Ossian Collection > Life and letters of James Macpherson

THE HIGHLANDS. 3
a landscape now familiar. But in the middle of
the eighteenth century there was little admira-
tion for bleak mountains and rugged hills ; and
at first the scenery of this wild poetry yielded to
its human interest, and its picture of ancient
life in a desolate country. It was only in recent
years that the Highlands had been explored.
Their condition at the period of the rising in
'45, the independent rule of the chiefs, and
the rough life of the clans, are now matters
of general knowledge. But for long after
the rising, and in spite of the efforts of the
English Government to establish communica-
tion with the south, the north of Scotland
was still, in the common report of the time,
a benighted region, wrapt in fog and storm.
Of the inhabitants little was known but that
they were men of great size and savage bear-
ing, who in the service of their chiefs had
been trained from their youth to the pursuits
of war. For the chiefs were reputed to be
sovereigns in the narrow valleys in which they
lived ; they maintained in their fastnesses the
airs and manners of a rude court, and in all
things they were faithfully supported by their
followers, who formed standing armies, jealous