n, or to any
magistrate superior to the chief. He would have found that life was
governed by a code of morality and honour widely different from that
which is established in peaceful and prosperous societies. He would have
learned that a stab in the back, or a shot from behind a fragment of
rock, were approved modes of taking satisfaction for insults. He would
have heard men relate boastfully how they or their fathers had wreaked
on hereditary enemies in a neighbouring valley such vengeance as would
have made old soldiers of the Thirty Years' War shudder. He would have
found that robbery was held to be a calling, not merely innocent, but
honourable. He would have seen, wherever he turned, that dislike of
steady industry, and that disposition to throw on the weaker sex the
heaviest part of manual labour, which are characteristic of savages. He
would have been struck by the spectacle of athletic men basking in
the sun, angling for salmon, or taking aim at grouse, while their aged
mothers, their pregnant wives, their tender daughters, were reaping the
scanty harvest of oats. Nor did the women repine at their hard lot. In
their view it was quite fit that a man, especially if he assumed the
aristocratic title of Duinhe Wassel and adorned his bonnet with the
eagle's feather, should take his ease, except when he was fighting,
hunting, or marauding. To mention the name of such a man in connection
with commerce or with any mechanical art was an insult. Agriculture was
indeed less despised. Yet a highborn warrior was much more becomingly
employed in plundering the land of others than in tilling his own. The
religion of the greater part of the Highlands was a rude mixture of
Popery and Paganism. The symbol of redemption was associated with
heathen sacrifices and incantations. Baptized men poured libations of
ale to one Daemon, and set out drink offerings of milk for another.
Seers wrapped themselves up in bulls' hides, and awaited, in that
vesture, the inspiration which was to reveal the future. Even among
those minstrels and genealogists whose hereditary vocation was to
preserve the memory of past events, an enquirer would have found very
few who could read. In truth, he might easily have journeyed from sea to
sea without discovering a page of Gaelic printed or written. The price
which he would have had to pay for his knowledge of the country would
have been heavy. He would have had to endure hardships as great as if
he had sojour