alds 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, because 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, described by Thucydides, the Highlanders, till lately, went always armed, and carried their weapons to vifits, and to church.

Mountaineers are thievifh, because 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 them felves licensed to invade whatever they are not obliged to protect.

By a ftrict adminiftration 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 molestation.

Among a warlike people, the quality of highest efteem is perfonal courage, and with the oftentatious display of courage are clofely connected promptitude of offence, and quickness of refentment. The

Highlanders, before they were difarmed, were fa addicted to quarrels, that the boys ufed 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 difperfed.

Mountainous regions are fometimes fo remote from the feat of government, and fo difficult of accefs, 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 fafely 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 gradually abolished.

Those who had thus the difpenfation of law, were by confequence themselves lawlefs. 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 here-. ditary jurifdiction over counties; and fome chief

tains

tains over their own lands; till the final conqueft of the Highlands afforded an opportunity of crufhing 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 refemblance 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 fovereign 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 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 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 thefe Confederacies were, that each fhould fupport the $ 4

other

other in the right; or in the wrong, except againft the king.

The inhabitants of mountains form diftinct races, and are careful to preferve their genealogies. Men in a small district neceffarily mingle blood by intermarriages, and combine at laft into one family, with a common intereft in the honour and disgrace of every individual. Then begins that union 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 preferve local stories 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 distinction, and haf tening to mingle with the general community.

GLENELG.

We left Auknafheals and the Macraes in the afterhoon, 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 glass. This image of magnificence raised 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 laft 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 kindness 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, started up, at our entrance, a man black as a Cyclops from

the