ABSTRACT
The Highlands and Islands make up about half the total land surface of Scotland. The whole area may be described shordy as ‘the Highlands’, and its inhabitants are known as ‘Highlanders’. The fate of the Highlands is the fate of at least a sixth part of the total area of Britain and might appear to deserve some consideration; but geography, like history, takes on a special perspective when it is popularly expounded in London – as in the belief that England is an island, and that Britain has no inhabited islands except the Isle of Wight and the Isle of Man. A comparison of ancient legends is not very profitable even if their influence persists to the present day; but the Scottish legend at least calls attention to possible gaps in the English one. The army which committed these outrages was not an undisciplined one: it suffered rather from an excess of discipline.
