p inlets, extends the cleft of some threescore miles that cuts the Highlands into near and off halves, the former far the h

ongue. This canal is now nearly a century old. In the century before its trenches were opened, King George's soldiers had islanded the farther Highlands by a road between three fortified posts, in the centre and at either end of this Great Glen, thus used as

me the fame of speaking the best English in Scotland, or, for the matter of that, in England, a merit sometimes traced back to a colony of Cromwell's soldiers. Of late years, to tell the truth, the speech of Inverness has harden

rse of only a few miles, from Loch Ness to the Moray Firth's inner recess, is enough to make it a resort for big salmon and small shipping. Hector Boece records a former great "plenty and take of herring," which vanished "for offence made against some Saint." Sheltered from the winds of the east and the "weather" of the west, the distr

FROM NEAR

not less thinly disguised th

nt. Inverness shows several fragments of antiquity, most revered of them that palladium Clach-na-Cudain-"stone of the tubs," now built into the base of the restored Town Cross. A little way up the river its "Islands" have been adapted as a unique "combination of public park and natural wilderness, of clear brown swirls and eddies under the overhanging hazels and alders, and open and foaming white cataracts where artificial barriers divert the broad rush of the river." This beauty-spot of

n a sample, unless of human brawn and beards well displayed in the brightest of tartan and the roughest of homespun. The second is the Northern Meeting in September, gayest and smartest of those gatherings by which the old Highland games, dress, and music are kept up. But ah! this touch of local colour is too like the artificial bloom on a faded cheek. The glow of tartans here revived by what a German might call "Sun

ach clan together, still shoulder to shoulder, and the monumental cairn that is yearly hung with votive wreaths by a certain perfervid Jacobite. If these men gave way before disciplined valour and artillery, if their own martial spirit was marred by quarrelsome ill-temper, let us remember how many of them joined or rejoined the cause when it was as good as lost, after the Jacobite squires of the south had held back from its first flush of success. The next time the Cockney be moved to his sneer about bawbees, let him consider how neither bribes, nor threats, nor torture could tempt these poor Highlanders to betray their prince in his desperate wanderings with a price set on his head. And let us all forget, if we can, the cruelty with which the victors followed up that last rout of sentimental devotion. One poor fellow took hundreds of lashes on an English ship of war, without opening his mou

thousand of those Macdonalds whose offended pride hung back from the clash of Culloden. Before the '45, emigration to America had already begun with the colony settled in Georgia by General Oglethorpe; even earlier indeed hardy Highlanders and Orkneymen were in demand for service in the wilds of Hudson's Bay; but after Culloden the exodus became considerable, increasing as the chieftains, turned into lairds, found idle and prejudiced

N GARRY, INV

ame-bag, as one of them perhap

emembered unless by the mention of him in the Ingoldsby Legends, and the banknotes of his bankrupt kingdom, treasured by collectors of curiosities. Did the general reader ever hear of Alexander MacGillivray, who was born at once a Highland gentl

ated and brought up to trade, but early in life betook himself to his mother's people, among whom his attainments as well as his birth gave him influence. Rank, by Indian law, as by "Lycian custom," being inherited on the spindle side, before he was thirty he had been recognised as chief of the Creeks, a

eye to the main chance. Milfort found him living in a good house, with herds of cattle and dozens of negro slaves. Another source of profit he had in a secret partnership with a firm of brother Scots at Pensacola, to which he directed the trade of the Creek nation, jealously intrigued for by their British and Spanish neighbours. The Revolutionary War had nearly caused a rupture between these Creek consuls. MacGillivray's sympathies were with the British; Milfort had no scruple in fighting against the Americans, but when French tr

howed the civilised virtue of humanity in sparing and rescuing captives. Peace was negotiated by an Indian deputation which he led to New York. A secret article provided for his being appointed a general in the U.S. service, with a pension of $1200. At the same time, or soon a

the Creeks. A civil war raged in the Confederacy; MacGillivray at one time was driven to flight; but, still backed up by Milfort, he succeeded in partly restoring his power, though not with the same firmness. In the middle of his tortuous policies, he died at the

taken by the idea, and that in 1801 a small French expedition had even been prepared to conquer the Creek country under Milfort's guidance. But vaster plans interfered with any such scheme, and in 1803, Louisiana and the great South-West were sold by France to the United States. The ex-chief had a chance t

led at the introduction of potatoes, turnips, and other improvements to their backward culture. What their good old days were in truth may be guessed in the smoky huts where they still love to pig together, stubbornly refusing to adapt themselves to an order i

