The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

20 THE HIGHLANDERS [part i
and was known as applied to a particular range of hills at so
late a period, we ma}- conclude with safet}', that the descriptions
of it given b}- Buchanan, Monypenn}- and others, applied to
a range of hills well known at the time under that name, and
were not merely speculations as to the locality of a name which
had ceased to be used. The great distinguishing feature applied
to Drumalbane by these authorities is, that it divides the rivers
flowing into the western sea from those flowing into the eastern,
— a peculiarit}' which belongs only to a long range of hills com-
mencing at Loch Long, and running up the centre of the island
until it is lost among the mountains of Caithness, and of which
that chain already alluded to as separating the counties of Perth
and Argyll forms the southern part. As an additional corrobo-
ration of this, Buchanan mentions that the River Earn takes its
rise from it, and that in fact it was merely the highest part of
Breadalbane.
The southern part of the western boundary of the Picts was
therefore evidenth' the same with the present western boundary
of Perthshire and Inverness-shire. The remaining and northern
part of their western boundary appears to have been the sea
from the Linne Loch to Cape Wrath, and this is a part of the
boundary which it is of considerable importance for us to determine,
as it involves the question of the possession of those
districts which extend from Caithness to the Linne Loch, and
comprise the western parts of the counties of Sutherland, Ross,
and Inverness, and the northern part of the county of Argyll.
From all the notices which I have been able to collect, it
appears that these districts, at all times, belonged to the Picts.
In the first place it may be inferred from the ancient chronicles,
that Dalriada did not originally extend beyond the Linne Loch,
for they divide Dalriada among the three brothers who are said
to have conducted the Scots from Ireland. The eldest obtained
Lorn the ; second, Argyll Proper and Kintyre ; while the
youngest obtained Isla. And this division is fully corroborated
by the Irish Annalists, who mention the descendants of these
brothers frequently, and always in the same districts as they are
placed by the Scottish Chronicles. In the second place, inde-
pendently even of this argument, we have the direct testimony
of Bede, that these districts were possessed by the Picts from