The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

22 THE HIGHLANDERS [parti
We have thus she\\n by an incontrovertible chain of autho-
rities, that in the year 731, the period at which Bede closes his
histor}-,
present
the territories of the Pictish nation consisted of the
counties of Kinross, Fife, Perth, Forfar, Kincardine,
Aberdeen, Mora)', Inverness, Ross, Sutherland, Caithness, and
the northern part of ; Argyll in fact, the whole of Scotland
north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, with the exception
of Southern Argyll.
The Firth of Clyde is universally allowed to have
TerrHor^jf
]yeQn the boundary which separated
the Dalriads
from the Strathclyde Britons, and consequently it
follows that Dalriada, or the territory of the Scots in
Britain, uiust Jiavc been coiifiiied
to South Argyll, or that part
and the Scots
of the county lying to the south of Linne Loch ;
appear to have maintained their possession of a territory so
inconsiderable in comparison with that of the Picts, partly by
the strong natural boundaries and impervious nature of the
country itself, and partly by the close connexion which they
at all times preserved with the Irish. We shall now proceed,
in pursuance of our plan, to investigate shortly the
Internal con- .
•
i r i
j. ^1
ditionofUie Hitemal statc and strength ot these nations at tne
tribes.
same period.
When the Picts first appear under that appellation upon the
stage of history, and when by the frequency of their
Picts divided . . . • • •
it-. ti -z. ^i.
into two incursions into the Roman provinces in Britain tney
attracted the attention of the Roman writers, they
are described by them as having been divided into two great
nations, Dicaledoncs, and Vectiirioncs. The origin of this
division cannot now be traced, but as it apparently did not
exist at the time when Ptolemy wrote his geography, it must
have owed its origin to circumstances occurring subsequent to
that period. In whatever manner, hoA\-ever, it may have originated,
this twofold division of the Pictish nation appears to
have subsisted at least down to the eighth century. We trace
it in Bede as existing in full force in the time of St. Columba,
when he mentions that Columba came over "
predicaturus verbum
Dei provinciis septentrionalium Pictorum, hoc est eis quae
arduis atque horrentibus Montium jugis ab Australibus eorum
sunt regionibus sequestrate. Namque ipsi Australes Picti qui