T IN GLEN NEVIS

han once I have had a tip refused by a Highland servant, as nowhere else in the world unless in the United States before their social independence, too, began to be demoralised by the largesses of successful speculators, who, after piling up dollar

er and gillie, with more or less good will, loading the gun and carrying the well-stocked luncheon basket, perhaps not always very hearty in hunting down those Ishmaelite brethren who do a little grouse-netting on their own account for the supply of London tables by the 12th of August. Sometimes the Gael takes revenge by being able to hint his scorn for the sportsmanship of these new

e driven to be shot down by gun after gun placed in his hands. Sport, that was once a bond between classes, becomes more and more a monopoly of the rich. The very meaning of the word suffers a change in our day from the doing of something oneself to a performance where most of the activity is by

slaughter, lunching off bread and cheese, or a cold grouse, with fingers for forks, and coming home to a dinner won by one's own hands. That old-fashioned muzzle-loading work is scorned by the present generation who, indeed, pay such rents for moors and coverts that they have some reason to be keen after a big bag

grew up, extra accommodations were provided in the shape of a tent and iron shanties, the whole group backed by a thin clump of wind-blown firs visible some dozen miles away on the bare mountain side. All through the summer months it made an encampment for a band of kilted youngsters, "hardy, bold, and wild," taking in the Highland air at every pore, with miles of moor and burn for their playground, which they knew not to be haunted by the victims of Druid rites. Not that more sophisticated guests were unknown at th

generation invade my native heath. But, however much they make themselves at home here, we chuckl

hief may be b

a sporran, a b

his hose-wear a

assume an affe

e than hair powder." In the warm south of England, I once caught a cold which stuck to me all summer and seemed like to settle on my lungs. Late in autumn, in a kill or cure mood, I went down to the dampest side of the Highlands, got wet from morning to night, and in a week my cough had gone like dew from the heather. But na

ING TO LOCH ET

offerings of dry hose, with whic

was made," we should find little difference to-day, unless for a few more modern mansions that have swallowed up many a lowly home, still, perhaps, marked by patches of green about the ruined mountain shielings where, as on Alpine pastures, Highland Sennerin made butter and cheese through the long summer days. A steamboat carries one right through the Great Glen, beneath mountain giants, clad in nature's own tartan of green and purple chequered by brown and grey, with bare

wilder Highlands. The first stage of that grand panorama is through deep Loch Ness, where on one side Mealfourvonie towers like a hayrick, round which goes the way to those remote Falls of Glomach,

burst its barriers? For what a world of waters come now tumbling into the abyss! Niagara! hast thou a fiercer roar? Listen-and you think there are momentary pauses of the thunder, filled up with goblin groans! All the military music-bands of the army of Britain would here be dumb as mutes-Trumpet, Cymbal, and the Great Drum! There is a desperate temptation in the hubbub to leap into destruction. Water-horses and kelpies, keep stabled in your rock-stalls-for if you issue forth the river will sweep you down, before you have finished one neigh, to Castle Urquhart, and dash you, in a sheet of foam, to the top of her rocking battlements.... We emerge, like a gay creature of the element, from the chasm, and wing our way up the glen towards the source of the cataract. In a few miles all is s

to the West Highland Line, passing near those geological lions called the "parallel roads" of Glenroy. Else we thread the water between the heights of Keppoch and Glengarry, marked by the cairns of many a forgotten feud, and thr

ttled on an islet of Loch Oich, where he took to himself a wife and reared a sturdy brood. For long he played Rob Roy on a small scale, "lifting" sheep and helping himself to game, while he enjoyed the sanctity of a seer's reputation. When a southern landlord bought the property, he established a not unfriendly modus vivendi with this tackless tenant, who introduced himself to the new owner by sticking his dirk into the table as title-deed to his island-"By this right I hold it!" But

military posts that bridled the Great Glen. In Stuart days this was Inverlochy, scene of that battle between Montrose and Argyle. It is now a town of snug hotels, over which rises the proclaimed

YNUILT, LOCH ET

ospect masterly laid out

lt sea. Far over the hills, beyond the head of the loch, he looks across Arisaig, and can see the cliffs of the Isle of Eigg and the dark peaks of Rum, with the Atlantic gleaming below them. Farther to the north-west the blue range of the Coolin Hills rises along the sky-line, and then, sweeping over all the intermediate ground, through Arisaig and Knoydart and the Clanranald country, mountain rises beyond mountain, ridge beyond ridge, cut through by dark glens, and varied here and there with th

y takes one on through Glenfinnan and the Lochiel country, where Charles Edward raised that last standard of rebellion, against the prudent judgment of the Cameron chief whose loyal pride yet followed it to Culloden, and where a tall column records how a later Cameron fell as gallantly in the service of the established dynasty. Thus we come to Arisaig on the west coast, and to Mallaig opposite Skye, in which a book that draws