Influence of Topography on
the people of Scotland. Distribution and ancient antagonism of Celt and
Saxon. Caithness and its grin. Legends and place-names. Popdlar
explanation of boulders. Cliff-portraits. Fairy-stones and supposed
human footprints. Imitative forms of flint. Scottish climate and its
influence on the people. Indifference of the Highlander to rain. 'Dry
rain.’ Wind in Scotland. Shakespeare on the climate of Morayland.
Influence of environment on the Highlander.
It is impossible to
wander with attentive eyes over Scotland without recognising how
powerfully the topography of the country has controlled the distribution
of the races that have successively peopled it, and how seriously the
combined influences of topography and climate have come to affect the
national temperament and imagination. As I have elsewhere discussed this
subject, I will only refer briefly to it here as an appropriate ending
to these chapters of a geologist’s reminiscences.
I. First as regards the Topography. Confining our attention to the Saxon
and Celtic elements of the population, we can readily see from the mere
form of the ground why the two races have been distributed as we now
find them. On the west side of the country the Norse sea-rovers seized
upon the islands and the narrow strips of cultivable land along the
coasts of the mainland. They were ‘ vikings ’ or baysmen, at home on the
sea and unwilling to wander far from its margin. They had no inducement
to quit their harbours and surrounding farms in order to penetrate into
the bleak mountainous fastnesses of the interior which they left in
possession of the older Celtic people. When the Norwegian sway came to
an end, and the invaders returned to the cradle of their race in the
north, they left behind them some of their own stock who had
intermarried with the Gaels, and as a still more enduring memorial of
their presence, abundant Norse names, which still cling to hamlet,
island, promontory, bay, and hill. But the selvage of coast-line which
they had occupied was so narrow, and the chain of islands lay so near,
that the mountaineers would have little difficulty in moving down from
the high grounds, overspreading the Norse settlements, and mingling with
their inhabitants.
On the east side of the country, however, the conditions were somewhat
different. In that region the mountains here and there retire so far
from the sea as to leave wide stretches of lowland. On these spaces of
comparatively fertile land the early Teutonic invaders found more ample
room for their settlements. ‘) hey accordingly possessed themselves of
these tracts from Caithness southward, along the shores of the Moray
Firth to Aberdeen, and thence round the eastern end of the Grampian
range into the broad valley of central Scotland. They seem to have in
large measure driven out the earlier Celtic people who, on this side of
the island also, were left to live as best they could among the
mountains. The topography which enabled the invaders to possess
themselves of this territory has sufficed ever since to keep the races
apart. Gradually, indeed, along their mutual boundaries, though
apparently less distinctly than on the West Coast, they came to
intermingle with each other. But the ancient antagonism between Celt and
Saxon lasted down through the centuries, and in an attenuated form
almost to our own day. The Highlander, when he used to raid the cattle
and burn the farms of the Lowlander, was avenging the wrongs which his
remote ancestors had suffered at the hands of the hated Sassenach. The
Lowlander, on the other hand, who found himself often powerless to ward
off or revenge these outrages, and had to pay blackmail to prevent their
repetition, solaced himself by losing no opportunity of expressing his
contempt for his Celtic neighbour. The word ‘Highland’ actually came to
have an opprobrious meaning, summing up, as it did, all the bad
qualities of the race to which it was applied. More particularly, the
imperfect knowledge of English on the part of the mountaineers, and
their slowness or inability to understand what was said to them in that
language, led their Saxon fellow-countrymen to the foolish conclusion
that this apparent dullness arose from innate stupidity. The poor Celts,
in their efforts to express themselves in the language of the Lowlands,
naturally made use of the words they heard there, so that a Highlander
who was warned against doing what would have been a foolish action,
could innocently exclaim, ‘ She’s no sae tarn Heelan’ to do that’ I can
remember in my boyhood, being much struck by coming across some
survivals of this use of the word, and of the feelings of contempt with
which it was employed. There were then many stories current illustrative
of what was thought to be the dense stolidity and ignorance of the
Celts. The type of conceited Lowlander, so well represented in Bailie
Nicol Jarvie, never realised his own vulgarity, or recognised the innate
gentlemanliness of even the poorest and least educated Highlander who
had escaped Sassenach contamination. But these misunderstandings have
been buried and forgotten.
