poor cock. The henchman accordingly set off, but on reaching the place whence the sound had come, his party was attacked on all sides by the furious Athole men, who had meanwhile returned, and were only too glad to take advantage of the opportunity of revenge thus offered them. The party of Frasers were cut to pieces, the only survivor being Donald himself, who, after a most vigorous resistance, was overpowered by numbers and bound tightly with cords. He was then commanded in no gentle terms to guide his captors to where the rest of his Clan were awaiting him, but by an almost superhuman effort he burst his bonds asunder, and broke through his guards. He had not got a hundred yards, however, before he was overtaken and slain. A few of the victorious Athole men then proceeded to don the tartans of the dead Frasers, and made straight in the track of the main body of Lovat's men, the rest of their party following some distance in the rear. After marching two or three miles they came in view of the Frasers, encamped in a little hollow in the side of a hill, evidently feasting on their booty, unconscious of danger, and totally unprepared for an attack. The main body of the Athole men now made a circuit round to the back of the hill so as to take the enemy in the rear, while the advance party, secure in their borrowed tartans, advanced boldly towards the Frasers. Believing them to be his own men, Lovat beckoned them to come on, when, with a wild yell, they threw off their disguises, and rushed furiously upon the astonished foe. At the same moment, the main body charged down from the brow of the hill and threw themselves upon the rear. A scene of butchery ensued which it is impossible to describe. Lord Lovat was shouting for his horse, when he was cut down by several of his opponents at once. The rest of his Clan, disheartened by the fall of their Chief, were quickly despatched, save a remnant who managed to escape. The Athole men returned home with all the booty which had been carried off by the Frasers. Before leaving, however, they generously gave the rites of burial to their fallen foes, and erected an immense cairn of stones over their graves, which is known as Fraser's Cairn to this day. The country people believe that at midnight the ghost of Lord Lovat can be seen rushing madly round the cairn, calling loudly for a horsea horse! H. R. M. THE "SCOTTISH REVIEW" ON THE REPORT THE Scottish Review for the present quarter contains two articles of special interest to Highlanders-the first to students of Celtic Philology, and the second to Land Law Reformers. The articles we refer to are those on the Scottish Language and Highland Land Law Reform. The first-mentioned bears evidence of coming from the pen of one who has kept himself quite abreast-in some respects, indeed, ahead-of the most recent disclosures in the field of philologic and ethnologic research. His special subject is the Lowland Scottish Language; but in the course of his observations he makes digressions among the tangled thicket of Celtic Philology, and his remarks on the subject are full of interest. Very important, and even striking, is the following remark, which lays down a theory that the upholders of the old fashioned beliefs will find it hard to disprove. He says "The probability is that the race to which both the Scots and the Picts belonged was neither Gaelic nor Celtic, but non-Aryan. The Scots certainly spoke the Goidelic dialect of the Celtic language, probably as an acquired or adopted tongue; but many of the Picts did not understand it. Columba, who spoke Goidelic, could make himself understood, it is true, to King Brude and the men about him when he visited him in his stronghold in the neighbourhood of the River Ness; but when he penetrated further into the Pictish country, and came in contact with plebeians and peasants, he had to preach to them, as Adamnan says, by means of interpreters. Their language, there is reason to believe, was, like their race, non-Aryan." The whole article will amply repay careful perusal. The author of the article on Highland Land Law Reform enters on an able and most sympathetic examination of the Report of the Crofters' Commission. The author is one of the few who seem to have properly grasped the idea expressed by the Commissioners in the "Township" scheme, which they recommend for the sanction of the Legislature. The proposal has met with disfavour, very much because it has not been understood by the critics. Opinions, the most various and contradictory, have been expressed with respect to the scheme according to the standpoint from which it is viewed. "It has been stigmatised as retrograde, socialistic, and illusory. On the other hand, it has been denounced with equal vigour as timid and half-hearted." "It has altogether failed to satisfy the more. advanced advocates of Highland Land Law Reform, and it has utterly disgusted the economists." The principle of the scheme the Reviewer puts in a sentence—“It recommends an individual occupancy of arable land with a common occupancy of pasture.” The origin of the idea is