Caithness, and put under the protection of the Earl of Antiquities. Huntly. Caithness, in revenge, invaded this country by his son John, who invested the town and castle of Dornoch, of which the Murrays had possessed themselves. Several skirmishes took place with various success. The Murrays, no longer able to maintain the ground they had occupied, retired to the castle. Upon this the Master of Caithness burnt the town and cathedral; but still the besieged defended themselves in the castle for a month longer. At length, however, they were obliged to capitulate, having undertaken to depart out of Sutherland within two months, and delivered three hostages into the hands of the conquerors. The Murrays fulfilled their engagement; but, from the barbarous temper of the age, the hos tages were nevertheless murdered.

Over the whole of this country, in different places, are Antiquities. to be found vestiges of those ancient buildings, denominated Picts bouses, which we have already described, and which on the west coast are called Duns. In various parts also are to be seen vestiges of fortifications of different sorts. Some of them are old towers, and others consist of larger works, which seem to have been intended as places of safety for considerable bodies of men or cattle. On the east coast, on the south side of Loch Brora, there is a hill, called Craig Bar, fortified with a ditch of circumvallation. It is a steep and rocky precipice, every way inaccessible but by a narrow neck of land between it and a neighbouring hill. It contains about eight acres of land, and could easily be defended against any number of assailants. In many quarters cairns are found, which are considered as monuments erected to chiefs who fell in battle; and numberless spots are pointed out in which the rival clans formerly engaged in sanguipary contests with each other. In the parish of Assint, in the Island of Oldney, is a considerable cairn, in which

Antiquities. is a stone hollowed out, and having a cover of stone. The old people of the neighbourhood relate that the hollowed stone formerly contained a round stone, of the size and form of a large egg, for which, and also for an adjacent burying ground, great veneration was entertained. The round stone, on account of its variegated, minute, and splendid colours, was always shewn to strangers. It was privately carried off by a sea-faring man, to whom, in the usual manner, it had been exhibited as a curiosity. It is suspected to have been an object of Scandinavian idolatry.

Dun Dorna

dilla.

In the parish of Durness, in which is Cape Wrath, are the remains of the tower called Dun Dornadilla, which has been much noticed by travellers. That portion of the wall of this ancient tower which is still standing is eighteen feet at the highest part. The area appears to have been surrounded with two concentric walls. A large triangular stone covers the front-door as a lintel. The opposite side has been reduced to rubbish. A celebrated Gaelic bard, Robert Doun, belonged to this parish. His songs possess considerable reputation among the Highlanders.

In the parish of Tongue, at Milness, are the remains of an ancient building; but so ruinous, and so covered with earth, that its original form cannot be distinctly traced. It is called Dun Bhuidh, "the yellow heap," and supposed to be erected by Dornadilla King of the Scots. The skeletons of two men were found buried near it some years ago. One of them measured in length about seven feet. Upon being exposed for some time to the air, they mouldered into dust. About the distance of half a mile from Milness, there are several heaps of stones and ruins of small circular buildings, scattered at various distances, on a rising ground near the sea. The circular buildings

are said to have been folds erected to guard the younger Antiquities. cattle from the wolves with which it is supposed the country was once infested. No account is given of these heaps; though, from the size and situation of them, it should seem a battle had been fought upon the spot. On the east side of the bay lies Tongue, one of the seats of Lord Reay's Lord Reay, a beautiful spot, laid out into gardens, sur-seat. rounded with beautiful trees, which, in some points of view, seem, on the one side, to wave their tops among the cliffs of Ben Loaghal; and, on the other, to lose themselves in the ruins of Caistal-a-Bharruich ; a structure so ancient that there is no consistent tradition concerning it. Perhaps it was possessed by John Mackay Abarach, the greatest name for heroism in this part of the Highlands; and what renders this conjecture the more plausible, is, that there is a cave in the rock upon which the castle was built, called Leabuidh Ecin Abaruich, i. e. "John of Abarach's bed," whither he is said to have retired in time of dan ger. A family of the Mackays are descended from him, and are reported to have still in their possession his banner, with this motto wrought in golden letters, Biodb treun, Biodh treun, i. e. "Be valiant."

