122 WILD WHITE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



continued from the earliest historical period, and were 

 retained with unswerving tenacity and fidelity. Surely, 

 then, its traditional belief in the indigenous origin of 

 Scotland's wild white bull carries with it much weight, 

 confirmed as it is hj other evidence. 



These traditional beliefs remained a few years since 

 very vivid, and they bore very strongly upon the 

 antiquity of the wild white race. A Scottish corre- 

 spondent, upon whom I can fully depend,* says : — " The 

 recesses of the old Caledonian Forest were in the central 

 Highlands, where traces of it still remain. I was most 

 familiar with its localities, having spent my youth-time 

 in the Highlands of Perthshire, and I often heard, when 

 a boy, about the white oxen. I can recall the name of 

 a mountain slope between Rannoch and Lochaber — 

 Leac 1 — na 2 — ba 3 — gill, 4 the Gaelic for shelving rock 1 

 (or stony slope) — of the 2 — white 4 — ox 3 (or cow)." But 

 perhaps of all others Sir Walter Scott, the great Scottish 

 antiquarian of his day, who so faithfully represents the 

 manners, habits, and opinions of his countrymen, is the 

 most authentic expositor of their traditions on this as 

 on other points. I have already quoted, from his 

 romance of " Castle Dangerous," the account of a 

 mediaeval hunt of "the wild cattle peculiar to Scotland;" 

 and at the head of my chapter on the Hamilton cattle 

 a further quotation will be given from his well-known 

 poem of " Cadzow Castle." But his works, as might 

 be expected when the subject was of such national 

 interest, have other allusions to the subject. When, in 

 " The Lord of the Isles," Lord Eonald of the Isles 



* Quoted from a letter addressed to me by Mr. A. C. Cameron, M.A., 

 of Fettercairn, County of Kincardine, the author of a valuable paper in 

 the " Highland Society's Transactions." Fourth Series, vol. v., 1873. 



