Highlanders, before they were difarmed, were fo addicted to quarrels, that the boys ufed to follow. any publick proceffion or ceremony, however festive or however folemn, in expectation of the battle, which was fure to happen before the company dif persed.

Mountainous regions are fometimes fo remote from the feat of government, and fo difficult of accefs, that they are very little under the influence of the fovereign, or within the reach of national juftice. Law is nothing without power; and the fentence of a diftant court could not be eafily executed, nor perhaps very fafely promulgated, among men ignorantly proud and habitually violent, unconnected with the general fyftem, and accustomed to reverence only their own lords. It has therefore been neceffary to erect many particular jurifdictions, and commit the punishment of crimes, and the decifion of right, to the proprietors of the country who could enforce their own decrees. It immediately appears that fuch judges will be often ignorant, and often partial; but in the immaturity of political establishments no better expedient could be found. As government advances towards perfection, provincial judicature is perhaps in every empire gradually abolished.

Those who had thus the difpenfation of law, were by confequence themselves lawless, Their vaffals had no fhelter from outrages and oppreffions; but were condemned to endure, without refiftance, the caprices of wantonnefs, and the rage of cruelty.

In the Highlands, fome great lords had an here ditary jurifdiction over counties, and fome chief

tains over their own lands; till the final conqueft of the Highlands afforded an opportunity of crufhing all the local courts, and of extending the general benefits of equal law to the low and the high, in the deepest receffes and obfcureft corners.

While the chiefs had this refemblance of royalty, they had little inclination to appeal, on any question, to fuperior judicatures. A claim of lands between two powerful lairds was decided like a contest for dominion between fovereign powers. They drew their forces into the field, and right attended on the ftrongeft. This was, in ruder times, the common practice, which the kings of Scotland could feldom controul.

Even fo lately as in the last years of king William, a battle was fought at Mull Roy, on a plain a few miles to the fouth of Inverness, between the clans of Mackintosh and Macdonald of Keppoch. Colonel Macdonald, the head of a small clan, refused to pay the dues demanded from him by Mackintosh, as his fuperior lord, They difdained the interpofition of judges and laws, and calling each his followers to maintain the dignity of the clan, fought a formal battle, in which feveral confiderable men fell on the fide of Mackintosh, without a complete victory to either. This is faid to have been the laft open war made between the clans by their own authority.

The Highland lords made treaties, and formed alliances, of which fome traces may ftill be found, and fome confequences ftill remain as lafting evidences of petty regality. The terms of one of these confederacies were, that each fhould fupport the $ 4

other

other in the right, or in the wrong, except againft

the king.

The inhabitants of mountains form diftin&t races, and are careful to preferve their genealogies. Men in a small district neceffarily mingle blood by inter-. marriages, and combine at last into one family, with a common interest in the honour and disgrace of every individual. Then begins that union of affections, and co-operation of endeavours, that conftitute a clan. They who confider themselves as ennobled by their family, will think highly of their progenitors, and they who through fucceffive generations live always together in the fame place, will preferve local stories and hereditary prejudices. Thus every Highlander can talk of his ancestors, and recount the outrages which they fuffered from the wicked inhabitants of the next valley.

Such are the effects of habitation among mountains, and fuch were the qualities of the Highlanders, while their rocks fecluded them from the reft of mankind, and kept them an unaltered and difcriminated race. They are now lofing their diftinction, and haf tening to mingle with the general community.

GLENEL G.

We left Auknafheals and the Macraes in the afternoon, and in the evening came to Ratiken, a high hill on which a road is cut, but fo fteep and narrow that it is very difficult. There is now a defign of making another way round the bottom. Upon one of the precipices, my horse, weary with the steepness of the rife, ftaggered a little, and I called in hafte

hafte to the Highlander to hold him. This was the only moment of my journey, in which I thought my felf endangered.

Having furmounted the hill at last, we were told, that at Glenelg, on the fea-fide, we

should come to

This image of At last we came

a house of lime and flate and glass. magnificence raised our expectation. to our inn, weary and peevish, and began to enquire for meat and beds.

Of the provifions the negative catalogue was very copious. Here was no meat, no milk, no bread, no eggs, no wine. We did not exprefs much fatisfaction. Here however we were to stay. Whisky we might have, and I believe at last they caught a fowl and killed it. We had fome bread, and with that we prepared ourselves to be contented, when we had a very eminent proof of Highland hofpitality. Along fome miles of the way, in the evening, a gentleman's fervant had kept us company on foot with very little notice on our part. He left us near Glenelg, and we thought on him no more till he came to us again, in about two hours, with a prefent from his master of rum and fugar. The man had mentioned his company, and the gentleman, whose name, I think, is Gordon, well knowing the penury of the place, had this attention to two men, whofe names perhaps he had not heard, by whom his kindness was not likely to be ever repaid, and who could be recommended to him only by their neceffities.

We were now to examine our lodging. Out of one of the beds, on which we were to repofe, ftarted up, at our entrance, a man black as a Cyclops from

the

the forge. Other circumftances of no elegant recital concurred to difguft us. We had been frighted by a lady at Edinburgh, with difcouraging representations of Highland lodgings. Sleep, however, was neceffary. Our Highlanders had at laft found fome hay, with which the inn could not fupply them. I directed them to bring a bundle into the room, and slept upon it in my riding coat. Mr. Bofwell being more delicate, laid himself sheets with hay over and under him, and lay in linen like a gentleman.

SKY. ARMIDEL.

In the morning, September the twentieth, we found ourfelves on the edge of the fea. Having procured a boat, we difmiffed our Highlanders, whom I would recommend to the service of any future travellers, and were ferried over to the isle of Sky. We landed at Armidel, where we were met on the fands by Sir Alexander Macdonald, who was at that time there with his łady, preparing to leave the island, and refide at Edinburgh,

Armidel is a neat house, built where the Macdonalds had once a feat, which was burnt in the commotions that followed the Revolution. The walled orchard, which belonged to the former houfe, ftill remains. It is well fhaded by tall afh-trees, of a fpecies, as Mr. Janes the foffilift informed me, uncommonly valuable. This plantation is very properly mentioned by Dr, Campbell, in his new account of the ftate of Britain, and deferves attention; because it proves that the prefent nakedness of the Hebrides is not wholly the fault of nature,

As