Blair Collection > Celtic magazine > Volume 5

158 THE CELTIC MAGAZINE.
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listers practising in the county. The oratorical ability displayed was i<n
reaUy marvellous in such an out-of-the-way place as Alexandria, con- Ifj
taining only about 1000 inhabitants, and such as would put many who- hi
would-be-considered-orators in more pretentious places at home to shame. |u
I gave expression here for the first time to my views and feelings repecting M
the manner in which successive governments of Canada discouraged and, Ifl
otherwise treated Highland immigrants, while they had acted in a manner '•
entirely different to the Russian Memnonites and Icelanders; and the
enthusiastic sympathy displayed by my feUow countrymen of Alexandria
at once convinced me that the Highlander of Canada only wants to have
this dereliction on the part of the Government pointed out to him to
have the present system of giving his countrymen the cold shoulder con-
demned and reversed. It was proposed and seconded, there and then,
that those present should form themselves into a Society for educating
public opinion on the point, and I learned after I left that they met on
the following evening and formed themselves into the nucleus of a
Caledonian Society. My driver, who knew aU present, informed me !«
that the company amongst them represented accumulated property worth h
about a quarter of a million sterling. I parted with them next morning
witJi very genuine regret, and not without hope of again seeing them in
the hospitable capital of Glengarry county.
I learned that John Murdoch of the Highlander had passed through
the village that morning in the mail-gig, while I was away in the district
of Lochiel, and that he had gone on, some miles, to visit Mr Cattanach, an
old Badenoch Celt, who lived at Laggan, so called by him in commemo-
ration of his native place in the old country. I was naturally anxious to
see the Ard-Alhannach, and made my driver go several miles out of his
way to overtake him at Laggan or meet him on his way back ; and meet
him we did, Mr Cattanach driving him back to Alexandria. I requested
my driver to go into Cattanach's machine, while Fear-an-flieilidh came
in with me. I then turned round my team in the direction in which the
Highlander was going, and thus had about half-an-hour of him. I had
about 30 miles to go in another direction, and, as he was going direct to
Lancaster, where I was engaged to lecture that evening, we agreed to meet
there and compare notes, after such a long absence from home and from
each other, and to talk over our new and varied experiences. After a
long drive through the county to the west, and making several calls on
the way, I arrived in the afternoon at Williamston, a village only 4 miles
from Lancaster, where we obtained refreshments for man and beast at the
hostelry of another good Hie'lanman — John J. Macdouald, Glencoe House,
who, like most of my friends, had succeeded in feathering his nest pretty
well. Having made a few other calls, Mr Macrae soon rattled into Lan-
caster, The Ard-Albamiach arrived a few minutes after us. In the even-
ing, I delivered my promised lecture, for which I was by no means in good
form ; but the Highlander and D. Macmaster, M.P. for the County, who
came aU the way from Montreal to meet me, addressed the audience, and.
thus enabled me to drop easy. My old travelling companion, Mr Mac-
lennan, M.P. for Glengarry in the Dominion Parliament, came several
mUes to preside at our meeting ; and my only regret in connection with my
visit to this Highland settlement is my inability to call upon him at his
own house, agreeably to his repeated requests that I should do so. The '