Late in the evening, Sir Thomas Brassey's well-known yacht, the Sunbeam, fresh from the famous Norwegian trip, steamed up the Loch, and anchored two or three hundred yards away from us.

Next day Lady Brassey invited me to look over the Sunbeam, an offer of which I gladly availed myself. The Sunbeam is quite a floating palace, fitted up in the most luxurious manner. Her many saloons and sleeping-cabins are marvels of elegance and comfort, while the taste of Lady Brassey is displayed in the numberless pictures and curios which adorn the walls and tables in the different apartments. On deck, as below, everything is the perfection of neatness and tidiness. The funnel, when not in use, comes back upon a hinge, and lies horizontally upon the deck. The sides of the vessel are painted white. The crew numbers twenty-seven, and the yacht carries six boats.

The country around Loch-Duich is full of interesting and historical associations. Morvich, at the head of the Loch, was the scene of the famous "Pet Lamb's" depredations upon Winans' great deer forest. The animal which caused such a sensation throughout the United Kingdom, the Colonies, and America, is, we believe, still alive, and is permitted elsewhere to wander about according to the dictates of its own sweet will. Opening up from the head of the Loch is Glenshiel, the scene of the Spanish Invasion of 1719, and of the famous battle at which the invaders were defeated by the Government troops under General Wightman.

In May, 1778, Kenneth Mackenzie, XIX. of Kintail, in return for the restoration, by George III., of the titles of Earl of Seaforth, Viscount Fortrose, and Baron Ardelve, raised a regiment of 1130 men for His Majesty's service. Five hundred of these were raised from among his own immediate vassals, and about four hundred from the estates of the Mackenzies of Scatwell, Kilcoy, Applecross, and Redcastle. Some gentlemen from the South, to whom Seaforth gave commissions in the regiment, brought with them about two hundred men, of whom forty-three were English and Irish. The Macraes of Kintail, who were ever faithful and devoted followers of the Seaforth family, were so numerous in the regiment that it was known more by their name than by that of the Mackenzies themselves. This corps, in June, 1778, was inspected at Elgin by General Skene, and then

embodied under the name of Seaforth's Highlanders, or the 78th Regiment. It is now the 72nd, and considered to be one of the finest regiments in the British Army.

When William, fifth Earl of Seaforth, was obliged to remain in France for several years for his complicity in the Rising of 1715, the rents of his lands were regularly collected and sent to him by a faithful steward, named Murchison. This man was able, with the aid of Seaforth's clansmen, to keep possession of the Earl's forfeited estates until they were restored to his Lordship in 1726. The tenantry are said to have sent their exiled Chief various gifts in proportion to their circumstances. One year Murchison remitted no less than £800 of rent to his master in France, while at the same time the tenantry paid another rent to the Commissioners of the forfeited estates.

These things happened in Kintail's palmy days, when a clannish feeling of attachment bound the heart of landlord and tenant or rather chief and clansman-together; when deer forests and "irrepressible Americans" were unknown in the Highlands; when the people possessed their lands without fear of summary eviction; and when the land yielded sufficient to pay the rent, to furnish a gift to an exiled landlord, and to support the tenant and his family in ease and comfort. Alas! those days are gone! In 1831, the population of the parish of Kintail was 1240; in 1841, it had decreased to 1186; in 1851, to 1009; and in 1881, to 688. These figures need no comment-they tell their own sad tale. The parish which in 1778 turned out 500 ablebodied Highlanders for the service of their King and country, could not now turn out 100! The avarice of grasping and degenerate chiefs has worked the ruin of the people who were the means of making them chiefs, and the spots, where hundreds of happy and contented people once spent their peaceful lives, are now preserves for deer and pastures for sheep! No human foot, save that of the sportsman, the gillie, and the shepherd, is permitted to intrude upon the vast desolations which are the curse and disgrace of our land; but the time is coming, slowly but no less surely, when the land will once more be the people's; when wild animals will no longer be deemed of more account than men; and when a retributive Justice shall have swept the

present system of landlordism off the face of a country which it has brought to the verge of utter ruin.

HECTOR ROSE MACKENZIE,

(To be continued.)

ETYMOLOGY OF DUMBARTON.

