This subject has already engaged the attention of a literary gentleman[143] of talent and intelligence, who has handled the matter with no small degree of acumen. The following extracts may therefore be interesting to those readers who have not had opportunities for personal investigation. “Blind Harrie has very particularly related the circumstances of MacPhadian’s proceedings; and his account so exactly coincides with the tradition and topography of the district where the facts are said to have been performed, that there can be little or no doubt of the truth of his narration. “Loch-Awe, upon the banks of which the scene of action took place, is thirty-four miles in length. The north side is bounded by wide muirs and inconsiderable hills, which occupy an extent of country from twelve to twenty miles in breadth, and the whole of this space is enclosed as by a circumvallation. Upon the north it is barred by Loch-Eitive, on the south by Loch-Awe, and on the east by the deep and dreadful pass of Brandir, through which an arm of the latter lake opens at about four miles from its eastern extremity, and discharges the river Awe into the former. The pass is about three miles in length; its east side is bounded by the almost inaccessible steeps which form the base of the vast and rugged mountain of Cruächan. The craigs rise in some places almost perpendicularly from the water; and, for their chief extent, show no space nor level at their feet, but a rough and narrow edge of stony beach. Upon the whole of these cliffs grew a thick and interwoven wood of all kinds of trees, both timber, dwarf, and coppice; no track existed through the wilderness, but a winding path which sometimes crept along the precipitous height, and sometimes descended in a straight pass along the margin of the water. Near the extremity of the defile, a narrow level opened between the water and the craig; but a great part of this, as well as the preceding steeps, was formerly enveloped in a thicket, which showed little facility to the feet of any but the martins and the wild cats. Along the west side of the pass, lies a wall of sheer and barren craigs: from behind they rise in rough, uneven, and heathy declivities, out of the wide muir before mentioned, between Loch-Eitive and Loch-Awe; but in front they terminate abruptly in the most frightful precipices, which form the whole side of the pass, and descend at one fall into the water which fills its trough. At the north end of this barrier, and at the termination of the pass, lies that part of the cliff which is called Craiganuni: at its foot the arm of the lake gradually contracts its water to a very narrow space, and at length terminates at two rocks (called the rocks of Brandir), which form a straight channel, something resembling the lock of a canal. From this outlet there is a continual descent toward Loch-Eitive, and from hence the river Awe pours out its current in a furious stream, foaming