Lochaber

“ Then Iain returned, and found the Lochaber men sitting again at the fire. "Have I here the heroes who never saw men from whom they would retreat?" said Iain Caol to them. One of them replied, "We saw only two of them, but we never saw such men before. If one of them caught any of us, he could easily crush every bone of the body in his hand." So the Lochaber spies quietly returned home. The Camerons never again attempted to make a raid upon Gairloch, and Alastair Breac heard no more of their menaces. ”

“ Forbes, "bore very hard upon him." One day [291] when accounts were brought to Lochiel, in Badenoch, that the poor people in Lochaber had been so pillaged and harassed that they had really no necessaries to keep in their lives, Lochiel took out his purse and gave all the money he could well spare to be distributed among such in Lochaber. "And," said a friend who was with him, "I remember nothing better than that Sir Stewart Threipland at that time took out his purse and gave five guineas, expressing himself in these words: "I am sure that I have not so much for myself ”

“ CHAPTER I In all Lochaber—perhaps in all the Western Highlands—there was no more bored or disgusted man this sixteenth of August than Captain Keith Windham of the Royal Scots, as he rode down the Great Glen with a newly-raised company of recruits from Perth; and no more nervous or unhappy men than the recruits themselves. ”

“ There is hope in front; behind us nothing but darkness and the threatenings of storm. The Pap of Glencoe has disappeared in rain; the huge mountains on the right are as black as the deeds of murder done in the glen below; Ardgour over there, and Lochaber here, are steeped in gloom. And there is less sadness now in the old refrain of Lochaber since there is a prospect of the South shining before us. If Mary Avon is singing to herself about ”

“ These had well and accurately noted the respective spots where each of the Lochaber watchmen had lain down, and after some consultation, each had one of them assigned to him as his own peculiar object of attack. Having gone around the edge of the wood till each man was opposite to his slumbering enemy, they glided down the sloping edges of the hollow, armed with their dirks alone, and they crept on their bellies towards the bottom, drawing themselves like snakes silently and imperceptibly through the long heather. Full time was to be allowed for each man to reach his prey ”

“ Cameron should visit Lochaber to procure intelligence, and that Lochgarry should go to the east end of Loch Lochy, and remain upon the isthmus between the lakes, to watch the motions of the troops. They accordingly left Charles the same day, and Cameron and Clunes, after conducting the prince and his party to another hut in the neighbourhood, also took leave. ”

“ Rain in Lochaber—An Apple Tree in bloom by Candle-light—Mackenzie the Bird-Catcher—A Badenoch “Wise Woman” spitting in a Child’s Face to preserve it from the Fairies!
“It never rains but it pours,” and nowhere is the familiar adage in its utmost literalness truer than in Lochaber. During a long protracted drought of nearly a couple of months’ duration [June 1877] , we were constantly calling for rain; and no wonder, for the earth was hard and hide-bound as an Egyptian mummy ”

“ Corriearrick, of which the royal army had now come within sight, and over which it was Cope’s intention to march into Lochaber, is, as we have already seen, a lofty mountain of immense extent, occupying no less than nine miles out of the eighteen that form the last day’s march from Garviemore to Fort Augustus. It is extremely steep on the south side, and appears at a distance to rise almost as perpendicularly as a wall. Wade, we have seen, carried his road up this steep ascent by a series of many traverses, the descent on the north side being accomplished in much the same manner. ”

“ We have no intention of entering on anything like a minute or [366] photographic description of Glen Nevis, for which, indeed, half-a-dozen Nether Lochaber columns would hardly suffice; we can only hurriedly glance at what most instantly and indelibly struck us in the day’s excursion. ”

“ Lochiel was a reformer within his clan. The gallant Keppoch had forsworn the predatory habits which, in 1689, made his people threaten Inverness. Of Scothouse we shall hear the most excellent report. Now, it cannot be by a mere fortuitous coincidence that all the Highland traitors, James Mohr, Old Lovat, Glengarry, Barisdale, and some others, come precisely from the homes of cattle thieves, and from a factitious hothouse of old clan ideas; from the Macgregor country, Knoydart, the worst part of Lochaber, and Rannoch. ”

