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in a state of miferable decay; but I know not whether its chief annual magiftrate has not ftill the title of Lord Provoft.

At Nairn we may fix the verge of the Highlands; for here I first saw peat fires, and first heard the Erfe language. We had no motive to stay longer than to breakfast, and went forward to the house of Mr. Macaulay, the minifter who published an account of St. Kilda, and by his direction visited Calder Caftle, from which Macbeth drew his fecond title. It has been formerly a place of ftrength. The draw-bridge is ftill to be seen, but the moat is now dry. The tower is very ancient. Its walls are of great thickness, arched on the top with stone, and furrounded with battlements. The reft of the house is later, though far from modern.

We were favoured by a gentleman, who lives in the caftle, with a letter to one of the officers at Fort George, which being the most regular fortification in the island, well deferves the notice of a traveller, who has never travelled before. We went thither next day, found a very kind reception, were led round the works by a gentleman, who explained the use of every part, and entertained by Sir Eyre Coote, the governor, with fuch elegance of conversation, as left us no attention to the delicacies of his table.

Of Fort George I shall not attempt to give any account. I cannot delineate it scientifically, and a loose and popular description is of use only when the imagination is to be amufed. There was every where an appearance of the utmost neatness and regularity. But my fuffrage is of little value, because this and Fort Auguftus are the only garrifons that I ever faw.

We

We did not regret the time spent at the fort, though in confequence of our delay we came fome-> what late to Inverness, the town which may properly be called the capital of the Highlands. Hither the inhabitants of the inland parts come to be supplied with what they cannot make for themselves: hither the young nymphs of the mountains and vallies are fent for education, and as far as my observation has reached, are not fent in vain.

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, ftationed a garrifon, as at the boundary of the Highlands. The foldiers feem 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 ftanding. It was no very capacious edifice, but ftands upon a rock fo high and fteep, 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

Yet what the Romans did to other nations, was in a great degree done by Cromwell to the Scots; he civilized them by conqueft, and introduced by useful violence the arts of peace. I was told at Aberdeen, that the people learned from Cromwell's foldiers to make fhoes and to plant kail.

How they lived without kail, it is not easy to guess; they cultivate hardly any other plant for common tables, and when they had not kail they probably had nothing. The numbers that go bare-foot are ftill fufficient to show that shoes may be spared; they are not yet confidered as neceffaries of life; for tall boys, not otherwise meanly dreffed, run without them in the streets; and in the islands the fons of gentlemen pass feveral of their firft 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 foon after its revival, found its way to Scotland, and from the middle of the fixteenth century, almoft to the middle of the seventeenth, the politer ftudies were very diligently purfued. The Latin poetry of Delicia Poëtarum Scotorum would have done honour to any nation; at leaf till the publication of May's Supplement, the English had very little to oppofe.

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 ac quainted with English manners, the culture of their lands

lands was unfkilful, and their domeftick life unformed; their tables were coarfe as the feafts of Efkimeaux, and their houses filthy as the cottages of Hottentots.

Since they have known that their condition was capable of improvement, their progrefs 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 fo eafy 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 feen a few women with plaids at Aberdeen; but at Inverness the Highland manners are common. is I think a kirk, in which only the Erfe language, is used. There is likewife an English chapel, but meanly built, where on Sunday we faw a very decent congregation,

There

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-chaife one day longer, along the military road to Fort Auguftus, but we could have hired no horses 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 horfes for ourselves and. a fervant, and one more for our baggage, which was no very heavy load. We found

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in the course of our journey the convenience of hav ing 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 though narrow and obftructed paffages, a little bulk will hinder, and a little weight will burden; or how often a man that has pleafed himself at home with his own refolution, will, in the hour of darkness and fatigue, be content to leave behind him every thing but himself.

LOUGH NESS.

We took two Highlanders to run befide us, partly to show us the way, and partly to take 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 said, that he would tire any horfe in Inverness. 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 diffused from the laird through the whole clan. But they are not commonly dextrous : their narrownefs of life confines them to a few operations, and they are accustomed to endure little wants more than to remove them.

We mounted our steeds on the twenty-eighth of Auguft, 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

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