Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 5

MORAY. PROVINCE OF
289,292 barrels were brought into Moray Firth ports,
the smaller proportion being explained bj' the number
of boats that leave the district to fish at other stations.
Of 3,666,596 cod, ling, and hake caught in 1882— of
■which, however, 2,039,174 are from Shetland alone —
262,303 were brought into ports along this coast.
The description and limits already given applies to the
firth in its widest extent, but the name is sometimes
more particularly confined to that portion which lies to
the SW of a line drawn from Tarbetness in Ross-shire
to Stotfield Head near Lossiemouth in Elginshire. This
inner portion of the firth measures 21 miles along the
line just mentioned, and 89 miles in a straight line
thence to the mouth of the Beauly river. It consists
of three portions, the outer running up as far as the
projecting points of Chanonry (Ross) and Ardersier
(Inverness), and forming a triangle 21 miles across the
mouth, 23 in a straight line along the Ross-shire
side, and 32 in a straight line along the Inverness-shire,
Nairnshire, and Elginshire side. The points just men-
tioned project about IJ mile beyond the general
line of the coast on each side and overlap one another,
but so as to leave a passage at right angles to the main
line of the firth and f mile wide. This strait gives
admission to the much shallower portion known as the
Inner Moray Firth or Firth of Inverness, extending
from Fort George 8 miles south-westward to the mouth
of the Ness, with an average breadth of from 2J to 3
miles, with Munloehy Bay running oif on the NW side
and Petty Bay on the SE side. Immediately to the W
of the mouth of the Ness the waters of the firth are
narrowed by the projecting point at Kessock to 650
yards, but they broaden out again into the Beauly
Firth, which extends westward for 64 miles, with a
breadth of from IJ to 2 miles. This portion of the
firth is very shallow, and nearly the half of its whole
area is laid bare at low water. The fishing in the Inver-
ness and Beauly basins is very poor except as regards
the capture of garvies or sprats, which are found there
in immense numbers, about 10,000 crans being sent to
the south markets every year. The three portions of
the firth just described correspond to the ^stuariwm
Vararis of the ancient geographers.
The coast-line along the firth varies considerably.
From Duncansbay Head to Helmsdale, on both sides of
the Cromarty Firth, between Burghead and Lossie-
mouth, between Buckie and Banff, and along a con-
siderable portion of the Aberdeenshire coast, it is rocky,
but elsewhere low. It is well cultivated, and the reaches
to the W of Fort George are finely wooded.
Moray, Province of, an extensive district lying to the
S of the inner portion of the firth just described. It is
almost co-extensive with one of the seven provinces into
which, during the Celtic period, we find the whole of
modern Scotland divided. The northern boundary was
the Moray Firth and the river Beault as far as KiL-
MOEACK ; from this point the line passed to the S along
the watershed between Glen Farrar and the streams
flowing to Loch Ness. After rounding the upper end of
Glen Clunie it turned eastward along the watershed
between Glen Loyne and Glen Garry, and between the
river Garry and the streams flowing to the river Oich ;
then SE by the lower end of Loch Lochy, as far as the
SW end of Loch Laggan, aud on to Beinn Chumbann,
whence it followed the line between the modern counties
of Inveeness and Perth, by Loch Ericht, the Athole
Sow, and Carn-na-Caim, to Cairn Ealar. From that hill
it followed the boundary of Inveeness-shike and Banff-
shire, along the Cairngorms, and down the Water of
Ailnack. Here, however, it left the county boundaries
and followed this stream to the Aven above Tomintoul,
and then followed the course of the Aven to the Spey,
and the latter river back to the Moray Firth. The
province thus included within its limit the whole of the
counties of Elgin and Nairn, the greater part of the
mainland division of the county of Inverness, and a
portion of the county of Banfil'. In later times the
signification has sometimes been considered as rather
co-extensive with the sway of the Bishop of Moray, and
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MORAY, PROVINCE OF
so with the jurisdiction of the modern synod, but this
must hold true as applying more to ecclesiastical
authority than to territorial limits. At one time the
province must have stretched across the island from sea
to sea, for, in one of the statutes of William the Lyon,
Ergadia, i.e., Arregaithel, or the whole district W of
the watershed between the German Ocean and the
Atlantic Ocean, and extending from Loch Broom on the
N to Cantyre on the S, is divided into ' Ergadia, which
belongs to Scotia, ' and ' Ergadia which belongs to
Moravia. ' This part afterwards fell into the hands of
the Earls of Ross. The Highland line, marking the
division between the Highlands and the Lowlands,
passed across the province in a general north-westerly
direction from the junction of the Aven and Spey to the
mouth of the river Nairn ; the part to the NE of this
line being peopled with Lowlanders, who suffered con-
tinually from thepeculiar ideas entertained by their High-
land neighbours regarding meum and tuum. Peopled
by an alien race, whose introduction will be noticed
afterwards, greatly more peaceable, and less acquainted
with the use of arms than the inhabitants of the High-
land districts, the rich and fertile plain of Moray was
regarded by the Highland Caterans as open and ever
available spoilage ground, where every marauder might,
at his convenience, seek his prey. So late in fact as the
time of Charles I., the Highlanders continually made
forays on the country, and seem to have encountered
marvellously little resistance. In 1645 we find Cameron
of Lochiel apologising to the laird of Grant for having
carried off cattle from the tenant of Moyness, and giving
the reasons that he 'knew not that Moyness was ane
Graunt, but thocht that he was ane Moray man,' and
that the spoilers did not intend to hurt the laird of
Grant's friends but to take booty from 'Morray land
quhare all men take their prey.' The Moray people, it
has been remarked, appear to have resembled the quiet
saturnine Dutch settlers of North America who, when
plundered by the Pied Indians, were too fat either to
resist or to pursue, and considered only how they might
repair their losses ; and the Celts, looking on the Low-
landers as strangers and intruders, thought them quite
fair game, and could never comprehend how there could
be any crime in robbing a ' Moray man. ' So late as
1565, as appears from the rental of the church-lands in
that year, the inhabitants of the ' laich ' remained
entirely a distinct people from the Highlanders, and all
bore names of purely lowland origin. Nearly all the
interest of Moray as a province, and often all the
associations of the name are connected with its lowlands
in the N. These have long been famed for mildness-
and dryness of climate, though the rivers that wind
through them, having their sources among mountains
high enough to arrest the moisture brought in from the
Atlantic by the south-west winds, are sometimes liable
to sudden freshets. The great floods of 1829, so admir-
ably recorded in Sir Thomas Dick Lauder's The Moraij
Floods, form an extreme example. Probably no part of
Scotland, not even East Lothian, can compete with
Moray in regard to the number of spontaneous testi-
monies which have been borne to the richness of its
soil. An old and common saying asserts that Moray
has, according to some versions, 15, according to others,
40 days more of summer than most other parts of Scot-
land. Holinshed (practically an Anglicised form of
Bellenden's translation of Boece's Chronicle) says, ' In
Murrey land also is not onelie great plentie of wheat,
barlie, otes, and suchlike graine, besides nuts and
apples, but likewise of all kinds of fish, and especially
of salmon.' George Buchanan extols the province as
superior to any other district in the kingdom in the
mildness of its climate and the richness of its pastures.
' So abundant, ' he says, ' is this district in corn and
pasturage, and so much beautified as well as enriched
by fruit trees, that it may truly be pronounced the
first county in Scotland.' Whitelock, in Cromwell's
time, says, 'Ashfield's I'egiment was marched into
Murray-land, which is the most fruitful country in
Scotland.' William Lithgow (1583-1645), after glancing