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PREFACE
The following Portraits
and Notices are intended as slight illustrations of the Highlanders of
Scotland, in the reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria.
Highlanders of the present day differ in many respects from their
ancestors of the last century; but the ties of blood and Clanship, the
influence of local associations, and the comparative inaccessibility of
the districts, have hitherto preserved most of their leading
characteristics. In another century, it is probable that these will be,
in a great measure, lost. Railroads, with their facilities for
transporting natives of the glens to the cities of the plains, and
citizens to the remote regions of the Highlands, must, in time, blend
more and more the Gael with the Lowlander. Now that the “Land of the
Heather” is familiar to all, when Britain is proud of her Highland
Regiments,—when so many of her Southern sons migrate annually to seek
health and recreation in the north, some record of the People of the
Highlands, as they now are, may claim a national interest, and prove
useful to the future historian.
The Retainers belonging to the Queen’s Highland Estate of Balmoral, and
Clansmen of the principal families, form the subjects selected to
illustrate the Race.
The fixedness of the abode of Highlanders among their own people and in
their own districts, apart from any intercourse with strangers, has
enabled them, habitually, to trace back family descent farther than is
elsewhere customary, except with the accompaniments of wealth and
station. The present advantages of registration may, in the future,
enable others of our countrymen to do the same. The feeling of holding a
stake in the Past, has its own value, and its influence over the Future,
often bearing fruit in such sentiments as “Though poor, our parents and
grandparents were honest;” [In its fullest acceptation, beyond mere
reference to money or property, rather honourably scientious]. “Our
forefathers were fearless, loyal, and true; let us never disgrace them.”
May the many noble qualities and simple virtues thus inherited, with the
kindly feeling still subsisting between Chief and Clansman, and the
mutual trust uniting all Highlanders in brotherhood, long survive,
whatever changes time may bring!
Highlanders of Scotland
Being a series of Portraits, with biographical and historical notices
illustrative of the principle clans and followings, and the retainers of
the royal household at Balmoral in the reign of her Majesty Queen
Victoria by Kenneth MacLeay (pdf) |
