Blair Collection > Critical dissertations on the origin, antiquities, language, government, manners, and religion, of the antient Caledonians, their posterity the Picts, and the British and Irish Scots

X PREFACE.
miles, is called Drum Vachtur. This cir-
cumflance is well known to many, befides
the natives of that country, as the military
road through the Highlands palTes that way.
If we fhould fuppofe that JJacbtiir, which
is ftill retained as the name of a part of
Drum Albin, was once the general appella-
tion of the whole, the etymon of Veduri-
ones is at once decyphered. Vachtur y though
now taken perhaps in a more confined fenfe
than formerly, literally fignifies the upper
country. Vachturich is a word of the fame
import with Highlanders; and iftheharfh
Celtic termination is foftned into a Roman
one, Vecfluriones differs only in a changea-
ble vowel from Vachturich.
We have reafon to believe, from the un-
favourable climate, and flerile nature of the
foil, in that part of Scotland which lies to
the Well of Drum Albin, that the ancef-
tors of the Scots lived long in a very un-
cultivated ftate -y as deftitute of great natio-
nal events as of letters to tranfmit them to
pofterity. Though the Scots of Jar-ghael
muft, in the nature of things, have been
very barbarous and unpolifhed, as far back
as the latter end of the fourth century, yet
it is to be hoped they were Icfs fo than the
Attacotti, their neighbours, or rather a
tribe