Blair Collection > Celtic monthly > Volume 1, 1893

THE CELTIC MONTHLY.
79
seven months from the date of their colonel's
commission the regiment passed a favourable
inspection at Inverness before Lieut. -General
Hector Munro, and were pronounced an
lent and efficient corps. This was the more
remarkable, as only a bounty of three or four
guineas was allowed to each man. The battalion
was 600 strong.
My grandfather made, I think, two mistakes
in starting his first regi tit. Out of compliment
to his friend the Prince of Wales, afterwards
King George IV., he mixed up their name with
the Scottish title of the Heir Apparent, They
ought to have been simply Caithness High-
landers; he called them Rothesay and Caithness,
after the Duke of Rothesay, though they had
absolutely no connection with the south of
Scotland.
The other mistake he made was in adopting
for his regiment the trews instead of the kilt.
He believed the trews to be the more ancient
dress of the two. lb- even composed a song
for his men in defence of this garb. One verse
of it ran —
" Let others boast of pie I
of kilt, and belti
Whilst we the .i.i.'h nt flew- « ill wear,
In which our fathei - bled.
This song was a great favourite with the soldiers,
and often produced cpiarrels between them and
the Duke of York's Highlanders, when the
two regiments were quartered at Dublin, each
maintaining the superior antiquity of its own
dress. My grandfather was afterwards con
verted to the kilt,
The trews were of dark green tartan, with a
stripe of yellow- along the seams, a fringe of
tartan on the outside of the thigh, and the same
round the ankle. Besides the trews, the Caith-
ness Fencibles wore a bonnet or feather-hat,
with a white and red heckle, and a jilai
the shoulders. On the belt-plate were inscribed
the words '■ Cai den" — that disas-
trous battle having been the last occasion on
which the men of Caithness had been
for regular military service. A specimen of
this was exhibited at tin* Military Exhibition
in Edinburgh, 'ait nobody except myself knew
its history.
Nineteen of the officers averaged six feet;
and from the circumstance of il,
1 from the people of Inverness the Gaelic
designation, " Ti'j/ii'iiriinii //■<;■■,'' or the "great
chiefs." A little coloured drawing was painted
of my grandfather in his costume as colonel, of
which I have a copy here, and with which an
interesting stor\ i connected. My grandfather
was one dinine in company with the celebrated
painter. Sir David VVilkie, and in the course of
conversation asked him how he came to adopt
that profession. Had his father or mother, or
any of his relatives a turn for painting, or what
led him to follow that line ! Upon which
Wilkie said, "The truth is, Sir John, that you
made me a painter." Sir John was very much
astonished, saying he had never met him before.
To which Wilkie replied, " Winn you were
drawing up the 'Statistical Account of Scotland,'
ray father, who was a clergyman in Fife had
much correspondence with you resj ting his
parish, in the course of which you sent him a
coloured drawing of a soldier in the uniform of
your Highland fencible regiment. 1 was so de-
lighted with the sight, that I was constantly
drawing copiesof it ; and that made me a painter."
From Inverness the regiment, in 1795, marched
to Aberdeen, where it was encamped to defend
the city against an apprehended attack from
the French armies in Holland. Here my grand-
father resided about six months with his regi-
ment, being under orders from the Commander-
in-Chief to take charge of the camp. At that
time encampments were a novelty in Scotland ;
nothing of the kind had iii -cured for half a
century -since the '45. My grandfather turned
his active and ingenious mind to the subject, and
issued a pamphlet full of useful hints respecting
the diet, clothing, camp equipage and personal
habits of the troops.
( To b( concluded in our next )
SKYE SONGS AND MELODIES.
Sin, 1 have been pleas- i u arc hav-
ing a Musical Column conducted by Mr. I
and that the first song selected is one composed by
John MacLean, a native of Waternish, Skye. His
mother was a St. Kilda woman, and was known as
Mor Ilirtcach. even alter she married his father,
Norman MacLean, Waternish. John was a sailor.
He died in Liverpool in 1878. Be composed many
excellent songs: but, as 1 am writing a paper on
•• -*kye Hards," for tic (iaelic Society, I shall not
take u p your spi by i ..-.'._ : ■ i hem just now.
ted bj Mr. Ferguson about
Gaelic melodies still floating about, 1 may quote
from ;i letter I n ■ from Mr.
John MacNab, teacher, Kilinuir, Skye: — '•There are
in Kilinuir several lively strathspey tune- ,,i, a
peculiar musical mode, seine of which were
by the subject of MacNab's Lament ; and others by
a voting women who was dairymaid in the Duntulm
family. These tunes. 1 think, have not hitherto been
published. They are known here as Puirt Beathaig
was the nai f tin- dairymaid) ; and our
local fiddlers always raise the third and fourth strings
of the fiddle a whole tone before commencing to play
take dow □ m
would Mix' them, and semi them to sot ipetent
authority to si e if they are really original."
Would any of the mi men u- musical readers of this
! hen- holidays in Kilinuir
next summer, ami so have an opportunity of taking
clown these tunes? — Yours, &c,
Glasgow University. Magnus MacLean.