“ And the Prince learned afresh that a man, when his back is to the wall, had best not seek friends among the sleek and prosperous, who have cherished toys to love, but among the outlaws and the driven folk who know the open road of life.
It was by aid of the Glenmoriston men, their knowledge of the passes, that the fugitives came safe to Lochiel’s country of Lochaber, that, after dangers so close-set as to be almost laughable—so long the odds against them were—they reached the shore of Loch Moidart and found a French privateer beating about the coast. ”

“ Shortly after the accession of Charles II., Lauchlan Mackintosh, to enforce his claims to the disputed lands of Glenluy and Locharkaig against Cameron of Lochiel, raised his clan, and, assisted by the Macphersons, marched to Lochaber with 1500 men. He was met by Lochiel with 1200 men, of whom 300 were Macgregors. About 300 were armed with bows. ”

“ This branch of the Macdonalds was also known as the Clan Ian Abrach, probably from the fact that one of their chiefs was fostered in Lochaber (Gregory, Western Highlands, p. 67) . Macdonald of Glencoe was one of the chiefs who joined Graham of Claverhouse at Lochaber in 1689, and also took part in the rising in the northern highlands under General Buchan. He is represented in the ‘Grameid’ as ‘terrible in unwonted arms, covered as to his breast with raw hide, and towering far above his whole line by head and shoulders’ (p. 124) . ”

“ During May, Lochiel continued at Loch Arkeg, preparing for a summer campaign, and corresponding with Clunie Macpherson and with the treacherous Murray of Broughton on the subject. He was, at this time, in want of food and money. "I have scarcely a sufficiency of meal," he writes, "to serve myself and the gentlemen who are with me for four day [Pg 369] s, and can get none to purchase in this country." [290] After the breaking up of the scheme of fresh cooperations in May, and when Lochaber was occupied by the Government troops, Lochiel became anxious to retire to Badenoch. ”

“ Some regular troops, however few, would serve both as a rallying-point and as an example to the Highlanders. And, indeed, it had been only on the promise of such support that Lochiel had induced the chiefs to arm. Dundee sent letter after letter to Ireland full of cheerful accounts of the good promise of affairs, but urging the instant despatch of troops, together with a store of money, ammunition, and all the other necessaries for an army about to take the field, of which there was, in truth, a most plentiful lack in Lochaber. ”

“ Having been left an orphan, he was brought up till his 18th year under the care of the Marquis of Argyle, who, endeavouring to instil into him the unsavoury principles of the Covenanters, put him to school at Inverary under the guardianship of a gentleman of his own principles. “But young Lochiel preferred the sports of the field to the labours of the school,” and Argyle finding him totally intractable and utterly disgusted with covenanting principles, allowed him to return to Lochaber, to head his clan in the 18th year of his age. ”

“ The clan Cameron, being the actual occupants of the soil, offered a sturdy resistance to the intruder; John Maclean, the second laird of Coll, who had held the estate for some time by force, was at length slain by them in Lochaber; and Allan, the son of Donald Dhu, having acknowledged himself a vassal of the Lord of Lochalsh, received in return a promise of support against all who pretended to dispute his right, and was thus enabled to acquire the estates of Locharkaig and Lochiel, from the latter of which his descendants have taken their territorial denomination. ”

“ One of those times when the Norsemen came to Scotland to take possession of and sub-divide the land thus taken, they observed that the pine wood of Lochaber was growing so fast, and extending so far, that in time it might supersede the Black Forests of Sweden. But on this occasion the northern forces were driven back. On reaching home they reported the matter to the king, and their opinion, that the increase of the wood must be checked, otherwise his northern woods would be of little esteem. ”

“ And if any man from Lochaber, or for that matter from any part of Scotland, lights on this place, it will be hard for him to get away from the warm hearts that are there, and he must depart a better man after hearing the kindly speech and seeing the sword dance once more. ”

