Guide to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland
General Observations on the Highlands and Islands of Scotland

SECTION I.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS OF SCOTLAND.

General Features of the Highlands, paragraph 1.—Landed Property; Population, 2.—Early History of the Highlands, and Characteristics of the Ancient Highlanders, 3.—Strength and Distribution of the Clans, 4.—Their Political Relations, 5.—Causes of Change and Career of Improvements in the Highlands, 6.—Dwellings, 7. —Commercial Resources, Harbours, and Piers, 8.—highland Societies of London and Scotland, Sheep and Wool, 9.—Black Cattle, horses, 10.—Wood,11.—Kelp,12. —British Fisheries, 13.—Herring and Salmon Fisheries, 14.—White Fish, 15.—Game, 16.—Sources of Livelihood; Dress; Language, 17.—Ecclesiastical History of the Highlands, 18.—Parliamentary or Government Churches, 19.—Episcopacy in Scotland since the Revolution, 20.—Present Ecclesiastical Statistics of the Highlands. 21.-1tistory and State of Education and Religious Instruction, 22.—Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge; Gaelic Scriptures; Government Missions, 23.— Erroneous System of Education till of late years observed, 24.—Edinburgh and Glasgow Gaelic School Societies, and Inverness Education Society; 'Moral Statistics, 2a.—General Assembly's Educational Scheme Gaelic Episcopal Society; Gaelic Scriptures, 26.-1'rescnt State of Education and Religious Instruction, 27.—Gaelic Literature, 28.—Highland Music, 29.—General Character of the Highland Population, 30.

1. IT will save much repetition in the body of this work, if we begin it with a few general remarks on the external appearance, history, and statistics of the Highlands, with some brief notices of the present condition of the inhabitants and their resources, and such a sketch of the natural history of the country as is necessary for the use of the Tourist, and which may assist the recollection of the man of science. The highlands of Scotland, then, strictly speaking, consist only of the mountainous parts to the north of the Firths of Clyde and Tay, and the River Forth. Their boundary stretches in a line from S.W. to N.E., a few miles north of the cities of Glasgow, Stirling, Perth, and Dundee, and excludes the greater parts of the sea coasts of Nairn, Elgin, and Banff shires, and the counties on the eastern coast south of the Moray Firth—all of which were peopled at an early period by Saxon, Danish, or Flemish colonies ; and hence were separated from the Highlands which peculiarly composed the territories of the ancient Gaelic or Celtic tribes. As, however, the whole of Scotland north of the line just mentioned is commonly regarded as belonging to the Highlands, including the Hebrides, the Orkney and Shetland Isles, many districts of which, both in form and population, are decidedly lowland, we shall undertake to guide the tourist through all the northern counties and islands, with the exception of the eastern coast south of Aberdeen; and many places also beyond the Highland boundary, will be at least partially described.

This great tract of country, as its name denotes, is of a mountainous character. The mountains vary greatly in elevation as well as form : their greatest height being about 4400 feet, while they often exhibit groups and clusters of nearly uniform magnitude, sometimes about 1000, sometimes 2000, and occasionally 3000 feet and upwards above the sea. In general, the principal chains of mountains extend across the country in a direction from S.W. to N.E., and the larger valleys which intervene between them have a parallel direction; while the intersecting openings, or lateral valleys, observe no such regularity. The eastern side of the north of Scotland for the most part presents a continuous unbroken line of coast, while the western is indented by numberless narrow arms of the sea. This latter coast, also, is flanked by clusters of large islands, of varied aspect, with smaller ones interspersed among them, forming an almost unbroken breastwork between the ocean and the mainland ; while the eastern shore, on the other hand, is entirely defenceless, and exposed to the entire force of the German Ocean. The mountains of the west coast generally possess a more verdant and less of a heathery aspect than those in the interior and the opposite shore. Their acclivities are also more abrupt, and their forms more picturesque. A further strongly distinctive character between the east and west coasts, is, that the mountainous ranges in general subside much more towards the former. The inclination of the surface of the country on this side being thus more lengthened, its rivers have a more prolonged course, and are consequently of greater body—as the Tay, Dee, Spey, Findhorn, Beauly, Carron, and Oikel, with which there are hardly any streams that can compare on the western side of the island; and several of their estuaries also assume the characters of extensive firths, while on the west they do not attain such dimensions as, in any case north of the Clyde, to be so designed. Patches of arable ground are cultivated in the less elevated portion of the uplands, fertility and cultivation increasing with the descent of the valleys; and, on the seacoasts, rich and luxuriant crops are seen gladdening the face of nature. Except on the eastern shore, however, there is, on the whole, no great extent of cultivated land. Here the level and sloping tracts are most extensive: to this side the towns are chiefly confined, and consequently greater wealth exists to stamp its impress on the scenery, and the exports of grain and other produce from Caithness and the east coast of Ross and Inverness-shire are considerable. Native woods, chiefly of pine and birch, clothe the declivities in many parts of the Highlands, overhanging generally the banks of lakes and streams; and the planting of hardwood and larch has of late greatly extended the woodland. The west coast rarely presents any breadth of wood, though it is occasionally adorned with trees; but on both sides, and in all parts of the country, the remains of very large trees of oak and fir are found under gravel banks and in peat mosses.
A surface so diversified necessarily exhibits, within very circumscribed limits, varieties of scenery of the most opposite descriptions; enabling the admirer of nature to pass abruptly from dwelling on the loveliness of an extensive marine or champaign landscape into the deep solitude of an ancient forest, or the dark craggy fastnesses of an alpine ravine; or from lingering amid the quiet grassy meadows of a pastoral strath or valley, watered by its softly flowing stream, to the open heathy mountain-side, whence "alps o'er alps arise," whose summits are often shrouded with mists and almost perennial snows, and their overhanging precipices furrowed by deep torrents and foaming cataracts. Lakes and long arms of the sea, either fringed with woods or surrounded with rocky, barren, and mossy shores, now studded with islands, and anon extending their silvery arms into distant receding mountains, are met in every district ; while the extreme steepness, ruggedness, and sterility of many of the mountain chains, impart to them as imposing and magnificent characters as are to be seen in the much higher and more inaccesible elevations of Switzerland. No wonder, then, that this "land of mountain and of flood" should have given birth to the song of the hard, and afforded material for the theme of the sage in all ages ; that its inhabitants should be tinctured with deep romantic feelings, at once tender, melancholy, and wild ; and that the recollection of their own picturesque native dwellings should haunt them to their latest hours, wherever they go. Neither, amid such profusion and diversity of all that is beautiful and sublime in nature, can the unqualified admiration of strangers, from every part of Europe, of the scenery of the Highlands, fail of being easily accounted for; nor can any hesitate in recommending them to visit the more remote or unknown solitudes.

[The following sketch, in this foot-note, of the Geology of the Highlands, may not be unacceptable to some of our readers:

The great central mass of the highlands consists of rough old primitive or crystalline rocks—those of Argyleshire, in the extreme south-west, being chiefly mica and argillnceous schists, succeeded, on the north, towards Glencoe and Ben-Nevis, by huge mountains of the most ancient porphyritic or eruptive rocks. The Lennox, Perth, and Inverness shires, consist, for the most part, of gneiss rocks, through which granite, in mountain masses and veins, has protruded in almost every direction—the great central ride of the Grampians being principally composed of that rock; which, thence descendes, in wide moorish plateaus, through the heights of Banff and Aberdeen shires, and projects itself into the German Ocean in the shape of long headlands and ranges of mural precipices. Ross and Sutherland shires also abound most in gneiss; but some of their most rugged and picturesque portions—such as those about Loch Duich, Loch Marge, and Gairloch—consist of mica slate, a rock which presents a more serrated and deeply-cleft surface than perhaps any other in Scotland. It is yet questionable whether these rocks are not older than the similar Silurian deposits of Wales, the Isle of Man, and the north of England.

All these great central masses of what are called primitive rocks, were encased in an enormous frame-work of the Deronian old red sandstone, and its associated condlomerate; which maybe traced almost uninterruptedly along the whole southern flank of the Grampians, and thence northwards, with very few breaks, into the basin of the Moray Firth. With the exception of a small number of protruding ridges and summits of granitic rocks, the whole shores of this firth are composed of this old red sandstone; which, no doubt, at one time, extended its layers across from side to side; and above and upon which, from the few traces of them still remaining, deposits of has and oolitic shales, grits, and limestones, appear to have rested. Perhaps these were also surmounted by members of the chalk formation—rolled masses of which have been discovered in Banff and Aberdeen shires; while in one or two places, as at Elgin, singular local deposits of the era of the green sand occur, with their peculiar and characteristic fossils. The amenity of the climate, and fertility of the soil, round all the shores of the Moray Firth, are owin4, in no small degree, to their being formed of members of the old red sandstone series; which, in Caithness, extend themselves out in enormous flat or undulating plains of bituminous and calcareous slates and freestones; bestowing on that country, except along the sea-cliffs, a dead and uninteresting outline. Almost all the bays and headlands along the north coast, from the Pentland Firth westwards, are skirted or tipped with the remains of the same Q cat old sandstone franc; which, as we round Cape Wrath, soon meets us again pin enormous sheets an masses, composing mg the greater of the coast as far south as Applecross, and rising, in the interior of Sutherland, into huge detached peaks and pinnacles, apparently of red horizontal masonry. The sandstones on this side of the island are distinguished by their superior hardness and crystalline texture; and have by some, especially in the neighbourhood of gneiss and mica slate, been described as a sort of primitive sandstone.

