PUBLISHED BY JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS, GLASGOW Publishers to the University. MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON. MCMVIII. SCOTTISH · REMINIS- CENCES   ❧  ❧   BY SIR ARCHIBALD · GEIKIE · K.C.B. GLASGOW · JAMES · MACLEHOSE  AND · SONS · PUBLISHERS · TO  THE · UNIVERSITY · 1908  First Edition, April, 1904. Reprinted April 1904, 1905, 1908. GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD....

One who has sojourned in every part of a country and for sixty years has mingled with all classes of its inhabitants; who has watched the decay and disappearance of old, and the uprise of new usages; who has been ever on the outlook for illustrations of native humour, and who has been in the habit all along of freely recounting his experiences to his friends, may perhaps be forgiven if he ventures to put forth some record of what he has seen and heard, as a slight contribution to the history of

Social changes in Scotland consequent on the Union of the Crowns. Impetus given to these changes after Culloden in the eighteenth century, and after the introduction of steam as a motive power in the nineteenth. Posting from Scotland to London. Stage coach travelling to England. Canal travelling between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Loch Katrine in 1843. Influence of Walter Scott. Steamboats to London. Railroads in Scotland. Effects of steamboat development in the West Highlands. When on the 5th of Apr

Traces of Paganism in Scotland. Relics of the Celtic Church; ‘Deserts.’ Survival of Roman Catholicism in West Highlands and Islands. Influence of the Protestant clergy. Highland ministers. Lowland ministers. Diets of catechising. Street preachers. The social history of Scotland has been intimately linked with the successive ecclesiastical polities which have held sway in the country. Nowhere can the external and visible records of these polities be more clearly seen than among the Western Isles,

The sermon in Scottish Kirks. Intruding animals in country churches. The ‘collection.’ Church psalmody. Precentors and organs. Small congregations in the Highlands. Parish visitation. Survival of the influence of clerical teaching. Religious mania. From the time of the Reformation onwards the sermon has taken a foremost place in the service of the Church of Scotland. There was a time when a preacher would continue his discourse for five or six hours, and when sometimes a succession of preachers

Superstition in Scotland. Holy wells. Belief in the Devil. Growth of the rigid observance of the Sabbath. Efforts of kirk-sessions and presbyteries to enforce Jewish strictness in regard to the Sabbath. Illustrations of the effects of these efforts. Although ever since the Reformation the clergy have done their best to eradicate the pagan superstitions, which were alluded to in a previous chapter, traces of these superstitions have survived down to the present day in the Highlands. Even so late

Litigiousness of the Scots. Sir Daniel Macnee and jury-trial. Scottish judges, Patrick Robertson, Cullen, Neaves, Rutherford Clark. The natural unreclaimed Scot is apt to be litigious. He likes to have a ‘ganging plea,’ although the matter in dispute may not be worth contention. He does not care to be beaten by a neighbour, even in a trifle, and will willingly spend and be spent to secure what in the end is but a barren victory. This liking for law can be traced far back in history. We see it in

Medical Men. Sandy Wood. Knox. Nairn and Sir William Gull. A broken leg in Canna. Changes in the professoriate and students in the Scottish Universities. A St. Andrews Professor. A Glasgow Professor. Some Edinburgh Professors—Pillans, Blackie, Christison, Maclagan, Playfair, Chalmers, Tait. Scottish Schoolmasters. Among the professions that of medicine has long held a high place in Scotland. Its reputation at home and abroad has been maintained for a century and a half by a brilliant succession

Old and new type of landed proprietors in Scotland. Highland Chiefs—Second Marquess of Breadalbane; late Duke of Argyll. Ayrshire Lairds—T. F. Kennedy of Dunure; ‘Sliddery Braes’; Smith of Auchengree. Fingask and Charles Martin. New lairds of wealth. The most outstanding change in regard to landed proprietorship during the last half century has been in Scotland, as elsewhere in Britain, the successive extinction or displacement of families that long held their estates, and ‘proud of pedigree, bu

