Morning journal and courier., 1890-10-11
MIR. wAKEMAN,s JOURNRYINGs.
At the Royal Burgh of Inverness Scottish Love Of Highland Scenes National Pride and Feeling-Purity of Tongue-Some Characteristfcs- Ancient History.


 National Pride and Feeling-Purity
 of Tongue-Some Characteristics
 Ancient History.
 INVERNESS, Scotland, Sept. 8. To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 Whether you come from the Western Isles through the Caledonian canal, with its noble reaches of lakes bordered by cloud-kissed mountains where monarch Ben Nevis scowls through the swirling mists; if by the eastern coast where the German ocean thunders against granite headlands and mighty precipices. and no sound save the roaring of the tempest or the shrieking of sea-fowl is ever heard; or whether you tramp across fair Perthshire and Invsrness-shire over the fine highway where modern civilization has utilized the old Roman roads, and in your one hun dred and fifty mile pilgrimage from Edin- burgh you have learned to love Highland scenes in @ way that gives you faint no- ton of the passionate devotion of the old clansmen for the glens and straths in which they were given birth; however you may have come, by the time you have be- gun to realize a familiarity and acquain- tance with the royal burgh of Inverness, its bewitching environs, and especially with the most characteristic of it's people and the grave, silent folk who swarm here from the fastnesses of the north, a curi- ous sense of interest, almost reaching the pleasurable thrill of discovery, possesses you.
 Inverness is the metropolis of the High lands. You realize you are in Scotland; yet when you recall your surroundings, when you compare habit, custom, manner, dialect, motive, and even your own feel ings and attitude resulting from a stran- gers contact with strangers, you feel that you have come to @ new and distinct 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 endless devo- ton 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 Scotlanda Is he in Glasgow with
 his hard, commercial ways; his driving,
 restless, endless activities, unsurpassed by
 the mad money-makers of New York oI
 Chicagoi Is he in Edinburgh, with his
 philosophies, theologies, aristocracies
 genealogies, and often his throadbare pov.
 ertiess Is he among the Border vales
 with his barbarous dialects and lethargic
 sodden contentl Is he in the Western
 Isles, starving half the time in desolats
 clachans, the victim of poor crops, evic
 tion, commissions, and the slave of east
 shore fisher smackmen! Or is he of In
 verness, Beauty, Elgin, Wick and Thurso
 in the mystic north, the true Scotch O
 Scotchmen, though he has no dialect
 speaks Gaelic more exquisitely than
 Dublin professor, and reels of ''book Eng
 fish" in greater purity than professor a Oxford or Boston booksellers clerki
 This excellence of speech in the ia north becomes the more surprising whel you remember that all printed examples O been attributed by their manufacturers t Scottish Highlanders. The fact is tha the nearer you come to the English bol ! der, on the one side, or the Scottish horde on the other, the more do Scottish an
 English folk hurl angular chunks of Dori
 provincialisms at you until you sicke with the effort at intelligent compreher sion. These Borderers have the greates pride in their "rich broad Scotch," o their s'rich Northumbrian." Both ar simply rich jargon: From Carlisl on-Tweed, and back through Kelso, Jei burgh, Keswick, Amman and Dumfries, i Scotland, in ordinary course of travel 70 will find more people whom you canno 2 readily understand than in all the rest ( Scotland; and you will in the same wa discover more folk, from the most learne . Established, or Free, church ministe 3 down to the most ignorant gillie or hun l ble crofter, who speak the English tongu 9 gramatically, with precision and direct 8 ness, and with pleasing modulation an 9 infection. north of the Grampian hill !. than in Glasgow and Edinburgh combined ! A Highland sheep-herder, over on th r sides of grim old Ben Muichdhui, who ha 0 never seen dozen books in his life, sal ]. to me in connection with his lonely lii @ and vocation: sI am not alone when @ have these sheep with me, I can see so fs l. from my sheeling." This was not onl l. suggestively poetic, but it was expresse l. in excellent English; and give his exat t words. A fisherman taking salmon nef d the mouth of the Ness told me pleasant, d sWe have not been very fortunate tn r year with salmon; but have always n' ,. ticed that when salmon are scarce ca [, meal is plentiful" An old blacksmith, Q little forge near Carnoch, said: fWe, o I not too old to take the journey, shoul ,t like to still enjoy the advantages yor n country offers a workman" The pie l. keeper at Drumnadrochit informed m
 ssThe steamers on the canal are very pun l. tual in their arrivals" An Inverness p 10 liceman, of whom had made inquiry T 5. garding arrival and departure of Beau m coaches, responded: q am sorry ca ,e not tell you. If you will wait . moment ct will ascertain for you at the Highland ra 1s way station-ofice." A ragged lad, haw 7e ing fish with donkey and cart, of who