk pat te first yeer aftir dey kum in te de quintry. Tey speek ^ lyk de sogers in Innerness. Lofen fater, fan de sarvants hier he deen wi der mestirs, dey grou unco rich, an its ne wonter for day mak a hantil o tombako ; an des sivites an apels an de sheries an de pires grou in de wuds wantin tyks apout dem. De swynes te ducks an durkies geangs en de wuds wantin mestirs. De tombako grous shust lyk de dockins en de bak o de lairts yart an de skeps dey cum fra ilka place an bys dem an gies a liantel o silder an gier for dem. Mi nane mestir kam til de quintry a sarfant an weil I wot hi's nou wort mony a susan punt. Fait ye mey pelive mi de pirest plantir hire lifes amost as weil as de lairt o Collottin. Mai pi fan mi tim is ut I wel kom hem an sie yu pat not for de furst nor de neest yeir till I gater somting o mi nane, for fan I ha dun wi mi mestir, hi maun gi mi a plantashon to set mi up, its de quistium hier in dis quintry ; an syn I houp to gar yu trink wyn insteat o tippeni in Innerness. 208 LETTER X. I wis I hat kum our hier twa or tri yiers seener nor I dit, syn I wad ha kum de seener hame, pat Got bi tanket dat I kam sa seen as I dit. Gin yu koud sen mi owr be ony o yur Inner- ness skeps, ony ting te mi, an it war as muckle clays as mak a quelt it wad, mey pi, gar my meister tink te mere o mi. It's trw I ket clays eneu fe him bat oni ting fe yu wad luck weel an pony, an ant plese Got gin I life, I sal pey yu pack agen. Lofen fater, de man dat vryts dis letir for mi is van Shams Macheyne, hi lifes shust a myl fe mi, hi hes pin unko kyn te mi sin efer I kam te de quintrie. Hi wes porn en Petic an kam our a sarfant fe Klesgou an hes peen hes nane man twa yeirs, an has sax plackimors wurkin til hem alrety makin tombako ilka tay. Heil win hem, shortly an a te geir dat he hes wun hier an py a LERTs KIP at hem. Luck dat yu duina forket te vryt til mi ay, fan yu ket ony ocashion. Got Almichte pliss you Fater an a de leve o de hous, for I hana forkoten nane o yu, nor dinna yu forket mi, for plise Got I sal kum hem wi gier eneuch te di yu k an mi nane sel guid. 1 weit you will be very vokie, fan yu sii yur nane sins fesh agen, for I heive leirt a LETTER X. 209 hantle hevens sin I sau yu an I am unco buick leirt, A tis is fe yur lofen an Opetient Sin, Tonal Mackaferson. Directed— 'Fox Shames Mackaferson neir te Lairt o Collottin's hous, neir Innerness en de Nort o Skotlan.* This letter is a notable instance of those ex- travagant hopes that often attend a new condi- tion. Yet Donald, notwithstanding all his hap- piness, desires his father to send him some clothes ; not that he wants, or shall want them, but that they would look honny, and recommend him to his master. But I shall not further an- ticipate that difficulty, which 1 know will not be unpleasing to you. If you should think poor Donald's sentiments of his change to be worth your notice, and at the same time find yourself at a loss to make out any part of his letter, your friend Sir Alex* * Th\sjeu-d' esprit has a good deal of humour in it. It is written in the dialect which is spoken on the borders of Murray and Banffshire, the spelling being adapted to the pronunciation of such Highlanders as speak broken English, But it is evi- dently written by one who did not understand Gaelic ; there is not a single idiom of that language in it, and the orthography is much too nicely adjusted to be genuine, although the hint may have been taken from an original letter. VOL. I. P 210 LETTER X. ander, who is very communicative, will be pleased with the office of your interpreter. There is one thing I should have told you at first, which is, that where I have marked the single (a) thus (a), it must be pronounced (au), which signifies (all). LETTER XL TfEAR the the conclusion of my last letter but one, I happened to say a word or two concern- ing the Episcopalians of this country, of whom I do not remember to have known one that is not a professed Jacobite, except such as are in the army, or otherwise employed under the government, and therefore I must suppose all those who have accepted of commissions or places were in their hearts of revolutional prin- ciples before they entered into office, or that they changed for them on that occasion. You know my true meaning ; but many peo- ple in this country render the word revolution a very equivocal expression — nor, among many, is it free from ambiguity in the south. Their ministers here are all nonjurors, that I know, except those of the chief baron s chapel in Edinburgh, and the Episcopal church at Aberdeen ; but whether there is any qualified Episcopal minister at Glasgow, St. Andrews, &c. I do not know.^ * There were qualified ministers in most. of the towns where p2 212 LETTER XI. The noiijuring ministers generally lead regu- lar lives ; and it behoves them so to do, for otherwise they would be distanced by their rivals. I saw a flagrant example of the people's dis- aifection to the present government in the above- mentioned church of Aberdeen, where there is an organ, the only one I know of, and the ser- vice is chaunted as in our cathedrals. Being there, one Sunday morning, with ano- ther English gentleman, when the minister came to that part of the Litany where the king is prayed for by name, the people all rose up as one, in contempt of it, and men and women set themselves about some trivial action, as taking snuff, &c. to show their dislike, and signify to each other they were all of one mind ; and when the responsal should have been pronounced, though they had been loud in all that preceded, to our amazement there was not one single voice to be heard but our own, so suddenly and entirely were we dropped. At coming out of the church we complained there was any considerable number of Episcopalians. St. Paul's chapel in Aberdeen, here mentioned, is the on^y one in Scotland now upon the old footing, owing to some jealousy about pa- tronage among the congregation, in consequence of which their children cannot have the benefit of regular and orderly confirma- tion. This the Bishop of London should look to= LETTER XI. 213 to the minister (who, as I said before, was qua- lified) of this rude behaviour of his congrega- tion, who told us he was greatly ashamed of it, and had often admonished them, at least, to behave with more decency. The nonjuring ministers have made a kind of linsey-woolsey piece of stuff of their doctrine, by interweaving the people's civil rights with religion,^ and teaching them, that it is as un- christian not to believe their notions of govern- ment as to disbelieve the Gospel. But I be- lieve the business, in a great measure, is to procure and preserve separate congregations to themselves, in which they find their account, by inciting state enthusiasm, as others do church fanaticism, and, in return, their hearers have the secret pleasure of transgressing under the umbrage of duty. I have often admired the zeal of a pretty well-dressed Jacobite, when I have seen her go down one of the narrow, steep wyndes in Edinburgh, through an accumulation of the worst kind of filth, and whip up a blind stair- case almost as foul, yet with an air as degage, as if she were going to meet a favourite lover in some poetic bower : and, indeed, the difference * This linsey-woolsey was unhappily, at that time, the com- mon wear of most of the clergy in the three kingdoms, whatever party they belonged to. 214 LETTER XI. between the generality of those people and the Presbyterians, particularly the women, is visi- ble when they come from their respective in- structors, for the former appear with cheerful countenances, and the others look as if they had been just before convicted and sentenced by their gloomy teachers. I shall now, for a while, confine myself to some customs in this town ; and shall not wan- der, except something material starts in my way. The evening before a wedding there is a cere- mony called the feet-washing, when the bride- maids attend the future bride, and wash her feet.'