Castle.

Last of all, Dunrobin Castle, on the east coast, the seat Dunrobin of the ancient Earls of Sutherland, may be mentioned. It is in excellent repair; and great agricultural exertions have been successfully made around it. It was founded about the year 1100 by Robert or Robin, second Earl of Sutherland. It is situated near the sea, and, as the word dun imports, on a round hill. The few paintings here are an Earl of Murray, an old man, on wood, his son and two daughters, by Co. G. 1628; a fine full length of Charles the First; Angus Williamson, a hero of the clan Chattan, who rescued the Sutherlands in the time of distress; a very singular picture of the Duke of Alva, in council,

Highlands. with a cardinal by his side, who puts a pair of bellows,

General ac

blown by the Devil, into his ear; the Duke has a chain in one hand fixed to the necks of the kneeling Fleemings, in the other he shews them a paper of recantation for them to sign; behind them are the reformed clergy. The cardinal is the noted Anthony Pirrenot, Cardinal de Grandville, secretary to Margaret of Austria, Duchess Dowager of Savoy, governess of the Netherlands, and who was held to be the author, advancer, and nourisher of the troubles of those countries; and who, on his recal into Spain, was supposed to be the great promoter of the cruelties exercised afterwards by the Duke of Alva, the successor of his mistress.

As Sutherland is the first county which is altogether, or principally Highland, to which we have come, it will here be proper to take some notice of the past history and future prospects of that part of the British islands called the Highlands of Scotland.

It is a singular circumstance attending the situation of count of the Scotland, that for ages it has been inhabited by two disHighlands. tinct races of men; that is to say, by mountaineers, commonly called Highlanders, employed chiefly in pasturage, but partly also in agriculture; and by Lowlanders, or inhabitants of the more level tracts on the south and east, in which agriculture has been more generally practised. The inhabitants of the different districts of the Highlands and Lowlands were for ages distinguished by a different garb, and to this day they are wonderfully distinct. The boundary which divides them is not correctly marked by physical limits, consisting of northern or southern latitude, or of rivers and friths, but is completely distinguished by the most important of all circumstances in social life, the difference of language. A Highlander and a Lowlander, born in neighbouring cot tages, hear each other talking anguage which they de

not understand. Of late years, indeed, in consequence of Highlands the great changes which have been introduced, and of the industrious diffusion of a knowledge of the English tongue throughout the Highlands, a Lowland Scotchman or an Englishman finds his language understood by abundance of persons in the remotest corners of the island; but the case was formerly very different; and to this day a native of Edinburgh, or even of Perthshire, born at the foot of the Grampians, understands as little of the Erse language as he does of the Hindoo, the Shanscrit, or the Persian tongues; neither does it appear from history or tradition, that his ancestors were ever better acquainted with that language.

The ancient history of Scotland is involved in very great obscurity. The Roman writers give little light upon the subject, and our own early historians have suffered themselves to be misled by monkish fables. The Roman armies under Agricola advanced along the southern foot of the Grampians, through Strathmore; and they appear to have pressed onwards along the east coast, thro' the low territory of Aberdeenshire, Banff, Moray, Nairn, and Inverness, as far as Ross-shire; but they were unable to make any permanent establishment beyond the isthmus between Forth and Clyde; and even the territory between that and the English border, where they had their southern wall, does not seem to have remained long undisputed. The ancient inhabitants of Scotland are usually spoken of under three appellations: Scots, Scots, Cale Caledonians, and Picts. Scot or Scuit signifies, in the Gae-donians,and lic or Erse language, a wanderer, in the bad sense of the 1. Scots word, being synonymous with vagabond or wandering plunderer. It was probably originally a term of contempt used by their enemies; but it sometimes happens that a people take a pride in assuming, as a name of ho

Picts.