Probably the best district of the country for the purpose of marking the
topographical conditions that determined the limits within which the two
races are confined, is to be found on the east side of Sutherland and
Ross, and in the county of Caithness. To this day these limits remain
fairly well marked. The low ground forms but a narrow strip along the
coast from the Moray Firth to the Ord. On that strip, and through the
Black Isle to Tar-bat Ness, the people are Teutonic, but as we penetrate
into the hills, the squalid cabins, poor crofts, peat reek, and sounds
of the Gaelic tongue, tell unmistakeably that we have entered upon the
domain of the Celt. Caithness offers one of the most singular pieces of
topography in Scotland. Looking at the map, one would naturally regard
it as a continuation of the highlands of Sutherland, and expect its
population to be also Gaelic. But in actual fact, it belongs not to the
mountains, but to the lowlands, and has been for many centuries in
possession of the Scandinavian stock. It consists of a flat platform or
tableland, in places not more than 100 feet above the sea, into which it
descends in an almost continuous line of abrupt precipices. The contrast
between the varied and picturesque coast-line and the tame monotony of
the featureless interior is singularly striking, and again, that between
the wide, moory, peat-covered plain, and the bold Sutherland mountains
that spring up from its border. The names of places over this plain and
along the shore bear witness to the long occupation of the territory by
the descendants of the ..Norsemen. But as soon as we enter the hills,
Gaelic names appear, and we find ourselves among a population that still
speaks Gaelic. ,
As a consequence of the flatness of the interior of Caithness, the few
roads which cross the county run for miles in straight lines. Their
rectilinear direction is said to have had a curious effect on the
physiognomy of the inhabitants. Two men coming from opposite quarters
recognise each other long before they can come within speaking distance.
A smile of recognition, however, begins to form itself on their faces,
and this lasts so long, before they actually meet, that it becomes
stereotyped into a kind of grin, which is alleged to be characteristic
of the most typical natives of Caithness.
That the topographical features of Scotland have influenced the national
imagination is well indicated by the legends and place-names that have
been attached to them. A deep cleft on a mountain-crest, a bowl-shaped
hollow, scooped out of a hillside, a profound ravine, a conical mound or
a group of such mounds, rising conspicuously above a bare moorland, a
solitary boulder of gigantic size, or a line of large boulders—these and
many other prominent elements in the scenery, alike of the Lowlands and
the Highlands, have arrested attention from the earliest times. As they
appear so exceptional in the general topography, exceptional causes have
been sought to explain them, and they have given rise to legendary
beliefs that have been gradually interwoven in the mythology and
superstition of the races that have dwelt among them. That these
apparently abnormal features owed their origin to some form of direct
supernatural agency has been tacitly assumed as their only possible
explanation. Now and then they are referred to the immediate action of
the Deity. Thus all over the hills and valleys of the south of Ayrshire,
an incredible number of boulders of grey granite have been scattered. So
abundant are they in some places as, when seen from a distance, to look
like flocks of sheep, and so distinct are they in form, colour, and
composition from any of the rocks round about them, that they could not
fail to excite the imagination in trying to account for them. A
stonebreaker who was asked how he supposed they had come to lie where
they are, after a pause gave the following picturesque explanation,
‘Weel ye see, when the Almichtie flang the warld out, He maun hae putten
thae stanes upon her to keep her steady.’
