CONTENTS.

Pages
CHAPTER I.
Social changes in Scotland consequent on the Union of the Crowns. Impetus given to these changes after Culloden in the eighteenth century, and after the introduction of steam as a motive power in the nineteenth. Posting from Scotland to London. Stage coach travelling to England. Canal travelling between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Loch Katrine in 1843. Influence of Walter Scott. Steamboats to London. Railroads in Scotland. Effects of steamboat development in the West Highlands,[1–37]
CHAPTER II.
Traces of Paganism in Scotland. Relics of the Celtic Church; ‘Deserts.’ Survival of Roman Catholicism in West Highlands and Islands. Influence of the Protestant clergy. Highland ministers. Lowland ministers. Diets of catechising. Street preachers,[38–76]
CHAPTER III.
The sermon in Scottish Kirks. Intruding animals in country churches. The ‘collection.’ Church psalmody. Precentors and organs. Small congregations in the Highlands. Parish visitation. Survival of the influence of clerical teaching. Religious mania,[77–106]
CHAPTER IV.
Superstition in Scotland. Holy wells. Belief in the Devil. Growth of the rigid observance of the Sabbath. Efforts of kirk-sessions and presbyteries to enforce Jewish strictness in regard to the Sabbath. Illustrations of the effects of these efforts,[107–141]
CHAPTER V.
Litigiousness of the Scots. Sir Daniel Macnee and jury-trial. Scottish judges, Patrick Robertson, Cullen, Neaves, Rutherford Clark.[142–155]
CHAPTER VI.
Medical Men. Sandy Wood. Knox. Nairn and Sir William Gull. A broken leg in Canna. Changes in the professoriate and students in the Scottish Universities. A St. Andrews Professor. A Glasgow Professor. Some Edinburgh Professors—Pillans, Blackie, Christison, Maclagan, Playfair, Chalmers, Tait. Scottish Schoolmasters.[156–184]
CHAPTER VII.
Old and new type of landed proprietors in Scotland. Highland Chiefs—Second Marquess of Breadalbane; late Duke of Argyll. Ayrshire Lairds—T. F. Kennedy of Dunure; ‘Sliddery Braes’; Smith of Auchengree. Fingask and Charles Martin. New lairds of wealth,[185–204]
CHAPTER VIII.
Lowland farmers; Darlings of Priestlaw. Sheep-farmers. Hall Pringle of Hatton. Farm-servants. Ayrshire milk-maids. The consequences of salting. Poachers. ‘Cauld sowens out o’ a pewter plate.’ Farm life in the Highlands. A Skye eviction. Clearances in Raasay. Summer Shielings of former times. Fat Boy of Soay. A West Highlander’s first visit to Glasgow. Crofters in Skye. Highland ideas of women’s work. Highland repugnance to handicrafts,[205–238]
CHAPTER IX.
Highland ferries and coaches. The charms of Iona. How to see Staffa. The Outer Hebrides. Stones of Callernish. St. Kilda. Sound of Harris. The Cave-massacre in Eigg. Skeleton from a clan fight still unburied in Jura. The hermit of Jura. Peculiar charms of the Western Isles. Influence of the clergy on the cheerfulness of the Highlanders. Disappearance of Highland customs. Dispersing of clans from their original districts. Dying out of Gaelic; advantages of knowing some Gaelic; difficulties of the language,[239–273]
CHAPTER X.
The Orkney Islands. The Shetland Islands. Faroe Islands contrasted with Western Isles. ‘Burning the water.’ A fisher of men. Salmon according to London taste. Trout and fishing-poles. A wolf’s den,[274–293]
CHAPTER XI.
Scottish shepherds and their dogs. A snow-storm among the Southern Uplands. Scottish inns of an old type. Reminiscences of some Highland inns. Revival of roadside inns by cyclists. Scottish drink. Drinking customs now obsolete,[294–320]
CHAPTER XII.
Scottish humour in relation to death and the grave. Resurrectionists. Tombstone inscriptions. ‘Naturals’ in Scotland. Confused thoughts of second childhood. Belief in witchcraft. Miners and their superstitions. Colliers and Salters in Scotland were slaves until the end of the eighteenth century. Metal-mining in Scotland,[321–346]
CHAPTER XIII.
Town-life in old times. Dirtiness of the streets. Clubs. Hutton and Black in Edinburgh. A feast of snails. Royal Society Club. Bailies ‘gang lowse.’ Rothesay fifty years ago. James Smith of Jordanhill. Fisher-folk of the Forth. Decay of the Scots language. Receipt for pronouncing English,[347–369]
CHAPTER XIV.
The Scottish School of Geology. Neptunist and Vulcanist Controversy. J. D. Forbes. Charles Maclaren. Hugh Miller. Robert Chambers. W. Haidinger. H. von Dechen. Ami Boué. The life of a field-geologist. Experiences of a geologist in the West Highlands. A crofter home in Skye. The Spar Cave and Coruisk. Night in Loch Scavaig,[370–409]
CHAPTER XV.
Influence of Topography on the people of Scotland. Distribution and ancient antagonism of Celt and Saxon. Caithness and its grin. Legends and place-names. Popular explanation of boulders. Cliff-portraits. Fairy-stones and supposed human footprints. Imitative forms of flint. Scottish climate and its influence on the people. Indifference of the Highlander to rain. ‘Dry rain.’ Wind in Scotland. Salutations on the weather. Shakespeare on the climate of Morayland. Influence of environment on the Highlander,[410–439]
Index,[440–447]

