A history of the Highlands and of the Highland clans : with an ...

CALBUONIAN TKIBES. A
uf lh« Moray Fritli from the Doveraii on tl»e east, to the JNess on the
ivpst, coiuprehending the shires of BaiiiF, Elgin, Nairn, the eastern pan
of Inverness, and iJraemar in Ahcrdeenshirc. Their towns were the
Ptorolon of Richard, the A/ala Castra of Ptolemy, at tlie mouth of thp
Varar, where the present linrgliead runs into the Moray Fritli ;
on the eastern bank of the Spey ;
rior country.
Tiwssis
and Tuinea and Bdiiatia in the inte-
Tenth, Tlie Albiini, afterwards called Daiimii-Albaiii, on their sub
jectiou to the Damnii, possessed the interior districts between the lower
ridge of the Grampians which skirts the southern side of the loch and
river Tay, on the south, and the chain of mountains which foi'ms the
southern limit of Inverness-shire on the north. These districts comprehended
Braidalbane, Athole, a small part of Lochaber, with Appin and
Glenorchy in lT])per Lorn. The A/buni were so called because they
possessed a higli and inountninous country-
Eleventh, The Attacotli inhabited the whole country from Locli
Fyne on the west to the eastward of the river Leven and Loch- Lomond,
comprehending the whole of Cowal in Argyleshire, and the greater
part of DunibartonshLi-e. The British word Eithacoeti, which signifies
men dwelling along the extremity of the wood, appears to indicate
the derivation of the name of this tribe.
Twelfth, The Calednnii proper inhabited the whole of the interior
country from the ridge of mountains which separates Inverness and
Pertli, on the south, to the range of hills which forms the forest of
Balnagowan in Ross on the north ; comprehending all the middle parts
of Inverness and of Ross. This territory formed a considerable part
of the extensive forest which in early ages, spread over the interior
and western parts of the country, on tlie northern side of the Forth
and Clyde, and to which the British colonists, according to Chalmers,
gave the descriptive appellation of Celyddon, signifying literally the
coverts, and generally denoting a tooody region. It was on this account
that the large tribe in question were called Celyddoni, a name afterwards
latinized into the more classical appellation of Caledonii. The descriptive
name, Celijddon, restricted originally to the territory described, was
afterwards extended to the whole country on the northern side of the
Forth and Clyde, under the latinized appellation of Caledonia.
Thirteenth, The Canto: possessed the east of Ross-shire from the
destuary of \'arar or the Moray Frith on the south to the Abona, or
Dornoi-h Frith on the north ; having Lo.ra or Cromarty Frith which
indented their country in the centre, and a ridge of hills, Uxellum mmi-
tes. on the west. This ridge, of which Ben-Wyvis, one of the highest
mountains in Great Britain, is the prominent summit, gradually declines
towards the north-east, and terminates in a promontory, called Pen
Uxellum, the Tarbetness of modern times. The term Cantm, the name
of this tribe, is derived from Caint, a British word meaning an open
country, which the district in question certainly was, when compared
with the moui tainous interior and the western district*.