DUMBARTON has always been said to mean the Fort of the Britons. George Chalmers (Caledonia), Isaac Taylor (Words and Places), James A. Robertson (Gaelic Topography), and others, refer to this way of explaining the name, and do not suggest any other. Some years ago there occurred to me another explanation, which is now offered for the consideration of the reader. I have not seen it in print, and I have not heard it mentioned in conversation. I have gone past Dumbarton five times; once I was in the town for an hour, but I had not time to visit the Rock. The Rock rises to the height of 206 feet. Towards the top it is cleft into two summits, of which one is higher than the other; it is somewhat like a mitre; the cleft begins about half way up the Rock, so that the gap or fissure measures about one hundred feet from its commencement to the top of the higher summit. The Gaelic bearn means a notch, a gap; the verb bearn is to notch; bearnta is notched. Perhaps it was called Dunbearn, the Hill of the Notch, or Dunbearnta, the Notched Hill. The houses which afterwards were built near its foot were called Dunbearntaton; shortened and softened into Dunbarton. The hill gave its name to the town, and then the town gave its name to the hill. Before then was changed to m. The Celt has a very quick eye for natural objects, and looking at the pinnacle-shaped hill, cleft from above downwards for one hundred feet, leaving a gap which is, perhaps, fifty or sixty feet wide at the top, he could hardly avoid calling it Dun (hill), Bearnta (notched). Was the name given by Gaelic Celts or by Kymric Celts? On looking at Price's English-Welsh Dictionary (1857), I find that gap, or cleft, or notch, is not represented in Welsh by bearn or any word like it. Assuming that the name referred to the gap, it has been given by the Gaelic race. The usual readers of the Celtic Magazine are not likely to grumble at space being given to antiquarian matters, but perhaps some stranger may glance at this page and ask what is the use of troubling about things belonging to the long ago. I answer him in the words of Mr. Gladstone:-"It is a degradation to man to be reduced to the life of the present. He will never put forth his hopes, his views, and his efforts towards the future, with due effect and energy, unless, at the same time, he prizes, and holds fondly clasped to his heart, the recollections of the past. (Address to the Edinburgh Town Council, November, 1885, on handing over to their care the market cross, which he had rebuilt.) It is, perhaps, a little strange that they who named the hill did not call it Craig-bearnta. The word bearn is met with in Craigiebarns, a hill near Dunkeld; also in Pyrenees. I do not wish to be thought very positive, but my private opinion is that Dumbarton has nothing to do with the Britons, but that it is the town near the hill with the cleft top. I apologise for making this note so long, but it is not every day that a person has the chance of pointing out a mistake that has been believed in for a thousand years, from the time of the venerable Bede even unto this day.

Devonport, Devon,

THOMAS STRATTON, M.D. (Edin.)

THE CONFLICTS OF THE CLANS.

(Continued.)

THE TROUBLES BETWEEN THE EARLS OF HUNTLY AND

MORAY.

WHILST the North of Scotland was thus in a combustion, the Spanish Blanks were discovered, and Mr. George Carr, Doctor of the Laws, was apprehended in the Isle of Cumbrae, and brought back to Edinburgh, 1592. Afterward, the year of God, 1594, the Popish Earls, Angus, Huntly, and Errol, were, at the earnest suit of the Queen of England's ambassador, forfeited at a Parliament held at Edinburgh the penult of May, 1594. Then was the King moved to make the Earl of Argyll, his Majesty's Lieutenant in the North of Scotland, to invade the Earls of Huntly and Errol. Argyll, being glad of this employment (having received money from the Queen of England for this purpose), makes great preparation for the journey, and addresses himself quickly forward; thinking thereby to have a good occasion to revenge his brotherin-law, the Earl of Moray's death; so on he went, with full assurance of a certain victory, accompanied with the Earl of Tullibardine, Sir Lachlan Maclean, and divers Islanders, Mackintosh, Grant, and Clan Gregor, Macneill of Barra, with all their friends and dependers, together with the whole surname of Campbell, with sundry others, whom either greediness of prey or malice against the Gordons, had thrust forward in that expedition; in all, above 10,000 men. And, coming through all the mountainous countries of that part of Scotland, they arrived at Ruthven of Badenoch, the 27th of September, the year 1594, which house they besieged, because it appertained to Huntly; but it was so well defended by the Clan Pherson (Huntly's servants) that Argyll was forced to give over the siege and to address himself towards the Lowlands; where the Lord Forbes, with his kin, the Frasers, the Dunbars, the Clan Kenzie, the Irvines, the Ogilvies,

the Leslies, the Munroes, and divers other surnames of the North, should have met him as the King's Lieutenant, and so join with his forces against Huntly.

Argyll came thus forward to Drummin, in Strathdown, and encamped hard thereby, the 2nd of October. Huntly and Errol, hearing of this great preparation made against them, lacked neither courage nor resolution; they assemble all such as would follow them and their fortune in this extremity. Errol came unto the Earl of Huntly to Strathbogie with 100 or 120 of resolute gentlemen; and so, having there joined with Huntly's forces, they march forward from thence to Carnburgh, and then to Achindown, with 1500 horsemen, the 3rd of October; parting from Achindown, Huntly sent Captain Thomas Carr and some of the family of Tillieboudie (Gordon), to spy the fields and view the enemy. These gentlemen, meeting by chance with Argyll's spies, killed them all, except one whom they saved and examined, and by him understood that Argyll was at hand. This accident much encouraged the Earl of Huntly's men, taking this as a presage of an ensuing victory; whereupon Huntly and Errol do resolve to fight with Argyll before he should join with the Lord Forbes and the rest of his forces; so they march towards the enemy, who, by this time, was at Glenlivet, in the mountains of Strathavon.

The Earl of Argyll, understanding that Huntly was at hand, who (as he believed) durst not show his countenance against such an army, he was somewhat astonished, and would gladly have delayed the battle until he had met with the Lord Forbes; but, perceiving them to draw near, and trusting to his great number, he began to order his battle, and to encourage his people with the hope of prey, and the enemy's small forces to resist them. He gave the commandment and leading of his vanguard to Sir Lachlan Maclean and to Achinbreck, which did consist of 4000 men, whereof 2000 men were hagbutters. Argyll himself and Tullibardine followed with all the rest of the army. The Earl of Errol and Sir Patrick Gordon of Achindown, accompanied with the Laird of Gight, Bonnietoun Wood, and Captain Carr, led the Earl of Huntly's vanguard, which consisted of 300 gentlemen; Huntly followed them with the rest of his company,