^ They have a penny-wedding; — that is, when a servant-maid has served faithfully, and gained the good-will of her master and mistress, they invite their relations and friends, and there is a dinner or supper on the day the servant is married, and music and dancing follow to complete the evening. * Next morning the matrons attend her up-rising^ and have a jnerry-making at the ceremony of the curch-putting-on^ or adorning her for the first time (if she has preserved her maiden honours till marriage) with the curch, or close cap, as she can no longer wear the snood, or maiden tyre. This very ancient usage is still common all over the north of Europe. — See Illustrations- of Northern Antiquities, &c. p. 354. LETTER XI. Iil5 The bride must go about the room and kiss every man in the company, and in the end every body puts money into a dish, according to their inclination and ability. By this means a family in good circumstances, and respected by those they invite, have procured for the new couple wherewithal to begin the world pretty comfortably for people of their low condition. But I should have told you, that the whole ex- pence of the feast and fiddlers is paid out of the contributions. This and the former are like- wise customs all over the Lowlands of Scotland. I never was present at one of their weddings, nor have I heard of any thing extraordinary in that ceremony, only they do not use the ring in marriage, as in England. But it is a most co- mical farce to see an ordinary bride conducted to church by two men, who take her under the arms, and hurry the poor unwilling creature along the streets, as you may have seen a pickpocket dragged to a horse-pond in London. I have some- where read of a kind of force, of old, put upon virgins in the article of marriage, in some east- ern country, where the practice was introduced to conquer their modesty ; but I think, in this age and nation, there is little occasion for any such violence ; and, perhaps, with reverence to antiquity, though it often reproaches our times, it was then only used to save appearances. 216 LETTER XI. The moment a child is born, in these north- ern parts, it is immerged in cold water,* be the season of the year never so rigorous. When I seemed at first a little shocked at the mention of this strange extreme, the good women told me the midwives would not forego that practice if my wife, though a stranger, had a child born in this country. At the christening, the husband holds up the child before the pulpit, from whence the mini- ster gives him a long extemporary admonition concerning its education. In most places the infant's being brought to the church is not to be dispensed with, though it be in never so weak a condition ; but here, as I said before, they are not so scrupulous in that and some other parti- culars. For inviting people to ordinary buryings, in all parts of the Low-country as well as here, a * The cold bath was so much in esteem by the ancient Higli- 'anders, that as soon as an infant was born he was plunged into a 1 uuning stream, and wrapped carefully in a blanket ; and soon after he was made to swallow a small quantity of fresh butter, in order to accelerate the removal of the meconium. When an infant was christened, in order to counteract the power of evil spirits, witches, &c. he was put in a basket, with bread and cheese, wrapped up in a linen cloth, and thus the basket and its contents were handed across the fire, or supended on the pot-crook that hung from the joist over the fire-place. — CampbeWs Jotirneyi vol i. 260. LETTER XI. 217 man goes about with a bell, and, when he comes to one of his stations (suppose the deceased was a man), he cries, " All brethren and sisters, 1 let you to wot, that there is a brother departed this life, at the pleasure of Almighty God ; they called him, &c. — he lived at, &c." — And so for a woman, with the necessary alterations. The corpse is carried, not upon men's shoulders, as in England, but underhand upon a bierj and the nearest relation to the deceased carries the head, the next of kin on his right hand, &c. and, if the church-yard be any thing dis- tant, they are relieved by others as occasion may require. The men go two and two before the bier, and the women, in the same order, follow after it ; and all the way the bell- man goes tinkling before the procession, as is done before the host in popish countries. Not long ago a Highlandman was buried here. There were few in the procession be- sides Highlanders in their usual garb ; and all the way before them a piper played on his bagpipe, which was hung with narrow streamers of black crape. When people of some circumstance are to be buried, the nearest relation sends printed let- ters signed by himself, and sometimes, but rarely, the invitation has been general, and made by beat of drum. 218 LETTER XT. The friends of the deceased usually meet at the house of mournmg the day before the fune- ral, where they sit a good while, like quakers at a silent meeting, in dumb show of sorrow ; but in time the bottle is introduced, and the ceremony quite reversed. It is esteemed very slighting, and scarcely ever to be forgiven, not to attend after invita- tion, if you are in health; the only means to escape resentment is to send a letter, in answer, with some reasonable excuse. The company, which is always numerous, meets in the street at the door of the deceased ; and when a proper number of them are assem- bled, some of those among them, who are of highest rank or most esteemed, and strangers, are the first invited to walk into a room, where there usually are several pyramids of plum- cake, sweetmeats, and several dishes, with pipes and tobacco ; the last is according to an old custom, for it is very rare to see any body smoke in Scotland. The nearest relations and friends of the person to be interred attend, and, like waiters, serve you with wine for about a quarter of an hour ; and no sooner have you accepted of one glass but another is at your elbow, and so a third, &c. There is no excuse to be made for not drinking, for then it will be said, '* You have obliged my LtTTER XI. 219 brother, or my cousin such-a-one ; pray, Sir, what have I done to be refused?" When the usual time is expired, this detachment goes out and another succeeds ; and when all have had their tou7\ they accompany the corpse to the grave, which they generally do about noon. The minister, who is always invited, per- forms no kind of funeral service for those of any rank whatever, but most commonly is one of the last that leaves the place of burial. When the company are about to return, a part of them are selected to go back to the house, where all sorrow seems to be immediately banished, and the wine is filled about as fast as it can go round, till there is hardly a sober per- son among them. And, by the way, I have been often told, that some have kept their friends drinking upon this occasion for more days together than I can venture to mention. In the conclusion, some of the sweetmeats are put into your hat, or thrust into your pocket, which enables you to make a great compliment to the women of your acquaintance. This last homage they call the chudgy ; but I suppose they mean the dirge — that is, a service performed for a dead person some time after his death ;* or this may be instead of a lamen- tation sung at the funeral ; but I am sure it has * One of the Antiphones of the Requiem was " Dirige aos, Domine.'' 