Ossian Collection > Reliquiae Celticae > Volume 2

■ '560 LECTURES.
Bendarroch is the oak hill, from beanu (hill) and darroch
(oak). There is Arddarroch, the oak height on Loch Long. The
word darroch frequently occurs in Gaelic topography, as in
Auchendarroch, near Lochgilphead, " oak field."
Maol an fheigh is the bald height of the deer, from Maoile, a
bald height, and fiadh (feidh in the genitive). Maoile occurB in
the Mull of Kintyre and the Mull of Galloway, and in many other
places.
Beinn Chaorach is the hill of the sheep, and Beinii Tharsuinn
is the cross mountain. Ben is one of the most common terms ui
our topography.
I cannot at present take you with me to Luss and Arrochar,
where the names of places are, with the exception of a few modern
names, purely Gaelic. I earnestly wish, however, to see the whole
topography of the county properly arranged and interpreted
before the modern names shall have entirely defaced the ancient
names which record the natural features and characteristics of the
country, and many of the heroic deeds of its former inhabitant;i.
Our mountains and lakes and rivers, even every townland and
streamlet, show that the Gaelic language, which is now so rapidly
disappearing, was once the language of the people who lived in
these glens and cultivated the mountain sides. But now more of
the descendants of the old inhabitants are to be found in foreign
lands, to which they have taken with them the language of their
ancestors, and even the names of their old homes, than are found
among the mountains and glens of Scotland; and on every side nf
us we see a new topography overlaying the old, which will form
to future generations a record of the great social change 'which
has been gradually taking place, more especially since the begin-
ning of this century, in the state of the Highlands and in the
condition of its inhabitants. In this immediate neighbourhood,
instead of the sparse cultivation and consequent comj^arative
poverty of a former age, we see the busy industry and prosperity
of the present, and the change is not so much to be regrette 1 ;
but it is otherwise where many fields once fruitful have been
turned into desolate and barren wastes.