When the Lowlanders want to drink a chearupping-cup, they go to the public house, called the Change- house, and call for a chopine of two-penny, which is a thin, yeasty beverage, made of malt; not quite so strong as the table-beer of England. This is brought in a pewter stoop, shaped like a skittle, from whence it is emptied into a quaff; that is, a curious cup made of different pieces of wood, such as box and ebony, cut into little staves, joined alternately, and secured with delicate hoops, having two ears or handles. It holds about a gill, is sometimes tipt round the mouth with silver, and has a plate of the same metal at bottom, with the landlord’s cypher engraved. The Highlanders, on the contrary, despise this liquor, and regale themselves with whisky; a malt spirit, as strong as geneva, which they swallow in great quantities, without any signs of inebriation. They are used to it from the cradle, and find it an excellent preservative against the winter cold, which must be extreme on these mountains. I am told that it is given with great success to infants, as a cordial in the confluent small-pox, when the eruption seems to flag, and the symptoms grow unfavourable. The Highlanders are used to eat much more animal food than falls to the share of their neighbours in the Low-country. They delight in hunting; have plenty of deer and other game, with a great number of sheep, goats, and black-cattle running wild, which they scruple not to kill as venison, without being at much pains to ascertain the property.

Inverary is but a poor town, though it stands immediately under the protection of the duke of Argyle, who is a mighty prince in this part of Scotland. The peasants live in wretched cabins, and seem very poor; but the gentlemen are tolerably well lodged, and so loving to strangers, that a man runs some risque of his life from their hospitality. It must be observed that the poor Highlanders are now seen to disadvantage. They have been not only disarmed by act of parliament; but also deprived of their antient garb, which was both graceful and convenient; and what is a greater hardship still, they are compelled to wear breeches; a restraint which they cannot bear with any degree of patience: indeed, the majority wear them, not in the proper place, but on poles or long staves over their shoulders. They are even debarred the use of their striped stuff, called Tartane, which was their own manufacture, prized by them above all the velvets, brocades, and tissues of Europe and Asia. They now lounge along in loose great coats, of coarse russet, equally mean and cumbersome, and betray manifest marks of dejection. Certain it is, the government could not have taken a more effectual method to break their national spirit.

We have had princely sport in hunting the stag on these mountains. These are the lonely hills of Morven, where Fingal and his heroes enjoyed the same pastime: I feel an enthusiastic pleasure when I survey the brown heath that Ossian wont to tread; and hear the wind whistle through the bending grass. When I enter our landlord’s hall, I look for the suspended harp of that divine bard, and listen in hopes of hearing the aerial sound of his respected spirit. The Poems of Ossian are in every mouth. A famous antiquarian of this country, the laird of Macfarlane, at whose house we dined a few days ago, can repeat them all in the original Gaelick, which has a great affinity to the Welch, not only in the general sound, but also in a great number of radical words; and I make no doubt but that they are both sprung from the same origin. I was not a little surprised, when asking a Highlander one day, if he knew where we should find any game? he replied, ‘hu niel Sassenagh,’ which signifies no English: the very same answer I should have received from a Welchman, and almost in the same words. The Highlanders have no other name for the people of the Low-country, but Sassenagh, or Saxons; a strong presumption, that the Lowland Scots and the English are derived from the same stock. The peasants of these hills strongly resemble those of Wales in their looks, their manners, and habitations; every thing I see, and hear, and feel, seems Welch. The mountains, vales, and streams; the air and climate; the beef, mutton, and game, are all Welch. It must be owned, however, that this people are better provided than we in some articles. They have plenty of red deer and roebuck, which are fat and delicious at this season of the year. Their sea teems with amazing quantities of the finest fish in the world; and they find means to procure very good claret at a very small expence.

Our landlord is a man of consequence in this part of the country; a cadet from the family of Argyle, and hereditary captain of one of his castles. His name, in plain English, is Dougal Campbell; but as there is a great number of the same appellation, they are distinguished (like the Welch) by patronimics; and as I have known an antient Briton called Madoc ap-Morgan, ap-Jenkin, ap-Jones, our Highland chief designs himself Dou’l Mac-amish mac-’oul ich-ian, signifying Dougal, the son of James, the son of Dougal, the