Inverness to Fort Augustus
After a traveling day that had culminated in the Captain’s Welcome Dinner and a delightful after-dinner demonstration of Scottish traditional dancing by a group of enthusiastic local school children (accompanied by bagpipes) most of us retired happily to our cabins for a refreshing night’s sleep.
Our first full day began with a morning visit to the Culloden battlefield and to Clava Cairns. Culloden was the scene of the last pitched battle to be fought on British soil, when the Jacobites led by Bonnie Prince Charlie were defeated by government forces under the command of Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, second son of King George II. The defeat of the Jacobites was a disaster for Gaelic culture in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. A victorious Protestant state brooked no mercy and subjected the Highlanders, now tainted with treason and regarded as pathologically disloyal, to what some contemporary historians have described as ethnic cleansing. A populated landscape was emptied of its people who were replaced with more profitable sheep and later grouse.
At Clava Cairns we inspected the remains of what seems to have been an altogether more peaceful society. The Neolithic Revolution had transformed social organization in prehistoric Britain through the development of settled agriculture. Extended families lived in villages, usually comprising wooden structures, few traces of which survive for archaeological investigation. These people constructed adjacent villages for their dead, however, made of stone purposed to endure eternally. Along with their graves, like the passage tombs we saw, were monuments - that continued being used into the succeeding Bronze Age - that testify to a belief system that celebrated the solar and lunar cycles, both highly significant for any agricultural people.
Our transit of Loch Ness in the afternoon reminded us of even earlier times, a glacially carved lake that is deeper than any part of the North Sea between Scotland and Denmark and which contains more fresh water than all other British lakes combined. No wonder there are rumors abound of a mysterious creature, surviving from deep time, in the depths of the loch. It added to our attentiveness on deck during a delightfully evocative transit, the highlight of which was our close approach to the ancient stronghold of Urqhuart Castle. After mooring at Fort Augustus (named for the King’s victorious brother) an interpretive walk was organized in the countryside around the village. Appetites were whetted for more Scottish social and natural history and, most immediately, for dinner.
After a traveling day that had culminated in the Captain’s Welcome Dinner and a delightful after-dinner demonstration of Scottish traditional dancing by a group of enthusiastic local school children (accompanied by bagpipes) most of us retired happily to our cabins for a refreshing night’s sleep.
Our first full day began with a morning visit to the Culloden battlefield and to Clava Cairns. Culloden was the scene of the last pitched battle to be fought on British soil, when the Jacobites led by Bonnie Prince Charlie were defeated by government forces under the command of Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, second son of King George II. The defeat of the Jacobites was a disaster for Gaelic culture in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. A victorious Protestant state brooked no mercy and subjected the Highlanders, now tainted with treason and regarded as pathologically disloyal, to what some contemporary historians have described as ethnic cleansing. A populated landscape was emptied of its people who were replaced with more profitable sheep and later grouse.
At Clava Cairns we inspected the remains of what seems to have been an altogether more peaceful society. The Neolithic Revolution had transformed social organization in prehistoric Britain through the development of settled agriculture. Extended families lived in villages, usually comprising wooden structures, few traces of which survive for archaeological investigation. These people constructed adjacent villages for their dead, however, made of stone purposed to endure eternally. Along with their graves, like the passage tombs we saw, were monuments - that continued being used into the succeeding Bronze Age - that testify to a belief system that celebrated the solar and lunar cycles, both highly significant for any agricultural people.
Our transit of Loch Ness in the afternoon reminded us of even earlier times, a glacially carved lake that is deeper than any part of the North Sea between Scotland and Denmark and which contains more fresh water than all other British lakes combined. No wonder there are rumors abound of a mysterious creature, surviving from deep time, in the depths of the loch. It added to our attentiveness on deck during a delightfully evocative transit, the highlight of which was our close approach to the ancient stronghold of Urqhuart Castle. After mooring at Fort Augustus (named for the King’s victorious brother) an interpretive walk was organized in the countryside around the village. Appetites were whetted for more Scottish social and natural history and, most immediately, for dinner.
