Even when, later, some of the Highlanders possessed cannon, they were apt to look with contempt upon anything which did not permit them to charge in a rush and come to close quarters. In fact, it was this unintelligent tenacity in holding on to a war equipment which, even to the claymore, to say nothing of the target and ordinary spear, had been discarded in other countries, that brought the clans to final destruction at Culloden. On the Continent improvements were made, first in favor of the pike and then of the musket, with the dropping of anything like a shield, or defence, which required the use of one hand and which could not resist a bullet. It was a thorough knowledge of the Highlander’s conceit and conservatism, which had become his weakness and was ultimately to be his ruin, as well as the perception of the change in battle tactics and the relative merits of bayonet and broadsword fighting, that enabled the Duke of Cumberland, then only twenty-four years of age, to win a decisive victory, such as older men of experience had repeatedly tried to gain, but to no purpose. Chambers wrote, in 1830, “The field of Culloden yet bears witness to the carnage of which it was the scene. In the midst of its black and blasted heath, various little eminences are to be seen displaying a lively verdure, but too unequivocally expressive of the dreadful chaos. They are so distinct and well defined that the eye may almost, by their means, trace the position of the armies, or at least discover where the fight was most warmly contested.” The way toward Inverness, otherwise an unimproved, secondary road, is fringed with many doleful memorials. There the daisy and bluebell of Scotland have selected their abode, he tells us, as if resolved to sentinel forever the last resting-place of their country’s heroes. Not infrequently modern curiosity hunters have violated the graves in order to secure some relic of the ill-fated warriors, to show as a wonder in the halls of the Sassenach. The Gaels, with nobler sentiments, have come more frequently to translate the bones of their friends to consecrated ground afar, in their own dear glens of the west. “But enough and more than enough yet remains to show where Scotland fought her last battle and the latest examples of her ancient chivalry fell to feed the eagles and to redeem the desert.”