It contains about 1,100 Scotch, or 1,375 Imperial
acres. The valued rent of the parish is £1,789
Scots. The real rent was, in 1793, £1,000 sterling;
in 1815. it was assessed for the property-tax on a



MOO



389



MOR



rental of £2,763 sterling. Population, in 1801, 201 ;
in 1831, 188. Houses 45. There are only two ob-
jects possessing any antiquarian interest in tlie par-
ish,— Cairnie castle, commonly called the Lord's
Cairnie, an ancient seat of the Earls of Crawford ;
and the old house of CoUuthie, the remains of the
residence of the Ramsays of Colluthie. The castle
of Cairnie is said to have been built by Alexander,
3d Earl of Crawford, commonly called Earl Beardy
from his great beard, or the Tiger Earl from the
fierceness of his disposition. All that remains of this
ancient stronghold of the once powerful family of
Crawford is the keep or donjon, and a round tower
which had formed a defence for the wall with which
the court-yard was surrounded. This ruin is four
stories high, and appears to have lost nothing of its
original height, with the exception of the bartizans
which surrounded its roof. It is 53 feet in length,
and 42 in breadth, without the walls. The walls
are strongly built, and between five and six feet
thick. The ground-floor — as is common in such
structures — appears to have been entirely occupied
by cellars, having arched stone- roofs. The second
floor was occupied entirely with the great hall, which
is about 40 feet in length, and above 20 feet in
breadth. The defence of the castle and its outworks
was anciently strengthened by a broad morass which
appears to have entirely surrounded the slight rising
ground on which they were situated. — The house of
Colluthie is said to have been erected by Sir William
Ramsay* of Colluthie, who, about 1356, married
Isabel, Countess of Fife, daughter of Duncan the last
Earl of Fife of the ancient race of Macduff. There
seems, however, little reason to believe that the
house — which is still habitable — was erected by this
Sir William, as that would make it about 100 years
older than the castle of Cairnie. The house, the
walls of which are very thick and of great strength,
has been repaired as far as possible to preserve it, by
the present proprietor, Mr. Inglis. From the thick-
ness of the walls, indeed, one would be inclined to
think that this building had at one time been loftier
than it now is ; but of this there is no certainty, as
its whole appearance has been much modernized and
altered in many ways. — This parish is in the synod
of Fife, and presbytery of Cupar. Patron, the Earl
of Glasgow. Stipend £187 17s. lOd. ; glebe £30.

» Sir William Ramsay of Colluthie appears to have visited
France iu 1356, — probably previous to liisi marriage with the
Countess of Fife. He went in the suite of the Earl of Uoug'.
las, who was also accompanied by Archibald de Douf»las his
kinsman, brother to the kuight of Liddesdale. The Earl uttered
his services, and that of the knights and squires who accom-
panied him, to John of France, then opposing the English in-
vasion under Edward the Black prince. They were present
at the battle of Poictiers,on the 19th of September, 135G, when
Archibald de Douglas was made prisoner by the English, but
etFected his escape through the presence of mind of Sir William
Ramsay. The story is thus told by Fordun : " Archibald
Douglas having been made prisoner along with the rest, ap.
peared in more sumptuous armour than the other Scottish pri.
soners, and, therefore, he was supposed by the English to be
some great lord. Late iu the evening after the battle, when
the English were about to strip off his armour, Sir William
Ramsay of Cidluthy happening to be present, tixed his eyes on
Douglas, and affecting to be in a violent passion, cried out,
' You cursed, damnable murderer, how comes it, in the name
of mischief, (ex parte Diaboli,) that you are thus proudly
decked out in your master's armour! Come hither, and pull
off my boots !' Dou;,'las approached trembling, kneeled down,
and pulled off one of the boots : whereupou Ramsay, taking
up the boot, began to beat Douglas with it. The English by-
standers imagmiiig him out of liis senses, interposed, and
rescued Douglas. They said, that the person whom he had
beaten was certainly o( great rank and a lord. 'What, he a
lord,' cried Ramsay, ' he is a scullion, and a base kuave ! and,
as I suppose, has killed his master. Go, you villain, to the
field, search for the body of my cousin, your master, and when
you have found it, come back, that at least I may give him a
decent burial '.' Then he ransomed the feigned serving-man
for forty shillings; and having again buffeted him smartly,
cried, 'Get you gone! fly I' Douglas bore all this patiently,
carried on the deceit, and was soou beyond the reach of his
enemies."



The church stands on a rising ground at the western
extremity of the parish, and forms a conspicuous ob-
ject from the Newburgh road. It is a plain building
with a belfry at the one end. It was gifted by Wil-
liam Malvoisin, Bishop of St. Andrews, to the min-
istry of Scotland's Well, — an institution founded by
him previous to 1238, and in which he planted a
colony of the ' Fratres Sanctse Trinitatis de redemp-
tione captivorum.'t It appears from the charter, that
the church of Moonzie was dedicated to the Holy
Trinity ; it also appears, that the parish was at this
time called Urhithumenesyn. The name was after-
wards spelled Uchtermonsey, as in 1513, Alexander
Crawford of Uchtermonsey succeeded his nephew in
the earldom of Crawford. In consequence of the
gift of the Bishop, the brethren of the ministry drew
the tithes of the parish for their support, and sup-
plied the cure ; and this arrangement continued till
the Reformation. After that event, it was con-
joined with the parish of Cupar, about 1564 ; and in
1576 a reader appears to have been appointed. In
1625, seven years after tlie parishes of Cupar and
Tarvet were conjoined, Mr. James Wedderburn v/as
appointed minister, since which time it has continued
a separate charge. The parish-schoolmaster has the
maximum salary, and a good house and garden.

