262 Notes on Sport and Travel 



in Sutherland, that when the country was being 

 surveyed by the Government engineers in 1819, the 

 people of the West took it into their heads that they 

 were a detachment sent by the King of Denmark 

 to survey the country, previous to his making an 

 attack on Lord Reay (the then proprietor), in order 

 to avenge an old feud existing between the chief 

 of the Mackays and the crown of Denmark. The 

 foundation for this delicious theory being the fact of 

 the trigonometrical adepts wearing military-looking 

 foraging-caps. 



We have no right to be surprised at these old- 

 world fancies having lingered so long in Sutherland, 

 for it was the last part of Great Britain, if not of 

 Western Europe, in which the feudal system had full 

 sway. In the old times, not so very long ago, the 

 tacksmen, who were generally cadets de faniillc, — 

 half-pay officers, — paid their rent in great part by 

 furnishing men to the family regiment, over which 

 the chief had absolute command, and their sons and 

 relations were promoted according to the number of 

 men they furnished. Of course the chief made it 

 pay in some way or another ; his regiment was so 

 much political capital, and the more men he could 

 offer to the Government of the time, the more likely 

 he was to get tolerable pickings out of the public 

 purse. In those days, when the crops failed and 

 the cattle starved, the people were kept alive by the 

 chief, like hounds that must be fed though the frost 

 prevented them hunting. 