More usually the popular fancy has fixed on the Devil, with his
copartnery of wizards, warlocks, witches and carlines, as the authors of
the more singular parts of a landscape. I have already referred to this
aspect of diabolic agency, and by way of further illustration may cite
here an example of the kind of legend which has grown up in all parts of
the country. I was once directed to a shoemaker in the village of
Carnwath as possessing more local knowledge of his district than anyone
else. By a piece of bad luck for himself, but of good fortune for me, on
the day of my call upon him the man had so injured a finger that he
could not at the moment continue to ply jhis trade. He was accordingly
delighted to accompany me over the ground, and point out some of the
changes which it had undergone within his own memory. A conspicuous
feature in the district was furnished by a number of boulders of dark
stone scattered over the surface between the River Clyde and the Yelping
Craig, about two miles to the east. Before farming operations had
reached their present development there, the number of these blocks was
so much greater than at present that one place was known familiarly as
‘Hell Stanes Gate’ (road), and . another as ‘ Hell Stanes Loan.’ The
tradition runs that Michael Scott, the famous wizard, had entered into a
compact with, the Devil and a band of witches to dam back the Clyde with
masses of stone to be carried from the Yelping Craig. It was one of the
conditions of such pacts that the name of the Supreme Being should never
on any account be mentioned from the beginning to the end of the
transaction. All went well for a while, some of the stronger carlines
having brought their burden of boulders to within a few yards from the
river, when one of the younger members of the company, staggering under
the weight of a huge block of greenstone, exclaimed, ‘O Lord! but I’m
tired.’ Instantly every boulder tumbled to the ground, nor could witch,
warlock, or devil move a single stone one yard further. And there the
blocks had lain for many a long century, until the modern farmers
blasted some of them with gunpowder to furnish material for dykes and
road-metal, and got rid of others by tumbling them into holes dug to
receive them.
The shoemaker, however, though he enjoyed the popular explanation, had
got far beyond the thraldom of old superstition, and had made some
acquaintance with modern science. When I asked him how he would himself
account for the scattering of these blocks of stone over the district,
he replied at once; ‘ O, ye ken, they cam on the backs o’ the icebairges,’
and he proceeded to give me a graphic picture of what he supposed must
have been the condition of Clydesdale when it lay below an icy sea,
across which the stones were transported and were left where they now
lie.
In many cases the origin of striking local features is referred to the
doings of powerful witches alone, as in the case of Ailsa Craig, which
is said to be the work of
A witch so strong
That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs.
The legend relates that
for some purpose she designed to carry over a hill to Ireland, and
selected one near Colmonell. Having lifted it up in her apron, she set
off on her broomstick through the air, but unfortunately, when some mdes
out over the firth, her apron-strings broke, and the huge mass fell into
the water, where its upper part has projected ever since as the
well-known ‘ craggy ocean-pyramid.’ In proof of the truth of this tale,
the hollow is pointed out from which the rock was removed.
Even among the minor topographical features of the country, the natural
play of the imagination may be seen where the instinctive feeling for
the detection of resemblances has led to the recognition of so many
likenesses to men and to animals, sometimes obvious, sometimes
far-fetched, among the outlines of hills and crags. This tendency may be
seen at work in every country. Anyone can perceive the strikingly
lion-like aspect of Arthur’s Seat, which seems to sit watching over
Edinburgh, ready to spring at a foe. The profile of Samuel Johnson’s
(some say Lord Brougham’s) face and his portly body have long been
familiar on the southern front of Salisbury Crags, though it seems to me
that the mouth is wider open and the chin hangs a little more than when
I used to admire it as a boy. The *tooth of time* is incessantly gnawing
at all such cliffs, and while some fancied resemblances are gradually
effaced, others are brought into existence. Travellers up Loch Carron
see in front of them on the summit of the mountain Fuar Thol a gigantic
recumbent profile, which from generation to generation is likened to
that of some contemporary personage. At present it is spoken of as the
face of a well-known politician whose features are familiar in the pages
of Punch. Our grandchildren will find a likeness in it to some one of
their own time. In the little anchorage of the Shiant Isles, the face of
one of the surrounding cliffs presents the outline of a man in the
attitude so often depicted in the background of Teniers’ pictures.
Further illustration of this universal ^habit of mind may be gathered
from even the smaller objects in nature. Children delight to recognise
resemblances in things; the grown man learns to detect differences. Yet
in regard to things that are unfamiliar, the man’s first instincts are
those of the child. He seizes on the likeness which the newly observed
objects bear to some already known to him, and he may even go so far as
to mistake similarity for identity. Perhaps in no department of nature
does this habit of mind manifest itself more flagrantly than in the
mineral kingdom. People who know little or nothing of minerals or rocks,
readily enough perceive a resemblance between some pieces of stone and
certain plants, animals or inanimate objects, with which they at once
compare or even identify them. In the vast majority of cases, there is
no real connection between the stone and the object which it resembles.