220 LETTER Xt. no sadness attending it, except it be for an aching head the next morning. The day fol- lowing, every one that has black puts it on, and wears it for some time afterwards ; and if the deceased was any thing considerable, though the mourner's relation to him was never so re- mote, it serves to soothe the vanity of some, by inciting the question, *'Forwhomdo you mourn?" — ''My cousin, the laird of such-a- place," or " My Lord such-a-one," is the answer to the question begged by the sorrowful dress. I have seen the doors and gates blacked over in token of mourning. I must confess I never was present at more than one of these funerals, though afterwards in- vited to several, and was pretty hard put to it to find out proper excuses ; but I never failed to inquire what had passed at those assemblies, and found but little difference among them. You know I never cared to be singular when once engaged in company, and in this case I thought it best, being a stranger, to comply with their customs, though I could not but foresee the inconvenience that was to follow so great an intimacy with the bottle.* You will^ perhaps, wonder why I have con- * 111 the Lowlands, there is now nothing to be called drinking at lunerals ; but in the Highlands, where the attendants must come from a great distance, refreshment is necessary, and, as grief is dry^ there are sometimes excesses. LETTER XI. 221 tinued so long upon this subject, none of the most entertaining ; but as the better sort here are almost all of them related to one another in some degree, either by consanguinity, marriage, or clanship, it is to them, as it were, a kind of business, and takes up good part of their time. In short, they take a great pride and pleasure in doing honours to their dead. The minister or parish has no demand for christening, marrying, or burying. This last expence, particularly, 1 have ever thought un- reasonable to be charged upon the poorer sort in England. A poor industrious man, for ex- ample, who has laboured hard for fifty years together, brought up a numerous family, and been at last reduced to necessity by his extra- ordinary charge, age, and long sickness, shall not be entitled to his length and breadth under the ground of that parish where he had lived, but his poor old widow must borrow or beg to pay the duties, or (which to her, perhaps, is yet worse) be forced to make her humble suit to an imperious parish officer, whose insolence to his inferiors (in fortune) was ever increasing with the success he met with in the world ; be- sides the disgrace and contumely the poor wretch must suffer from her neighours in the alley, for that remarkable state of poverty, viz. being reduced to beg the ground. And none 222 LETTER XI. more ready than the poor to reproach with their poverty any whom they have the pleasure to think yet poorer than themselves. This to her may be as real distress as any dishonour that happens to people of better condition. Before I proceed to the Highlands (i. e. the mountains),! shall conduct you round this town, to see if there be any thing worth your uotice in the adjacent country. Toward the north-west, the Highlands begin to rise wdthin a mile of the town. To some other points (I speak exclusive of the coast- way) there are from three to five or six miles of what the natives call a flat country, by comparison with the surrounding hills; but to you, who have been always accustomed to the south of England, this plain (as they deem it) would ap- pear very rough and uneven. I shall begin with the ruins of a fort* built by Oliver Cromwell in the year 1653 or 1654, * The fort which was built by Cromwell is now totally demo- iished ; for no faction of Scotland loved the name of Cromwell, or had any desire to continue his memory. — Yet what the Romans did to other nations, was in a great degree done by Cromwell to the Scots : he civilized them by conquest, and introduced, by use- ful violence, the arts of peace. I was told, at Aberdeen, that the people learned from CromwelPs soldiers to make shoes and to plant kail. — Johnsons Journey, Works, vol. viii. 234. Neither Cromwell, nor those employed by him in Scotland, had LETTER XT. 223 which, in his time, commanded the town, the mouth of the river, and part of the country on the land sides of it where there are no hills. It lies something to the north-east of us, and is washed by a navigable part of the Ness, near its issue into the Murray Frith. The figure of the out-work is a pentagon of two hundred yards to a side, surrounded to land- much civilization to spare'; and his violence in that country was very far from useful. Of the battle of Worcester he says : ^^ Indeed it was a stiff business — a very glorious mercy — as stiff a contest as I have ever seen." The citadel was stormed, and 1,500 put to the sword by Cromwell, provoked at their resistance. Three thousand were slain on the field. Ten thousand prisoners were taken in the town, or in the pursuit next day ; and when driven to Lond n, such as survived' the mortality of a crowded prison, and the want of food, were shipped for the plantations. — Laing's Hist. vol. i. p. 427. This is only one of the many " glorious mercies" of Cromwell to the Scots ; and the friends and relations of those who were the objects of such wjerc/es could not be much disposed to learn any lesson, however good, from such a teacher. — The shoe-making is a silly story. In 1 650, at the examination of a Lanarkshire witch, one of the scenes is laid in a cottager's cale-yard, long be- fore Cromwell visited Scotland. Before the dissolution of the monasteries, their horticulture was as good as their climate would admit of, and much better, by comparison with their neighbours, than it is at present. Their principal clergy, having been mostly educated on che Continent, introduced into their own domains the improvements they had learnt the value of while abroad, and others followed their example. 