The Sun.
London, England, 1847-08-23 00:00:00

HIGHLANDS.

The journey of Thursday was in every respect the
most interesting that the royal party have ever taken
in Scotland. It introduced them to scenery of anew
and most interesting character, to the strangest inter-
mingling of the stern and the beautiful that is any-
where presented— scenery famed in song and story,
and rich in stirring historical memories. The ruined
castles, perched inconveniently for peaceable times on
so many heights, are like the foot-prints in geology,
which tell of a former and extinct race. Where so
many chieftains existed there must have been many
commoners; and if the Western Isles and Highlands
supported a denser populatiOn than at the present, day
—when property was insecure, and a man's fields
were defended by his sword—when petty wars were
the yearly curse of a suffi ring people--it is remark-
able to hear so pertinaciously from those who have
mismanaged this vast district that it is over-peopled,
and that its poverty is only to be cured by the re-
moval of labour and labourers, of those who make a
country richer.
The royal yacht left Crinan Loch on Thursday, at
seven o'clock A.M. The morning was fairsand clear,
permitting a beautiful view of the islands that stud
and the mountains that surround this interesting loch.
The yacht, followed by the Scourge, pa*d out of
the northern corner of Java, keeping wiselythe cele-
brated Gulf of Corryvreckan, the MaelstroM of the
west; and Scarba Island to the left, proceeding up,the
Sound of Luing into Loch Linnhe, passingtext Seil
Island and Easdale on the right.
Easdale slates are one of the staples of the Western
:Highlands, and the parries are wrought in a very
-spirited manner, on account of their noble proprietor,
the Marquis a Breadalbane, whose long and wide
estates dip here into the Atlantic, and extend east-
ward in one unbroken line across the country to the
neighbourhood of Perth. The quarries afford em-
ployment and decent remuneration to a large body of
labourers ; and the Queen was received here with a
novel and exciting welcome. The coasts' Of the
Breadalbane estates are inhabited by a body of -the
most hardy boatmen in the world. They were col-
lected in large numbers off Seil Island. We heiird
that 150 boats were to be manned, and drawn up
.in
two lines, through which the yacht would pass.
Ultimately, it was said that double that number (31)0
boats) were collected, manned each by six men, and
each carrying its little flag. Their rendezvous was
off Luing Island, and their dressing and drawing up
exhibited no little taste and discipline. The boats in
each of the two lines were so close that the men
while receiving the Queen, resembled two solid
bodies of infantry drawn up two or three deep, as a
guard of honour, on the waters. Those who are in
the habit of seeing many pageants, and saw the com-
pliment paid to royalty by the Breadalbane men, call
it the most imposing and striking thing of the sort
that they have ever witnessed. From the hills above
the village of Easdale a royal salute was fired; and
passing the entrance of Loch Feochan on the right,
and Gylen Castle on the left, the yacht entered the
narrow channel between Kerrera Island and the main•
laid, and ran into Oban Bay, which is almost land-
locked, and completely sheltered by the island.
On Thursday morning the little bay was quite
crowded with various craft ; in addition to the Vi-ss-
toria and Albert yacht, there were two steamers in
connexion with her Majesty, a Government steamer
in the bay, the Dolphin, and three or four steamers
connected in some way with the locality, several
groups of boats, and a few large sailing vessels. The
yacht steamed round the bay, and stopped for some
time while a royal salute was fired from a battery
formed on the top of one of the highest hills behind
the town, and from the Government steamer sta-
tioned in the bay. Shortly after eleven o'clock the
yacht steamed out of Oban Bay, followed by its
tenders, the Dolphin, and two other steamers, taking
a course westward to the Sound of Mull. The crew
of the Government steamer had hoisted a' complete
set of flags on the ruins of the old castle of Lunolly
On the right, a residence once of the M'Dougals of
Lorne, who were in the habit of considering them-
selves to be monarchs, and dealing with the Kings
of England in that sort of way. The English
sailors never dreamed that they were taking liberties
with the fortress of a race who claimed to be kings
over the west, alike independent of the Scotch fir
the English monarchs. To the right the yacht passed
Lismore, one of the most fertile of the Western
Isles; and at this point, the entrance of which is
really to be considered the Sound of Mull, the royal
tourists commanded one of the finest of 'our Scottiib
views. The farm houses had all their little flags flut-
tering away in the breeze. The lighthoise of Lis-
more,.like the picturesque cottages amongst the trees
though not amongst the trees itself, was 'picturesque
also. Lismore, which once, we believe, contained a
Roman Catholic college—a Maynooth to the Hebrides
—looked green and cheerful. Morven was on the
right, frowning in a dark colour and a sterner form.