The likeness is merely accidental and external. Among the multitudinous
shapes which concretions of mineral matter have assumed, a curious
collection might be made of imitative., forms. The ‘ fairy stones ’ of
Scotland, found as concretions among deposits of clay, present endless
rude figures of manikins, or portions of the human body, of fishes,
birds, plants, cannon-balls, snuff-boxes, shoes, and innumerable
familiar objects. Similar concretions occur all over the world, and have
long attracted popular notice.
An Orkney laird once wrote to me that his people, while removing
flagstones from the shore of his island, had made an extraordinary
discovery, no less than ‘ the footprints of men, women, children and
animals/ all impressed on the solid stone and in excellent preservation,
and he courteously offered to send me some specimens of these
interesting remains. The identification of the impressions as human
relics was of course out of the question, for the rock that contained
them belonged to the Old Red Sandstone, which was deposited long before
any trace of man appeared upon the earth. Nevertheless, as there was
just a possibility that among the specimens, there might be some new
fossils,, which might add to our knowledge of the flora or fauna of that
ancient formation, I asked the proprietor to be good enough to send a
few examples of the ‘ find.’ In due course one or two large boxes
arrived containing several hundredweight of stone. But every one of the
specimens was merely the cast of a mineral concretion. Yet they were
curiously like footprints. One looked as if a young man, in going out to
a ball, had stepped with his dress-boot upon soft mud, into which he had
sunk about an inch. Another seemed as if it might have been made by a
rough-shod farmer, springing from his dogcart upon the surface of a
muddy pool. There were prints resembling misshapen female feet, and one
or two might, with a little imagination, have been taken for prints of
infants, whose fond mothers were trying to make them stand on a soft
clay floor. But not a single one of them had anything to do with a human
being, or with any fossil plant or animal.
The flints which lie dispersed through the chalk, and which are
distributed in such profusion over the surface of parts of the northeast
of Scotland, present many curiously imitative shapes, either belonging
to them originally, or brought about by the irregular fracturing and
rolling which the stones have undergone under the sea or on the beds of
rivers. The following letter, written to me by a workman in the south of
England, where chalk-flints are immensely abundant, and are largely used
for road making and other purposes, may be taken as an illustration of
the popular view of these objects. It is given verbatim et literatim.
I have a collection of flints In fantistic Shapes of a human Race such
as leg with foot also feet harms legs Hand with finger also finger skul
and other Parts of Human frame about 50 Pieces weight nearley One
hundred I have also Kelt harrow heds speer heds and set. My Collection
of the Human Race is a splended one and I dont think they Can be beeten
they look as natrel as the boddy they or far sale and honestly worth a
thousand Pounds I will take a Reasonable Offer for them they are on View
at my House and I should like to find a Home for them. Faithfully yours,
- Gravel Thrower.
II. Not less important than the topography of a country, as a factor in
the bodily and mental development of a people, is the Climate. Alike in
prose and verse the climates of northern countries have been abundantly
maligned, though it has been generally allowed that they produce men of
mark both in body and mind. We are told that the sun * ripens spirits in
cold northern climes,’ and that courage, strength, and endurance may be
looked for in people inured to exertion in these regions. In English
literature the climate of Scotland has naturally offered a convenient
butt for sarcasm and abuse, coupled occasionally with an admission that,
at all events, it has fostered a sturdy race. Waller, in order to
enhance his praise of the doings of Cromwell in Scotland, speaks of his
successes over
A race unconcuered, by
their clime made bold,
The Caledonians, arm’d with want and cold.