224 LETTER XI. ward with a fosse, now almost filled up with rub- bish. The rampart is not unpleasant for a walk in a summer's evening, and among the grass grow carraways that have often regaled my pa- late, and of which the seeds are supposed to have been scattered, by accident, from time out of mind. Oliver had 1,200 men in and near this citadel, under the command of one colonel Fitz, who had been a tailor, as I have been informed by a very ancient laird, who said he remembered every remarkable passage which happened at that time, and, most especially, Oliver's colours, which were so strongly impressed onhis memory, that he thought he then saw them spread out by the wind, with the word Emmanuel (God with us) upon them, in very large golden characters. LETTER XIT. The name of Oliver, I am told, continues still to be used in some parts, as a terror to the children of the Highlanders ; but, that is so common a saying of others who have rendered themselves formidable, that I shall lay no stress upon it. He invaded the borders of the Highlands, and shut the natives up within their mountains. In several parts he penetrated far within, and made fortresses and settlements among them; and obliged the proudest and most powerful of the chiefs of clans, even such as had formerly contended with their kings, to send their sons and nearest relations as hostages for their peace- able behaviour. But, doubtless this success was owing, in great measure, to the good understanding there was at that time between England and France; otherwise it is to be supposed that the ancient ally of Scotland, as it is called here, would have endeavoured to break those measures, by hiring and assisting the Scots to invade our borders, in order to divert the English troops from VOL. I. Q 226 LETTER XIJ. making so great a progress in this part of the island. Near the fort is the quay, where there are sel- dom more than two or three ships, and those of no great burden. About a mile westward from the town, there rises, out of a perfect fiat, a very regular hill ; whether natural or artificial, I could never find by any tradition; the natives call it tomman-heu- rack. It is almost in the shape of a Thames w^herry, turned keel upwards, for which reason they sometimes call it Noah's Ark. The length of it is about four hundred yards, and the breadth at bottom about one hundred and fifty. From below, at every point of view, it seems to end at top in a narrow ridge ; but whea you are there, you find a plain large enough to draw up two or three battalions of men. Hither w^e sometimes retire in a summers evening, and sitting down on the heath, we beat with our hands upon the ground, and raise a most fragrant smell of wdld thym.e, pennyroyal, and other aromatic herbs, that grow among the heath: and as there is likewise some grass among it, the sheep are fed the first; and when they have eaten it bare, they are succeeded by goats, which browse upon the sweet herbs that are left untouched by the sheep. I mention this purely because I have often LETTER XIT. 227 heard you commend the Windsor mutton, sup- posing its dehcacy to proceed from those herbs; and, indeed, the notion is not uncommon. But this is not the only reason why I speak of this hill; it is the weak credulity with which it is attended, that led me to this detail ; for as any thing, ever so little extraordinary, may serve as a foundation (to such as are ignorant, heedless, or interested) for ridiculous stories and imaginations, so the fairies within it are innu- merable, and witches find it the most convenient place for their frolics and gambols in the night- time.* I am pleased when I reflect, that the notion of witches is pretty well worn out among people of any tolerable sense and education in England ; but here it remains even among some that sit judicially; and witchcraft and charming (as it is called) make up a considerable article in the recorded acts of the general assembly. * Tomman-heurach^ like all other hills of the kind in Scotland and in Scandinavia, is full o{ fairies ; but our good neighbours, as the Scots call them, are a nice, delicate, and sensitive people, particularly jealous of any offensive intrusion upon their favourite haunts ; and where they have obtained their -privilege, neither daemon, witch, ghost, nor goblin, need be feared. The moors of Staffordshire and Derbyshire still swarm with fairies ; and all that quarter of England is infested by boggarts of all sorts ; but there is nothing systematic in the notions entertained by the country people respecting them. Q 2 228 LElTEll XII. 1 am not unaware that here the famous triaL at Hertford, for witchcraft, may be objected to me. It is true the poor woman was brought in guilty by an ignorant, obstinate jury, but it was against the sentiments of the judge, who, when the minister of the parish declared, upon the faith of a clergyman, he believed the woman to be a witch, told him in open court, that there- fore, upon the faith of a judge, he took him to be no conjuror. Thus you see, by the example of this clergy- man, that ignorance of the nature of things may be compatible with what is generally called learning ; for I cannot suppose that, in a case of blood, there could be any regard had to the interest of a profession,* * Man is a superstitious animal ; and there are few found who are not so in one way or other : even Cromwell and Bnona- parle are shrewdly suspected of having been occasionally the dupes of the quackeries by which they deceived others. During the most violent times of the French revolution, when the people were as blind and as bigotted in their impiety as ever they had been in their superstition, and all belief in spiritual agency and existence was discarded, there were in every street, lane, and ward of Paris, cunning men and cunning wo?nen, whoy avail- ing themselves of the circumstances of the time, acquired wealth by telling fortunes ; and their predictions were too often verified* as they suggested the villanies and atrocities by which the wretches who consulted them rose from obscurity and beggary to rank and LETTER XIT. 229 But perhaps the above assertion may be thought a little too dogmatical; — I appeal to rea- son and experience. After all, the woman was pardoned by the late queen (if any one may properly be said to be forgiven a crime they never committed), and a worthy gentleman in that county gave her an apartment over his stables, sent her victuals from his table, let her attend his children, and she was looked upon, ever after, by the family as an honest good-natured old woman. But I shall now give an instance (in this country) wherein the judge was not so clear- sighted, tifflaence. In the days of Elizabeth and James the First there was no wan' of learning in England : but the most difficult part of learning is to unlearn^ and few cared to part with the delu- sions that had been their wonder and delight in the nursery. In Scotland we have three distinct treatises upon this subject, written by men of an inquisitive and philosophical turn, and of undoubted learning, probity, and piety, who were, nevertheless, faithful believers in the wonders which they detail ; they are ex- ceedingly entertaining and interesting in many respects, and there- fore well deserving of republication ; and, as they are very scarce, we shall furnish their titles for the benefit of such as are curious in collecting such things : — " Secret Commonwealth ; or, a Treatise displaying the Chiefe Curiosities, as they are in Use among diverse of the Peo- ple of Scotland to this day ; — Singularities for the most part pe- cuiiar to that Nation. — A Subject not heretofore discoursed of by any of our Writers ; and yet ventured on in an Essay to suppres*? 