The Hebrides are naturally divided into two groups: the outer, which consists almost exclusively of gneiss rocks; and the inner, comprehending Mull, Staffs, Eig, Rum, slid Skye, which, with their dependent islets, consist of aoasis for the most part of secondary sandstones and limestone, out of which have arisen, from the internal fiery nucleus of the earth, enormous overlying, and, in some cases, overflowing masses and mountains of trap rocks, chiefly greenstone, syenite, basalt, hyperatene, and an endless variety of pitchstone, claystone, and felspar porphyries, with their associated crystals and simple minerals. The precise localities of the most interesting of all these deposits will he mentioned in our subsequent chapters.

The Highlands and Islands of Scotland exhibit in every direction the most unequivocal traces of all the recent changes which have affected this portion of the globe. The principal valleys and mountains appear to have received their present forms before the British isles uprose from the deep; and everywhere the enormous quantities of rolled stones or boulders, and of sand and gravel, not only betoken the immense abrading forces to which the rocks were exposed, but those rounded fragments, by their deposition in regular banks and terraces, also indicate the successive heights at which the ocean, or sonic other great mass of water, stood at long and different periods. Every valley and hill side exhibit such appearances; and a series of corresponding terraces may be seen extending to at least 1600 feet above the present sea level. The most marked and general sea margin, however, is one which encircles the island with an almost continuous ring, at an elevation of from 90 to 120 feet. This great terraced bank is beautifully displayed on the seacoast in almost every part of the Highlands, and in the cliffs above it, as at the Suture of Cromarty and elsewhere, lutes of caverns may be seen marking other elevations at which the sea had previously stood. The distinction observable in the Isle of Man—and so fully described by the Rev. J. G. Cumming in his interesting account of that island—between the boulder clay and the drift gravel of these later deposits, may also he traced throughout the Highlands of Scotland, and especially around Inverness, the former being the undermost, but rising up front beneath the gravel banks to a higher elevation, and often to the very tops of the hills. This boulder clay is the cause of the superior fertility of some of our higher ridges, and in it are entombed by far the largest of our erratic blocks. All the phenomena of scratching, grooving, and polishing, so characteristic of what is called the Glacial theory of the denudation and transport of rocks, are likewise abundantly exemplified throughout the country. And lastly, the remains of the Irish Elk, and of enormous trunks of Oak and Pine (with which no living examples in this country can compare), imbedded in our peat mosses and quagmires, both on the mainland and adjoining islands, betoken the extent and universal diffusion of the ancient Caledonian forests, while the great size of those remains excites a doubt whether a considerable change of climate has not taken place since the era in which they existed. References will be given in the body of this book to particular localities where all the phenoinena alluded to may he distinctly seen.]

2. In speaking of Highland hill property, as to extent, (excluding the lower and more fertile portions,) miles may, without any great exaggeration, be substituted for acres, to indicate a possession of a value corresponding with a Lowland estate. In the assessment of real property in 1815, the annual ascertained value of all the Highland counties, including Orkney and Zetland, with the exception of Perth, Stirling, and Dumbarton shires, was £647,441; while the real property of Fife and Dumfries shires, as assessed at the same time, was £701,391. But the population of the Highland counties is double that of the latter. The county of Perth was estimated at within £100,000 of all the rest of the Highlands.*

3. The great mass of the population of the Highlands is unquestionably of Celtic origin; those Celts being (according to Mr. Skene, the latest essayist on this obscure point) identical with the Picts, and the descendants of the ancient Caledonians of Roman authors. With the Pictish inhabitants were afterwards incorporated the Scots, of the same Celtic stock, who, from the north of Ireland, colonised the south-west of Scotland, during the period between the third and the sixth centuries. The Scots did not acquire a firm footing till the Romans had abandoned Britain. They contended for the mastery with the Picts for about 400 years, both nations merging into one in the ninth century. The northern Picts, however, kept themselves greatly separate, and owned only a nominal submission to the Scottish line of kings; and, retaining their ancient territories and language, they were the real ancestors of the modern Gael or Highlanders. The upper classes, however, were to some extent of Scandinavian, more immediately of Norman origin, and, on the `vest coast, of Danish or Norwegian lineage. In the reign of Malcolm III., or Ceanmore, partly in consequence of his marriage with Margaret, sister of Atheling the Saxon, Norman barons banished from his court began to effect settlements in the Highlands. The Saxons are thought to have confined themselves to the Lowlands. On the appearance of these strangers and their followers, feudal policy came to be gradually blended with the old patriarchal or Celtic system, which differed materially from feudalism. Society assumed the aspect of a population divided into numerous communities, the members of each of which had gradually amalgamated into a state of complete subordination of all to one common head. We have presented, in the annals of the Highlands, till within no very distant period, the spectacle of the most faithful attachment on the part of inferiors to their superiors, though it partook of a servile and dependent character. The sentiments of the upper ranks were ordinarily marked by kindness and concern for the lower orders; but these, again, were often vitiated by coarseness, and the proud selfishness characteristic of an ignorant and barbarous age.

The separation of the tribes or clans from one another by name and lineage, was rendered more complete from the rugged nature of the country. In addition to a distinction of surname and patronymics, the clans had each a different slogan or war-cry, and a peculiar badge, generally some species of shrub, as the juniper, yew, holly, &c., worn in the bonnet, and likewise a distinct variety of checkered dress or tartan. They were remarkable for their jealousy of one another, and of the association of men into towns, where society is held together by principles and for purposes at variance with those of clanship. Constant feuds and animosities, rapine, violence, and bloodshed, were the unavoidable consequences of such a state of society. The warlike spirit of the Highlanders was kept alive by the incursions, in more early periods, of the Scandinavians, and by the abiding occasions of aggression on their own part to spoil the rich possessions of their Saxon and other Lowland neighbours. Hospitality there was, but of a barbaric and licentious character. The domestic affections existed in great strength ; but there was little of philanthropy or comprehensive sympathy with their fellow men. Indeed, the kindlier feelings of our nature were, in Highlanders of the olden time, unavoidably confined to a narrow range of objects, and the renovating doctrines and principles of Christianity were most imperfectly understood and practised. Considerable urbanity and politeness of demeanour prevailed among the gentry ; but gross ignorance overspread the mass; and all the arts of peace were at the lowest ebb. The chiefs resided in strongholds, each generally a square tower of four or five single apartments, with perhaps some adjoining buildings, and having at times a walled court. Their household economy was distinguished by abundance—at least of animal food. The residences of the ranks next in grade were mean, small, and comfortless ; while the peasantry, as is too universally the case at the present day, were sheltered by dingy turf or dry stone huts, with bare earthen floors; than which it is impossible to conceive abodes for human beings more squalid and wretched. They were at the same time poorly fed ; but were, however, uncommonly hardy and athletic. Their undaunted courage and energetic strength, and their prowess in the use of their favourite weapons, the claymore, dirk, and targe, rendered their very name a terror to the industrious but more peaceful Lowlander.

4. After the rebellion of 1745, a memorial was drawn up for government, it is conjectured by President Forbes, which gives the subjoined estimate of the force of able-bodied men which the respective clans could bring into the field.*

Several septs of other names than those mentioned in this list were among the followers of some of the more powerful chieftains. In point of dress, the kilt, a sort of plaited petticoat, reaching to the knees, with the plaid, was universally worn by the ordinary Highlander, while the lower garment of the upper ranks was the trews, consisting of breeches and hose of one piece. The bagpipe was also the common instrument of music.

The distribution of the various clans throughout the Highlands was, and still is, as underneath.*

5. The Western Isles were long subject to the sway of Norway ; and though, on the discomfiture of Haco's armament in the thirteenth century, they were transferred to the dominion of the crown of Scotland, its sovereignty was for a long period not recognised by the powerful kings or lords of the Isles, who maintained a state of independent and supreme rule. Their strength was first materially weakened by the subdivision of the family estates among the numerous sons of the two families of John of Isla, by Amy, great-great-grand-daughter of Reginald, King of Man, and Margaret, daughter of Robert II. of Scotland, and the severely contested battle of Harlaw, fought by Donald of the Isles, in 1411, on occasion of an enterprise undertaken to make good his pretensions to the earldom of Ross. This was followed by the overthrow of Alexander in Lochaber, and by several determined measures of James I. and the succeeding Scottish kings.

In general, the Scottish kings observed the policy of sowing disunion and promoting feuds among the clans; and James V. pursued, with partial success, vigorous measures to bring them to some sort of obediential acknowledgment of the head of the state; but the inaccessible nature of the country rendered the allegiance of its rude inhabitants and stormy chieftains little more than nominal, as regarded public police and good government. As if, however, to make amends for their habitual disregard of any authority but their own will, the Highlanders were prompt to rally round the standard of royalty when in distress. The Argyleshire and Sutherland highlanders, however, form an exception. They were always of Whig and presbyterian principles. To them might be added the Rosses and Munroes. The Frasers, Mackintoshes, and Grants, were also covenanting clans ; but the two former took part in the later rebellions, the latter clan but partially. On the various occasions of mutual co-operation, the Highland clans signalised themselves by achievements of a truly remarkable character, considering their small numerical strength; as, for instance, in Montrose's wars, Dundee's campaign, and the rebellions of 1715 and 1745.

6. Though no decided impression was made on their condition till the two latter risings, all these seasons of combined effort were attended with some effect on the manners and ideas of the various tribes. The soldiery stationed by Cromwell, in the forts constructed by him, had also a considerable influence in introducing some traits of refinement. At last the formation of the military roads, and the disarming act in the period between the two rebellions, and subsequent to that of 1745 the abolition of heritable jurisdictions, ward-holdings, and of the Highland dress, and other coercive measures of government, completely broke up the ancient system. A new field of adventure was then unfolded to the young in civil and military professions in other parts of the kingdom, and a spirit of independence was engendered quite foreign to the former relations between the different classes of society. Now, no peculiarities, springing from any essential distinction in the constitution of the political and social body, exist between this and other portions of the empire; none but such as must continue to mark the several subdivisions of a country according to their elevation and the respective degrees of commercial intercourse and wealth.

