An gaidheal - National Library of Scotland

—advanced stage of phonetic corruption!At any rate, since the nameis pronounced differently in differentparts of the country, your coiTesjiondentis scarcely entitled to concludethat the sj^elling which doesnot accord with his own way ofjironouncing the word must bewrong. As to the etymology of theword I have really no theory. Whendealing with some of the derivativesof a common Aryan root, it occurredto me that possibly the name of ourhighest mountain might be referredto that root, and the suggestionappears to me as rational as any otherthat I remember having seen, which,however, is not saying very much inits favour.—I am, &c.,Eenton, 9th Sept., 1873.Alexander Cameron.MONUMENT TO DUGALDBUCHANAN.We are very glad to observe that amovement has recently been madewith the view of erecting a monumentto the memory of DugaldBuchanan, without exception thebest of modern Gaelic poets in thetrue sense of the term, for in comparisonwith him tlie bulk of modernwould-be bards are mere poetastersand rhymers. Atameetinglieldat thebegiiming- of September in Kinloch-Rannoch for the furtherance of thisobject, the Rev. Di- Maclauchlan, ofEdinburgh, who presided, spoke asfollows:— "The object of our meetingto-day is one which must commenditself to every lover of theHighlands, their poetry, and theirreligion. Not that Dugald Buchananrequires a monument. His memorywill be fresh as long as the languagein which his hymns were composedcontinues to be a living tongue.These sacred soiiirs are his trueTHE GAEL. 255monument. But the feeling existsamong those who cherish his memoryand admire his poetry that somethingshould be done to give expression toa sentiment which exists so widely,and with that feeling I deeply sympathise.Other Gaelic poets of adifferent class have their monuments,and why should not he? Buchanan,as is well known, was a native ofBalqnhidder, and was for seA^enteeuyears of his life a contemporary ofRob Roy. Strange that the samedistrict should, nearly at the sametime, produce two characters sodifierent as Dugald Buchanan andliob Roy Macgi-egor. The factteaches us not to judge hastily of thecharacter of the people of the Highlandsgenerally at the time. Theremight be fierce and barbarous menin the countrj', but there were distinguishedmen of God too, andnone more so than this native of thevery district which was the scene ofso many of Macgi'egor's lawlessdeeds, and where his dust now lies,Buchanan was one of the early missionaryteachers of the Society forPropagating Christian Knowledgemen selected as much for their graceas for their gifts, although he wasrichly endowed with both. Manyinteresting incidents are related regardinghim in this capacity. Thescene of his labours was Rainioch,where we are now met. He wasincessant hi labour for Christ, andfaithful in rebuking sin and winningsinners to his Master; and nonecould be more valued than he as aguide and instructor by experienced('hristians. His interest in the welfareof religion may be gatheredfrom the fact that, notwithstandingthe difficulty of travelling at the timeand the length of the way, he visitedCambuslang during the gi-eat revivalin the days of Whitfield, and wasmuch encouraged by what he saw.