, 1890-10-16
THE MYSTIC NORTH.
The Royal Old Capital of the
Highlanders.
ABOUT HISTORICAL INVERNESS
The Scene From Castle Hill, Upon
Which the City Is
Built.

Especial Correspondence of the REVIEW.
INVERNESS, Scotland, Sept. s,
1s90.-W Whether you come from the
Western isles through the Gale
donian canal, with its noble reaches
of lakes bordered by cloud-kissed
mountains where monarch Ben
Nevis scowls through the swlrling
mists; If by the eastern coast where
the German ocean thunders against
granite headlands and mighty
preciplces, and no sound save the
roaring of the tempest or the shrek
ing of sea-fowl is ever heard; or
whether you tramp across fair
Perthshire and Inverness-shire
over the fine highway where
modern civilization has utilized
the old Roman road, and
in your 150-mile pilgrimage
from Edinburgh have learned
TO love Highland scenes in a way
that gives you faint notion OF the
passionate devotion of the old clans
men for the glens and straths in
which they were given birth; how
ever you may have come, by the
time you have begun to realize a
familiarity and acquaintance with
the royal burgh of Inverness, its be-
witching environs, and especially
with the most characteristic of its
people and the grave, silent folk
who swarm here from the Businesses
OF the North, curious sense of in
terest, almost reaching the pleasur-
able thrill of discovery, possesses
you.
TRAITS OF CHARACTER.
Iverness is the metropolis of the
Highlands. You realize you are in
Scotland; yet when you recall your
surroundings, when you compare
habit, custom, manner, dialect, mo-
tive, and even your own feelings and
attitude resulting from strangers
contact with strangers, you feel that
you have come to new and dis
tinct land. While every human
north of the English border is
"Scotch," as the term goes, to the
last drop of blood in his veins, and
all possess qualities typical of end
less devotion to like national pride
and feeling, perhaps when you have
come here and found such radical
difference between these folk and
any you have hitherto known in
Scotland, you begin to wOnder:
Where can the genuine Scotchman
be found in Scotland? Is he in
Glasgow with his hard, commercial
ways; his driving, restless, endless
activities, unsurpassed by the mad
money-makers of New York or
Chicago? Is he in Edinburgh, with
his philosophers, theologles, aris-
tocracies, genealogies, and Of
ten his threadbare poverties?
Is he among the border wales with
his barbarous dialects and lethargic,
sodden content? Is he in the West
ern isles, starving half the time In
dcsolate clachans, the victim of pool
crops, eviction, commissions, and
the slave of east-shore fisher smack
men? Or Is he of Inverness
Beauty, Elgin, Wick and Thurso
in the mystic North, the true Scotch
of Scotchmen, though he has nc
dialect, speaks Gaelic more exquis
itely than Dublin professor, anG
reels off "book English" in greater
purity than professor at Oxford OIL
a Boston booksellers clerk? This
EXCELLENCE OF SPEECH
In the far North becomes the more
surprising when you remember tina
all printed examples of broad Scotch
in dialectic anecdotes have been at
tributed by their manufacturers t.
Scottish Highlanders. The fact il
that the nearer you come to tn,
English border, on the one side, o.
the Scottish border on the other, tn,
more do both Scottish and Englisl
folk hurl angular chunks of Dori,
provinciallsms at you until yot
sicken with the effort at intelligen
comprehension. These borderer
have the greasest pride in their "ricl
broad Scotch" or their "rich North
umbrian." Both are simply ricl
jargon. From Carlisle through tn,
North of England to Berwick on
Tweed, aud back through Kelso
Jedburgh, Keswick, Anan anc
Dumfries, in Scotland, in
ordinary course of travel you will
find more people whom you can no
readily understand than in all tn,
rest of Scotland; and you will in tn;
same way discover more folks, from
the most learned established, ol
free, church minister down to the
most ignorant gillie or humble
crofter, who speak the English
tongue dramatically, with precis
ion and directness, and with pleas
ing modulation and infection
north of the Grampian hills than IN
Glasgow and Edinburgh combined
A Highland sheep.herder, over OF
the sides Of grim old Ben Muicdhui,
who had never seen dozen book,
in his life, said to me in connection
with his lonely life and vocation
81 am not alone when / have these
sheep with me, can see so far from
my sheeling." This was not only
sUGGEsrIvELY POETIC,
but IL was expressed In excellent
English; and give his exact words
A fisherman taking salmon near the
mouth of the Ness told lue pleasant
ly: 1--WE have not been very fortu-
nate this year with salmon; but
have always noticed that when sal