There can be no doubt
that most of this dispraise of the climate has been based on mere
hear-say report, and that where it has been grounded on actual personal
observation in Scotland, it has generally been the result of exceedingly
brief experience, during short excursions into the country. It has in
large measure arisen from the confounding of climate with weather. A man
who comes into a country for a few weeks, and is unlucky enough to meet
with a spell of bad weather which lasts most of the time of his visit,
may be pardoned if he abuses what he has himself suffered from, but he
has no right to pass any judgment on the climate of the country. Climate
is the average of all the variations of weather during a long succession
of years, and cannot be tested by any mere summer tour. A Scot may
fairly claim that his country can boast of two or three climates,
tolerably well marked off from each other, but all of them healthy, and
on the whole, not disagreeable. There is the oceanic climate of the
western isles and firths, under which in sheltered places many flowering
shrubs and evergreens flourish luxuriantly, which can scarcely be grown
elsewhere in the country save under glass. The eastern climate, being
further removed from the warm Atlantic waters, and more directly exposed
to the chilly east-wind, is less genial. The central climate of the
mountains is one of greater extremes, the summer temperature in the
valleys being sometimes high, while the frosts in winter are often
severe, and the snow-rifts remain unmelted in the shaded corries all the
summer. To these might perhaps be added the Shetland climate,
characterised by the prevalence of winds and sea-fogs. The winds are
there fierce, and always more or less laden with salt from the spindrift
of the surrounding ocean, so that shrubs cannot grow above the limit of
their sheltering wall, and true trees are not to be seen. The white
sea-fogs spread rapidly over the islands during summer, and though dense
enough to blot out the view, are not always so thick as wholly to
obscure the sun.
To one accustomed to more southern latitudes the chief defect of the
Scottish climate is the want of sunshine. The nimbus Britannicus spreads
too frequently as a grey pall across the sky. But the native who has
been used to this canopy all his life, and has never seen the continuous
unclouded blue of a southern clime, manages to enjoy good health, lives
often a long and active life, and resents imputations on the meteorology
of his country, though he reserves to himself, especially if he be a
farmer, the privilege of a good grumble, when no stranger is at hand to
overhear it.
Most people shun a shower, and think themselves worthy of pity if one
should overtake them when they can find no shelter, or have no umbrella
to protect them. But to ordinary Highlanders exposure to heavy rain is a
matter of indifference, even if not a source of real pleasure. On any
wet day you may see these men standing together in pouring rain,
although a shed or other shelter may be close at hand. They get soaked
to the skin, but it does not seem to do them any harm. In fact, they say
themselves that the wet thickens the cloth of their raiment and keeps
them warm. And that they are often really warm is obvious enough when
the steam may be seen rising from them, as if they were drying
themselves before a fire. The only concession I ever noticed a
Highlander make is now and then to take off his cap, if the water is
trickling from it down his neck, and to wring the rain out of it before
putting it on again. As an illustration of how strong and persistent
this national trait is, it may be mentioned that about the middle of the
eighteenth century a Highlander from the forest of Mam More emigrated to
Canada, where after some years he was visited by an old friend from
Scotland who, when the man was out of the way, asked his wife and
daughters whether he ever talked of the Highlands. They said he
frequently did so, and though he was fairly content with his home in the
colony, he would often complain that there was not rain enough. When a
good heavy shower came, he would go out and stand in it till he was
quite drenched; and returning into the house, dripping wet, but with a
smile of satisfaction on his face, he would say, ‘What a comfortable
thing rain is!'
A lady of my acquaintance on the west coast, to whom I remarked that it
was a pity for ordinary mortals that so much rain fell there,
immediately answered me, *O, but you must remember, it is dry rain.’ The
remark appears stupidly absurd, but she was an intelligent and observant
person, who would not have made an idiotic statement. I learnt that what
she referred to was the rapidity with which the ram disappeared from the
surface of the ground and from the garments of those exposed to it. She
maintained that, owing to the more genial climate of the west, the rain,
as it fell, was warmer than on the east side of the country, and owing
to more rapid evaporation, and perhaps to greater porousness of the
soil, it vanished out of sight sooner. Certainly from my own experience,
I do not think one catches cold from severe wetting so readily on the
west as on the east coast. .
