ABSTRACT
When the Roman administration was withdrawn from Britain at the beginning of the fifth century, the rule of these islands passed into the hands of their Celtic inhabitants. In Ireland the inhabitants were called Scots, and they spoke an older form of the Celtic tongue than their neighbours in Britain and Gaul, called Gaelic. Throughout the fifth century, Celtic Gaul was the most intellectually vigorous region in the Roman Empire. The population of the Highlands was estimated in 1747 to be about 230,000, which is approximately the number of people living in this half of Scotland today. In the second half of the eighteenth century the population rose steeply, especially in the western Highlands, and there were massive waves of emigration. The economy of the Highlands was, in fact, predominantly pastoral and based upon the export of cattle.
