118 WILD WHITE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



supported by chiefs of ancient Pictish and Scottish 

 blood, finally, after unnumbered reverses, with their 

 backs to the Highland hills, like their ancestors under 

 Galgacus, annihilated in the greatest defeat England 

 ever suffered, her whole power launched against them 

 on the field of Bannockburn. Such, too, their descen- 

 dants still remain — bold, vigorous, and free ; and 

 though what Nature required was at last accomplished, 

 and Great Britain became one kingdom, it was Scotland 

 that gave her native race of kings to consummate this 

 happy union. 



I have before sketched briefly the extreme wildness 

 of this country in ancient times. The whole of Scotland, 

 from north to south, and from east to west, was little 

 more in ancient days than one continuous wood, so 

 extensive that, as we have seen, the Caledonian Wood 

 and the bears it produced were well known at Rome ; and 

 probably all the better, because the Romans were never 

 able to penetrate into its inmost recesses, and only held 

 its outskirts partially for a short and inconsiderable 

 period. Its dales, glens, straths, and carses the Picts 

 and Scots inhabited ; its inaccessible rocks were their 

 fortresses, and its interminable forests and wastes their 

 hunting grounds. The nature of the country they 

 inhabited may be faintly estimated from two accounts of 

 two parishes, written by their respective ministers, and 

 given in Sir John Sinclair's " Statistical Account of 

 Scotland," published at the close of the last century.* 



* Sir John Sinclair's " Statistical Account of Scotland" came out in 

 periodical volumes, from 1792 to 1801, in which latter year the twenty-one 

 volumes were completed and published by the Board of Agriculture, of 

 which Sir John was President. It was drawn up from the communica- 

 tions of the ministers of the different parishes, but in a few cases the 

 reports were made by other persons. 