neither new nor foreign; it "has been for centuries, and is still a reality in the habits of the people,' a reality which could not now be set at nought without arousing public sentiment and opposition."" References in proof of the existence and practical operation of the Township system are made to the very interesting contribution by Mr A. A. Carmichael, which is appended to the Report of the Commission. "It thus appears," says our author, "that the organisation of the Highland Township, whatever the value of that organisation may be, is entirely indigenous-a product of the past life of the people, and an illustration of a deep-seated and farreaching race characteristic." To the objection that a system involving "common occupancy" of pasture is retrogressive and inimical to individual industry, the Commissioners give the unanswerable reply "that pasture is indispensable to the small tenant in most parts of the Highlands and Islands, the soil and climate being such that he can never depend on cereal cultivation alone, either for rent or sustenance, while the areas requisite for the grazing of cattle, and especially of sheep, are so vast and the surface so rugged that numerous enclosures are impracticable." "Even Sir Kenneth Mackenzie, the kindliest of proprietors, who would solve the problem by increasing the number of farms with individual holdings, must know that on his own Gairloch estate the cost of fencing the pasture ground of each small farm would be such as to render the scheme impracticable. The farms would need to be so large that the country, if the occupiers of these farms were the only inhabitants, would be desolate." The Township of the past never possessed corporate existence in law. "The Township conceived by the Commissioners is one possessed of an acknowledged corporate existence; it is an organism invested with a full legal recognition of the right to live." The Commissioners seek to justify their proposals on grounds of "social urgency and political expediency," but these proposals are also in full accord with the impulses of popular feeling as reflected in the verdict of speculative thought. This remarkably able and opportune article concludes as follows: When we look back on the schemes of society conceived by the Commissioners, and compare it with the society now found in the North, we discover a contrast which is nearly absolute. In the Highland society of to-day, we have the extremes of inequality. On the one hand, we have enormous sheep farms, enormous deer forests, enormous properties; on the other hand, there is the "mingled multitude" which the Commissioners declare to be "so slenderly furnished with the means of life." Between these extremes there is scarcely any connecting link. But in the scheme of Highland society submitted to us by the Commissioners there is a regular gradation of classes. We have the cottar fisherman, the leasehold crofter, the small farmer, and the peasant proprietor, we have the more substantial farmer and the large farmer, we have fishing tenants and tenants of deer forests, and we have proprietors of all grades. Such is the conception of Highland Land Law Reform developed in the Report. It is a conception which has originated in an intelligent study of existing organisations; a conception which is at once broad and statesmanlike, and, at the same time, just and moderate in its spirit ; a conception which harmonizes both with the aspirations of the people and with the tendencies of the age; and, finally, a conception which, to the Highland crofter, is full of bright promise of a happy future, in which sloth has given way to industry, want to prosperity, and agitation to loyal contentment. The men whose deeds of fidelity to chiefs and to princes are so full of pathos, who have always been only too prone to place absolute faith in those whom they have regarded as their leaders these men are still as true at heart, and are still as ready to be devoted in action, to the idea of law, and to the emblems of authority, and to the persons of rulers, as they have ever been. The peasantry of the Highlands have endured long, and they have endured well. Under “want and stripes" they have remained silent; and if, at last, they have spoken with courage and determination, they have spoken also - at least from their own lips and from the lips of those in whom they trust-with self-restraint and with moderation. Nor can we reasonably doubt, if just concessions are made to their demands and the means of self-help placed within their reach, that their industrial success in their own country will be as assured as it has been in foreign countries, and that their sterling worth will prove as substantial in the ways of peace as it has already proved in times of peril and on the field of battle. W. THE TORONTO CALEDONIAN SOCIETY.--An interesting demonstration was given by the Toronto Caledonian Society, in July, when to the number of 550, with pipers, bands, and banners, they made an excursion to the Falls of Niagara. It is said to have been the most successful ever enjoyed by the Society. |