suffered much, if any, loss in Wightman's attack, it seems probable that between the time the Spaniards retired to the heights of Sgurr Ouran, on 10th June, and the time the main body of them laid down their arms next day, some of them may have broken away from the main body, and, joining the Highlanders who dispersed that night, have found their way over the watershed by the impassable-looking path in the steep rock face over Loch Clunie which has since borne their name. SGURR NAN CONBHAIREAN. We were now driving along the shores of Loch Clunie, which lay unruffled by so much as a ripple at the foot of the hills, whose summits pierced the clouds, levying from them in tribute the waters which filled the lake below. A mile or two on we left our conveyances and mounted the saddle, for we were now under Sgurr nan Conbhairean, the highest mountain in Glenmoriston, rising as it does 3634 feet above the level of the sea. Leaving our ponies after mounting some 2000 feet, we made the rest of our way on foot. Gradually the vegetation became scantier, more stinted and more Alpine in character, and at one point, where the biting wind blows with terrible force from the corries beyond, the vegetable world is represented by a solitary lichen. On we press upwards, now with a comparatively clear sky overhead, now through driving mist that envelopes us and the whole mountain top in impenetrable gloom. On we go through it all, trusting to Providence and our own good fortune that our journey will not be lost. And we are not disappointed. As we near the summit a wonderful panorama opens out before us. There in front rises Mam Soul, topping the mountains of Strathglass and Glen Affric. Away to the east and lying far below us is the summit of Mealfourvonie, while further on the summits of the Monadhliadh range loom through the haze. Far to the south-west we can just make out the summit of Ben Nevis as the mist rises for a minute or two at a time. To the west rise the sharp peaks of the Cuchullin Hills in Skye, and as we look round towards the North West we see far away the wonderful hills of Torridon, while nearer at hand Cralich, Sgurr Ouran, and Ben Attow rear their lofty heads to the sky. All round is a forest of hill-tops. We stand on the top of a high mountain in a mountainous country, and the whole wonderful picture lies at our feet. We are not on the highest mountain in Scotland but there is no Scottish mountain from whose summit a more wonderful panorama can be seen. Standing in the middle of the country, at the dividing of the waters and in the midst of mountains, it commands a view of mountain, loch, and valley, which probably no other mountain can surpass. After indulging in a leaping competition, in which the Senior Bailie succeeded in distancing all competitors not merely among his citybred companions, but among the gamekeepers and ghillies of the party-and building a cairn on the mountain top to commemorate the visit of the elite of the magistracy of the Capital of the Highlands to the summit, and having an inscription cut into the hard whinstone by the versatile Senior Bailie, we move on indulging by the way in the luxury of a snow-ball fight in July, and then we stand on the shoulder of the ridge dividing Corriegoe from Glen Affric. Here the scenery is grand beyond description. On the left we look sheer down into Glen Affric, at the bottom of which the river Grivie is seen running like a silver streak for miles to fall into Loch Affric and ultimately into the Moray Firth, while on the opposite side of Glen Affric the red-scarred slope of the mountain rises without a break from the bottom of the valley for a thousand feet. On the right, more than a thousand feet below, lies Corriegoe, bounded by mountains, which, on two of their three faces, are sheer precipices. Beyond lies Glen Fada, with the river Doe running down its centre to join the Moriston at Ceanacroc. front, too, rising out of Glen Fada, are those weird-looking red hills, the Ram and the Aonach Sasunn, forming of themselves features in the landscape which do not allow it to be easily forgotten. PRINCE CHARLES AND THE SEVEN MEN OF GLENMORISTON. In Now begins the descent into Corrigoe, lying a thousand feet below us. The mountain slopes steeply down on this side, presenting a smooth-looking grassy surface, down which we make our way by a series of what would be less fittingly described as steps than short leaps. Arrived at the foot, a few yards walk brought us to the heap of tumbled rock forming the cave in which for a short time Prince Charles lay in hiding in July, 1746. At the foot of a perpendicular cliff lies this mass of rock, which ages ago separated itself from the cliff above, and, falling down, broke into huge fragments, which lying together form the rude walls and umbrella-like roof of a rough shelter a shelter often welcome enough in this storm-swept Corrie, which, even now, is many miles from a human habitation. To this shelter there resorted in 1746, after Culloden, and while Glenmoriston and the whole country round was occupied by Hanoverian troops, Patrick Grant, a farmer known as Black Peter of Craskie, John Macdonell, Alexander Macdonell, Alexander, Donald, and Hugh Chisholm, brothers, and Grigor Macgregor, men honourably known in history as the "seven men of Glenmoriston." They had seen their homes burued, their friends murdered, and their property carried away, and they retired here to wait till the evil days had passed, and to lie in wait for their enemies, to whom they more than once dealt a blow. To these men came, on 28th July, 1746, their Prince in pitiable plight. He had just passed through a cordon of troops, drawn round the district where he was known to be after his return to the mainland from his wanderings in the Islands. He was weary with travel and exposure, and had not tasted food for forty-eight hours. His