INVERNESS.

Inverness was the last place which had a regular communication by high roads with the fouthern counties. All the ways beyond it have, I believe, been made by the foldiers in this century. At Inverness therefore Cromwell, when he fubdued Scotland, stationed a garrison, as at the boundary of the Highlands. The foldiers seem to have incorporated afterwards with the inhabitants, and to have peopled the place with an English race; for the language of this town. has been long confidered as peculiarly elegant.

Here is a castle, called the castle of Macbeth, the walls of which are yet standing. It was no very capacious edifice, but ftands upon a rock fo high and steep, that I think it was once not acceffible, but by the help of ladders, or a bridge. Over against it, on another hill, was a fort built by Cromwell, now totally demolished; for no faction of Scotland loved the name of Cromwell, or had any defire to continue his memory.

Yet what the Romans did to other nations, was in a great degree done by Cromwell to the Scots; he civilized them by conquest, and introduced by useful violence the arts of peace. I was

told

told at Aberdeen that the people learned from Cromwell's foldiers to make shoes and to plant kail.

How they lived without kail, it is not easy to guefs: They cultivate hardly any other plant for common tables, and when they had not kail they probably had nothing. The numbers that go barefoot are ftill fufficient to fhew that shoes may be fpared: They are not yet confidered as neceffaries of life; for tall boys, not otherwise meanly dreffed, run without them in the ftreets and in the islands; the fons of gentlemen pass several of their first years with naked feet.

. I know not whether it be not peculiar to the Scots to have attained the liberal, without the manual arts, to have excelled in ornamental knowledge, and to have wanted not only the elegancies, but the conveniencies of common life. Literature soon after its revival found its way to Scotland, and from the middle of the fixteenth century, almost to the middle of the feventeenth, the politer studies were very diligently pursued. The Latin poetry of Delicia Poëtarum Scotorum would have done honour to any nation, at least till the publication of May's Supplement the English had very little to oppofe.

" Yet

Yet men thus ingenious and inquifitive were content to live in total ignorance of the trades by which human wants are fupplied, and to fupply them by the groffeft means. Till the Union made them acquainted with English manners, the culture of their lands was unskilful, and their domeftic life unformed; their tables were coarse as the feasts of Eskimeaux, and their houses filthy as the cottages of Hottentots.

Since they have known that their condition was capable of improvement, their progress in useful knowledge has been rapid and uniform. What remains to be done they will quickly do, and then wonder, like me, why that which was fo neceffary and so easy was fo long delayed. But they must be for ever content to owe to the English that elegance and culture, which, if they had been vigilant and active, perhaps the English "might have owed to them.

Here the appearance of life began to alter. I had seen a few women with plaids at Aberdeen; but at Inverness the Highland manners are common. There is I think a kirk, in which only the Erfe language is used. There is likewise an English chapel, but meanly built, where on Sunday we saw a very decent congregation.

We

We were now to bid farewel to the luxury of travelling, and to enter a country upon which perhaps no wheel has ever rolled. We could indeed have used our post-chaise one day longer, along the military road to Fort Auguftus, but we could have hired no horfes beyond Inverness, and we were not fo fparing of ourselves, as to lead them, merely that we might have one day longer the indulgence of a carriage.

At Inverness therefore we procured three horses for ourselves and a fervant, and one more for our baggage, which was no very heavy load. We found in the courfe of our journey the convenience of having difencumbered ourselves, by laying afide whatever we could spare ; for it is not to be imagined without experience, how in climbing crags, and treading bogs, and winding through narrow and obstructed paffages, a little bulk will hinder, and a little weight will burthen; or how often a man that has pleased himself at home with his own resolution, will, in the hour of darkness and fatigue, be content to leave behind him every thing but himself.

LOUGH NES S..

We took two Highlanders to run befide us, partly to fhew us the way, and partly to take

back

back from the fea-fide the horses, of which they were the owners. One of them was a man of great liveliness and activity, of whom his companion faid, that he would tire any horse in Invernefs. Both of them were civil and ready-handed. Civility feems part of the national character of Highlanders. Every chieftain is a monarch, and politeness, the natural product of royal government, is diffufed from the laird through the whole clan. But they are not commonly dexterous their narrowness of life confines them to a few operations, and they are accustomed to endure little wants more than to remove them.

We mounted our fteeds 'on the thirteenth of August, and directed our guides to conduct us to Fort Auguftus. It is built at the head of Lough Nefs, of which Inverness stands at the outlet. The way between them has been cut by the foldiers, and the greater part of it runs along a rock, levelled with great labour and exactness, near the water-fide.

Most of this day's journey was very pleasant. The day, though bright, was not hot; and the appearance of the country, if I had not seen the Peak, would have been wholly new. We went upon a furface fo hard and level, that we had

little