The progress of the Highlands of Scotland towards an assimilation with the rest of the kingdom has, since the middle of last, but more particularly since the commencement of the present century, been singularly great, and its rapidity continually accelerating. About the year 1730, several lines of roads were formed by the Hanoverian soldiers, opening a communication along and from either extremity, and also from the centre of the Great Glen with the south of Scotland. In the year 1803, a parliamentary commission was appointed, under whose sanction about £267,000 of the public money has been expended, of which about £214,000 were advanced as the half of the expense of constructing about 875 additional miles of roads and bridges throughout the Highlands ; the heritors of the several counties assessing themselves to defray the other half, (£214,000,) and £5000 a-year is allowed by government towards the repair of roads. Numberless district roads intersect these, formed by the statute-labour and local Road Acts, and other means. In the county of Sutherland alone, there has been formed, since 1812, nearly 300 miles of road of this latter description, with assistance from the Sutherland family, at an expense of about £40,000, affording three lines from north to south, and another along the north coast, and the southern boundary of the county.

7. The canals, roads, inns, and modes of conveyance now existing in the Highlands, are described in the body of this work, and it only remains for us to add, in this general survey, that the residences of the better classes in the Highlands are now provided with the usual comforts and conveniences of life; but the poorer peasantry and labourers are often found immured, especially in the west coast, in the most wretched huts, built chiefly of uncemented turf, with a total disregard to neatness or cleanliness.

8. The chief export products of the Highlands and Islands, are sheep, wool, black cattle, wood, kelp, herrings, cod-fish, and salmon; and of late years, from the east of Ross and Inverness, and from Caithness, wheat, oats, and potatoes. They are dependent on other parts of the kingdom for groceries, and for most haberdashery, hardware, and other manufactured goods. By the appropriation of certain balances from the estates which were forfeited in the rebellions of last century, about £i3,000 has been expended on harbours and piers; sums having been advanced to individuals undertaking the completion of works to double the amount received, making a total of £110,000 laid out on these objects by this means. The exertions of the Highland Society of London, instituted in 1778, and that of Scotland, founded in Edinburgh in 1783, have been eminently beneficial in fostering and quickening the capabilities of the country. The objects of the former association are to preserve the language, dress, music, and poetry of the Gael. Several societies in Scotland address themselves to similar purposes, as the Celtic Society, the Highland Club of Scotland, and the St. Fillan's Highland Society. The attention of the Highland Society of Scotland is more immediately directed to the advancement of Agricultural improvement in its various ramifications, by all the appliances which such a great national institution can put in operation. And its efforts have been attended by the most marked success.

9. The modern system of sheep-farming on a great scale seems to have been too generally adopted, with an inconsiderate degree of expedition, in some districts of the Highlands. It is incompatible with the presence of a promiscuous population, unconnected with the charge of the stock, and the consequence of its introduction has accordingly been the dispossession of the inhabitants; and that often on a sudden, without sufficient care being taken to open up to them, on the coasts, or elsewhere, new sources of livelihood, and without due respect to the propriety and expediency of dealing tenderly with their local predilections and deeply-rooted habits. The rearing of cattle is not so prejudiced by an intermixture of small crofters, or cottagers, and requires a greater number of dependents. It is problematical whether the rentals of Highland estates might not have benefited by a more limited system of sheep-farming; while the condition of the tenantry in general, and the peasantry, would have been improved thereby. It is difficult to form any conjecture as to the total sheep stock, or yearly produce in sheep and wool, of the whole of the Highlands. But from the statistical information procured for a railway company projected in 1846, with the view of opening up the communication with the southern markets, and developing the resources of the north and central Highlands, it would appear that even in the present backward state of things, there are annually exported by land from the Highland counties (excluding the maritime shires of Banff, Aberdeen, and Argyleshire, and the Lennox), about 200,000 head of sheep in a lean condition, of which about 40,000 proceed from Perthshire alone, and the rest from the northern shires; that Caithness, Sutherland, Ross, Inverness, and part of Moray shires, send south about 40,000 head of lean cattle, and Perthshire and the south Highlands about as many more; that from the distance and difficulties of getting to market, the fattening of sheep and cattle for the butcher has scarcely commenced in the Highlands; and that the improvement of the stocks, by changes of breed from the south, is as yet, from the same causes, very slow. Instead, therefore, of hill produce being frequently and expeditiously disposed of, the Highland farmer can only get rid of it once or twice a-year, and that in a lean condition, and at great risk and expense. An annual great wool fair is held at Inverness in the month of July, but though sometimes upwards of 100,000 stones of wool, and as many sheep, change owners at it, the sales are often dull, and the grower has to consign his stock to brokers in Glasgow and Liverpool. Great numbers of sheep are still sent south on foot, across the hills, and the black cattle follow them in large droves; and the animals so driven south generally pass into English hands at the great trysts at Falkirk.

10. The Highland black cattle are of a small size, but their beef is of a peculiarly delicate quality. For the disposal of them, various trysts, or markets, are held throughout and on the southern borders of the Highlands. Along with the droves of cattle, parcels of Highland ponies are driven, which are of a small size, but strong and hardy. Of these, a considerable number are destined for the north of England coal mines. Both cattle and ponies are supplied in greatest numbers by the west coast and islands. Highland ponies are capable of enduring great fatigue. The larger breed of horses, when well cared for, form stout, hardy, and serviceable animals. Crosses with south-country horses are now general for agricultural purposes, draught, and riding.

11. Highland timber consists chiefly of pine or fir, and birch. The former, when not of native growth, is mostly disposed of in the shape of short props for the coal mines. About 200 or 300 cargoes of props, logs, and deals, are shipped annually from the Moray Firth : the average value of a cargo of props does not exceed £30 or £40. Coals and lime are brought back in return: birch is used for herring-barrel staves, and for domestic utensils and farm implements. Oak coppice is chiefly valuable for the charcoal and pyroligneous acid which it yields; and larger stems of oak, ash, and elm, are now exported in considerable quantities. There are, however, enormous plantations of fir and larch shooting up in all parts of the country, and especially in the interior, which cannot be turned to their full use until the communication by railway is opened up. Thus, in the inland portions of Inverness and Nairn shires alone (away from the sea), there are upwards of 50,000 acres under wood; in Perthshire, on the line of the great north road, there are 26,000 acres of woodland; and the rest of the county must contain double that quantity. The yearly exports of timber at present from the ports of the Moray Firth alone, amount to about 50,000 tons.

12. There is generally, manufactured about 8000 tons of kelp on the coasts of the western Highlands and Islands ; from 2000 to 3000 tons in Orkney and Zetland; and probably from 1000 to 1500 tons on the north and east coasts of Sutherland and Caithness. During the last war, kelp often sold for £20 a ton ; but since the introduction of Spanish barilla and other substitutes, it has fallen in price from a half to a fourth of that sum. From a new alkaline product which kelp has lately been found to contain, it is to be hoped that its value will yet greatly rise. The expense of cutting, drying, and burning the ware is from £3 to £4 a ton.

13. The seas of the north of Scotland abound with valuable products; a fact which the industrious Dutch, for a long period of time, turned to the most profitable account. Two centuries ago, that people were in the habit of sending as many as 1500 and even 2000 busses, of eighty tons each, to prosecute the herring fishery off the coast of Shetland, besides several hundred doggers of about sixty tons' burthen to fish for cod and ling. For the latter, also, they carried on an extensive barter with the Shetland fishers. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the Dutch herring busses, from wars with this country, and other causes, had decreased to 500 or 600, and they continued to diminish still farther during the eighteenth century, and have now almost disappeared from our coasts. Yet, seventy years ago, they had 200 busses employed on the Shetland fishings; and the Danes, Prussians, French, and Flemings, as many more; while the English had only two vessels, and the Scotch but one. Public societies for the encouragement of the British fisheries have been formed at various times in this country, since the reign of Queen Elizabeth, previous to the society now established, but they were short-lived, and their success was very partial. No attention was bestowed on the herring fishery till the year 1750, when a company was incorporated, which, however, eventually broke up, with a loss of £500,000 sterling. The present British Fishery Society was established in 1780. Parliament has frequently granted bounties for the encouragement of the fisheries; but as, till of late, they were paid on the tonnage, and not on the quantity of fish taken, vessels went out rather to catch the bounty than anything else. For some years back, bounties for fishing herring have been found quite unnecessary, and are now discontinued. Several fishing villages, as Tobermory, Ullapool, and Pulteney Town, near Wick, owe their origin to the British Fishery Society.

On being forsaken by their old friends the Dutch, the Shetland proprietors were obliged, in order to enable their impoverished tenants to prosecute the ling fishery (to which they had previously directed much of their attention), to advance the purchase price of their boats and tackling, and, in return, the fishers became bound to dispose of the produce of their labours to their landlords at a stipulated price ; and this sort of tenure still prevails among these islanders to this day. It was not till about thirty years ago that even a feeble revival (by means of a few vessels of small burthen) was attempted of the Shetland cod fishery, but since then it has been cultivated with great success, and may yet be improved so as to become a source of much national wealth ; for a prodigiously large cod, ling, and tusk bank has been discovered, extending all the way from the north of Orkney to the west of Shetland. There is every reason to believe that a similar bank lies to the westward of the Hebrides; and the spirited gentry of those isles are beginning to look after it.

14. The herring fishery was at one time a source of great profit to the inhabitants of the west coast of Scotland ; but it has of late somewhat fallen off in that direction, and been prosecuted with most signal and daily increasing success on the eastern shores. However, there are occasional great takes of herring in the salt-water inlets on the west coast. In 1840, about £20,000 worth of herring were cured in Loch Torridon; and, in 1841, as much as to the value of perhaps £50,000 in Loch Duich. It is singular, that this economical article of food is still so little used in the great manufacturing towns of England.

