A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. Samuel Johnson

the way by which we went, is at that time impassable.

      GLENSHEALS

      The lough at last ended in a river broad and shallow like the rest, but that it may be passed when it is deeper, there is a bridge over it.  Beyond it is a valley called Glensheals, inhabited by the clan of Macrae.  Here we found a village called Auknasheals, consisting of many huts, perhaps twenty, built all of dry-stone, that is, stones piled up without mortar.

      We had, by the direction of the officers at Fort Augustus, taken bread for ourselves, and tobacco for those Highlanders who might show us any kindness.  We were now at a place where we could obtain milk, but we must have wanted bread if we had not brought it.  The people of this valley did not appear to know any English, and our guides now became doubly necessary as interpreters.  A woman, whose hut was distinguished by greater spaciousness and better architecture, brought out some pails of milk.  The villagers gathered about us in considerable numbers, I believe without any evil intention, but with a very savage wildness of aspect and manner.  When our meal was over, Mr. Boswell sliced the bread, and divided it amongst them, as he supposed them never to have tasted a wheaten loaf before.  He then gave them little pieces of twisted tobacco, and among the children we distributed a small handful of halfpence, which they received with great eagerness.  Yet I have been since told, that the people of that valley are not indigent; and when we mentioned them afterwards as needy and pitiable, a Highland lady let us know, that we might spare our commiseration; for the dame whose milk we drank had probably more than a dozen milk-cows.  She seemed unwilling to take any price, but being pressed to make a demand, at last named a shilling.  Honesty is not greater where elegance is less.  One of the bystanders, as we were told afterwards, advised her to ask for more, but she said a shilling was enough.  We gave her half a crown, and I hope got some credit for our behaviour; for the company said, if our interpreters did not flatter us, that they had not seen such a day since the old laird of Macleod passed through their country.

      The Macraes, as we heard afterwards in the Hebrides, were originally an indigent and subordinate clan, and having no farms nor stock, were in great numbers servants to the Maclellans, who, in the war of Charles the First, took arms at the call of the heroic Montrose, and were, in one of his battles, almost all destroyed.  The women that were left at home, being thus deprived of their husbands, like the Scythian ladies of old, married their servants, and the Macraes became a considerable race.

      THE HIGHLANDS

      As we continued our journey, we were at leisure to extend our speculations, and to investigate the reason of those peculiarities by which such rugged regions as these before us are generally distinguished.

      Mountainous countries commonly contain the original, at least the oldest race of inhabitants, for they are not easily conquered, because they must be entered by narrow ways, exposed to every power of mischief from those that occupy the heights; and every new ridge is a new fortress, where the defendants have again the same advantages.  If the assailants either force the strait, or storm the summit, they gain only so much ground; their enemies are fled to take possession of the next rock, and the pursuers stand at gaze, knowing neither where the ways of escape wind among the steeps, nor where the bog has firmness to sustain them: besides that, mountaineers have an agility in climbing and descending distinct from strength or courage, and attainable only by use.

      If the war be not soon concluded, the invaders are dislodged by hunger; for in those anxious and toilsome marches, provisions cannot easily be carried, and are never to be found.  The wealth of mountains is cattle, which, while the men stand in the passes, the women drive away.  Such lands at last cannot repay the expence of conquest, and therefore perhaps have not been so often invaded by the mere ambition of dominion; as by resentment of robberies and insults, or the desire of enjoying in security the more fruitful provinces.

      As mountains are long before they are conquered, they are likewise long before they are civilized.  Men are softened by intercourse mutually profitable, and instructed by comparing their own notions with those of others.  Thus Cæsar found the maritime parts of Britain made less barbarous by their commerce with the Gauls.  Into a barren and rough tract no stranger is brought either by the hope of gain or of pleasure.  The inhabitants having neither commodities for sale, nor money for purchase, seldom visit more polished places, or if they do visit them, seldom return.

      It sometimes happens that by conquest, intermixture, or gradual refinement, the cultivated parts of a country change their language.  The mountaineers then become a distinct nation, cut off by dissimilitude of speech from conversation with their neighbours.  Thus in Biscay, the original Cantabrian, and in Dalecarlia, the old Swedish still subsists.  Thus Wales and the Highlands speak the tongue of the first inhabitants of Britain, while the other parts have received first the Saxon, and in some degree afterwards the French, and then formed a third language between them.