realise an enormous profit, which, we fear, was too often done. “By which traffic the poor wretched people were cheated out of their effects, for one half of their value; and so are kept in eternal poverty.”[55] As to roads, with the exception of those made for military purposes by General Wade, there seems to have been none whatever, only tracts here and there in the most frequented routes, frequently impassable, and at all time unsafe without a guide. Captain Burt could not move a mile or two out of Inverness without a guide. Bridges seem to have been even rarer than slated houses or carriages. We have thus endeavoured to give the reader a correct idea of the state of the country and people of the Highlands previous to the abolition of the heritable jurisdictions. Our only aim has been to find out the truth, and we have done so by appealing to the evidence of contemporaries, or of those whose witness is almost as good. We have endeavoured to exhibit both the good and bad side of the picture, and we are only sorry that space will not permit of giving further details. However, from what has been said above, the reader must see how much had to be accomplished by the Highlanders to bring them up to the level of the rest of the country, and will be able to understand the nature of the changes which from time to time took place, the difficulties which had to be overcome, the prejudices which had to be swept away, the hardships which had to be encountered, in assimilating the Highlands with the rest of the country.