In the year 1728, Aaron Hill, who is now chiefly remembered because of
his connection with Pope, became popular in the north of Scotland owing
to the vigorous, but ultimately unsuccessful efforts, he made to cut and
float down timber on the Spey, for the uses of the navy. He was
entertained by the nobles and magistrates, and received the. freedom of
the town of; Inverness. Buhrhe must-have happened upon a spell. of bad
weather, for when he halted at Berwick he wrote on the window of the inn
the following lines:
Scotland ! thy weather’s
like a modish wife;
Thy winds and rains for ever are at strife;
So Termagant a while her thunder tries,
And when she can no longer scold—she cries.
More trying to the temper
than the rain is the wind that too often sweeps across the country. Men
who have to ‘strive with all the tempest in their teeth,’ acquire a
certain compression of the lips and look of determination which
sometimes, by the end of a long and weather-beaten life, may become
permanent. Edinburgh, built on ridges exposed to the breeze from all
quarters, is said to be distinguished by the ‘ windy walk ’ of its
inhabitants. Ami Boue was struck with the wall that ran along the middle
of the earthen mound which was thrown across the central valley, in
order to connect the old and the new town of that city, and he tells us
that pedestrians chose one or other side of this wall according to the
quarter from which the continual and often violent winds blew. ‘How many
hats,’ he exclaims, ‘were lost there in a year! I wore out more
umbrellas in my four years of residence in Great Britain than during all
the rest of my life. Macintoshes had not been invented.’
To any one intent on some definite employment out-of-doors, such as
fishing, sketching, botamsing, geological mapping, or any pursuit where
quiet air is necessary, nothing can be more exasperating than a struggle
against the ceaseless driving of the blast. Mere heavy rain, if it fall
straight, can be endured, for it allows one to stand, to turn round, and
if an umbrella be used, to consult a map or guidebook. With a furious
wind, however, you can do nothing but
Grow sick, and damn the climate—like a lord.
In Scotland, as in other countries having a variable climate, the
weather has long been a staple subject with which to introduce a
conversation. And it is curious that even when the sky is overcast, with
a threatening of rain, the usual greeting, ‘It’s a fine day,’ may not
infrequently be heard as the beginning of the colloquy. So inveterate is
this habit that the observation is apt to escape from the lips, even
when the meteorological conditions make it grotesquely out of place, as
in the case of the man who made use of it on a day of howling tempest,
but immediately corrected himself: ‘It’s a fine day,’ said he,—‘but
coorse.’
Remarks about the weather have been known to be resented on Sundays as
an unbecoming topic of conversation for that solemn season. When the
usual salutation had been made to one of the more strait-laced elders,
he testily answered, ‘Ay, but whatna a day’s this, to be speakin’ about
days?’
Still more gruff was the Aberdonian response to the ordinary greeting of
a stranger on a country road, ‘Ou ay, fae’s findin’ faut wi’ the day.
There’s some folk wad fecht wi’ a stane wa.'
The number of days in a year when an outdoor walk is impracticable on
account of the weather is in Scotland far smaller than people might
imagine. Of course there come storms of wind and rain that will keep one
a prisoner for a day or so at a time. But even in these storms there are
not infrequently lulls, when a brisk walk may be enjoyed before the
tempest begins again. Geological surveying affords a good test of
climate, and I have found it quite possible to carry this work on the
whole year through. Snow puts a stop to it, but many winters come and go
without leaving snow on the lowlands at all, or at least for more than a
day or two altogether.
Those who are familiar with the peculiarly genial and healthy climate of
the southern shores of the Moray Firth have sometimes thought that as
good an argument as many that have been brought forward to prove that
Shakespeare visited Scotland, might be based on the extraordinarily
minute and accurate description which he gives of the climate of that
region.
The air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses. This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve
By his loved mansionry that the heaven’s breath
Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze,
Buttress nor coign of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his bed and procreant cradle;
Where they most breed and haunt I have observed
The air is delicate.
The salubrity of the climate has been recognised for many years by
medical men, who, as already mentioned, send their patients from the
south of England to these northern shores.
