THE MAGNOLIA OF MAILLIENDIERE.

Suggested by an authentic account of the introduction of that tree into Europe, as given in a little work on

HIGHLAND WILDERNESSES.

Ir is not our purpose to narrate the dangers | residuum of Falmouth fog, or the slightest fragthrough which the Royal Family and their suite cut their way in the dangerous passage from Osborne House to Ardverikie Lodge. The newspapers have done it all. They have not left a

very small blue jacket, with white canvas vest, its attendants. Neither do we propose to relate

and trousers of the same material, without braces, although the same may be had patented, and warranted to wear for the tenth part of a life-time, at the moderate charge of two shillings and fourpence, but with a profusion of linen, very clean, protruding from between the ill-jointed garments, at the grand junction of the upper and lower lines of clothing, gathered cockle-shells and seaweed at Cairn-Ryan, in the midst of an enthusiastic and admiring population, who were straining their eyes, and all kinds of optical instruments, to catch but one glimpse of the great young gentleman who, in the shape of a sailor-boy, was collect"marine specimens," we suppose, amongst their own rocks, and at their own feet. They (the newspapers, viz.) have deprived us of the pleasure of narrating this touching story, though we might take affidavit before Sir Peter Lawrie, knight and alderman, to the person of the honest woman who wanted to treat the poor sailor-boy to cheese and bread, and a bed on shore, because, as she truly said, her own John was in the Susan and Mary, schooner, belonging to Troon, burden, eighty-nine and a half tons, avoirdupois, in the coal trade; and nobody could tell-at least she could not tell-that he might not also be thrown amongst strange folks.

ing

We cannot even have the pleasure of stating, without plagiarism, the difficulties and disappointments, the delays, and the deferred hopes of three hundred and thirty-three thousand of her Majesty's subjects, who, on Monday, the 16th ult., in utter defiance of the Macedonia, American frigate, took up a position, or positions, to testify, in the teeth of republicanism, its wooden walls, and, behind thirty-two pounders, their zealous attachment to, and reverence for, the monarch of isles and ocean. We might gather up some foot-notes -a few fragments of the festival-the broken vases of that deserted hall—such as how quartern loaves, i.s.—which is as good Latin for pluralities as i.e. for the single article-i.s., four lbs. of wheaten bread rose in Greenock to 6d. per lb., as with the view of realising the fears and prophecies of the Mark Lane Express, which otherwise would never have been realised: that gunpowder in the seaport of the Clyde, as a marketable substance we mean, and not in its official capacity, became highly excited that freightage of human beings from what, in the great Scottish river, is termed the Tail of the Bank, to the eastern extremity of the navigation, became scarcer than ever was tonnage for flour at New Orleans, on the Mississippi, or for wheat at Galatz, within the dominions of the Great Turk, or in Alexandria on the Nile. Then we might depict the voyage of discovery undertaken by the corporations of Glasgow and of Greenock in search of the Royal fleet; how the Greenock gentlemen kept within the river, wisely declining to encounter the stomachie dangers and trials of the mid channel; or how their Glasgow superiors, being more loyally bent, proceeded with all the ardour of Sir John Ross or Columbus, and were ultimately successful in discovering the Royal yacht and

the particulars of that wonderful battle for precedency on the rock of Dumbarton, between the knights, with the Sheriffs of that shire, the Provost and Bailies of that glass-blowing and shipbuilding borough on the one hand; and the Lord Provost and Magistrates of Glasgow on the other a combat whereat the Queen of England was umpire, sitting enthroned on the Argyle battery, on that basaltic rock which, frowning on the Clyde, has been for two thousand years the premier fortress of the North, not in point of magnitude, but of antiquity, and where she delivered her award of victory by Herald Earl Grey. The struggle has been already fully detailed in speeches and in a pamphlet-the defeated parties-the chivalry, viz., of Dumbartonshire - consoling themselves by publishing their discomfiture to the world in that form. We may, however, tell the reader who does not examine these details minutely, that the point of controversy arose out of a permission given by her Majesty to the corporation of Glasgow to present an address personally-a privilege generally confined to the corporation of London, but which the people of Dumbartonshire thought should have been extended to their parchments and all other papers of a kindred kind.

It might approach more nearly our purpose to describe the reception of the sovereign by the MacCallummore at his castle of Inverary, on Wednesday the 18th ultimo; the array of Campbells; the foregathering of clansmen; the display of feudal power, and the magnificence in tenantry of a western dukedom, because this same chieftain is the party who, three or four months ago, was engaged in correspondence with the committee for the relief of destitution in the Highlands, with the view of persuading them to appropriate a portion of the money subscribed, and paid to feed and clothe the destitute, towards, practically, the clearance of his estates. He even succeeded in advising the committees of Glasgow and Edinburgh to adopt a resolution which might have been wrought for this purpose, if the London committee, backed by the remonstrances of the government, had not succeeded in expunging it from the minutes. We know not even how far the Celt of Loch-Awe has to thank the Sassenach merchants of Londonthe generous Saxons-more kindly hearted than his own chiefs, that the charity given to feed him in famine was not made the means of banishing him to Canada-a region, in 1847, of fever and death. But these remonstrances saved not the poor of lone and revered Iona. That graveyard of the great, connected as it is with the holiest associations regarding the faith of all the Christian sects of this country-the tomb of ancient kings and chiefs-the most singular historical spot in our dominions-is the property of one individual, the Duke of Argyle. When the Lords of Lorn were stripped of their broad lands, Iona was cast into the general forfeiture, although it had been neutral ground-common to all the island chiefs, and once the resting-place of Scotch, Norwe

