Transactions. 67 



The glens were devastated with fire and sword, and finally the 

 entire social system — the clan or patriarchal — was overturned, 

 and the land, which had been the property of the clan and only 

 administered by the chiefs, was handed over under a feudal tenure to 

 the latter, who evicted their too faithful followers to make room 

 for sheep and deer — a course which brought down the scathing 

 censure of Burns, who lashed them with scorpions in his " Address 

 of Beelzebub to the President of the Highland Society." 



Throughout the series of these papers I have adduced the 

 evidence of contemporary observers,' and as much as possible in 

 their own words. My present illustrations I shall mainly take 

 from a book described in the title-page as " A Tour through the 

 Whole Island of Great Britain," the author being vaguely denomi- 

 nated " a gentleman." My copy is the sixth edition, professing 

 to have been brought down to the year 1761. It is likely to be 

 new to most of my hearers, and the descriptions in it, on the face 

 of them, appear to have been drawn from personal observation 

 rather than compiled from other published sources. The writer, 

 too, seems to be, for his age and country, remarkably free from 

 prejudice, national or other, for he is not slow to give credit where 

 he thinks credit is due. He speaks, for example, very highly of 

 our own town. It is a good town, he says, with large streets, 

 and " full of reputable and wealthy merchants, who trade to 

 foreign parts and employ a considerable number of ships, 

 especially since they have embarked in trade to England and the 

 English Plantations," the open trade to England and its colonies 

 being, he considers, an ample equivalent to the " suppression of 

 their woollen manufacture through the Union," the English sup- 

 plying these goods better and cheaper than they could make them 

 themselves. 



The fourth volume of the Tour is devoted to Scotland, and 

 the portion of it to which I wish now to call attention is the 

 description of Inverness, then as now the capital of the Highlands, 

 " and as such," says the author, " I shall expatiate upon it and the 

 customs and usages of the Highlanders in general." Of the houses 

 of the town he gives a poor account, the walls even of the best of 

 them being " built of stones of irregular sizes, leaving chasms in 

 them which harbour incredible numbers of rats." Before the Union 

 they had been neither sashed nor slated, and to that day they 

 remained unceiled, while through the chinks in the flooring and 



