Page:Gallant exploits of Lord Dundee.pdf/6

6 A people untouched by the Roman or Saxon invasions on the south, and by those of the Danes on the east and west skirts of their country: the unmixed remains of that Celtic empire, which once stretched from the pillars of Hercules to Archangel. As the manners of this race of men were, the days of our fathers, the most singular in Europe, and, in those of our sons, may be found no where but in the records of history, it is proper here to describe them.

The highlanders were composed of a number of tribes called clans, each of which bore a different name, and lived upon the lands of a different chieftain. The members of every tribe were tied one to another, not only by the feudal but by the patriarchal bond: for while the individuals who composed it were vassals or tenants of their own hereditary chieftain, they were also all descended from his family, and could count exactly the degree of their descent: and the right or primogeniture, together with the weakness of the laws to reach inaccessible countries, and more inaccessible men, had, in the revolution of centuries, converted these natural principles of connection between the chieftain and his people, into the most sacred ties of human life. The