PART FIRST.
GENERAL HISTORY OF THE HIGHLANDS.
[CHAPTER I.]
B.C. 55—A.D. 446.
Highlands defined—Ancient Scotland—Roman Transactions—Agricola—Caledonians—Contest at Loch Ore—Galgacus—Mons Grampius—Battle—Agricola superseded—Lollius Urbicus—Antonine’s Wall—Ulpius Marcellus—Severus—Constantius Chlorus—Picts—Scots—Attacots—Attack Roman Provinces—Romans abandon Britain—Influence of Romans—Roman Remains—Roads—Camps—Ardoch.
As it is generally acknowledged that the physical character of a country influences in a great degree the moral and physical character of its inhabitants, and thus to a certain extent determines their history, it may not be deemed out of place to define here the application of the term Highlands, so far as Scotland is concerned, and briefly to describe the general physical aspect of that part of our native land. If it hold good at all that there subsists a relation between a people and the country which they have inhabited for centuries, the following history will show that this is peculiarly the case with the Scottish Highlanders.
Most of those who have thought of the matter at all, have doubtless formed to themselves a general notion of the northern half of Scotland as a
“Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood,”
and of its inhabitants as a brawny, rugged, indomitable, impulsive race, steadfast in their friendship and loyalty, and relentless but generous in their enmity. Although the popular and poetic notion of the country is on the whole correct, and although the above epithets may express the main features of the character of the people, still it requires a close acquaintance with this interesting race, both historically and by personal intercourse, to form an adequate notion of their character in all its aspects.