The Western Highlands.

Otago Witness, Issue 2170, 26 September 1895, Page 49

The Western Highlands.

The people of the Western Tl'ghland? must certainly havo been from the uinth conturv to the fourteenth the most quarrelsome race on earth. At flrat th«v wore subject to the periodical raids of the Vikings, until, at length, a regular kingdom was established among tbe Hebrides, and tbe sway of a long lino of mouarchs occasionally extended southward into Ireland. In 1095, Godred of tho White Hand di*d in Islay. He had been King of DuUiu and o( Man as well as of the Hebrides, but was defeated aud dof.O3ed by Sigurd, the heir of Norway. When Sigurd succe* ded to Norway, he gave the Western Isles to Godred's son, and from him the cxtaut " Lords of the Islos " are descended. Alexander II of Scotland was anxious to add this Norse kingdom to his dominions, and h?s sooreasor, Alexander 111, drove Angus Maedonald to such extremities th*t he appealed to Hacon IV of Norway. H&con came with a mighty fleet aud anchored in tho Sound of Islay. The famous Battle of Largs ensued, and, then, as Mr Graham telU us, " the great • Chrhtnuden,' shorn of her golden drugoDJ bore the King northward, wifch the Norwegian galleyt* in ter wako, to ratum no moro." Prom tbat date — 1265— It»l*y has been part of tho kiiigdom of Scotland. — Saturday Rsview.