The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

i8 THE HIGHLANDERS [parti
about the year 1180. This work describes Scotland (which
name at that period was applied only to the country north of
the Firths of Forth and Clyde) as resembling in form that of a
man. The head of the figure lay in Arregathel, the mountains
of which he says resemble the head and neck of a man ; the
body consisted of that chain which is called Mound, and which
he describes as reaching from the western sea to the eastern ;
the arms were those mountains "
qui dividunt Scotiam ab Arre-
gaithel;" the legs, the two rivers Tay and Spey. After this
description he adds, " inter crura hujus hominis sunt Enegus et
Moerne citra montem, et ultra montem alise terrse inter Spe et
montem." From this description it would seem that he considered
that there were but two remarkable chains in Scotland, " mons
qui Mound vocatur," and "montes qui dividunt Scotiapi ab Arre-
gaithel." The localit}- of the first of these chains is perfectly
distinct from his description, for he tells us that part of it formed
the northern boundary of "
Enegus et Mcerne," a range which
to the present day bears the name of " The Mounth." The
other part extended to the western sea, and must therefore be
the western part of the same chain which divides the count}'
of Inverness from the counties of Perth and Argyll, and which
is now termed Drumuachdar. The other chain, viz. the " montes
qui dividunt Scotiam ab Arregaithel," are described as forming
the arms of the figure, and must therefore have consisted of two
ridges, the one branching from the Mounth, on the south, and
the other on the north. As it appears, however, in describing
the seven parts into which Scotland was of old divided, that
Athol is named as one of them, it is plain that the western
boundary of the southern part of Arg)'ll was at that time the
same as it is now, and therefore the southern branch of the
"
montes qui dividunt Scotiam ab
"
Aregaithel must be the
same with that chain of hills which runs from Benauler on the
north-west corner of Perthshire to the head of Loch Long, and
which to this day separates the county of Argyll from the
district of Atholl and the counties of Perth and Dumbarton.
But this very chain is called b}' the same author Bruinalban,
for in afterwards describing these seven parts of Scotland, of
which he had formerly given the names (though with some
variation), he mentions that division which corresponds with