weapons of stone, and
fashioned canoes out of single logs of wood. Are we to accept
etymologies such as the instanced one--and there are several such in the
Highlands--as good, in evidence that these aboriginal savages were of
the Celtic race, and that Gaelic was spoken in Scotland at a time when
its strips of grassy links, and the sites of many of its seaport towns,
such as Leith, Greenock, Musselburgh, and Cromarty, existed as oozy
sea-beaches, covered twice every day by the waters of the ocean?

It was a delightful evening--still, breathless, clear--as we swept
slowly across the broad breast of Loch Maree; and the red light of the
sinking sun fell on many a sweet wild recess, amid the labyrinth of
islands purple with heath, and overhung by the birch and mountain-ash;
or slanted along the broken glades of the ancient forest; or lighted up
into a blush the pale stony faces of the tall pyramidal hills. A boat
bearing a wedding party was crossing the lake to the white house on the
opposite side, and a piper stationed in the bows, was discoursing sweet
music, that, softened by distance, and caught up by the echoes of the
rocks, resembled no strain I had ever heard from the bagpipe before.
Even the boatmen rested on their oars, and I had just enough of Gaelic
to know that they were remarking how very beautiful it was. "I wish,"
said my comrade, "you understood these men: they have a great many
curious stories about the loch, that I am sure you would like. See you
that large island? It is Island-Maree. There is, they tell me, an old
burying-ground on it, in which the Danes used to bury long ages ago, and
whose ancient tomb-stones no man can read. And yon other island beside
it is famous as the place in which the _good_ people meet every year to
make submission to their queen. There is, they say, a little loch in the
island, and another little island in the loch; and it is under a tree on
that inner island that the queen sits and gathers kain for the Evil One.
They tell me that, for certain, the fairies have not left this part of
the country yet." We landed, a little after sunset, at the point from
which our road led across the hills to the sea-side, but found that the
carter had not yet come up; and at length, despairing of his appearance,
and unable to carry off his cart and the luggage with us, as we had
succeeded in bringing off cart, horse, and luggage on the previous day,
we were preparing to take up our night's lodgin