Blair Collection > Celtic monthly > Volume 6, 1898

HE CELTIC MONl'irLY.
47
curious lefltctioD, that, sceues in tbis way, once
associated with the deepest and teuderest senti-
ments of the heart, should now give rise only to
thoughts of commerce and money making.
Alaska has recently had the attention of the
mining woild directed to it, and it liids fair to
become the Eldorado of the modern world.
Bands of adventurers are prospecting the
MacMillau mountains, and panning the sands of
the Mai-Millan river in search of that precious
dust, the possession of a little more of which
would have kept those who named these wild
places in their original home in a state of
contented happiness.
Angus MacMillan of Skve.
In this connection I may mention a fact whicli
has passed too much into the back-giouud of
history — and which probably few here know —
that the discoverer of Gipp's Land, an e.xtensive
and fertile region in Victoria to the south-east of
the Australian Alps, was a clansman of ours,
Angus MacMillan, who was born in Skye
in 18 U>. He is mentioned in Mennell's
Dictionary of Australian Biography with gi'eat
praise for his brave and indomitable qualities;
and his claim to the gratitude of the people of
Australia was recognised by a public dinner
being given in his honour in Port Albert in
March, 18.56. Angus MacMillau endured much
privation in his exploring expedition, which he
undertook alone, and with the help only of a
pocket compass and a chart of the coast.
Starting from Sydney he crossed the extensive
range of mountains south of that romantic city
and harbour which were altogether unknown at
the time, and reached the beautiful region now
called Gipp's Land, which no European had ever
seen beloie. He called the new country
Caledonia Australis, fi'om some resemblance
which he discovered in its mountains and valleys
to his native land. Many persons, in spite of
this, insisted for a while upon calling it Mac-
Miilau's Land. But unfortunately for this the
discoverer was followed soon after by a large
and well equipped expedition, conducted by an
Austrian called Strzeleckie, who, ignorant of
MacMillau's claims of priority, called the laud
which he thought he had discovered Gipp's Land,
a name which superseded that which MacMillan
had given, and by which the well-peopled and
most productive region is now known to the
world. Angus MacMillan settled down on a
sheep-run of his own in the district which he
had discovered, where he died in 186.5.
A Breadalbane Clansman.
Speaking about our clan name having acquired
a geographical importance, I may mention another
curious association with it. Two years ago, I
happened to be staying for a few days near
Ciianlarich, and spent an afternoon in visiting the
ruins of the old Priory of Strathfillau, founded in
commemoration of the pious St. Fillan, who was
the apostle of this part of Perthshire in the eighth
century. Near the sacred well in a field outside,
I found a small mound of masonry, with the
fragments of a broken memorial stone on the top
of it. I put the pieces carefully together, and
proceeded to read the long inscription carved upon
them. You may judge how very startled I was
when the first words I deciphered were: " Sacred
to the Memory of Hugh MacMillan"! This man
I had never heard of before, although my
forbears had lived in Breadalbane from time
immemorial. He was a mason belonging to the
district, who, less than a hundred years ago, had
drowned him.self in the sacred pool of the river,
whei'e lunatics used to be bathed in order to be
restored to their right mind. The tombstone
recorded that he was a man of exemplary
character, and was highly resjiected in Strath-
fillan ; and yet, in spite of this eulogium, his
remains, according to the barbarous custom of
the time, were refused admittance to the church-
yai'd, because, doubtless in a state of temporary
mental aberration, he had taken his own life.
But even of this the people did not seem to have
been quite sure. There was a probability that
he had only fallen into the river by accident.
But our stern forefathers would not give him the
benefit of the doubt, but laid him in unconsecrated
soil outside the wall, like a social leper even in
death. Had there been a MacMillan Society in
existence in these days, tbis outrage upon
buiniinity would not have been committed.
TlIK HlOlILANUHR riKPKESENTS 'I'lIK EmPIHE.
Having thus suflSciently magnified my own
clan, let me in a few concluding sentences take a
somewhat wider outlook. In this year's
Hachette's Almanac — which is in Prance what
VVhitaker's Almanac is in this country — you will
find an engraving representing the diffei-ent
nations in characteristic dress and attitude,
bearing the respective burdens of their national
debt. In this picture, England, with its enormous
debt, is sketched as a Highlander, with plaid, and
kilt, and sporran, and honait cliineul, holding in
his hand a child's penny whistle with a small
inflated balloon of india-rubber attached to it by
a tube, through which the air is passing slowly
into the whistle with a gentle squeak. It is a
very clever skit ; and conveys admirably the idea
how easily and with but very litlle groaning our
Country can pay the national piper. But the
reason why I mention this caricature i,s, that
the French, in representing in this manner the
whole of Great Britain in a figure wearing the
" Garb of old Gaul", clearly show who, in their