Of the quantity of salmon cured, and the value of the fishery, we cannot speak with any certainty, as the exports of this fish, though very considerable, vary much every year. Including the Dee and the Don, there are, north of the Tay, twenty-five salmon-fishing rivers of various importance, some of them yielding several thousand pounds' rent. Besides which, the stake-net fisheries, along the coasts of the firths and arms of the sea, return an additional revenue. This branch of the fisheries has been greatly overwrought, and salmon in consequence are much scarcer than they used to be: the subsisting law, which makes the same close time (from the 14th September to the 2d of February) to be observed all over Scotland, having also proved injurious, being opposed to the habits of the fish in different rivers.

15. Besides these fish, haddock, cod, whiting, skate, flounders, rock cod, and cuddies, abound in most places. The haddock is rare on the west coast, (except towards the south,) but its place is supplied by a fine firm fish, of somewhat similar form, called the lythe. A new trade has lately commenced between the north of Scotland and the London markets, in that most valuable of our white fish, the haddock, which are now being picked up in vast quantities by steamers and quick sailing vessels from the fishing boats, just as they are caught, and brought to market either fresh or in a half cured state. The supply is inexhaustible, and the demand in our great cities and manufacturing towns for this fish is steadily increasing. When smoked and dried, the haddock is becoming a staple article of food in many places, under the names, from Aberdeen, of Finnan Haddies, or of Speldings, from other places. Turbot are to be had in the Moray Firth, but unfortunately the fishermen have not directed their attention to them. They are, however, industriously fished in the Firth of Clyde. Soles are rarely to be seen in Scotland, as are also mullet, gurnets, and the many varieties taken on the coasts of England. Shell-fish naturally accompany the others enumerated. Crabs are common ; lobsters are met with in many places; oysters are rare, except in some parts of the west coast, whence they are occasionally brought to market in Inverness and other towns, but by attention it is believed their numbers might be greatly increased. Mussels (used chiefly for bait) abound on all our coasts; and as care has lately been taken to preserve and increase the spawn, the mussel banks belonging to our sea-ports and villages are becoming sources of great revenue to them. Those of Inverness and Tain are already worth to each about £100 a-year. Neither shrimps nor prawns fancy our northern latitudes; but cockles occur in great quantities, and, where best, form a highly palatable dish. Our mountain lakes, rivers, and streams, afford, besides salmon, great varieties and abundance of trout. The char, or mountain salmon, is found only occasionally, and in the higher lochs. Pike of great size occur in many lakes ; but the presence of these voracious animals is not desired, on account of their monopolising propensities.

16. Among the products of the Highlands, game must not be omitted, being matter of very general interest, and now no inconsiderable source of profit to many Highland proprietors. Grouse, till of late, abounded in most parts of the Highlands, but now they have been greatly reduced in number by sportsmen, by the treading of the sheep and shepherd's dogs, and by various diseases, especially the tape-worm. Partridges and hares are common in the low grounds: the ptarmigan and mountain hare confine themselves to the rocky summits of the highest mountains. Pheasants are being introduced in policies on the outskirts of the Highlands and in the Hebrides. Black game or heath fowl abound in most of the younger plantations and coppices, as also woodcocks ; and great numbers of wild ducks, snipes, and other water-fowl, in the lakes and marshes. The stately red deer keeps far remote from the haunts of man, but they are still numerous in the more secluded wilds, and are now greatly on the increase. Roe are frequent in the lower coverts. Deer-stalking requires patience, and some hardiness of constitution. Hunting is out of the question, and, indeed, coursing is hardly attempted; in the interior, and most of the west coast, not at all. The deer-stalker must use the arts and dexterity of the Indian in looking for his prey. The hare is pursued with greyhounds, or the gun; while foxes, badgers, &c., must be unearthed by the aid of the little wiry Scotch terrier. It has now become a common practice for Highland proprietors to let the right of shooting on their grounds. Moors may be had at all prices, from £30 to £700 for the season, with accommodations varying according to circumstances. Mr. Snowie, gun-maker in Inverness, is the chief agent in the north Highlands between the proprietors of game and the sportsmen, and he regularly advertises the shootings which are to let. His arrangements alone, extend over a rental amounting in some years to between £7000 and £8000. His returns for seventy-six shootings, three years ago, were 55,700 brace of grouse killed in the season, and 288 deer from twenty-six places where deer and roe occur. More precise and extensive information is not to be got at present; but we know that, in the estimates of railway traffic submitted to Parliament not long ago, there were data procured for believing that the conveyance of game and small parcels from the northern counties alone, would yield about £3500 a-year, and of private carriages (chiefly used by sportsmen), horses, and dogs, within a thousand pounds of the same sum.

17. Oat and barley meal, with potatoes (until the partial failure of that root within the last three years), form the staple articles of food of the mass of the population, to which the peasantry add, when they can, a few herrings, and, on the coasts, the other varieties of fish; but butcher's meat is a rarity they are seldom able to afford. In the neighbourhood of towns, and even throughout the country, the farmers willingly give .permission, to such as please to avail themselves of it, to plant with potatoes as much land as they can supply with manure; and thus many poor people, who are neither farm-servants, nor possess crofts of their own, contrive to eke out a part of their subsistence, by accumulating moss, fern, potato stems, sea ware, and whatever else may serve as a component part of a dung-heap. In the towns and villages, the bulk of the population earn their livelihood as artisans, carters and day labourers; but, with a few trifling exceptions, there are no manufacturing establishments. The distillation of smuggled spirits is now, from the low price of whisky, and the efficiency of the excise, except in remote districts, happily nearly abolished. It had a most demoralising effect in those districts where it prevailed, giving rise to idleness, duplicity, and dissipation. The crews of the revenue cutters, of whom about two-thirds are constantly patroling the country under an officer of excise, have, at a cost of only 58000 a-year, been the chief means of suppressing smuggling. Many of the poor Highlanders earn a pound or two by annually migrating in bands to the low country to assist in reaping the harvest; and, when they can get employment as labourers on railways, they are eager to avail themselves of it. In the herring-fishing season, thousands, who have throughout the rest of the year no connexion with the sea, abandon their usual occupations for a couple of months, and, as fishermen and fish-curers, earn handsome though dear-bought wages. The clothing of the lower orders is often wrought at home by themselves, and is ordinarily of a blue colour. Plaiding and tartan are still a good deal worn; but the kilt is only occasionally met with. Except in Caithness, where, as in Orkney and Zetland, English is exclusively spoken, Gaelic is still the prevailing language in the Highlands, particularly in the Hebrides, and the western and inland parts of Argyle, Inverness, Ross, and Sutherland shires. The amended poor law of 1845 has been put in force in all the parishes ; but notwithstanding, poverty and wretchedness prevail to a most alarming extent. The landlords cannot give full employment or subsistence; and hence government has been appealed to, to afford funds necessary for transporting the population in large numbers to the colonies. In the present state of agriculture and of the fisheries, and the almost exclusive appropriation of the land to sheep, any sensible relief by means of emigration alone, would be experienced only by its being conducted on a very extensive scale indeed. Like the Irish, the poor Highlander has been forced hitherto to seek his bread from home; and the little education he gets to qualify him for doing so, he owes as much to the exertions of benevolent societies and individuals in the south, as to the institutions or liberality of the native proprietors and inhabitants. Many impolitic and harsh clearances of the people have been carried through within the last sixty years. The ignorance and want of skill in agriculture in the peasantry, and their undue increase in certain localities after the decline of the kelp trade, formed the chief pretext for such wholesale removals; but the real causes, no doubt, were the inordinate expectations formed by the proprietors of the profits of sheep farming, and their want of capital to develop the resources of the country in the yield of grain and timber, and the capabilities of the fisheries. The throwing together of the poor people into crowded hamlets and villages, where it was attempted, in some instances, to make artizans and manufacturers of them, and in others to convert rustics into fishermen, with small patches of ground attached to their dwellings, insufficient, when used even as potato plots, for the support of their families, has also been a fruitful cause of destitution and pauperism throughout the Highlands. But the clearances carried out on the greatest scale were those in Sutherlandshire, which are more particularly described in another part of this book. These have been the subject of animadversion by numerous eminent authors, both foreign and domestic ; and they are now generally regretted, and by none, we believe, more than by the noble family in whose name they were effected. Ignorant of the habits, attachments, and even language of the Celtic tribes, the advisers of those measures hurried on improvements and arrangements which should have been extended over many years, and been carried through with much patience and tenderness towards a warm-hearted but easily excited people. Their pride and indignation were roused, and they either expatriated themselves in large bands, or like the imaginative Arab deprived of his liberty, became broken-hearted and useless dependents.

18. These observations may well be concluded by a glance at the ecclesiastical history, and a few remarks on the state of education and religious instruction in the Highlands.

