nalds required the offender, and being refused, made a fire at the mouth of the cave, by which he and his adherents were fuffocated together.

.

Mountaineers are warlike, becaufe by their feuds and competitions they confider themfelves as furrounded with enemies, and are always prepared to repel incurfions, or to make them. Like the Greeks in their unpolished state, defcribed by Thucydides, the Highlanders, till lately, went always armed, and carried their weapons to vifits, and to church,

Mountaineers are thievifh, becaufe they are poor, and having neither manufactures nor commerce, can grow richer only by robbery. They regularly plunder their neighbours, for their neighbours are commonly their enemies; and having loft that reverence for property, by which the order of civil life is preserved, foon confider all as enemies, whom they do not reckon as friends, and think themselves licensed to invade whatever they are not obliged to protect.

By a ftrict administration of the laws, fince the laws have been introduced into the Highlands, this difpofition to thievery is very much repreffed. Thirty years ago no herd had ever been conducted through the mountains, without paying tribute in the night to fome of the clans; but cattle are now driven, and paffengers travel, without danger, fear, or mo, leftation.

Among a warlike people, the quality of higheft efteem is perfonal courage, and with the oftentatious difplay of courage are clofely connected promptitude of offence, and quicknefs of resentment.

The

Highlanders,

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

Mountainous regions are fometimes so remote from the feat of government, and fo difficult of access, 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 safely 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 gra dually 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 hereditary jurisdiction over counties; and fome chief

tains over their own lands; till the final conqueft of the Highlands afforded an opportunity of crushing 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 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 conteft for dominion between foyereign powers. They drew their forces into the field, and right attended on the strongest. 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 againf the king.

The inhabitants of mountains form diftin&t races, and are careful to preferve their genealogies. Meri in a small district neceffarily mingle blood by inter marriages, and combine at laft into one family, with a common intereft in the honour and difgrace 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 ftories 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 mourtains, 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 Äuknasheals 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 horfe, weary with the fteepness 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 laft, we were told, that at Glenelg, on the fea-fide, we should come to a house 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 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 ftay. 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, whofe 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 kindnefs 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