230 LETTER XII. In the beginning of the year 1727, two poor Highland women (mother and daughter), in the shire of Sutherland, were accused of witch- craft, tried, and condemned to be burnt. This proceeding was in a court held by the deputy- sheriff. The young one made her escape out of prison, but the old woman suffered that cruel death in a pitch-barrel, in June following, at Dornoch, the head borough of that county. In the introduction to the chapter under the title of Witchcraft, in *' Nelson's Justice," which I have by me, there are these words : — " It seems plain that there are witches, because laws have been made to punish such offenders, the impudent and growing Atheism of this Age, and to satisfie the Desire of some choice friends. By Mr. Robert Kirk, Minister at Aberfoill." This work was probably written about 1680, and, in 1815, was printed at Edinburgh, for the first time, by Baliantyne, 4to.. Only one hundi'ed copies were printed, and but from thirty to forty for sale. " AElTEPOIKOni A ; or, a briefe Discourse concerning the Second Sight, commonly so called. By the Reverend Mr. John Frazer, late minister of Teree and Co//, and Dean of the Isles; published by Mr. Andrew Symson, with a short account of the Author. Edinburgh, 1707." In 8vo. " A Treatise on the Second Sight, Dreams, Appari- tions, &c. ByTheophilusInsulanus." Svo. Edinburgh, 1763. — A great part of this last tract is reprinted along with Kirk's 'i'reatise ; and the three together would make a very curious voiuuic. LETTER Xir. 231 though few have been convicted of witchcraft." Then he quotes one single statute, viz. 1 Jac. c. 12. May not any one say, with just as much rea- son, it seems plain there has been a phoenix, because poets have often made it serve for a simile in their writings, and painters have given us the representation of such a bird in their pictures ? It is said those Highland women confessed : but, as it is here a maxim that wizards and witches will never acknowledge their guilt so long as they can get any thing to drink, I should not wonder if they owned themselves to be devils, for ease of so tormenting a neces- sity, when their vitals were ready to crack with thirst.* I am almost ashamed to ask seriously how it comes to pass that in populous cities, among * Almost all \Yho have been executed in Scotland for this alleged crime have confessed, and their confessions are remarkably uniform, particularly as to their carnal dealings with the devil. This is not to be wondered at, as the report of the confession of one produced similar impressions upon the disturbed imagination of another, and none confessed till they were reduced to a state of delirious and bewildered imbecility. Kept without sleep, and in- cessantly tormented in their bodies by prickers^ or in their minds by the clergy; excluded from all but their tormentors; believing what they had been told of others, although conscious of their 232 LETTER XII. the most wicked and abandoned wretches, this art should not be discovered; and yet that so many little villages and obscure places should be nurseries for witchcraft ? — But the thing is not worth speaking of, any further than that it is greatly to be wished that any such law should be annulled, which subjects the lives of human creatures to the vv^eakness of an ignorant magistrate or jury, for a crime of which they never had the power to be guilty; and this might free them from the miseries and insults these poor wretches suffer when unhappily fallen under the imputation. In this county of Su- therland, as I have been assured, several others have undergone the same fate within the com- pass of no great number of years. I must own it is possible there may be some, oppressed by poverty, and actuated by its con- comitant envy, who may malign a thriving neighbour so far as to poison his cattle, or pri- own innocence ; hearing of nothing but horrors, — expecting no mercy, and with the dread of the bale-hre continually before their eyes, — when, worn out with sufferings, at last they were left alone without fire, light, or comfort, in some dungeon, kirk- steeple, or such place, there, in the state of partial derangement to which they were reduced, there can be no doubt that they dreamt of the pitiable absurdities which they afterwards believed to be true, confessed, and were burnt for, while their nearest relatives dared not, even to themselves, complain of the wrong. LETTER XII. ' 233 vately dohim other hurt in his property, for which they may deserve the gallows as much as if they did the mischief by some supernatural means; but for such wicked practices, when discovered, the law is open, and they are liable to be pu- nished according to the quality of the offence. Witchcraft, it there were such a crime, 1 think would be of a nature never to be proved by honest witnesses : for who could testify they saw the identical person of such a one riding in the dark upon a broomstick through the air; — a human body, composed of flesh and bones, crammed through a key hole ; — or know an old woman through the disguise of a cat ? These are some of the common topics of your wise witchmongers ! But to be more serious : we have reason to conclude, from several authentic relation of facts, that this supposed crime has sometimes been made a political engine of power, whereby to destroy such persons as were to be taktn off] which could not otherwise be done with anv seeming appearance of justice : and who should be fitter instruments to this purpose, than such, who would be so wicked as for hire, and as- surance of indemnity, to own themselves ac- complices with the party accused ? Notwithstanding this subject has led me further than I at first intended to go, I must add 234 LETTER Xlf, to it a complaint made to me about two mouths since, by an Englishman who is here in a government employment. As he was observing the work of some car- penters, who were beginning the construction of a large boat, there came an old woman to get some chips, who, by his description of her, was indeed ugly enough. One of the workmen rated her, and bid her be gone, for he knew she was a witch. Upon that, this person took upon him to vindicate the old woman, and, unluckily, to drop some words as if there were none such. Immediately two of them came up to him, and held their axes near his head, with a motion as if they were about to cleave his skull, telling him he deserved death ; for that he was himself a warlock, or wizard, which they knew by his taking the witch's part. And he, observing their ignorance and rage, got away from them as fast as he could, in a terrible fright, and with a re- solution to lay aside all curiosity relating to that boat, though the men were at work not far from his lodgings.* * These wags were not such fools as the Englishman took them for. He attempted to be very wjse upon their credulity^ and they made themselves very merry at the expence of his. They knew he considered them all as savages and murderers, and amused themselves with his prejudice.— Had the fellow believed the wouian to be a witch, he would not have dared to rate her for it. LETTER XII. 235 The o-reatest ornament we have in all the ad- o jacent country, is about a quarter of a mile from the town, but not to be seen from it, by reason of the castle-hill. It is an island about six hun- dred yards long, surrounded by two branches of the river Ness, well planted with trees of different kinds, and may not unaptly be com- pared with the island in St. James's Park ; all, except fruit-trees, gravel-walks, and grass- plots; for I speak chiefly of its outward ap- pearance, the beauty whereof is much increased by the nakedness of the surrounding country and the blackness of the bordering mountains. For in any view hereabouts there is hardly ano- ther tree to be seen, except about the houses of two or three lairds, and they are but few. Hither the magistrates conduct the judges and their attendants, when they are upon their circuit in the beginning of May ; and sometimes such other gentlemen, to whom they do the honours of the corporation by presenting them with their freedom, if it happens to be in the salmon season. The entertainment is salmon, taken out of the cruives just by, and immediately boiled and set upon a bank of turf, the seats the same, not unlike one of our country cock-pits; and during the