The name of Christ was first declared to the inhabitants of the Highlands by Columba (Gallicae St. Callum or Malcolm), who came from Ireland, and settled in the island of Iona, about the year 560. He sailed from the Emerald Isle along with a small band of fellow missionaries (said to be twelve in number) in a little currach or wicker boat; and although he subsequently visited the south of Scotland, his labours were chiefly devoted to the conversion of the western and northern Picts—as his predecessor St. Ninian in the fifth century, and St. Kentigern or Mungo (founder of the see of Glasgow), and St. Patrick, a native of Dumbarton, who were almost his contemporaries, laboured among the Strathclyde Britons, and over the ancient kingdom of Cumbria, extending from Loch Lomond to Windermere and Furness and the confines of Yorkshire; as well as among the Celtic tribes of Wales and Ireland. The church in Scotland was then unquestionably missionary or monastic, and did not become parochial or territorial till David I.'s time; and like its Irish mother, it traced its origin to the Eastern Church, not to that of Rome, whose first representative, St. Austin or Augustine, only set foot in Kent in the year 597, two years after St. Columba's death. Educated in one of the small monasteries instituted in the north of Ireland by St. Patrick, at a place called Dearmach (from its being near an oak forest), the Scottish apostle imbibed the simplicity and holy zeal of his preceptor; and when he and his brother monks landed at Iona, we find, from his historian Adamnan, that they retired for worship to a secluded circle of upright stones, previously, in all likelihood, a Druidical temple, whence they afterwards issued "to gather bundles of twigs to build their hospice." Their abodes were mere wigwams; their churches, for long after, no better than log-houses of "hewn oak;" and such was their humility, that they sought no better name than that of "Cuildhich" (Culdees), signifying, according to the received opinion in Iona, "the people that retire to corners," who worshipped God in dens and secret recesses of the woods, but "in spirit and in truth." Hermits they might be called, did they not, after being refreshed by meditation and prayer, go forth to preach. Accordingly, St. Columba penetrated to the most remote districts; and it is distinctly asserted by his contemporary biographers, that he laboured at Inverness "ad ostiam Nessian" to convert Brudeus, king of the northern Picts, at whose court also he held communications with a Scandinavian earl of Orkney. Churches were subsequently dedicated to him in all parts of the Highlands (as, for instance, Kilcalmakil, in the centre of Sutherlandshire); and the Celtic brethren who accompanied or immediately succeeded Columba, have their names recorded in very many of our parishes and churches, the Gaelic origin of which are readily distinguishable from the Saxon and Xorman names prevalent on the east and southern coasts of Scotland, commemorative of Romish churchmen. Indeed, the exertions of individual saints or hermits prior to Columba, who seems to have acted more on a system of Episcopal arrangement, are now proved by undoubted records; and St. Ninian at Whitherne in the fifth century, and St. Kieran, the titular saint of Campbeltown in Argyleshire, and several others, laboured singly among the Dalriadic Scots of that county early in the sixth century. (See Mr. Howson's very valuable papers on the Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Argyle, in the Cambridge Camden Society's Transactions, Parts II. and III.) That these holy men retained much of apostolic Christianity, seems plain, from the character left of them by old writers. "They never stirred abroad but to gain souls. They preached more by example than word of mouth. The simplicity of their garb, gesture, and behaviour, was irresistibly eloquent. They did good to everybody, and sought no reward. Preferments, cabals, intrigues, division, sedition, were things unknown to them. There were bishops among them, but no lords; presbyters, but no stipends, or very small ones; monks truly such—humble, retired, poor, chaste, sober, and zealous. In a word, they were in a literal sense saints."—(Ibid, and Abercrombie's 'Mart. Ach. of Scotland, i., 106.) St. Columba and his disciples promoted all the "arts of peace," especially medicine and agriculture ; and their cures and recipes have been handed down to this day, in Gaelic legendary rhymes constantly ascribed to them.

Among the Culdees the tonsure was cut according to the Eastern fashion; and the great festival of Easter, which regulates all the others, observed on the same day as in the East; but in other respects the venerable Bede, and the Irish Annals, prove the Church to have been completely Episcopal in its constitution, in the same sense as it was so throughout the rest of Christendom. [See the subsequent account of Iona.] It long struggled against the supremacy and corruptions of the Church of Rome, which did not attain their full sway till the twelfth century, when popish monachism was introduced: and even in the end of the thirteenth century, some of the Culdees are found engaged in an unsuccessful opposition to the new intruders. The regular creation of Sees in the Highlands, under authority of the Crown, was, as follows, Mortlach (now Aberdeen), by Malcolm III. in 1010: 'Moray and Caithness, including Sutherland, most probably by the same prince. In the twelfth century, David I. founded, in addition to the existing sees, that of Dunkeld, to which Argyle was at first annexed; and he also constituted the bishopric of Ross. Alexander III., on the acquisition of the Western Isles, added the ancient bishopric of Sodor, or the Isles, to the national church. The Highlands and Islands were thus partitioned into the seven dioceses of Dunkeld, Argyle, Moray, Ross, the Isles, Caithness, and Orkney; the last being most likely a Norwegian see, though Christianity was introduced to Orkney by St. Columba or his immediate followers. It is difficult to form a conjecture as to the probable number of the inferior clergy at this period, or the influence they and the doctrines which they taught acquired over the rude and stormy inhabitants. Certain it is, that a few faint rays of light continued to struggle against the darkness of feudal strife and clannish jealousy; and the various religious establishments sent forth among the people teachers animated with a desire to lead them to a settled and peaceable mode of living ; while it is likewise unquestionable, that many who, either from bodily infirmity or a moral change of mind, found themselves unsuited to bear the coarse manners of their countrymen, retired to the seclusion of the cloister for protection and repose. The errors of popery, however, which had for a long time been strenuously resisted in this kingdom, overspread and characterized the church from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, even in the remote Highlands. At the Reformation, the religious houses, as detailed in Keith's Catalogue of the Scottish Bishops, were not numerous; and they belonged chiefly to regular monks, who had not the spiritual charge of any particular district, or any cure of souls. They were situated as follows:—The Canons Regular had established houses at Loch Tay, on an island in that lake; Rowadill, in the Isle of Harris; Crusay, in the Western Isles; in the islands of Colonsay and Oronsay, and Insula St. Colmoci, and Inchmahome, in the lake of Monteith; at Strathfallan, in Breadalbane, and Scarinche, in the Isle of Lewis. The Red Friars had an establishment at Dornoch, in Sutherland; the Preemonastratenses at Fearn, in Ross-shire; the Cluniacenses at Icolmkill, in Iona; the Cistertians at Saddel, in Cantyre; the monks of Valliscaullium at Beaulieu, or Beauly, at the head of the Beauly Firth, and Ardchattan, on the side of Loch Etive, in Argyle: and the Dominicans were domiciled at Inverness. There appears to have been but one nunnery—at Icolmkill, in Iona; and one hospital—at Rothvan, in Kiltarlity, Inverness-shire ; and only two collegiate churches for secular canons, namely, Kilmun in Cowal, Argyle; and Tain, in Ross-shire, besides the cathedral churches of Dunkeld, Lismore, Fortrose, Dornoch, and Kirkwall. The diocesan church of Moray was the magnificent cathedral of Elgin, "the lantern of the north"; and there were several abbeys and monasteries in that county, as Kinloss and Pluscardine.

Patrick Hamilton, called the first Scottish martyr for the doctrines of the Reformation, was an abbot of Fearn, in Ross-shire; in which county and its neighbourhood, there is little doubt, he advocated the truth in primitive power, gentleness, and simplicity. Popery was finally abolished in 1560. Under the first constitution of the reformed church (which was a medium between Episcopacy and Presbyterianism, having superintendents to exercise Episcopal functions, but without any Episcopal consecration), it was intended that the Highlands should have had three of the ten superintendents appointed for the kingdom; and be divided into three districts—Orkney, Ross, and Argyle. The latter superintendency alone was filled up. On the remodelling of the form of church government in 1572, when a more decided episcopacy was introduced, the Highlands had five unconsecrated bishops, of the sees of Dunkeld, Moray, Argyle, Caithness, and Orkney. Presbyterianism, after a severe struggle with the power of the crown, was, for a time, fully established, in the year 1592. After various preparatory measures, bishops were restored to their temporal estate in 1606; and Presbyterianism abolished, and Episcopacy erected in its place in 1610. The bishops were regularly consecrated through the English hierarchy; and we find the Highlands divided, as of old, into the dioceses of Dunkeld, Argyle, Moray, Ross, the Isles, Caithness, and Orkney. By the acts of Assembly 1638, and of the Scottish Parliament 1640, Presbyterianism was reinstated, the bishops deposed, their order declared unscriptural, and all the clergy put on a footing of equality. On the Restoration, Episcopacy was again introduced, and ratified in 1662; and the former bishops having died, a new consecration, by the hands of the English bishops, took place, and the former sees in the Highlands were filled up. The order of things was, owing to the political principles of the Episcopalian clergy, once more reversed, and the Presbyterian form of government finally settled in 1690; and it subsequently formed part of the Articles of Union between the two kingdoms.

In the earlier years of the reformed church, the preachers being few, and all the natural obstacles of situation, poverty, and language, which, after the Revolution in 1688, long retarded the efforts made to supply the Highlands with a ministry, existing in full force, little generally effectual was done in the northern counties. Even in 1650, some districts, as Lochaber, had had no Protestant ministry planted in them. In others, however, some settlements were effected, very early after the Reformation. Several clergy, of both reformed persuasions, laboured in the north, in the beginning of the seventeenth century. In 1617, a commission was appointed by parliament, for planting of kirks and modifying stipends throughout Scotland; and to various succeeding commissions additional powers were granted of dividing and remodelling parishes; all which powers were, in 1707, transferred to the Court of Session. Some settlements were made in the Highlands, and new presbyteries erected during the Episcopal period between 1610 and 1638. The troubled state of the country in the middle of the seventeenth century, was little favourable to the enlargement of the church. In 1646, however, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, "in order that the knowledge of God in Christ may be spread through the Highlands and Islands," enacted, "1. That an order be procured, that all gentlemen who are able, do send their eldest sons to be bred in the inland. 2. That a ministry be planted among them (the Highlands;) and, for that effect, that ministers and exhortants, who can speak the Irish language, be sent to employ their talents in these parts; and kirks there be provided, as other kirks in this kingdom. 3. That Scots schools be erected in all parishes there, according to the act of parliament, where conveniently they can be had. 4. That all ministers and ruling elders that have the Irish language, be appointed to visit these parts."