The most suggestive illustration of the influence of environment upon
the character of the people is probably to be found in the Highlands.
There can be no doubt that the Celtic inhabitants of that region belong
to the same stock as those of Ireland. We know, indeed, as a historical
fact, that the southwestern districts of Scotland were actually peopled
from Ireland. Yet no one familiar with the population of the two
countries can fail to recognise the contrasts which they present to each
other, both in general physique and in habits and temperament. Neither
race has kept itself pure and unmixed, but in each case the foreign
infusion has been of the same kind in varying proportions. Norsemen,
Danes, Normans, English, have mingled with the Celtic stock in both
islands. The Irishman, however, has had the advantage of, on the whole,
a better climate. His country possesses far more level ground and a much
larger proportion of arable soil. His mountains rise up for the most
part as islands out of a vast plain, and thus have offered little
serious impediment to the free intercourse of the people from one end of
the island to the other. Hence he has been able to sow and reap his
crops, and to rear his sheep, cattle and horses, with comparatively
little opposition from nature. Moreover, he has escaped the shadow of
the Calvinistic gloom. His religion has not repressed his natural
liveliness of temperament. His clergy have not set themselves to
eradicate all his superstitions and usages, habits and customs, but have
allowed these free play where they were not clearly opposed to the cause
of morality. And thus his gaiety, if it has not been greatly promoted by
the cheerfulness of his surroundings, has at least not been always and
everywhere dimmed and chastened by a contest with his environment for
the means of subsistence, save where the population has increased beyond
the capacity of the ground to support it, nor by a stern and
inquisitorial interference on the part of his priesthood.
The fate of the Celt in the Highlands has been far different. There he
has found himself in a region of mountains too rugged and lofty for
cultivation, save along their bases, and too continuous to permit easy
access from one district to another, yet not sufficiently impassable to
prevent the sudden irruption of some hostile clan of mountaineers,
carrying with it slaughter and spoliation. Shut in among long, narrow,
and deep glens, he has cultivated their strips of alluvium, but has too
often found the thin stony soil to yield but a poor return for his
labour. For many a long century he had to defend his flocks and herds
from the wolf, the fox, and the wild cat.1 The gloom of his valleys is
deepened by the canopy of cloud which for so large a part of the year
rests upon the mountain-ridges and cuts off the light and heat of the
sun. Hence his harvests are often thrown into the late autumn, and in
many a season his thin and scanty crops rot on the ground, leaving him
face to face with starvation and an inclement winter. Under these
adverse conditions he could hardly fail to become more or less subdued
and grim. But he has likewise been exposed, more irresistibly than his
fellow-countrymen of the Lowlands, to the misguided solicitude and
sombre fanaticism of kirk-sessions and Presbyteries. His tales, his
legends, and his superstitions have been derided by his ecclesiastical
guides as foolish fables; his songs, his instrumental music, and his
dances, have been stigmatised as vain and unworthy exhibitions, his
musical instruments have been broken and burnt. His natural and innocent
ebullitions of joy and mirth have been checked and repressed as
unbecoming in a being who is journeying onward to eternity.
Need it be matter for wonder if under these various restraining
influences the gaiety which the Highlander doubtless shared originally
with his brother in Ireland, has been in large measure replaced by a
serious sedateness, passing even into depression. When he chooses to
solace himself with music, its sad cadences seem to re-echo the
monotonous melancholy of the winds that sough past his roughly-built
cot, or howl down his glens and across his wastes of barren moorland.
But while the lighter side of his nature has thus suffered, his higher
qualities have probably been only further fostered and developed. His
struggle with climate and soil has strengthened in him a spirit of
stubborn endurance and selfreliance, which his moral training has
directed towards praiseworthy ends. This spirit finds its freest scope
in the life of a soldier. In that career, also, the instincts and
traditions of his race meet with their fullest realisation. And thus it
has come that for more than a century and a half the British Army has
had no braver or more loyal body of men than those of the Highland
regiments. On many a hard-fought field, in all parts of the world,
wherever deeds of heroism had to be done, the pibroch has thrilled and
the tartan has waved in the front. |
