neral benefits of equal law to the low and the high, in the deepest receffes and obfcureft corners.

While the chiefs had this resemblance 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 sovereign powers. They drew up 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 laft 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 fmall clan, refufed to pay the dues demanded from him by Mackintofh, 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 last open war made between the clans by their own authority.

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

the

the other in the right, or in the wrong, except against the king.

The inhabitants of mountains form diftinct Faces, and are careful to preferve their genealogies. Men in a small diftrict neceffarily mingle blood by inter marriages, and combine at laft into one family, with a common interest in the honour and difgrace of every individual. Then begins that uni on of affections, and co-operation of endeavours, that conftitute a clan. They who confider themfelves 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 preserve local florics 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 rest of mankind, and kept them an unaltered and difcriminated race. They are now lofing their diftinction, and haftening to mingle with the general community.

GLENELG.

We left Auknafheals and the Macraes in the af ternoon, 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 horfe, weary with the fteepness of the rife, ftaggered a little, and I. called in hafte to the Highlander to hold him. This was the only moment of my journey in which I thought myfelf endangered.

Having furmounted the hill at laft, we were told that at Glenelg, on the fea-fide, we fhould come to a houfe of lime, and flate, and glafs. This image of magnificence raifed our expectation. At laft we came to our inn weary and peevish, and began to inquire 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 ftay. Whisky we might have, and I believe, at laft, they caught a fowl and killed it. We had fome bread, and with that we prepared curfelves 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 mafter of rum and fugar. The n an had mentioned his company, and the gentleman, whofe name, I think, is Gordon, well know

ing 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 neceflities..

We were now to examine our lodging. Out of one of the beds, on which we were to repose, started up, at our entrance, a man black as a Cyclops from the forge. Other circumftances of no ele gant recital concurred to difguft us. We had been frighted by a lady at Edinburgh, with difcoura ging 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 flept upon it in my riding coat. Mr Bofwell being more delicate, laid himfelf in sheets with hay over and under him, and lay like a gentlemaṁ..

SKY ARMIDEL.

In the morning, September the twentieth, we found our felves on the edge of the fea. Having procured a boat, we difmiffed our Highlanders, whom I would recommend to the fervice of any future travellers, and were ferried over to the Ifle of Sky. We landed at Armidel, where we were met on the fands by Sir Alexander Macdonald,

who

who was at that time there with his lady, preparing to leave the island and refide at Edinburgh,

Armidel is a ne. t house, built where the Mac donalds had once a feat, which was burnt in the commotions that followed the Revolution. The walled orchard, which belonged to the former houfe, fill remains. It is well fhaded by tall afh trees, of a fpecies, as Mr Janes the foffilift inform ed 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 na-. kednefs of the Hebrides is not wholly the fault of Nature:

As we fat at Sir Alexander's table, we were entertained, according to the ancient ufage of the North, with the melody of the bagpipe.. Every thing in those countries has its history. As the bagpiper was playing, an elderly gentleman informed us, that in fome remote time, the Macdonalds of Glengary having been injured, or offend-ed by the inhabitants of Culloden, and refolving to have justice or vengeance, came to Culloden on a Sunday, where finding their enemies at worship,. they fhut them up in the church, which they fet on fire; and this, faid he, is the tune that the piperplayed while they were burning..

Narrations like this, however uncertain, deferve the notice of a traveller, because they are the only records of a nation that has no hiftorians, and af

ford