The non-conforming clergy, or such as refused to comply with the Episcopal establishment, and acknowledge the order of bishops, were, in the Highlands as elsewhere, in many instances ejected from their parishes, between the Restoration and Revolution. Episcopacy, at this time, embraced the Confession of Faith promulgated by the reformed church in 1567, the received standard of doctrine of both denominations, prior to the drawing up of the Westminster Confession. After the opposition offered to the attempted introduction, in 1637, of a liturgy drawn up by the Scottish bishops and Archbishop Laud, along with the bishops of London and Norwich, on the model of that of Edward VI., no general form of prayer was appointed. The several bishops drew up, as before, each a particular liturgy for his own flock, including a few petitions and collects from the English Prayer-book; but even in the Presbyterian Church set forms were observed, especially in the administration of the holy communion, down to the year 1638, when the church, for the first time, authoritatively assumed its most peculiar features of the entire parity of the clergy and the exclusive use of extemporary prayer, with the disuse of the ancient lessons from Scripture. As to church government, there were kirk-sessions, presbyteries, and diocesan synods, but no national assemblies.

The Highlands must have been in a very benighted state during the seventeenth century. Repeated revolutions in church and state, a distracted state of society, and frequent shifting of pastors, were ill calculated to foster dawning knowledge. Detached districts only were supplied with spiritual guides; and of these many understood indifferently, or not at all, the language of the people ; while no Gaelic version of the Scriptures had been published, and there subsisted an almost entire ignorance of even the art of reading. Popery retained nearly exclusive dominion in the western section, and the isles of Inverness and Ross. Episcopalian worship, in the Highlands, prevailed chiefly about Dunkeld and Blair, and the town of Inverness; in Strathnairn and Strathdearn; and also to some extent in Strathspey and Badenoch, and more decidedly in the county of :Moray. It was also rooted in the south-east of Ross-shire, and along the shores of the Linnhe Loch, in the vicinity of Lismore. Such of the Episcopalian clergy, throughout the Highlands, as took the oaths of allegiance to King William, which they did pretty generally, were allowed to retain their livings; and, during the lives of these incumbents, Episcopalian worship was accordingly maintained in their parishes. The non jurors, who, from jaco bitical feelings, or conscientious scruples, declined to take the oaths to government, were treated with no little rigour, being legally interpelle from divine service in any place of worship, and from administering baptism or marriage. The mild endurance of the Episcopal Church has undoubtedly been the cause of its continuance to this day.

The Church of Scotland, as by law established, evinced considerable anxiety to supply the Highlands with an adequate proportion of churches and clergymen. Successive acts of Assembly were passed, by which bodies of ministers and probationers, or expectants, were enjoined to visit and itinerate in the Highlands; and, to defray their expenses, grants were obtained from the vacant stipends. The settlement in any Lowland parishes of ministers having the Gaelic language was forbidden, and settled clergymen understanding Gaelic were declared transportable; so that, in the event of a call to a Highland parish, they were bound to comply. Committees were appointed to visit Highland parishes, with a view to the erection of churches and schools. By the year 1726, a considerable effect was produced by these exertions. In 1724, the Presbyteries of Loch Carron, Abertarff, and Skye, were erected, and, with the Presbytery of Long Island, formed into a synod, called the Synod of Glenelg. Orkney was, in the following year, divided into three presbyteries; in 1726, the Presbytery of Tongue was established; and in 1729, those of Mull and Lorn; and the Long Island was divided into two presbyteries in 1742. The attendant and corresponding progress of education will be subsequently noticed.

19. In 1823, a sum of £50,000 was granted by government for building additional places of worship in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. With this sum thirty-two churches with manses, one church without a manse, and ten manses,—where there were already churches in which, for instance, the parish minister had been accustomed to officiate occasionally,—have been built; about £10,000 extra having been expended in general management. The services of forty-two ministers have thus been secured, at an expense to the public of £120 to each, or £5040 per annum. Small glebes and gardens are provided to the clergymen, who, with the heritor making application for the church, are bound to keep church and manse in repair, having the seat-rents consigned to them for that purpose. The churches and manses, which have been constructed under the superintendence of the Inspector of Highland roads and bridges, cost respectively £720 and £750 each, and are of neat designs, and the churches are capable of accommodating from 300 to 500 persons. These clergymen have charge of a section of the several parishes under certain restrictions; and they were admitted by the Assembly to be members of the Church courts in June 1833.

20. The Episcopalian bishops first consecrated by their ejected brethren, were not invested with the charge of particular bounds, but the whole formed a college, having a general concern in the affairs of their communion. This arrangement was found inconvenient, and was changed in 1732, and the diocesan subdivision reverted to, when three bishops were appointed for the Highlands; one to the see of Dunkeld, another to that of Moray, Ross, and Argyle, and the third to Orkney, Caithness, and the Isles. The rebellion of 1745 brought upon the Episcopalians the most depressing enactments, which continued unrepealed till 1792. No bishop has been required for Caithness and Orkney since 1762. Moray, formerly joined with Ross and Argyle, is now restored to its independent position; the see of Argyle and the Isles has again been revived; and these, with Dunkeld, form the only present Highland dioceses. The remnant of this persuasion, in the Highlands, are still found in nearly the identical localities where Episcopacy at one time predominated; namely, in Inverness, and the neighbouring district of Strathnairn, in the south-east of Ross-shire, in Fort-William and Appin, and in the vicinity of Dunkeld.

21. Until the disruption in 1842, dissent from the present establishment had made but little progress in the Highlands. In Inverness-shire and the northern counties, it was confined to the eastern coast, and the Orkneys and Zetland. The Church of Rome has its congregations almost solely on the western coasts and islands of Inverness-shire, along the course of the Caledonian Canal, and in the diverging glens, in Inverness itself, and Strathglass adjoining, with a few members in Badenoch. They are more numerous in Aberdeen and Banff shires, and their clergy are most devoted to their flocks.

The most extraordinary ecclesiastical change in Scotland of late years has been the disruption in the Establishment in the year 1842. At that time the Presbyterian Church of Scotland appeared to be impregnable in strength, and at no previous period was it more efficient, or the clergy more zealous and exemplary. It enjoyed an amount of civil liberty which the Church of Christ at no former time seems to have had in the world, and although patronage, or the right of the Crown or of lay patrons to present to livings, with some other minor grievances, existed in name, practically the opinions, and even feelings of the people, in the settlements of the clergy, were almost universally consulted and acquiesced in. The power of public opinion (if that be of any value in religion) was becoming more operative, and the popular party in the church courts had attained a preponderating influence. State endowments had not corrupted the ministers, but on the contrary had aided them in their studies, and helped them not only to contribute liberally to every good work at home and abroad, but had enabled them to preach the gospel in all its fulness and freeness, uninfluenced by the local prejudices or contracted views of their sessions and people, which operate so strongly among the other sects. The clergy were almost uncontrolled in their power; certain of the most eminent of them had evidently in effect, though not in name, overstepped the notion of Presbyterian parity; and in the church courts an agitation was commenced, fomented by popular clamour from without, and unrestrained by the presence of a sufficient number of men of deliberate business habits within, which of a sudden demanded a total independence of the civil courts, and an unreserved concession by the legislature of the most democratic features of Presbyterian Church government. Litigations ensued about the presentation and deposition of ministers before the civil tribunals, without a previous appreciation of the extent to which the judicial findings would or would not be submitted to. The decrees of the highest courts when adverse were repudiated, and the most threatening language resorted to. The government assumed an equally high position, and was but ill informed of the lengths to which the people would go, and of the solemn engagements by which the clergy were confederated together not to yield an iota of their claims. Hence a disruption which in one day emptied 500 pulpits in Scotland, divided the people into two nearly equal parts, and which in the Highlands and Islands caused at least three fourths of them to "go out" from the establishment with the pastors by whom they were led, and to whom they were most justly and warmly attached. Although the most extraordinary exertions and sacrifices have been made by the seceding party, under the name of the Free Church of Scotland, to maintain their principles and support their clergy by voluntary contributions, it is evident that the struggle in the Highlands has been most unequal and lamentable. There the people cannot afford to support the church; they must depend on their friends in the south for aid, and this will not be given always. Already some of their best preachers are being called away to better livings—the Gaelic population in the southern towns is draining the north of her best students ; and the establishment, which has much difficulty in supplying vacant charges, especially with ministers who speak Gaelic, labours under the disadvantage of being proclaimed as no church at all (or at best "as a body without a soul!") by the very parties who use the same forms of worship as itself, and profess identically the same Confession of Faith ! Meanwhile the people are losing their reverence for ordinances as such, from a disposition to receive them at the hands only of certain individuals, and as discipline though attempted to be strictly enforced is easily evaded. The several evil consequences to be apprehended, and to some extent developed, are now happily being counteracted, as, fortunately, although much acrimony of feeling prevailed for sometime after the disruption, the good sense of the people is now leading them to act as citizens in harmony. For the stand made by the Free Church for spiritual independence, they are entitled to much respect; but their charge against the Establishment and State that they have disowned the Great Head of the Church, is a slander discreditable to its abettors, and indignantly repudiated by the adherents of the Establishment, and universally condemned by all unbiassed persons. In preaching, the high and most austere Calvinism of the Puritan times is promulgated and encouraged in the Free Church, from which the Established clergy have been gradually receding, and losing with such recession somewhat of their popularity.