“ Whisky shops were everywhere; here men sauntered and drank. Plunder was habitual; a captain of a ‘Watch’ like Barisdale was at once thief and thief-taker. ‘They live like lairds, and die like loons,’ says Franck, speaking not of all the Highlands (as Macaulay quotes him) , but chiefly of Lochaber. ‘Upon this fund’—blackmail—the Captain ‘employed one half the thieves to recover lost cattle, and the other half of them to steal.’ Lochiel laboured to reform his clan in this respect. ”

“ The finest stuffed specimen of the Merganser we ever saw is at Achnacarry Castle, Lochiel’s seat in Lochaber.
We have said above that the winter has thus far been almost unprecedentedly open and mild, by which we mean only that the temperature throughout has been unusually high, not, by any means, that it has been calm. The very contrary is the case. It has been one continued storm, with an occasional breathing time, so to speak, of a fine day at rare intervals, for upwards of eight [248] consecutive weeks. ”

“ Branch of Lochlin’s wide-ruling and king-bearing line!
And in Erin they know it, far over the brine;
No Earl would in Albin thy friendship decline.
The name of Mairi ni’n Alastair Ruaidh has been affectionately remembered by many generations of Highlanders.
John Macdonald.—This well-known Lochaber bard, called Iain Lom, or bare John, was of the Keppoch family; lived in the reigns of Charles I. and II.; was a very old man about 1710. ”

“ At one time the son and successor of John Garbh occupied Lochiel by force, but was killed in a conflict with the Camerons at Corpach, in the reign of James III. His infant son would also have been put to death, had the boy not been saved by the Macgillonies or Macalonichs, a tribe of Lochaber that generally followed the clan Cameron. This youth, subsequently known as John Abrach Maclean of Coll, was the representative of the family in 1493, and from him was adopted the patronymic appellation of Maclean Abrach, by which the lairds of Coll were ever after distinguished. ”

“ There is an old Gaelic apologue current in Lochaber, which may perhaps have some bearing on the point:—“It was long, long ago that, in the grey dawn of an intensely cold January morning, after a wild night of [100] drift and snow, the heathcock of Ben Nevis clapped his wings, and, in a loud, prolonged, interrogative crow, addressed his first cousin by the father’s side, the heathcock of Ben Cruachan—‘How do you feel yourself this morning, dear heathcock of Cruachan?’ ‘So, so,’ with a feeble attempt at wing-clapping, responded the heathcock of Cruachan; ‘So, so ”

“ Most of the names furnished by Adamnan in the seventh century belong to the Western Isles, among which he mentions 218Ilea, Malea, Egea, and Scia, and to the territory of the Scots, but a few belong to what he terms the province of the Picts, and some of these he gives only in their Latin equivalents. [270] There is the ‘Stagnum Aporicum’ or ‘Aporum,’ in which we recognise Lochaber. The river of ‘Nesa,’ the lake called ‘Lochdiæ,’ and the district of ‘Ardaibmurcol,’ and bay of ‘Arthcambus,’ are obviously Gaelic forms. ”

“ In 1546 Ranald Macdonald Glas, who appears to have been the son of Donald Glas MacAllaster, and the captain of the clan Cameron, being present at the slaughter of Lord Lovat and the Frasers at the battle of Kinloch-lochy, and having also supported all the rebellions of the Earl of Lennox, concealed themselves in Lochaber, when the Earl of Huntly entered that district with a considerable force and laid it waste, [153] taking many of the inhabitants prisoners. ”

“ The general, doubtless, appreciated this double compliment; his father was a favourite among the Highlanders, and it was implied that the son was worthy of the sire. The young recruits always wished to serve under officers of their own clan, and felt it a hardship to be separated from them. It was not enough that they served in the same regiment; they wished to belong to the same company. Young Fassiefern brought a hundred Lochaber men to join the 92nd at Aberdeen. ”

“ I have only given him the weight of my oak sapling, so that he may sleep soundly till we are safe from the fangs of his bloodhounds.' That very night the fugitives left Urquhart Castle and got safe to the forests of Badenoch, where they skulked about with Lochiel and his few followers until the gentleman escaped to France, when Eoghainn Brocair and his companion ventured once more, as they themselves expressed it, 'to the communion of Christians.' The offspring of the Brocair and Mary Maclauchlan are still in Lochaber. ”