Lowland farmers; Darlings of Priestlaw. Sheep-farmers. Hall Pringle of Hatton. Farm-servants. Ayrshire milk-maids. The consequences of salting. Poachers. ‘Cauld sowens out o’ a pewter plate.’ Farm life in the Highlands. A Skye eviction. Clearances in Raasay. Summer Shielings of former times. Fat Boy of Soay. A West Highlander’s first visit to Glasgow. Crofters in Skye. Highland ideas of women’s work. Highland repugnance to handicrafts. The vicissitudes of agriculture have told on the farmers and

Highland ferries and coaches. The charms of Iona. How to see Staffa. The Outer Hebrides. Stones of Callernish. St. Kilda. Sound of Harris. The Cave-massacre in Eigg. Skeleton from a clan fight still unburied in Jura. The hermit of Jura. Peculiar charms of the Western Isles. Influence of the clergy on the cheerfulness of the Highlanders. Disappearance of Highland customs. Dispersing of clans from their original districts. Dying out of Gaelic; advantages of knowing some Gaelic; difficulties of the

The Orkney Islands. The Shetland Islands. Faroe Islands contrasted with Western Isles. ‘Burning the water.’ A fisher of men. Salmon according to London taste. Trout and fishing-poles. A wolf’s den. The Orkney and Shetland Islands present in many respects a strong contrast to the Hebrides. Differing fundamentally in their geological structure, and consequently also in their scenery, they are inhabited by a totally distinct race of people, and the topographical names, instead of being Gaelic, are

Scottish shepherds and their dogs. A snow-storm among the Southern Uplands. Scottish inns of an old type. Reminiscences of some Highland inns. Revival of roadside inns by cyclists. Scottish drink. Drinking customs now obsolete. The shepherds in the pastoral uplands of the south of Scotland are a strong, active, and intelligent race. I have spent many a happy day among them, living in their little shielings, on the friendliest footing with them, their families, and their dogs. The household at Ta

Scottish humour in relation to death and the grave. Resurrectionists. Tombstone inscriptions. ‘Naturals’ in Scotland. Confused thoughts of second childhood. Belief in witchcraft. Miners and their superstitions. Colliers and Salters in Scotland were slaves until the end of the eighteenth century. Metal-mining in Scotland. A notable feature in Scottish humour is the frequency with which it deals with death and the grave. The allusions are sometimes unintentionally ludicrous, not infrequently grim

Town-life in old times. Dirtiness of the streets. Clubs. Hutton and Black in Edinburgh. A feast of snails. Royal Society Club. Bailies ‘gang lowse.’ Rothesay fifty years ago. James Smith of Jordanhill. Fisher-folk of the Forth. Decay of the Scots language. Receipt for pronouncing English. Town-life a hundred years ago presented many contrasts to what it is now in Scotland. Means of locomotion being comparatively scanty and also expensive, communication with England was too serious a matter to be

The Scottish School of Geology. Neptunist and Vulcanist Controversy. J. D. Forbes. Charles Maclaren. Hugh Miller. Robert Chambers. W. Haidinger. H. von Dechen. Ami Boué. The life of a field-geologist. Experiences of a geologist in the West Highlands. A crofter home in Skye. The Spar Cave and Coruisk. Night in Loch Scavaig. As it has been in pursuit of geological investigation that I have been enabled to see so much of Scotland, I hope the reader will not think it inappropriate that a few of the

Influence of Topography on the people of Scotland. Distribution and ancient antagonism of Celt and Saxon. Caithness and its grin. Legends and place-names. Popular explanation of boulders. Cliff-portraits. Fairy-stones and supposed human footprints. Imitative forms of flint. Scottish climate and its influence on the people. Indifference of the Highlander to rain. ‘Dry rain.’ Wind in Scotland. Shakespeare on the climate of Morayland. Influence of environment on the Highlander. It is impossible to