little pieces of twisted tobacco; and, among the children, we distributed a small handful of halfpence, which they received with great eagerness. Yet I have been since told that the people of that valley are not indigent; and when we mentioned them afterwards as needy and pitiable, a Highland lady let us know, that we might spare our com. miseration; for the dame, whose milk we drank, had more than a dozen milch cows. She seemed unwilling to take any price, but, being pressed to make a demand, at last named a shilling. Honesty is not greater where elegance is less. One of the by-standers, as we were told afterwards, advised her to ask more, but she said a shilling was enough. We gave her half a crown, and, I hope, got some credit by our behaviour; for the company said, if our interpreters did not flatter us, that they had not seen such a day since the old laird of Macleod passed through their country.

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

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

Mountainous countries commonly contain the original, at least the oldest race of inhabitants, for they are not easily conquered, because they must be entered by narrow ways, exposed to every

power of mischief from those that occupy the heights; and every new ridge is a new fortress, where the defendants have again the same advah tages. If the assailants either force the straight, or storm the summit, they gain only so much ground; their enemies are fled to take possession of the next rock, and the pursuers stand at gaze, knowing neither where the ways of escape wind among the steeps, nor where the bog has firmness to sustain them besides that, mountaineers have an agility in climbing and descending, distinct from strength or courage, and attainable only by use.

:

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

As mountains are long before they are conquered, they are likewise long before they are civilized. Men are softened by intercourse mutually profitable, and instructed by comparing their own notions with those of others. Thus Cæsar found the maritime parts of Britain made less bar. barous by their commerce with the Gauls. Into a barren and rough track no stranger is brought, either by the hope of gain or of pleasure. The inhabitants having neither commodities for sale nor money for purchase, seldom visit more polished places, or if they do visit them, seldom return.

It sometimes happens, that by conquest, intermixture, or gradual refinement, the cultivated parts of a country change their language. Tho

mountaineers then become a distinct nation, eut off, by dissimilitude of speech, from conversation with their neighbours. Thus in Biscay, the original Cantabrian, and in Dalecarlia, the old Swedish still subsists. Thus Wales and the Highlands speak the tongue of the first inhabitants of Britain, while the other parts have received first the Saxon, and in some degree afterwards the French, and then formed a third language between them,

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

In the Highlands it was a law, that if a robber was sheltered from justice, any man of the same clan might be taken in his place. This was a kind of irregular justice, which, though necessary in savage times, could hardly fail to end in a feud, and a feud once kindled among an idle people, with no variety of pursuits to divert their thoughts, burnt on for ages, either sullenly glowing in se cret mischief, or openly blazing into public vio lence. Of the effects of this violent judicature, there are not wanting memorials. The cave is now

to be seen to which one of the Campbells, who had injured the Macdonalds, retired with a body of his own clan. The Macdonalds required the offender, and being refused, made a fire at the mouth of the cave, by which he and his adherents were suffocated together.

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

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

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

Among a warlike people, the quality of highest esteem is personal courage, and with the ostentatious display of courage are closely connected. promptitude of offence and quickness of resentment. The Highlanders, before they were disarmed, were so addicted to quarrels, that the boys VOL. II.

Σ

used to follow any public procession or ceremony, however festive, or however solemn, in expectation of the battle which was sure to happen before the company dispersed.

Mountainous regions are sometimes so remote from the seat of government, and so difficult of access, that they are very little under the influence of the sovereign, or within the reach of national justice. Law is nothing without power; and the sentence of a distant court could not be easily executed, nor perhaps very safely promulgated, among men ignorantly proud and habitually violent, unconnected with the general system, and unaccustomed to reverence only their own lords. It has, therefore, been necessary to erect many particular jurisdictions, and commit the punish ment of crimes, and the decision of right, to the proprietors of the country, who could enforce their own decrees. It immediately appears that such judges will be often ignorant, and often partial; but, in the immaturity of political establishments, no better expedient could be found. As government advances towards perfection, provincial judicature is perhaps in every empire gradually abolished.

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

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

4