time of eating, the heart of the fish lies upon a plate in view, and keeps in a panting motion 236 LKTTEli Xil. all the while, which to strangers is a great ra- rity. The cruives above the salmon leap (which is a steep slope composed of large loose stones) are made into many divisions by loose walls, and have about three or four feet water. These render such a number offish as they contain an agreeable sight, being therein confined, to be ready at any time for the barrel or the table. I am told there was formerly a fine planted avenue from the town to this island ; but one of the magistrates, in his solitary walk, being shot by a Highlander from behind the trees, upon some clan quarrel, they were soon after cut down ; and indeed I think such kind of walks, unless very near a house, are not the most suit- able to this country : I do not mean on account of robberies, but revenge. In several places upon the heaths, at no great distance from this town, and in other parts of the country, there are large moorstones, set up in regular circles one within another, with a good space between each round. In some of these groups there are only two such circles, in others three ; and some of the stones in the outermost ring are nine or ten feet high above the surface of the ground, and in bulk propor- tionable. How long time they have been in that situa- tion nobody knows, or for what purpose they LETTF.R xir. 237 were disposed in that order ; only some pre- tend, by tradition, they were used as temples fur sacrifice in the time of the Romans; and others have been taught, by that variable in- structor, that they were tribunals for the trials of supposed criminals in a Roman army. What matter of wonder and curiosity their size might be upon Hounslow Heath I do not know; but here, among these rocks, by comparison, they make no figure at all. Besides, the sol- diers, by the force of engines and strength, have raised stones as large, or larger, that lay more than half buried under ground, in the lines marked out for the new-projected roads ; and they have likewise set them upright along the sides of those ways. Having chanced to mention the stones raised out of the ground by the troops, I cannot for- bear a little tattle concerning two officers that are employed upon the new roads, as directors of the work in different parts of the Highlands; and, if you please, you may take it for a piece of Highland news, for I am sure your public papers often contain paragraphs altogether as trifling, and not so true. Upon one of these stones (surprisingly large to be removed) one of those gentlemen em- ployed a soldier, who is a mason by trade, to engrave an inscription of his own making, in 238 LETTER XII. Latin, fearing, perhaps, his renown might wear out with our language. The substance of it is, the dale of the year, time of the reign, director's name, kc. Some little time after this was done, the other officers party of men having raised out of the ground a stone, as he thought, yet bigger than the former, he began to envy his competitor's foundation for fame, and applied himself to a third officer (who had done several little poetical pieces) to think of some words for his stone. But I should tell you, that before he. did so, it had been remarked, he had too often boasted of the exploit in the first version, viz. — " I raised a larger stone than ," &;c. The poet-officer told him he would satisfy him off-hand, and it should be in English, which would be understood by more people than the other s Latin, and by that means he would have the advantage, of his rival, at least in that particular. But instead of his real name, I shall insert a feigned one, and under that only disguise give you the proposed inscription as follows : " Hihern alone Rais'd up this stone ; Ah! Hone, Ah! Hone." Upon this, the hero turned ridiculously grave; and, says he, '' The soldiers did the slavish LETTER XIT. 239 part only with their hands, but, m effect, it was I that did it with my head : and therefore I do not like any burlesque upon my performance." One thing, which I take to be a curiosity in its kind, had like to have escaped me, viz. a single enclosed field, nearly adjoining to the suburbs of this town, containing, as near as I can guess, about five or six acres, called Fair- field. This to the owner gives the title of laird of Fair-field, and it would be a neglect or kind of affront to call him by his proper name, but only Fair-field. For those they call lairds in Scot- land do not go by their surname ; but, as in France, by the name of their house, estate, or part of it. But if the lairdship be sold, the title goes along with it to the purchaser, and nothing can continue the name of it to the first posses- sor but mere courtesy. There are few estates in this country free from mortgages and incumbrances (I wish I could not say the same of England) ; but the reason given me for it, by some gentlemen of pretty good estates, seems to be something extra- ordinary. Tliey do not care to ascribe it to the poverty of their tenants, from the inconsiderable farms they occupy, or other disadvantages incident to these parts ; but say it has proceeded from the fortunes given with their daughters. I'^ow the 240 LETTER Xil. portion or tocker, as they call it, of a laird's eldest daughter, is looked upon to be a hand- some one if it amounts to one thousand merks, which is 55/. 1 l^.li LETTER XVIII. matisms, and other distempers, incident to their way of living ; especially upon the approach of winter, of which I am a witness. By the way, the poorer sort are persuaded that wine, or strong malt drink, is a very good remedy in a fever; and though I never pre- scribed either of them, I have administered both with as good success as any medicines pre- scribed by Doctor Radchffe. iEsculapius, even as a god, could hardly have had a more solemn act of adoration paid him than I had lately from a Highlander, at whose hut I lay in one of my journeys. His wife was then desperately ill of a fever, and I left a bottle of chateau margoiU behind me to comfort her, if she should recover ; for I had then several horses laden with wine and provisions, and a great retinue of Highlanders with me. The poor man fell down on his knees in this dirty street, and eagerly kissed my hand ; tell- ing me, in Irish, I had cured his wife with my good stuff. This caused several jokes from my countrymen who were present, upon the poor fellow's value for his wife ; and the doctor him- self did not escape their mirth upon that occa- sion. Having, yesterday, proceeded thus far in my letter, in order to have the less writing this evening, I had a retrospection in the morning to LETTER xviir. 