Blair Collection > Celtic magazine > Volume 5

' THE EDITOR IN CANADA. 155
; doubt that they will decide upon completing their Highland costume
I in time to enable them to visit their friends in Ontario, and parade
[its capital in the "Garb of old GauL" I could have spent several
[more days in IMontreal with profit and pleasure, but time was on
(the wing, and I had yet barely entered Canada proper, The cele-
ibrated Highland settlement of Glengarry, fifty-four miles further west,
'On the Grand Trunk Eailway, was to be my next place of call. I was
[informed by Mr Macmaster, M.P., that his colleague Mr Maclennan, M.P.
for Glengarry in the Dominion Parliament, was in the city, and would
[be going on that evening to Glengarry. I was fortunate enough to meet
'and to secure an introduction to him on the platform before the train
started. At first I found him somewhat reserved, but he soon melted
down ; when I found his father was a native of Kintail ; and I after-
' wards learned that the son was very wealthy and highly respected
throughout the county, irrespective of party politics. We had a most
agreeable chat during the greater part of the journey, and he gave me the
names of several of the most prominent Highlanders in the county, in
I addition to those whose names I already had. In a few hours I found
myself in Lancaster, a thriving village on the eastern border of
THE COUNTY OF GLENGARRY,
and I at once made for the principal hotel, kept, as I was informed in
Montreal, by an excellent Gaelic-speaking Highlander, and a Macrae,
whose father, in 180G, emigxated from Kintail. I saluted my host in my
;native Gaelic, to which he responded in pure Kintail vernacular ; for one
lof the peculiarities you meet with throughout the whole Dominion, is to
^find the children and even the grandchildren of the original settlers
speaking the dialect of their resj)ective districts in Scotland ; so that you
meet with half-a-dozen or more different dialects in the same viUago or
jtownship. Any one acquainted with the various districts in the Scottish
'Highlands can therefore almost at once tell what part of the country the
'ancestors of the parties he is addressing originally came from. I was
lat once made quite at home, after my host had insisted upon carrying
|out the good old practice of his Scottish ancestors, by reminding me " gur
luaithe deoch na sgiala," and at once, suiting the action to the word,
offering me a " druthag" out of his private bottle. That evening and next
morning I was introduced to scores of fine Highlanders in the village,
Macphersons, whose ancestors came from Badenoch, predominating ; one
'of them being no less than a grand-nephew of the famous " Black Officer "
'of black art and Gaick celebrity. Here I had a visit from a Mr AUan
■Grant, whose grandfather was Donald Grant of Crasky, Glenmoriston,
^and one of those heroes of the " Eorty-five " who sheltered Prince Charles
;Edward in the cave of Corombian, when wandering about, life in baud,
'after the Battle of Culloden, before he succeeded in effecting his escape to
the Outer Hebrides. He emigrated to the States, and was one of the
'patriotic band known as the United Empire Loyalists, who would not
remain in the States after they were lost to the British crown, and who
:went to various parts of Canada where they received grants of land from
|the British Government. Donald Grant, with several others, went to
:Glengarry, where 1000 acres were allotted to him, 200 of which fell into
^the possession of my visitor — his grandson, AlLui Grant.