Then I took another guide, which brought me such strange ways over mountains and rocks, that I think my horse never went the like; and I am sure I never saw any ways that might fellow them I did go through a country called Glen Esk, where passing by the side of a hill, so steep as the ridge of a house, where the way was rocky, and not above a yard broad in some places, so fearful and horrid it was to look down into the bottom, for if either horse or man had slipped, he had fallen without recovery a good mile downright; but I thank God, at night I came to a lodging in the Laird of Edzell's land, where I lay at an Irish house, the folks not being able to speak scarce any English, but I supped and went to bed, where I had not laid long, but I was enforced to rise, I was so stung with Irish mosquitoes, a creature that hath six legs, and lives like a monster altogether upon man's flesh, they do inhabit and breed most in sluttish houses, and this house was none of the cleanest, the beast is much like a louse in England, both in shape and nature; in a word, they were to me the A. and the Z. the prologue and the epilogue, the first and the last that I had in all my travels from Edinburgh; and had not this Highland Irish house helped me at a pinch, I should have sworn that all Scotland had not been so kind as to have bestowed a louse upon me: but with a shift that I had, I shifted off my cannibals, and was never more troubled with them.
The next day I travelled over an exceeding high mountain, called mount Skene, where I found the valley very warm before I went up it; but when I came to the top of it, my teeth began to dance in my head with cold, like Virginal's jacks;[21] and withal, a most familiar mist embraced me round, that I could not see thrice my length any way: withal, it yielded so friendly a dew, that did moisten through all my clothes: where the old Proverb of a Scottish mist was verified, in wetting me to the skin. Up and down, I think this hill is six miles, the way so uneven, stony, and full of bogs, quagmires, and long heath, that a dog with three legs will out-run a horse with four; for do what we could, we were four hours before we could pass it.
Thus with extreme travel, ascending and descending, mounting and alighting, I came at night to the place where I would be, in the Brae of Mar, which is a large county, all composed of such mountains, that Shooter's Hill, Gad's Hill, Highgate Hill, Hampstead Hill, Birdlip Hill, or Malvern's Hills, are but mole-hills in comparison, or like a liver, or a gizard under a capon's wing, in respect of the altitude of their tops, or perpendicularity of their bottoms. There I saw Mount Ben Aven, with a furred mist upon his snowy head instead of a night-cap: (for you must understand, that the oldest man alive never saw but the snow was on the top of divers of those hills, both in summer, as well as in winter.) There did I find the truly Noble and Right Honourable Lords John Erskine Earl of Mar, James Stuart Earl of Murray, George Gordon Earl of Enzie, son and heir to the Marquess of Huntly, James Erskine Earl of Buchan, and John Lord Erskine, son and heir to the Earl of Mar, and their Countesses, with my much honoured, and my best assured and approved friend, Sir William Murray Knight, of Abercairney, and hundred of others Knights, Esquires, and their followers; all and every man in general in one habit, as if Lycurgus had been there, and made laws of equality: for once in the year, which is the whole month of August, and sometimes part of September, many of the nobility and gentry of the kingdom (for their pleasure) do come into these Highland Countries to hunt, where they do conform themselves to the habit of the Highland men, who for the most part speak nothing but Irish; and in former time were those people which were called the Red-shanks.[22] Their habit is shoes with but one sole apiece; stockings (which they call short hose) made of a warm stuff of divers colours, which they call tartan: as for breeches, many of them, nor their forefathers never wore any, but a jerkin of the same stuff that their hose is of, their garters being bands or wreaths of hay or straw, with a plaid about their shoulders, which is a mantle of divers colours, of much finer and lighter stuff than their hose, with blue flat caps on their heads, a handkerchief knit with two knots about their neck; and thus are they attired. Now their weapons are long bows and forked arrows, swords and targets, harquebusses, muskets, dirks, and Lochaber axes. With these arms I found many of them armed for the hunting. As for their attire, any man of what degree soever that comes amongst them, must not disdain to wear it; for if they do, then they will disdain to hunt, or willingly, to bring in their dogs: but if men be kind unto them, and be in their habit; then are they conquered with kindness, and the sport will be plentiful. This was the reason that I found so many noblemen and gentlemen in those shapes. But to proceed to the hunting.
My good Lord of Mar having put me into that shape,[23] I rode with him from his house, where I saw the ruins of an old castle, called the castle of Kindroghit [Castletown]. It was built by King Malcolm Canmore (for a hunting house) who reigned in Scotland when Edward the Confessor, Harold, and Norman William reigned in England: I speak of it, because it was the last house that I saw in those parts; for I was the space of twelve days after, before I saw either house, corn field, or habitation for any creature, but deer, wild horses, wolves, and such like creatures, which made me doubt that I should never have seen a house again.[24]
Thus the first day we travelled eight miles, where there small cottages built on purpose to lodge in, which they call Lonchards, I thank my good Lord Erskine, he commanded that I should always be lodged in his lodging, the kitchen being always on the side of a bank, many kettles and pots boiling, and many spits turning and winding, with great variety of cheer: as venison baked, sodden, roast, and stewed beef, mutton, goats, kid, hares, fresh salmon, pigeons, hens, capons, chickens, partridge, moor-coots, heath-cocks, capercailzies, and termagants [ptarmigans]; good ale, sack, white, and claret, tent, (or Alicante) with most potent Aquavitæ.
All these, and more than these we had continually, in superfluous abundance, caught by Falconers, Fowlers, Fishers, and brought by my Lord's tenants and purveyors to victual our camp, which consisted of fourteen or fifteen hundred men and horses; the manner of the hunting is this: five or six hundred men do rise early in the morning, and they do disperse themselves divers ways, and seven, eight, or ten miles compass, they do bring or chase in the deer in many herds, (two, three, or four hundred in a herd) to such or such a place, as the Nobleman shall appoint them; then when day is come, the Lords and gentlemen of their companies, do ride or go to the said places, sometimes wading up to their middles through bournes and rivers: and then: they being come to the place, do lie down on the ground, till those foresaid scouts which are called the Tinchel, do bring down the deer: but as the proverb says of a bad cook, so these Tinchel-men do lick their own fingers; for besides their bows and arrows, which they carry with them, we can hear now and then a harquebuss or a musket go off, which they do seldom discharge in vain: Then after we had stayed there three hours or thereabouts, we might perceive the deer appear on the hills round about us, (their heads making a show like a wood) which being followed close by the Tinchel, are chased down into the valley where we lay; then all the valley on each side being waylaid with a hundred couple of strong Irish greyhounds, they are let loose as the occasion serves upon the herd of deer, so that with dogs, guns, arrows, dirks, and daggers, in the space of two hours, fourscore fat deer were slain, which after are disposed of some one way, and some another, twenty and thirty miles, and more than enough left for us to make merry withal at our rendezvous. I liked the sport so well, that I made these two sonnets following.
hy should I waste invention to indite,
Ovidian
fictions, or Olympian games?