337 my journal; and could not but be of opinion that some few additions were necessary to give you a clearer notion of the inner part of the country, in regard to the incidents, in that ac- count, being confined to one short progress, which could not include all that is wanting to be known for the purpose intended. There are few days pass without some rain or snow in the hills, and it seems necessary it should be so (if we may suppose Nature ever intended the worst parts as habitations for hu- man creatures), for the soil is so shallow and stony, and in summer the reflection of the sun's heat from the sides of the rocks is so strong, by reason of the narrowness of the vales — to which may be added the violent winds — that otherwise the little corn they have would be entirely dried and burnt up for want of proper mois- ture. The clouds in their passage often sweep along beneath the tops of the high mountains, and, when they happen to be above them, are drawn, as they pass, by attraction, to the summits, in plain and visible streams and streaks, where they are broke, and fall in vast quantities of water. Nay, it is pretty common in the high country for the clouds, or some very dense exhalation, to drive along the part which is there called the foot of the hills, though very VOL. 1. z 338 LETTER XVI II. high above the level of the sea ; and 1 have seen, more than once, a very fair rainbow described, at not above thirty or forty yards distance from me, and seeming of much the same diameter, having each foot of the semicircle upon the ground. An English gentleman, one day, as we stopped to consider this phenomenon, proposed to ride into the rainbow ; and though I told him the fruitless consequence, since it was only a vision made by his eye, being at that distance ; having the sun directly behind, and before him the thick vapour that was passing along at the foot of the hill ; yet (the place being smooth) he set up a gallop, and found his mistake, to my great diversion with him afterwards, upon his con- fession that he had soon entirely lost it. I have often heard it told by travellers, as a proof of the height of Teneriffe, that the clouds sometimes hide part of that mountain, and at the same time the top of it is seen above them : nothing is more ordinary than this in the High- lands. But I would not, therefore, be thought to insinuate, that these are as high as that ; but they may, you see, be brought under the same description. Thus you find the immediate source of the rivers and lakes in the mountains is the clouds, and not as our rivers, which have their original LETTER XVIII. 339 iVom subterraneous aqueducts, that rise in springs below : but, among the hills, the waters fall in great cascades and vast cataracts, and pass with prodigious rapidity through large rocky channels, with such a noise as almost deafens the traveller whose way Hes along by their sides. And w^ien these torrents rush through glens or wider straths, they often plough up, and sweep away with them, large spots of the soil, leaving nothing behind but rock or gravel, so that the land is never to be recovered. And for this a proportionable abatement is made in the tenant's rent. The lakes are very differently situated, with respect to high and low. There are those which are vast cavities filled up with water, whereof the surface is but little higher than the level of the sea ; but of a surprising depth. As Lake Ness,* for the purpose, which has been igno- rantly held to be without a bottom ; but was sounded by an experienced seamen, when 1 was * Loch Ness is thus spoken of by the author of The Scots Chronicle, 1597. — "The water of Naess is almost alwayes vvarme, and at no time so co'd that it freezeth ; yea in the most cold time of winter, broken ice falling in it is dissolved by the heat thereof." Dr. Johnson appears to have doubted the truth of this, and says, '' That which is strange is delightful, and a pleasing error is not willingly detected. Accuracy of narration is not very common ; and there are few so rigidly philosophical, as not to represent as perpetual what is only frequent, or as con- 340 LETTER XVIII. present, and appeared to be one hundred and thirty fathoms, or two hundred and sixty yards deep. It seems to be supplied by two small rivers at its head ; but the great increase of w^ater is from the rivers, bourns, and cascades from the high mountains at which it is bounded at the water's edge. And it has no other visible issue but by the river Ness, which is not large ; nor has the lake any perceptible current, being so spacious, as more than a mile in breadth and twenty-one in length. At a place called Foyers, there is a steep hill close to it, of about a quarter of a mile to the top, from whence a river pours into the lake, by three successive wild cataracts, over romantic rocks ; whereon, at each fall, it dashes with such violence, that in windy wea- ther the side of the hill is hid from sight for a good way together by the spray, which looks like a thick body of smoke. This fall of water has been compared with the cataracts of the Tiber, by those who have seen them both. There are other lakes in large hollows, on the tops of exceedingly high hills; — I mean, they seem to any one below, who has only heard of them, slant what is really casual." The fact is, however, unquestion- able ; and may be sufficiently accounted for by the extraordinary depth of the water. — Lord Somers's Tracts, vol. iii. 388. — John- sons Journey^ Works, vol. viii. 236. LETTER XVIII. 341 to be on the utmost height. But this is a decep- tion ; for there are other hills behind unseen, from whence they are supplied with the great quantity of water they contain. And it is im- possible that the rain which falls within the compass of one of those cavities should not only be the cause of such a profound depth of water, but also supply thedrainings that descend from it, and issue out in springs from the sides of the hills. There are smaller lakes, which are also seated high above the plain, and are stored with trout ; though it seems impossible, by the vast steep- ness of the bourns on every visible side, that those fish should have got up thither from rivers or lakes below. This has often moved the ques- tion, — '' How came they there ?" But they may have ascended by small waters, in long windings out of sight behind, and none steep enough to cause a wonder ; for I never found there was any notion of their being brought thither for breed. But I had like to have forgot that some will have them to have sprung from the fry carried from other waters, and dropped in those small lakes by water-fowl. In a part of the Highlands called Strath- glass, there is a lake too high by its situation to be much affected by the reflection of warmth from the plain, and too low between the mountains, 342 LKTTEK XVI IJ. which ahnost join together, to admit the rays of the sun ; for the only opening to it is on the north side. Here the ice continues all the year round ; and though it yields a little on the sur- face to the warmth of the circumambient air by day, in summer-time, yet at the return of night it begins to freeze as hard as ever. This I have been assured of, not only by the proprietor him- self, but by several others in and near that part of the country. I have seen, in a rainy day, from a conflux of waters above, on a distant high hill, the side of it covered over with water by an overflowing, for a very great space, as you may have seen the water pour over the brim of a cistern, or rather like its being covered over with a sheet ; and upon the peeping out of the sun the re- flected rays have dazzled my eyes to such a degree, as if they were directed to them by the focus of a burning-glass. So much tor the lakes. In one expedition, where I was well at- tended, as I have said before, there was a river in my way so dangerous that I was set upon the shoulders of four Highlanders, my horse not being to be trusted to in such roughness, depth, and rapidity ; and I really thought some- times we should all have gone together. In the same journey the shoulders of some of them LETTER XVII r. 343 Vv^erfe employed to ease the horses down from rock to rock ; and all that long day I conid make out but nine miles. This also was called a road. Toward the end of another