22. We shall now review shortly the progress of education, and the establishment of schools in the Highlands. The early solicitude which existed in Scotland on the subject of education is gratifying and interesting. Thus, in the reign of James IV., (1496) an act of Parliament was passed, ordaining that all "baronis and substantious freeholders sould put their airs to ye schulis." The project of the system of parochial schools, which may justly be deemed the basis of education in this country, was first entertained by the Privy Council in 1616. Their act proceeds on the narrative of being for the promotion of "ci vilitie, godliness, knowledge, and learning;" and that the youth of the kingdom might be taught "at the least to write and read, and be catechised and instructed in the grounds of religion." Religion was thus made the foundation on which the goodly superstructure of parochial education has been reared. That act was made part of the law of the land in 1633, and the bishops, with consent of the heritors and parishioners, empowered to stent the land for the maintenance and establishment of schools. Laws were afterwards framed for the management and visitation of schools by the Assembly, and Presbyteries enjoined to diligence in getting them erected. The above-cited act (1646) has respect to education, as well as a ministry in the Highlands. We find every congregation appointed, in 1648, to contribute 40s. Scots yearly, altered next year to an annual collection, for maintaining Highland boys at school. In 1696, a school was appointed to be settled in every parish in Scotland by the advice of the ministers and heritors, and, failing them, the Presbytery and any five Commissioners of Supply; a school-house and garden to be provided by the heritors, and a salary to be modified of 100 to 200 merks Scots, payable by them, with relief against tenants for one half. The laws respecting parish schools were greatly amplified in 1803, and, in 1828, the salaries were raised from 300 to 400 merks (£16 : 13 : 4, to £22 : 14 : 5); thereafter, to from one and a half to two chalders (24 to 32 bolls) of oatmeal, valued at £25 to £34, with certain house and garden accommodation. Shaw, in his History of the Province of Moray, says:—"There were scarce any schools of learning in this province, except in royal burghs, till after the Revolution. I well remember (he wrote in 1775) when, from Speymouth (through Strathspey, Badenoch, and Lochaber) to Lorn, there was but one school, viz., at Ruthven, in Badenoch; and it was much to find in a parish three persons that could read or write." At the end of the seventeenth, and beginning and middle of the eighteenth century, the Assembly urged presbyteries to get the various parishes provided with schools; and in 1704 and 1707 acts were specially passed in regard to the Highlands.

23. The first books published in Gaelic were a version of the Psalms, and a translation of the Shorter Catechism, by the Synod of Argyle, in 1690. The philanthropic Boyle having presented, for the use of the Highlands, 200 copies of Bishop Bedell's Bible (the Old Testament); published by him in 1685, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland brought out also, in 1690, an edition of it, and of a version of the New Testament in Irish, published about the year 1600. The Assembly printed 3000 Bibles, and 1000 Testaments. These were followed, in 1699, by a Translation of the Confession of Faith, likewise by the Synod of Argyle. In 1704, the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge in Scotland was founded, and letters patent were obtained for its erection in 1709. This venerable institution has been the means of conferring a train of invaluable blessings on the Highlands, having always maintained a large establishment of schools throughout the country, besides a few missionaries and catechists. In addition to schools for instruction in the ordinary elementary branches of education and religious instruction, it also supports a large number of schools of industry for initiating females in the arts of spinning, sewing, and knitting. These schools of industry have been greatly conducive to habits of cleanliness and tidiness. In 1725, an annual grant of £1000, afterwards enlarged to £2000, was placed by government at the disposal of the committee of the General Assembly for the support of assistant teachers or missionaries, and of catechists. The first edition of the New Testament in Gaelic was printed in 1769, by the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge. It consisted of 10,000 copies: one of 21,500 succeeded in 1797; but it was not until 1802 that the whole Bible was published, when the same society printed 5000 copies; and in 1807, 20,000 copies of a faithful translation, prepared under the direction of Dr. John Stewart, minister of Luss; Dr. Alexander Stewart, minister of Canon-gate, Edinburgh; and the Rev. James Stewart of Killin.

24. During last century, an erroneous system was too generally pursued, of teaching to read in the English language alone, as the most advisable method of promoting education amongst Highlanders. At first sight, this seems a rational course: but the consequence was, that the scholar acquired an acquaintance with certain signs, significant to him, however, of nothing but unmeaning sounds. His attainments were of no immediate use when out of school, nor were they productive of any effect in stimulating his mind in the pursuit of knowledge. The consequence was, that frequently the very faculty of reading was lost by disuse. By training Highlanders to the art of reading in their vernacular tongue, combined with the English language, the germ of the love of knowledge is developed. To satisfy that feeling, they must have recourse to the English, as their own literature offers no original or sufficiently extensive store of information; and they are thence furnished with an index whereby to understand translations, and thus to acquaint themselves with the English language; while the knowledge of their own written dialect is of direct service, in giving command of the range of such works as have been rendered into Gaelic. It affords them instant access also to the Scriptures. The prevalence of the opposite opinion may have been the means of the late appearance of the Gaelic translations of the Bible, and, there can be no doubt, greatly retarded the advancement of the Highlands. Now, however, the excellent society just alluded to, and all others, cultivate an attention to both languages, and to translation from the one to the other, in the schools.

25. In 1811, a Gaelic School Society was established in Edinburgh ; and in the following year an Auxiliary in Glasgow, which last institution combined the teaching of English with Gaelic reading. A society was formed in 1818, in Inverness, for the education of the poor in the Highlands and Islands. This society instituted, in 1824-5, a series of very particular inquiries throughout all the parishes in the Highlands and Islands, from which an interesting and elaborate work, entitled "Moral Statistics of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland," was compiled. Printed schedules were sent to the clergy; and, of 171 despatched, 89 were received back, filled up with a degree of care, and at an extent of personal trouble, reflecting much credit on the clergy. Of these returns, 72 were from the 84 parishes of Inverness, Ross, Moray, Nairn, Cromarty, and Sutherland; general accounts being received from the other less necessitous shires. It appears from the returns, which apply to about one-half the whole population, including that of Orkney and Zetland, among other facts, that "one half of all ages were then unable to read;"—"a third part of the families visited were above two miles distant from the nearest schools;"—and "a third part of the families visited were found to be without copies of the Scriptures." By calculations on the whole data, "taking all ages above eight years, those who could not read were nearly in the following proportions: In the Hebrides and other western parts of Inverness and Ross, 70 in the 100 could not read. In the remaining parts of Inverness and Ross, Nairn, the Highlands of Moray, Cromarty, Sutherland, and the inland parts of Caithness, 40 in the 100. In Argyle and the Highlands of Perth (supposed about) 30 in the 100. In Orkney and Zetland, (supposed about) 12 in the 100. In the western parts of Inverness and Ross, all the Scriptures found existing were in the proportion of one copy of the Bible for every eight persons above the age of eight years; and in other parts of the Highlands and Islands, including Orkney and Zetland, where reading is very general, only (supposed about) one copy for every three persons. About one-fourth part of all the families in these districts, or upwards of 100,000 persons, were wholly without Bibles; in several thousand families of this number there being persons who could read." The "moral statistics" materially conduced to awaken public attention to the state of education in the Highlands, but the society which published the book has been superseded by the more powerful agencies which it was instrumental in evoking.

26. The General Assembly, happily, in 1825, appointed a committee for the purpose of increasing the means of education and religious instruction in Scotland, particularly in the highlands and Islands. Their schools are now numerous, and efficiently conducted, and aided by government grants. The General Assembly's Education Committee is exerting a steady and most salutary influence on the state of education throughout Scotland. Under the authority of the Church, Presbyterial visitation of all schools is coming to be much more efficiently performed, and minute returns are annually called for from all parishes, respecting the schools of all sorts within the bounds. Great solicitude is shown by the committee to raise the standard of elementary instruction, by a stricter examination of the qualifications of candidates for schools, by pressing on public attention the bad effects of the want of some means for superannuating inefficient teachers, and endeavours for an increase of the allowances to teachers, the incomes of the parochial-school teachers throughout the Highlands only averaging from £30 to £50; while it being competent, in some parishes, by allowing three chalders of oatmeal (£5I : 6: 7) to subdivide it among several teachers, these are in such cases still worse off, while at the same time the usual accommodations can he dispensed with by the heritors. Another useful object of attention has been the publication of supplies of suitable school-books, maps, &c., at a cheap rate, and the establishment of school libraries. [The Free Church vies with the Establishment in its efforts to educate the people; and, not content with the University system of the country, it has opened a college of its own in Edinburgh. The government, likewise, has just promulgated a plan for popular education, to be paid for partly by the state; but it is difficult to say how the boon will be received, or whether the mutual jealousies of the religious bodies may not cause it for a time to be withdrawn or remodelled.]

A Gaelic Episcopal Society was formed in 1831, for the purpose of assisting to educate young students for the ministry, publishing Gaelic prayer and other books, and providing catechists and schools for the poor of that communion throughout the Highlands. Its operations are limited; but they have merged in a great measure into those of the Scottish Episcopal Church Society, which was instituted in 1839, for the purposes of assisting aged and infirm clergymen, and congregations labouring under pecuniary difficulties, and educating the poorer candidates for the ministry; for providing schoolmasters, books, and tracts for the poor, and forming or enlarging diocesan libraries. By Act I and 2 Victoria, cap. 87, it is enacted, that in all Highland parishes which have been divided quoad sacra, under the Act for the erection of Government Churches, the heritors may secure a government endowment for such additional schools as may he necessary by providing similar accommodation to what is required for parish schools. Previous to 1826, the British and Foreign Bible Society had printed several editions of the Gaelic Scriptures, to the amount of 35,000 Bibles, and 48,700 Testaments, and making, along with those of the Scottish Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge, in all 60,000 Bibles, and 80,000 New Testaments. Since then, several editions of the Scriptures have been printed by these societies and by the Edinburgh Bible Society, and the circulation of the inspired volume has been materially increased since the abolition of the exclusive privileges of the Queen's printers.

27. The General Assembly's committee have appended to their annual report, dated in May 1833, a valuable statement, entitled "Educational Statistics of the Highlands and Islands," compiled from parochial returns. From this source we derive the following analytical results which hold good to this day, as the Assembly has not published any additional report on this subject since 1833, and the state of the Highlands since then is not much changed, except recently by the schools of the Free Church, the statistics of which are as yet unknown:-

In the Synods of Argyle; two Presbyteries in Aberdeen (Alford and Kincardine O'Neil); the Synods of Moray, Ross, Sutherland, and Caithness; Glenelg, Orkney, and Zetland: comprehending 220 parishes, and a population, by the Government Census of 1831, of 504,955.

