Books and other items printed in Gaelic from 1871 to 1900 > Cunntas air boidhicheadan Ceann-Lochearn agus Edinample, or, A description of the beauties of Edinample and Lochearnhead

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another is Gaelic, varied however by the
usual form of Celtic English when address¬
ing the Sassenach. Their dwellings are
slightly inferior to Cafiir kraals, and their
dislike to water, either for external or in¬
ternal use, is marked to the last degree.
The Free Kirk of Scotland is the religion
of the district, though other Protestant
sects are (barely) tolerated.
Now comes the almost insolvable question
so often and so warmly discussed, viz. did
such a person as Angus M‘ Diarmid ever
exist; or if he is entirely a myth, to whom
can we ascribe the book ? That M‘ D. ac¬
tually lived is not to be doubted for one
moment, seeing that many persons now a-
live and moreover by no means aged re¬
member him well and have often conversed
with him. Those natives make no secret
of his having been an author, and indeed
one of no mean capacity, since one of them
is said to have thus replied to some cleric
interrogating him on church topics; —“If
Diarmid was peen alife there wouldna
peem no Eruption, for she’d hafe wrote a
pook on’t an’ pit it doon ! ’’—clearly allud¬
ing to the Disruption and to the certainty
that M‘ D.’s terse and logical rhetoric would
have soon settled all disputes between the