As it is generally acknowledged that the physical character of a country influences in a great degree the moral and physical character of its inhabitants, and thus to a certain extent determines their history, it may not be deemed out of place to define here the application of the term _Highlands_, so far as Scotland is concerned, and briefly to describe the general physical aspect of that part of our native land. If it hold good at all that there subsists a relation between a people and the country which they have inhabited for centuries, the following history will show that this is peculiarly the case with the Scottish Highlanders. Most of those who have thought of the matter at all, have doubtless formed to themselves a general notion of the northern half of Scotland as a “Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, Land of the mountain and the flood,” and of its inhabitants as a brawny, rugged, indomitable, impulsive race, steadfast in their friendship and loyalty, and relentless but generous in their enmity. Although the popular and poetic notion of the country is on the whole correct, and although the above epithets may express the main features of the character of the people, still it requires a close acquaintance with this interesting race, both historically and by personal intercourse, to form an adequate notion of their character in all its aspects. To speak roughly, nearly the whole of the country north of a line connecting the heads of the estuaries of the Clyde, Forth, and Tay, may be included under the designation of the Highlands, and, in fact, popularly is so. Indeed, at the time at which the northern half of Scotland--the ancient and proper Caledonia--emerges from its pristine gloom, and for the first time glimmers in the light of history, the line indicated by the forts of Agricola, and afterwards by the wall of Antonine, marked the southern boundary of the region which was then, and for centuries afterwards, regarded by the Romans, and also, probably, by the southern Britons, as occupying the same position in relation to the rest of the country as the Highlands proper did at a subsequent period. In course of time the events which fall to be recorded in the following pages gradually altered this easily perceived boundary, so that for centuries before the present day, a much more intricate but still distinct line has marked the limits of what is now strictly and correctly regarded as the Highlands of Scotland.