It is remarkable that Shetland bears the palm in point of universality of elementary instruction, there being, out of a population of 29,392, only 107 of all ages above 6 years, and 28 betwixt 6 and 20 years of age, unable to read. In the synod of Glenelg, of a population of 91,584, the numbers thus ignorant are respectively 43,799, and 16,433. "There are, in the Presbytery of Mull, 8104 above 6 years of age untaught to read, in a population of 24,113 of all ages; in the Presbytery of [list there are 10,831 in a population of 17,490; in the Presbytery of Loch Carron, 10,778 in a population of 21,350; in the single parish of Loch Broom, in a population of 4615, not more than 1000 appear to have been taught to read; in South Uist, the number of the untaught is 4334 in a population of 6890;" and in Barra and adjoining isles, 1097 out of 1597.

The returns made to the General Assembly's committee are to be regarded as exhibiting a very near approximation to the precise extent of educational destitution in the Highlands and they show that no less than 83,397 of all ages above 6 years of age, and 28,073 betwixt 6 and 20 years of age, were then unable to read ; and no very material variation has since taken place. It must be observed, too, that, of those who have been taught to read, many have been but indifferently instructed; a large proportion, also, can read merely in the Gaelic language, an attainment necessarily of comparatively circumscribed utility. Little more than merely elementary tuition is attempted in any of the schools; and even as to writing and arithmetic, a much greater degree of ignorance prevails than of the art of reading; it being computed that those who have not been taught to write are in a triple ratio to the number who cannot read. This we apprehend to arise, not so much from neglect of this branch when at school, as in not being able to prosecute it till such a satisfactory degree of progress be made as to induce its continued practice, and from inability to purchase writing-materials. In Arran, 17 are represented as unable to write for 1 unable to read; and it is believed the same proportion exists in Orkney and Shetland. In the Synod of Glenelg there were only 8 studying mathematics, out of 8558 attending school; but the Latin scholars preserve nearly a fair average to the rest of the Highlands, being 181 in number. To capacitate for perusing the pages of divine truth is, however, a distinguishing aim of all Highland Schools. It is an affecting peculiarity that the order of nature is, to a great extent, reversed in our mountain glens; the adult being very frequently almost wholly dependent upon the young for access to scriptural knowledge. Several Highland parishes are so extensive as from forty to sixty miles in extreme length, and twenty to thirty in extreme breadth, and many are not much smaller. It is thus out of the power of a great part of the population to attend the public services of the church, while the mountainous character of the country increases the difficulties of intercourse. The capacity of reading is thus of the more vital consequence, and schools in remote districts are signal blessings, the teacher in numerous instances becoming a sort of pastor or missionary to the inhabitants. Many other circumstances in the lot of Highlanders strengthen their claims for a general extension to them of the blessings of education, by their more favoured countrymen throughout the kingdom. To the rest of the community they must look for the means of alleviating they disadvantages they labour under for of themselves it may be said, "their poverty, and not their will, consents." The Assembly's committee had got returns of 217 stations for additional schools, where an average of perhaps 60 scholars, or about 13,000, might be expected to attend. For the more scattered 15,000 remaining of the 28,000 from 6 to 20 years of age unprovided with means of instruction, it is suggested that 167 ambulatory schools, to itinerate between 3 different stations, might suffice. For the support of these 384 additional schools, the requisite expense is estimated at £8700 per annum.

In some of the towns, as Inverness, Tain, and Fortrose, chartered academies have for a considerable time been founded; and they possess numerous private seminaries. Well endowed educational establishments exist in the neighbouring coast towns, Nairn, Forres, and Elgin.

28. There are no newspapers published, or printing presses, within the precise confines of the Highlands, except at Inverness, where there are three weekly papers, and one now at Dingwall; and Caithness also boasts a John-o'-Groat Journal.

The English works translated into Gaelic are chiefly Theological. Original Gaelic productions are almost wholly of a metrical character : of other literature there exist hardly any compositions. It appears, however, by a curious catalogue of Gaelic books (Bibliotheca Scoto-Celtica), published some years ago by John Reid of Glasgow, and which contains a short account of each, that the number of printed works in the Gaelic language is much greater than is generally imagined.

Several Gaelic dictionaries have issued from the press within the last dozen years. Previously, the only work of the latter description in existence, excepting Shaw's Vocabulary, and M`Donald's Gaelic and English Vocabulary, both old works and little known, was Macfarlane's Vocabulary, first published in Glasgow about thirty years ago. In 1828, the Highland Society of Scotland brought out a large dictionary, in two thick quarto volumes, containing a translation of Gaelic words into both English and Latin, and vice versa. This valuable compilation was prepared for the society, principally by the late Mr. Maclachlan of Aberdeen, and the Rev. Dr. Macintosh Mackay, formerly of Laggan, and now of Dunoon. About the same time, the Rev. Dr. Macleod of Campsie, now of Glasgow, and Dr. Dewar of Glasgow, now of Aberdeen, commenced, in numbers, a Gaelic dictionary, now completed, in one large octavo volume. Another quarto publication, of the same kind, has also since been edited by Mr. Armstrong of London. A pocket pronouncing edition has likewise appeared, by Mr. Macalpine, parish schoolmaster in Islay, to which is attached a Gaelic Grammar. The only Gaelic Grammer had been an old one by Shaw, till about thirty-five years ago, when the late Rev. Dr. Stewart of Dingwall, afterwards of Canongate, brought one out, which is rather philosophical than practical, and has, we believe, several defects. A useful spelling-book has been published by the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge; there is likewise Curries' Principles of Gaelic Grammar; and a Primer, and also a Grammar by Mr. James Munro, parish schoolmaster of Kilmanivaig. But we believe the aid of a teacher is almost indispensable to a student of the language, and that to throw one's self in the way of oral intercourse with others is the most approved mode of breaking ground. Dr. Munro has published a collection of Gaelic poems and songs. His Gaelic is generally admitted to be peculiarly pure; and we understand an application was at one time made for the institution of a Gaelic Poet Laureateship, representative of the bards of old, and to have that honour conferred in the first instance on him. It is somewhat remarkable, that while in Wales, with a population of 700,000, there should be no less than 17 periodicals, of various kinds, in the Welsh language, the Highlands of Scotland possess no such appropriate work. In 1829, a monthly sixpenny miscellany, called the "Gaelic Messenger," was set on foot, edited by the Rev. Dr. Macleod already mentioned. It had a considerable circulation at first, but did not survive above two years.

29. Highland music, we need hardly remark, is highly esteemed, alike for its tenderness, simplicity, and sprightliness. The native melodies—of which the best collection is that edited by Captain Simon Fraser, and published in 1816—and the tunes called strathspeys and reels, will ever be admired, and are now again regaining favour in the higher circles. The national instrument, however, is the great and imposing Highland bagpipe; a pipe of such power, in point of loudness, from the size of the chanter,—being peculiar to the Scottish Highlands. Its tones are bold, full, clear, and spirit-stirring; but their gradation is imperfect, and often dissonant, and it is essentially an out-of-door and warlike instrument. The appropriate music of the bagpipe is the pibroch, a wild and irregular composition, alternating from •a slow and measured cadence to the most impetuous rapidity and deafening shrillness. These pieces generally either bear allusion to the battle-field, or are lamentations for the dead. Pipers still form a part of the establishment of a chieftain, and are the living representatives of the bards of the olden time. Highland songs are full of poetic feeling, and the Gaelic language is highly figurative and expressive. The violin is, and apparently for a couple of centuries at least has been, common in the Highlands. The harp has now totally disappeared; nor, though at a distant period not unknown, does it seem ever to have been in general use.

30. The highlanders are now a quiet and peaceable people, of warm and kindly affections, and hospitable character; they are, happily, strangers to many of the vices of more refined states of society. Great changes have taken place in regard to the superstitious notions formerly so prevalent, and the extravagant and ostentatious entertainments common, till a recent period, at marriages and funerals. The mass of the people are, however, far behind in the habits which distinguish advanced states of society; but they are gradually improving. They are subjected to great privations, and are, therefore, entitled to indulgent consideration and sympathy; as, from their remarkable contentedness and patient endurance of penury and its attendant ills, they justly merit respect. The population has increased considerably of late years, while the sheep system gives them "no room" to spread over and cultivate the land; and hence they are crowded into towns and villages, where it is too often extremely difficult for the poor Highlanders to sustain their wretched pauperized existence.

Among the causes which chiefly retard improvement in the condition of the Highlanders, are also chiefly to be enumerated the vast extent of entailed land, and the difficulty to persons of moderate incomes being able to purchase small improveable estates, or of even getting a residence, except to rent, or for payment of a large yearly feu-duty. A system of conveyancing, still needlessly cumbersome, also prevails, whereby (especially in towns and villages) the expense of securities and transfers of property is very oppressive; and, above all, the difference of language, and the defective education of the poor Highlander, operate against him in pushing his way among strangers; while, at home, the warm feelings of mutual attachment and respect which formerly united the chief and his clansmen into one family, being now broken, there is, in many cases, but little communication or interchange of friendly offices between the proprietor (too often an absent one) and his tenants and cottars.

N.B.—In addition to our observations on the fisheries (14), we may add that, for the last twenty years, an annual sum of £2500 has been expended by the Board of Fisheries in the construction of piers and other works for the protection of the fisheries on the Scottish coasts, along with from £1000 to £1500 of local contributions required in each case.

West Coast of Scotland Pilot
Comprising the West Coast of Scotland from the Mull of Galloway to Cape Wrath including the Inner and Outer Hebrides (Tenth Edition) (1958) (pdf)

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