at last into one family, with a
common interest in the honour and disgrace of every individual. Then
begins that union of affections, and co-operation of endeavours, that
constitute a clan. They who consider themselves as ennobled by their
family, will think highly of their progenitors, and they who through
successive generations live always together in the same place, will
preserve local stories and hereditary prejudices. Thus every Highlander
can talk of his ancestors, and recount the outrages which they suffered
from the wicked inhabitants of the next valley.

Such are the effects of habitation among mountains, and such were the
qualities of the Highlanders, while their rocks secluded them from the
rest of mankind, and kept them an unaltered and discriminated race. They
are now losing their distinction, and hastening to mingle with the
general community.

GLENELG

We left Auknasheals and the Macraes its the afternoon, and in the evening
came to Ratiken, a high hill on which a road is cut, but so steep and
narrow, that it is very difficult. There is now a design of making
another way round the bottom. Upon one of the precipices, my horse,
weary with the steepness of the rise, staggered a little, and I called in
haste to the Highlander to hold him. This was the only moment of my
journey, in which I thought myself endangered.

Having surmounted the hill at last, we were told that at Glenelg, on the
sea-side, we should come to a house of lime and slate and glass. This
image of magnificence raised our expectation. At last we came to our inn
weary and peevish, and began to inquire for meat and beds.

Of the provisions the negative catalogue was very copious. Here was no
meat, no milk, no bread, no eggs, no wine. We did not express much
satisfaction. Here however we were to stay. Whisky we might have, and I
believe at last they caught a fowl and killed it. We had some bread, and
with that we prepared ourselves to be contented, when we had a very
eminent proof of Highland hospitality. Along some miles of the way, in
the evening, a gentleman's servant had kept us company on foot with very
little notice on our part. He left us near Glenelg, and we thought on
him no more till he came to us again, in about two hours, with a present
from his master of rum and sugar. The man had mentioned his company, and
the gentleman, whose name, I think, is Gordon, well knowing the penury of
the place, had this at