The simple truth about the “language” of the pipes seems to be that a Highland listener gets from the pipes what, in a more or less degree, anyone gets from the music he loves—a stimulant for his emotion and imagination, nothing more. He is an emotional being, and his imagination, aided and abetted by the sorrows and the joys of many generations—which affect his disposition though he knows it not—and by the many associations of particular tunes or styles of playing, runs riot when he hears the pipes, and to him they speak as no other instrument ever can speak. A primitive instrument working on the feelings of a primitive people has a much more direct and intense psychological effect than on a sophisticated people who have scores of different cunning instruments and myriads of airs, a fact which should always be remembered when the “language” of the pipes is discussed. After all it depends much more on the listener than on the instrument. In our appreciation of any music, and in the effect it has on us, there is involved all that we ourselves have been, seen, heard, thought, and— sometimes—forgot. A plaintive love air brings up the old days, the sunny weather, the sweethearts of our youth, all the store of associations that are buried in us, and—who knows?—all the loves and hates, the joys and sorrows of our dead fathers, modified or intensified by our own personal character. Therefore to us that plaintive air is the sweetest of music. To the Highlander the bagpipe conveys the fine rapture a high- class audience gets, or at least professes to get, from Sarasate’s violin and Paderewski’s piano. To him it has a direct message, but to the rest of the world it is what a violin is to him, probably less. But as for an impromptu tune conveying intelligence like spoken language—ah well, we must draw the line somewhere. CHAPTER VII. THE LITERATURE OF THE PIPES. “I hin-do, ho-dro, hin-do, ho-dro, hin-do, ho-dro, hin-da, ho-dra, hin-do, ho-dro, hin-da, chin-drine, hin-do, ho-dro, hin-do, ho-dra, hin-do, ho-dro, hin-do, ho-dro, hin-do, ho-dro, hin-da, chin-drine, hin-do, ho-dro, hin-do, ho-dro, hin-da, hin-da, hin-do, chin-drine.” Ancient music lost—Transmission by tradition—Druidical remains—Systems of teaching—No books—“Unintelligible jargon”—_Canntaireachd_—The Mac Crimmon System—The Gesto Book—A scientific system—A tune in _Canntaireachd_—Pipers unable to explain—Earliest printed pipe music—Mac Donald’s books—More recent books—Something to be done.