As there fubfifts no longer in the islands much of that peculiar and discriminative form of life, of which the idea had delighted our imagination, we were willing to liften to fuch accounts of past times as would be given us. But we foon found what memorials were to be expected from an illiterate people, whose whole time is a series of diftrefs; where every morning is labouring with expedients for the evening; and where all mental pains or pleafure arofe from the dread of winter, the expectation of fpring, the caprices of their chiefs, and the motions of the neighbouring clans; where there was neither fhame from ignorance, nor pride in knowledge; neither curiofity to inquire, nor vanity to communicate.

The Chiefs indeed were exempt from urgent penury, and daily difficulties; and in their houfes were preferved what accounts remained of past ages. But the Chiefs were fometimes ignorant and careless, and fometimes kept bufy by turbulence and contention; and one generation of ignorance effaces the whole feries of unwritten hiftory. Books are faithful repofitories, which may be a while neglected or forgotten; but when they are opened again, will again impart their inftruction; memory once interrupted, is not to be recalled. Written learning is a fixed luminary, which, after the cloud that had hidden it has paft away, is again bright in its proper ftation. Tradition is but a meteor,

meteor, which, if once its falls, cannot be rekindled.

It seems to be univerfally fuppofed, that much of the local hiftory was preserved by the Bards, of whom one is faid to have been retained by every great family. After these Bards were fome of my firft inquiries; and I received fuch anfwers as, for a while, made me please myself with my increase of knowledge; for I had not then learned how to eftimate the narration of a Highlander.

They faid that a great family had a Bard and a Senachi, who were the poet and historian of the houfe; and an old gentleman told me that he rememembered one of each. Here was a dawn of intelligence. Of men that had lived within memory, fome certain knowledge might be attained. Though the office had ceafed, its effects might continue; the poems might be found, though there was no poet.

This

Another conversation indeed informed me, that the fame man was both Bard and Senachi. variation difcouraged me; but as the practice might be different in different times, or at the fame time in different families, there was yet no reason for fuppofing that I must neceffarily fit down in total ignorance.

Soon after. I was told by a gentleman, who is generally acknowledged the greatest master of Hebridian antiquities, that there had indeed once been both Bards and Senachies; and that Senachi figni

fied the man of talk, or of converfation; but that neither Bard nor Senachi had exifted for fome centuries. I have no reason to fuppofe it exactly known at what time the custom ceased, nor did it probably ceafe in all houfes at once. But whenever the practice of recitation was difufed, the works, whether poetical or hiftorical, perifhed with the authors; for in thofe times nothing had been written in the Earfe language.

Whether the Man of Talk was a historian, whose office was to tell truth, or a ftory-teller, like those which were in the last century, and perhaps are now among the Irish, whofe trade was only to amufe, it now would be vain to inquire.

Moft of the domeftic offices were, I believe, hereditary; and probably the laureat of a clan was always the fon of the last laureat. The hiftory of the race could no otherwise be communicated, or retained; but what genius could be expected in a poet by inheritance ?

The nation was wholly illiterate. Neither bards nor Senachies could write or read; but if they were ignorant, there was no danger of detection; they were believed by thofe whofe vanity they flattered.

The recital of genealogies, which has been confidered as very efficacious to the preservation of a true feries of ancestry, was anciently made, when the heir of the family came to manly age. This practice has never fubfifted within time of memory, nor was much credit due to fuch rehearsers, who

might obtrude fictitious pedigrees, either to pleafe their mafters, or to hide the deficiency of their Own memories.

Where the Chiefs. of the Highlands have found the hiftories of their defcent is difficult to tell; for no Earfe genealogy was ever written. In general this only is evident, that the principal house of a clan must be very ancient, and that thofe must have lived long in a place, of whom it is not known when they came thither.

Thus hopeless are all attempts to find any tra-. ces of Highland learning. Nor are their primitive customs and ancient manner of life otherwise than very faintly and uncertainly remembered by the prefent race.

The peculiarities which ftrike the native of a commercial country, proceeded in a great measure from the want of money. To the fervants and dependents that were not domeftics, and if an eftimate be made from the capacity of any of their old houfes which I have feen, their domeftics could have been but few, were appropriated certain por-. tions of land for their fupport. Macdonald has a piece of ground yet, called the Bards or Senachies field. When a beef was killed for the house, particular parts were claimed as fees by the several officers, or workmen. What was the right of each I have not learned. The head belonged to the fmith, and the udder of a cow to the piper; the weaver had likewife his particular part; and fo

many

many pieces followed these prescriptive claims, that the Laird's was at laft but little.

The payment of rent in kind has been fo long, difufed in England, that it is totally forgotten. It was practised very lately in the Hebrides, and pro-: bably still continues, not only in St Kilda, where money is not yet known, but in others of the. fmaller and remoter iflands. It were perhaps to. be defired, that no change in this particular fhould. have been made. When the laird could-only eat the produce of his lands, he was under the neceffity of refiding upon them; and when the tenant could not convert his stock into more portable riches, he could never be tempted away from his farm, : from the only place where he could be wealthy Money confounds fubordination, by overpowering the diftinctions of rank and birth, and weakens authority by fupplying power of refistance, or expedients for efcape. The feudal fyftem is formed for a nation employed in agriculture, and has never long kept its hold where gold and filver have be

come common.

Their arms were anciently the Claymore, or great two-handed: fword, and afterwards the two-edged fword and target, or buckler, which was fuftained: on the left arm. In the midst of the target, which was made of wood, covered with leather, and ftud, ded with nails, a flender lance, about two feet long, was fometimes fixed; it was heavy and cumberous, and accordingly has for fome time past been gra dually.

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