CHAPTER I.

Social changes in Scotland consequent on the Union of the Crowns. Impetus given to these changes after Culloden in the eighteenth century, and after the introduction of steam as a motive power in the nineteenth. Posting from Scotland to London. Stage coach travelling to England. Canal travelling between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Loch Katrine in 1843. Influence of Walter Scott. Steamboats to London. Railroads in Scotland. Effects of steamboat development in the West Highlands.

When on the 5th of April, 1603, James VI. left Edinburgh with a great cavalcade of attendants, to ascend the throne of England, a series of social changes was set in motion in Scotland which has been uninterruptedly advancing ever since. Its progress has not been uniform, seeing that it has fluctuated with the access or diminution of national animosities on the two sides of the Tweed, until, as these sources of irritation died away, the two nations were welded into one by the arts of peace. Looking back across the three centuries, we can recognise two epochs when the progress of change received a marked impetus.

NATIONAL ANIMOSITIES

The first of these dates from the failure of the Jacobite cause in 1746. At Culloden, not only were the hopes of the Stuarts finally extinguished, but a new period was ushered in for the development of Scotland. The abolition of the heritable jurisdictions, the extension of the same organised legal system over every part of the kingdom, the suppression of cattle-raids and other offences by the Highlanders against their lowland neighbours, the building of good roads, and the improvement of the old tracks, whereby easy communication was provided across the country, and especially through the Highlands between the northern and southern districts—these and other connected reforms led to the gradual breaking down of the barrier of animosity that had long kept Highlander and Lowlander apart, and by thus producing a freer intercourse of the two races, greatly strengthened the community as a whole, whether for peace or for war. On the other hand, the landing of Prince Charles Edward, the uprise of the clans, the victory of Prestonpans, and the invasion of England could not fail to revive and intensify the ancient enmity of the English against their northern neighbours. This animosity blazed out anew under the Bute administration, when fresh fuel was added to it from the literary side by Wilkes and Churchill. Nevertheless the leaven of union was quietly at work all the time. Not only did Scot commingle more freely with Scot, but increasing facilities of communication allowed the southward tide of migration to flow more freely across the Border. English travellers also found their way in growing numbers into that land north of the Tweed which for centuries had been at once scorned and feared, but which could now be everywhere safely visited. What had been satirised as

The wretched lot