o his best to put an
end to hostilities. [209]

He was accordingly commissioned to treat with the Jacobite chiefs, and
was entrusted with the money which was to be distributed among them. He
invited them to a conference at his residence in Glenorchy. They came;
but the treaty went on very slowly. Every head of a tribe asked for a
larger share of the English gold than was to be obtained. Breadalbane
was suspected of intending to cheat both the clans and the King. The
dispute between the rebels and the government was complicated with
another dispute still more embarrassing. The Camerons and Macdonalds
were really at war, not with William, but with Mac Callum More; and
no arrangement to which Mac Callum More was not a party could really
produce tranquillity. A grave question therefore arose, whether
the money entrusted to Breadalbane should be paid directly to the
discontented chiefs, or should be employed to satisfy the claims
which Argyle had upon them. The shrewdness of Lochiel and the arrogant
pretensions of Glengarry contributed to protract the discussions. But
no Celtic potentate was so impracticable as Macdonald of Glencoe, known
among the mountains by the hereditary appellation of Mac Ian. [210]

Mac Ian dwelt in the mouth of a ravine situated not far from the
southern shore of Lochleven, an arm of the sea which deeply indents the
western coast of Scotland, and separates Argyleshire from Invernesshire.
Near his house were two or three small hamlets inhabited by his tribe.
The whole population which he governed was not supposed to exceed two
hundred souls. In the neighbourhood of the little cluster of villages
was some copsewood and some pasture land; but a little further up the
defile no sign of population or of fruitfulness was to be seen. In the
Gaelic tongue Glencoe signifies the Glen of Weeping; and in truth that
pass is the most dreary and melancholy of all the Scottish passes,
the very Valley of the Shadow of Death. Mists and storms brood over it
through the greater part of the finest summer; and even on those rare
days when the sun is bright, and when there is no cloud in the sky, the
impression made by the landscape is sad and awful. The path lies along
a stream which issues from the most sullen and gloomy of mountain pools.
Huge precipices of naked stone frown on both sides. Even in July the
streaks of snow may often be discerned in the rifts near the summits.
All down the sides of the crags heaps of ruin