Blair Collection > Gaelic bards

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by the Society for Propagating Christian Know-
ledge. In 1 741 he published a Gaelic and English
vocabulary, a valuable work, and the tirst diction-
ary of the Scottish Gaelic published in a separate
form. In the preface he speaks highly of the
work of the Protestant Society for Propagating
Christian Knowledge, and places "popish emis-
saries " among the evils from which the Highlands
then suffered. In the same year, on the 28th
of April, the visitors of the Charity School of
Ardnamurchan reported to the Presbytery "that
when they attended there in order to visit said
school, Alexander Macdonald, schoolmaster, sent
an apology to them for absence, namely, that
through the great scarcity of the year he was
under immediate necessity to go from home to
provide meal for his family." At a meeting of
Presbytery held July 15th, 1745, Mr. Lachlan
Campbell, minister of Ardnamurchan, reported
" that the Charity School in his parish had been
vacant since Whitsunday last by the voluntary
desertion of Alexander Macdonald, the school-
master."
The parish of Ardnamurchan is forty-five miles in
length by thirty-three in breadth. Owing to its
extent ^lac Mhaighster Alasdir had to go with his
school from one place to another within its bounds.
From 1729 to 1738 he taught at Eilain Fhionain ;
from 1738 to March, 1739, at Killechoan ; and
from March, 1739, to Whitsunday, or May 15th,
1745, ^t Coir'-a-Mhuilinn at the base of Beinn
Shianta. His salary was very small. From 1729
to 1732 it was £16 a year, and from 1732 to 1738,
£18 a year. In 1738 it was reduced to £15 a
year, in 1739, to £14, and in 1744 to £12.
Prince Charles landed in Borrodale, July 25th,
1745. The poet at once joined his standard.
After Culloden he concealed himself for some
time in the woods and caves of Arisaig. Shortly