WILIIAM AND WA11Y.

5

a plaid, and listens in vain for the bark of a shepherd’s dog orthe bleat of a lamb. Mile after mile the only sound that in- ■dicates life is the faint cry of a bird of prey from some storm-beaten pinnacle of rock. The progress of civilisation, whichhas turned so many wastes into fields yellow with harvests orgay with apple blossoms, has only made Glencoe more deso-late. All the science and industry of a peaceful age can extractnothing valuable from that wilderness: but, in an age ofviolence and rapine, the -wilderness itself was valued on accountof the shelter which it afforded to the plunderer and hisplunder. Nothing could be more natural than that the clan towhich this rugged desert belonged should have been noted forpredatory habits. For, among the Highlanders generally, torob W'as-thought at least as honourable an employment as tocultivate the soil; and, of all the Highlanders, the Macdonaldsof Glencoe had the least productive soil, and the most con-venient and secure den of robbers. Successive governmentshad tried to punish this wild race: but no large force had ever-been employed for that purpose; and a small force was easilyresisted or eluded by men familiar with every recess and everyoutlet of the natural fortress in which they had been born andbred. The people of Glencoe would probably have been lesstroublesome neighbours if they had lived among their ownkindred. But they were an outpost of the Clan Donald, se-parated from every other branch of their own family, and almostsurrounded by the domains of the hostile race of Diarmid.*

* “The real truth is, they were a branch of the Macdonalds (who werea brave courageous people always), seated among the Campbells, who(I mean the Glencoe men) are all Papists, if they have any religion, werealways counted a people much given to rapine and plunder, or sorners aswe call it, and much of a piece with your highwaymen in England. Severalgovernments desired to bring them to justice: but their country was inac-cessible to small parties.” See An impartial Account of some of the Trans-actions in Scotland concerning the Earl of Breadalbane, Viscount andMaster of Stair, Glenco Men, &c., London, 1695.

CHAP.

XVIII.