165. Shall with strong hand, etc. Scott has the following note here: "The ancient Highlanders verified in their practice the lines of Gray (Fragment on the Alliance of Education and Government): 'An iron race the mountain cliffs maintain, Foes to the gentler genius of the plain; For where unwearied sinews must be found, With side-long plough to quell the flinty ground, To turn the torrent's swift descending flood, To tame the savage rushing from the wood, What wonder if, to patient valor train'd, They guard with spirit what by strength they gain'd; And while their rocky ramparts round they see The rough abode of want and liberty (As lawless force from confidence will grow), Insult the plenty of the vales below?' "So far, indeed, was a Creagh, or foray, from being held disgraceful, that a young chief was always expected to show his talents for command so soon as he assumed it, by leading his clan on a successful enterprise of this nature, either against a neighboring sept, for which constant feuds usually furnished an apology, or against the Sassencach, Saxons, or Lowlanders, for which no apology was necessary. The Gael, great traditional historians, never forgot that the Lowlands had, at some remote period, been the property of their Celtic forefathers, which furnished an ample vindication of all the ravages that they could make on the unfortunate districts which lay within their reach. Sir James Grant of Grant is in possession of a letter of apology from Cameron of Lochiel, whose men had committed some depredation upon a farm called Moines, occupied by one of the Grants. Lochiel assures Grant that, however the mistake had happened, his instructions were precise, that the party should foray the province of Moray (a Lowland district), where, as he coolly observes, 'all men take their prey.'"