clothes, insufficient at their best to protect him from the rigours of the climate to which he was now exposed at all hours, were in rags. It was now three months after Culloden, and all that time Charles had been a fugitive with a price on his head. Constantly in the power of a people steeped in poverty, he never appears to have feared that the price of blood would tempt them to betray him, and, to the eternal honour of the Highland people, be it said, that they not only justified his confidence, but braved, nay courted, death, so as they might save this man, for whose betrayal a fortune was offered. Three months of wandering, and of almost incredible escapes, and Charles found himself near the hiding place of the Glenmoriston men. The story of their fidelity is told in history, and need not be here repeated. They took an oath that their backs "should be to God and their faces to the devil, that all the curses the Scriptures did pronounce might come upon them and all their posterity, if they did not stand firm to the Prince in the greatest dangers, and if they should discover to any person, man, woman, or child, that the Prince was in their keeping, till once his person should be out of danger." Charles said they were his first Privy Council since Culloden, and well they deserved the name, for so faithfully did they keep their oath that not one of them disclosed the fact that he had been with them till a year after he had sailed to France. For three days the cave in Corrigoe was the home of the Prince, and there, while his faithful friends mounted watch at their sentry posts at the head and foot of the Glen, and sent out foraging parties to fetch provisions, he obtained much-needed rest. After leaving Corriegoe, the Gleamoriston men formed the Prince's bodyguard until they had conducted him safely through the lines of his enemies, and handed him over on 21st August, near Loch Arkaig, to Macdonell of Loch Garry and Cameron of Clunes, faithful friends, who provided for his future safety 3 Leaving Corriegoe, a rough walk of several miles along the side of the hills on the right flank of Glen Fada, brought us to our ponies, which had been taken round some thirteen miles to meet us, and a ride of six or seven miles, followed by a drive of about the same distance, brought us late at night to the hospitable roof of Mr Macpherson, where a substantial, though very late, dinner and a sound sleep awaited us. Our raid wound up with a peaceful day's fishing in Loch Clunie, and next morning a drive down the beautiful Glen, by Torgoyle, Dundreggan, and Invermoriston, to Loch-Ness, where we again joined the “Gondolier” for home. An interesting discussion followed, in the course of which Mr Colin Chisholm said, with reference to the Pibroch of Cillechriost-The tradition he had heard from his boyhood-between sixty and seventy years ago-was that the party of Macdonalds crossed the river at Beauly, and it was when they looked behind, and saw their work of destruction going on, that the piper streck p the pibroch. They were glad to keep quiet till they got out of the clutches of the Mackenzies, and it was when they were opposite Beauly, at "Bruthach-a-Phuirt" on the other side of the river, that the pibroch was played for the first time. When the piper saw what was going on, he made the pipes speak for him, and this is what they said : Chì mi thall-ud, An smùd mór ; Chì mi thall-ud, Smud a muigh Smud a muigh Smúd a stigh Smud a muigh Smud a stigh Smud mo dhunach An smùd mór Smud mor feadh a' bhaile Cill-a-chrosda na teine. 5th DECEMBER, 1888. At the meeting held this evening, the following gentlemen were elected members of the Society:-Honorary members-Lieut. Colonel Gostwyck Gard, late 93rd Highlanders, Cul-an-eilan, Inverness; Sir Charles Cameron, President of the College of Surgeons, Dublin; and Mr Allan Cameron, 22 Elmwood Avenue, Belfast. Ordinary members-Mr J. M. Grant of Glenmoriston; Mr J. Henderson, factor for Rosehaugh, Fortrose; Rev. John A. Campbell, Kilmore, Glen-Urquhart; Mr F. A. Black, solicitor, Inverness; Mr G. G. Macleod, teacher, Gledfield Public School, Ardgay; and Rev. Geo. Sutherland, Beauly. Mr Alex. M'Bain, M.A., read a paper contributed by the Rev. Adam Gunn, Durness, on the "Dialects of Sutherland." Mr Gunn's paper was as follows: THE DIALECT OF THE REAY COUNTRY. The County of Sutherland is, in many respects, a suitable field for the study of dialect. Partly owing to its remoteness, and partly to the sterility of its soil, it would be difficult to find in any part of Scotland a district so little disturbed by external influences as the north-west of this county. This very district, too, furnishes the student with a bard of no mean order, in whose songs he may find specimens of the dialect of the people as it existed above a hundred years ago. Unfortunately, however, for philological purposes, a desire to conform to a southern dialect whose sole claim to form a standard consists in a mere priority in print-led the editor of Rob Donn to tamper unnecessarily with his diction. The dialect, or, as some would put it, the provincialism of Rob Donn, was far too decided for this accommodating process; and the result was a well grounded complaint on the part of those whose interests the editor studied-that the compositions of the Sutherland bard are, like Hamlet's reason, "out of tune and harsh." On first hearing the accusation, I was not a little surprised, for I had heard his songs sung without ever being arrested by their metrical blemishes. A glance at the Rob Donn of Dr Mackintosh Mackay-the only source to which critics had access-soon convinced me that the complaint was not without good foundation. I open at random the last edition of his poems, published by Maclachlan & Stewart; there, on page 29, the first two lines of the elegy on the Rev. Murdo Macdonald furnish an example :- |