There were the curious ruins of Duart Castle—once
the seat of the M'Leans—on the left, in Mull. And
the tide is working over, and leaving but occasionally
bare and black that little rock in the Sound, where
tradition says a faithless and murderous chieftain of
the M'Lean race exposed his wife, of whom, for some
tolerably apparent reason, he desired to be relieved.
Vainly in all her wide dominions might the Sove-
reign look for aught more magnificent and wildly
grand than this entrance to the Sound of Mull. The
bold bleak Morven hills, famed in our oldest poetry,
associated with dark tales in history, are on the right.
Behind the far distant peaks of Ben Cruachan stand
proudly over its multitude of attendant and minor
mountains without a streak of mist up to their sharpest
and highest cliff or pinnacle, and far away to the
right the mountains stretch in an apparently endless
chain, while Duart, and the masses of mountains,
in all grotesque shapes and forms, that to the eye
make up the island of Mull, as they really con-
ceal its green pasturage, stretch along on the left,
making altogether a matchless scene of wild and
romantic beauty. The royal yacht was placed under
the pilotage of Captain M'Killop, of the Dolphin, and
from her frequent crossing and recrossing of the
channel, so as to command the best points of the view,
it was evident that the Queen and her party were
greatly delighted with a passage which ;sz.ir Walter
Scott describes as so tempting in " fine weather."
The yacht is speeding on its way ; and there is all
that remains of Ardornish, the fort of once mighty
and now well-nigh forgotten and dishonoured chiefs.
Dishonoured, indeed, they would deem their memories
and the home of their greatness, for there, under the
very shadow of their old walls, has Peter Seller, the
present proprietor of Ardornish, built his house of
brick, we suppose, if brick by any possibility has been
obtained, and glare and white-washing. Peter Seller
is the notable sheep farmer of the highlands, who, in
the zealous discharge of a disagreeable duty, aided in.
the clearance of the Sutherland estates, and has.,
realised a large fortune front the-folly, and, we are'
half inclined to add., the worse than folly or blunder.
ing, of the Sutherland family. This Peter Seller is a,l
great - man for sheep,' and they have done great;
things for him. He acts, however, on principle,
and that principle, we hear, is, that the High-
lands were intended for sheep, and the American
prairies for men ; and if Peter Seller and
similar theorists would only act out their own theory
in another way than they do—that is, betake them-
selves to the American prairies, and leave the High-
lands to sheep or any other creatures that might
thrive there, we have not the slightest doubt that
these Highlands-would export ten'times the number
of sheep that they now do, and support four times the
number of men ; for- who can even skirt these island
shores and not see that indolence -sand poverty
[thine bar their cultivation ? Even upon poor lona,
famed for other qualities than fertility„, we noticed
ripened barley as heavy and firm in the head as any
bailey on the Clyde. Along the shores of Mull Sound
there are occasional breaks in the waste,-and fields of
good promise where tillage is deemed subordinate to
non-tillage, and prosecuted neither with care, nor
capital, nor attention.
The fleet had passed the entrance to Lochaline, and
the echoes of the mountains and the deep narrow
channel are stirred and put to most unaccountable
trouble by the loyalty of Mr. Sinclair, who, finding,
unlike Mr. Sellar, that the Highlands were intended
to grow excellent barley, made his fortune by distilla-
tionut
An
at Toberinory, and has purchased land, and _
built
a squire-looking house on the mainland. d. his
near neighbour—who is said to be the tallest minister
of Scotland, and a direct descendant of the Norwegian
kings, kings, has planted a flag before his manse, and ga-
thered a party beneath the flag-staff to celebrate in
his way—of course not by gunpowder—the progress
of his Queen.
In every mile or two we pass ruins of castles that
it has been found more difficult to destroy than the
ruins of
cottages ; but we may be assured that the
castles did not flourish without the cottages. The
latter are forgotten, and they have not been replaced,
while the former are passing fast through all the
stages of decay. There, on the right, on the main=
land' is the seat of the late Sir Charles Gordon, so
well known as the secretary to the Highland Society;
and on the left is the narrow entrance to the bay of
Tobermory.
FORT :WILLIAM, FRIDAY MORNINIII.
The royal yacht is understood to be atneted in the.
Tobermory, and will artwo. here wills! about
ten or elver O'clock. Prince Albert hes fbrwarered