A nearer view, indeed, rather
diminished the effect impressed on the mind by the more distant
appearance of the army. The leading men of each clan were well armed with
broad-sword, target, and fusee, to which all added the dirk, and most the
steel pistol. But these consisted of gentlemen, that is, relations of the
chief, however distant, and who had an immediate title to his countenance
and protection. Finer and hardier men could not have been selected out of
any army in Christendom; while the free and independent habits which each
possessed, and which each was yet so well taught to subject to the
command of his chief, and the peculiar mode of discipline adopted in
Highland warfare, rendered them equally formidable by their individual
courage and high spirit, and from their rational conviction of the
necessity of acting in unison, and of giving their national mode of
attack the fullest opportunity of success.
But, in a lower rank to these, there were found individuals of an
inferior description, the common peasantry of the Highland country, who,
although they did not allow themselves to be so called, and claimed
often, with apparent truth, to be of more ancient descent than the
masters whom they served, bore, nevertheless, the livery of extreme
penury, being indifferently accoutred, and worse armed, half naked,
stinted in growth, and miserable in aspect.
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