gian, and Irish kings. There was no price paid for and islands. We are not to narrate the enthusiasm Iona. With equal good taste the Queen of Eng-with which her Majesty was received by the Highland might give over Westminster to some jobbing favourite, and allow him to entail the bones and dust of her ancestors-the relics of our noblest men-the mortal remains of English chivalry, faith, religion, philosophy, and poetry, in his heirs-male for ever, as her ancestor showed in gifting Iona to the Campbells, notwithstanding their faithful services to the cause of freedom, which had not commenced at that juncture. The present Duke of Argyle reckoned that Iona was overpeopled, and insisted on banishing a fifth part of the population. That was effected during this past spring. The people had no power of resistance. They were left thoroughly without a choice. They are placed under the most despotic rule. The Nizam of Hyderabad exercises, or the Ameers of Scinde exercised, no more complete controul over the destinies of their people, than does a Highland laird of this free country in the nineteenth century. Their tenants have no leases. They have no tenant-right. They are utterly destitute of any valid claim in law upon the land. They may improve it for another. They may build more commodious houses, in order to be charged a higher rent. They may drain their land, with the view of paying more money per acre; but they have no permanent interest in the soil. A good landlord balances these difficulties; but though the nature of Highland landlords, like that of other classes, admits of variation, yet their circumstances compel them towards a wretched policy. They are generally in debt. Seven-eighths of the Highlands and Islands are under trustees or mortgages. Even the present race of Highland landlords are to be more commiserated than blamed for this feature of the case. The present Duke of Argyle, for example, succeeded to estates of tremendous width and breadth, admitting of the greatest improvement; but it is very generally reported that they are burdened, and yet cannot be sold, so that the proprietor being only a life-renter, nominally drawing rents which he is obliged to pay over to bond-holders, cannot improve his lands, cannot increase produce, but must take the shortest way of obtaining so much money, even if it should be, as it generally is, a much smaller sum than could be otherwise obtained.

Iona, perhaps, was over-peopled; but the Argyle estates are under-peopled. Vast tracts of, undoubtedly, fertile land are waste. Immense sheep farms, that in the form of arable farms would rear ten times the present number of sheep, have been almost stripped of human beings. These sheep farms are being in their turn converted into deer forests, in order to render the desolation more complete, and the land a more dismal and howling wilderness.

land women, old men, and children; but our plan permits us to mention the remarkable poverty of men in these exhibitions. In the month of August 1745, the kinsman of the Queen's ancestors came into Loch Eil on a desperate errand, to overthrow the British constitution and displace the reigning family. He was welcomed by seven or eight thousand men. The gathering of the Camerons joined the Macdonalds and the Macleans, the Macleods, and the Frasers, and all the minor tribes. Their numbers were imposing; their bravery was undoubted; they shook to its centre the power of England and the best part of Scotland. They fought their way over battle-fields as victors to Derby. They were ultimately defeated, like many other adventurers, by their own bad generalship. In the month of August 1847, Queen Victoria entered Loch Eil. Her mission was peaceable; her popularity unbounded. In the Highlands the court needed no guard. There was no parade of military. There was a gathering of the claus; but at FortWilliam there were few to gather. Eighty men and boys of all ages, dressed in tartan of all patterns, lined the wooden quay! Even the number of men who were not in party dress, but had adopted Lowland costume, was trifling. If Queen Victoria wants to see a gathering of the clans, she must apply to Mr. Peto or Mr. Stevenson, or some other railway contractor, or go to Toronto or the Missouri prairies, and avoid the Sir Evan Camerons and Maccallummores, and Cluny Macphersons. She is beneath the shadow of Ben Nevis, and the clans are not there: her barge has floated up Loch Linnhe into Loch Eil, but their pibroch never sounds o'er these Highland waters. Arouud, on every cliff and hill, in every glade or glen, at every point and almost every pinnacle visible in her progress, there were ruins of old castles; there were marks of old houses; there were furrows on the hills where grass and natural beechwood strive with heath to maintain the supremacy of green. Solitude is on the surface, but search the land through and there is strewn thickly over it the reliques of a numerous people. It is a land of shadows deep and dark-of shadows and of sheep. Nowhere else is there scenery more magnificent-points of view more telling; nowhere is there more natural splendour-where broad waters, and high mountains, and deep vales combine to form the most wondrous landscapes. But it is a land peeled and bare. A land where industry is a crime punished by banishment-where sheep are more valuable than men. They ask there for a gathering of the clans, and they can only have a gathering of the shoop.