progress, in my. return to this town, after several hazards from increasing waters, I was at length stopped by a small river that was become impassable. There happened, luckily for me, to be a public hut in this place, for there was no going back again ; but there was nothing to drink except the water of the river. This J regretted the" more, as I had refused, at one of the barracks, to ac- cept of a bottle of old hock, on account of the carriage, and believing I should reach hither before night. In about three hours after my arrival at this hut, there appeared, on the other side of the water, a parcel of merchants with little horses loaded with roundlets of usky. Within sight of the ford was a bridge, as they called it, made for the convenience of this place ; it was composed of two small fir-trees, not squared at all, laid, one beside the other, across a narrow part of the river, from rock to rock: there w^ere gaps and interval sbetvv-een those trees, and, beneath, a most tumultuous fall of water. Some of my merchants, bestriding the bridge, edged forwards, and moved the usky vessels before them ; but the others, afterwards, to my sur- 344 LETTER XVIII. prise, walked over this dangerous passage, and dragged their garrons through the torrent, while the poor little horses were almost drowned with the surge. ■w I happened to have a few lemons left, and with them I so far qualified the ill-taste of the spirit as to make it tolerable ; but eatables there were none, except eggs and poor starved fowls, as usual. The usky men were my companions, whom it was expected I should treat according to custom, there being no partition to separate them from me ; and thus I passed a part of the day and great part of the night in the smoke, and dreading the bed :^ but my personal ha- zards, wants, and inconveniences, among the hills, have been so many, that I shall trouble you with no more of them, or very sparingly, if I do at all. Some of the bogs are of large extent, and many people have been lost in them, especially * Mr. Boswell Ihus describes one of those inns, at which him- self and Dr. Johnson slept: — " The room had some deals laid across the joists as a kind of ceiling ; there were two beds in the room, and a w^oman's gown was hung on a rope, to make a cur- tain of separation between them. We had much hesitation whe- ther to undresS; or lie down with our clothes on : at last I said, ' I'll plunge in !' and the idea of filth and vermin made Johnson feel like one hesitating whether to go into the cold bath." — Bos- well i> Tour, 127. LETTER XVIII. 345 after much rain in time of snow, as well as in the lesser mosses, as they call them, where, in digging of peat, there have been found fir-trees of a good magnitude, buried deep, and almost as hard as ebony. This, like the situation of the mountains, is attributed to Noah's flood, for they conclude the trees have lain there ever since that time, though it may be easily other- wise accounted for. But what seems extraor- dinary to strangers is, that there are often deep bogs on the declivities of hills, and the higher you go the more you are bogged. In a part called Glengary, in my return hither from the west Highlands, I found a bog, or a part of one, had been washed down by some violent torrent from the top of a hill into the plain, and the steep slope was almost covered over with the muddy substance that had rested there in its passage downwards. This made a pretty deep bog below, as a gentleman who was with me found from his curiosity to try it, being deceived by the surface, which was dried by the sun and wind, for he forced his horse into it, and sank, which surprised my compa- nion, who, I thought, should have known better, being of Ireland. I have heretofore hinted the danger of being shut in by waters, and thereby debarred from all necessaries of life, but have not yet men- VO-L. I. 2 a 346 LETTER XVIII. tioned the extent of the hills that intervene between one place of shelter and another ; and indeed it is impossible to do so in general ; for they are sometimes nine or ten Scots miles over, and one of thepi in particular that I have passed is eighteen, wherein you frequently meet with rivers, and deep, rugged channels in the sides of the mountains, which you must pass, and these last are often the most dangerous of the two ; and both, if continued rains should fall, become impassable before you can attain the end, for which a great deal of time is re- quired, by the stoniness and other difficulties ot the way. There is, indeed, one alleviation ; that as these rivers may, from being shallow, be- come impracticable for the tallest horse in two or three hours time, yet will they again be pas- sable, from their velocity, almost as soon, if the rain entirely cease. When the Highlanders speak of these spaces they call them " monts, without either house or hall;" and never at- tempt to pass them, if the tops of the moun- tains presage bad weather ; yet in that they are sometimes deceived by a sudden change of wind. All this way you may go without seeing a tree, or coming within two miles of a shrub ; and when you come at last to a small spot of arable land, where the rocky feet of the hills LETTER XVIII. 347 serve for enclosure, what work do they make about the beauties of the place, as though one had never seen a field of oats before ! You know that a polite behaviour is common to the army; but as it is impossible it should be universal, considering the different tempers and other accidents that attend mankind, so we have here a certain captain, who is almost illi- terate, perfectly rude, and thinks his courage and strength are sufficient supports to his incivilities. This officer finding a laird at one of the pub- lic buts in the Highlands, and both going the same way, they agreed to bear one another company the rest of the journey. After they had ridden about four miles, the laird turned to him, and said, " Now all the ground we have hitherto gone over is my own property." — *' By G — !" says the other, " I have an apple- tree in Herefordshire that I would not swop with you for it all." But to give you a better idea of the distance between one inhabited spot and another, in a vast extent of country (main and island), I shall acquaint you with what a chief was saying of his quondam estate. He told me, that if he was reinstated, and disposed to sell it, 1 should have it for the purchase-money of three- pence an acre. 348 LETTER XVIII. I did not then take much notice of what he said, it being at a tavern in Edinburgh, and pretty late at night, but, upon this occasion of vs^riting to you, I have made some calculation of it, and find I should have been in danger to have had a very bad bargain. It is said to have been reduced by a survey to a rectangle parallelogram, or oblong square, of sixty miles by forty, which is 2,400 square miles and 1,951,867 square acres. It is called 1,500/. a-year rent, but the collector said he never re- ceived 900/. Now the aforesaid number of acres, at 3d. per acre, amounts to 24,398/. 6 s. 9cL — and 900/. per annum, at twenty-five years purchase, is but 22,500/.; the difi'erence is 1,896/. Qs. 9(1, There are other observations that might not be improper, but I shall now defer them, and continue my account of the people, which has likewise been deferred in this letter. END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. S. Curtis. Camberwell Press. DUE DATE EL Jl 1^03 laa } "^ f 1 1 201-6503 Printed in USA 941#4 395 T.l