We remember few finer days of calm and sunWe are not to describe the progress of the Queen; shine than that in which her Majesty passed the though since the days of James IV. and V. no Sound of Mull; and we recollect of no more magother sovereign has visited the Western Highlands | nificent scenery. That, however, it serves not our

the deer will expel sheep. From Fort-William
Prince Albert journeyed to the Vale of Death-to
Glencoe-where the high, bare rocks almost close
in the dismal glen of murder. Beyond it the
deer forest of the Marquis of Breadalbane com-
mences and stretches sixty miles by forty, over a
tract of country that might support men. From
Fort-William to Ardverikic the Queen and her
suite passed through a moss belonging to a lucky
English lawyer, Lord Abinger. He is but a
recent purchaser, and his predecessor had let some
land on leases for improvement. It has been
improved, and is bearing crops that reproach
Lord Abinger for allowing-while many seek for
work, and want for food-land extending over
many miles to be wasted, and made into a desert,
because he is anxious to shoot game.
game preserve he bought the property, and as
a game preserve it is used.

For a

present object to describe. It will be found by tourists sufficiently accomplished for their object in the guide-books. Towards the middle of the Sound, on the mainland, the ruins of an old castle on a rock were distinctly visible. The royal yacht was taken out of its direct course, quite under the rock. There are many old castles in these places, and we never heard that barons built castles in a land where there was no population; but there is a pcculiar interest attaching to this ruin. It is Ardtornish. Sir Walter Scott, in the Lord of the Isles, called it Artornish. Its halls were once crowded with vassals. They were the home of chieftains who cla'med and exercised sovereignty. Their gallies or their curraghs crowded the seas. No question remains that they ruled over a numerous people. Beside Ardtornish, at present there is one white-washed two-flat dwelling. It is a greater Go on a little way. There is Loch Laggan. curiosity than Ardtornish Castle. Four or five Ardverikie Lodge is at its eastern extremity. thousand cottages have been cast down to build The land around is another dcer forest. It is that single house. Four or five thousand hearths held in lease by the Marquis of Abercorn, are cold that this one may be warm. Alike in and, lest the deer should be frightened by Sutherlandshire and Argyleshire the traces of the shadow of human beings, there are few in humanity have been obliterated from many dis- the neighbourhood. It is a home where a seer tricts that this house might be reared beside might dwell and be fed by the ravens. It is not, Ardtornish rock. It is the house of the great however, a hopeless desert-here and there are sheep-farmer who conducted a considerable part traces of men-in this place and that are marks of the clearances of Sutherlandshire, and who of civilization. By the loch side, up in secluded has been no loser by the subsequent arrangements: glens, between the mountains, on the mountain more, we believe, than can be said for the Eng-sides themselves, we meet fragments of a byegone lish family who ordered them. This house has race. Their very graves are hidden, but their been built on the principle of adding field to field, furrows remain. We speak of the march of until there be no room for men to dwell on the intellect-we write of the progress of civilizaface of the earth. This garish mansion, there- tion-Exeter Hall weeps for the Caffres-the fore, represents one principle which destroyed emotions of public meetings are given for the the people, and is about to be destroyed by an-Negroes. We have sympathy, a very unavailother. Passing out of the Sound of Mull, far to the right, amid the Hebridean archipelago, a range of blue mountains are visible. They belong to Rum-an island recently purchased by the Marquis of Salisbury, another English nobleman, who is converting it into a deer forest, to the exclusion of sheep with whom the deer will not feed. MacCulloch, whose tedious work on the Western Isles has been justly and deservedly condemned, says of Rum that it is a barren island. But a barren island will not support herds of deer. They cannot feed on rocks and gravel. They do not even greatly relish sea-weed. Our readers may rely on this fact, that wherever red deer thrive men can live. If they hear of deer-forests they may rest assured that within them there must be fertile spots clothed with thick and heavy meadows. That is the principle which is swallow ing up Peter Sellars, the owner of Ardtornish, and his sheep. The sheep have expelled men, but

* Passing through Glasgow, Mr. M'Phun will supply them with pocket-guides by land and water, perfectly accurate so far as we have seen, and not deficient in all that kind of information which a tourist has time, opportunity or inclination to peruse on the journey.

We

We have

ing and cheap sympathy, for Tahiti. We have
school funds for the Hill Coolies. We have paid
orators to plead the cause of Hindoo chiefs.
have eloquence for the Sikhs.
We have argu-
ments even for the Ameers of Seinde.
nothing for the Celts. Deeds most atrocious are
done within our own isle, and they are unheeded.
Lovers of pleasure turn the land into an artificial
waste, because they can afford to lose its value ;
while the nation is spoiled of its resources and the
people banished from their homes. Some
vigorous effort is needed to rescue the Highlands
from this retrogression to savage life. When a
few years have passed, we may seek in their
former homes the bare remnants of the Celtic
races, and have to say they are not, unless the
progress of depopulation be arrested. The High-
lands need from their Bhan-Righ and her Par-
liament two acts, one to repeal the law of
entail, and another the game laws; and when
these are passed, we may expect that the popula-
tion of the Highlands, instead of rapidly de-
creasing, will rapidly increase, and form the
surest stay amongst her subjects of the Queen
who reigns and dwells amongst them.