MOORFOOTHILLS, a range of moorish hills
on the southern boundary of Edinburghshire :
which see.

MORAR, a territorial district and a lake on the
west coast of Inverness-shire. The district is
bounded on the north by Loch-Nevis, which divides
it from Knoydart ; on the east by the district of
Lochiel ; on the south by Arisaig ; and on the west
by the Sound of Slate. Its extreme length, from east
to west, is 19 miles ; and its breadth varies between
4 and 9. Loch-I\Iorar bisects a great part of it length-
wise, and divides it into two nearly equal sections,
which are called respectively North and South Mo-
rar. The lake is 10^ miles long, and from 5 furlongs
to IJ mile broad ; it is overhung nearly all round,
and, at a very brief distance, by water-shedding
Highland heights, but has a fringing of wood upon
its immediate banks ; it is fed on the east by stream-
lets coming from the lochlets Beoraich and Ana-
mack ; and it discharges its perfluent waters on
the west by a stream of only a few furlongs in length
into a small bay. North Morar belongs to the parish
of Glenelg, and South Morar to that of Ardnamur-
chan ; and both are included, in a large sense, in the
comprehensive district of Lochaber. Morar is, with
few exceptions, peopled by Roman Catholics ; and,
in 1836, was provided, by voluntary subscription,
with a new Roman Catholic chapel.

MORAY FRITH, a gulf in the extreme north-
east of Scotland ; a sea rather than a bay or an
estuary ; the largest projection, and at the same
time one of the most regular, which the ocean makes
into the Scottish coasts. Loosely defined, but with
reference chiefly to its interior waters, it is the Ms-
tuarium Vararis of ancient geographers. Its limits,
as assigned by the modern hydrography of the coun-
try, are somewhat various, and not very distinctly
understood ; but, on the whole, they distribute into
two easily ascertained parts, an exterior and an in-
terior The exterior frith comprehends all the open

sea south-west of a line between Duncansby-head in
Caithness-shire and Kinnaird's-head in Aberdeenshire,
onward to the entrance of the inner frith between
Tarbetness in Ross-shire, and Burgh-head in Mo-
rayshire. It blends with the German ocean on the

+ The purpose of this institution was to form a receptacle
for religious pilgrims; and the resident friars collected chan-
ties which were applied to the redeeming of Christians, who
had become slaves in the Turkish doiiiiuious.



390



MORAY.



north-east, and, along the artificial line of con-
nexion with it, measures nearly 80 miles; it has the
counties of Caithness, Ross, and Cromarty on the
west, and measures on that side about 70 miles ; and
it has Moraysliire, Banffshire, and Aberdeenshire on
the south, and measures along that coast about 57
miles. Except at an opening on its west side, im-
mediately north of Tarbetness, where it sends off
the Dornoch frith, and at a smaller opening on tlie
same side, 8 miles south of Duncansby-head, where
it expands into Keiss or Sinclair bay, it has a singu-
larly uniform coast-line, sufficiently diversified with
gentle curvatures to be freed from monotony, but
uncut by deep incisions, and everywhere marked
with only tiny bays and small headlands. The prin-
cipal rivers which enter it on the west are the Wick,
the Berriedale, the Helmsdale, and the Brora; and
on the south are the Findhorn, the Lossie, the Spey,
and the Doveran. All the coasts of the frith, from
'V\''ick round to Kinnaird's-head, are rich, and have
become industriously plied in their fisheries ; and, in
particular, they yield immense quantities of herrings,
though aggregately of inferior quality to those of the
fisheries on the west coasts of Scotland — The in-
terior Moray-frith, where it opens from the exterior
between Tarbetness and Burgh-head, is about 16
miles wide. It thence projects south-westward, to
Ardersier or Fort-George, 24 miles along the coast
of Ross and Cromarty, and 22 along that of Moray,
Nairn, and Inverness. Fifteen miles south-west of
Tarbetness, between the north and the south Sutors
of Cromarty, which rise like the sides of a huge gate-
way to admit its ingress, it projects the Cromarty
frith between Ross and Cromarty. From its entrance
to Ardersier, it gradually contracts, till, over a dis-
tance of 2 miles, it is oidy from I to K} mile broad.
After passing Ardersier, it suddenly expands, and
thence to Kessock-ferry, at the mouth of the river
Ness, a distance of 9 miles, it has a mean breadth of
about 3 miles ; but there it suffers rapid though brief
contraction to about lialf-a-mile, and, by a caprice in
topographical nomenclature, loses its name, and is
declared to terminate. A continuation of it 7 miles
westward, by an extreme breadth of 2 miles, is called
the frith or loch of Beauly : see Beauly Loch.
The interior Moray frith, except in its outer skirts,
presents quite a contrast to the exterior frith as to
at once the wealth, the abundance, and the variety
of its fisheries ; and though possessing along its
coasts some regular communities of fishermen, af-
fords them such small employment, that they gen-
erally resort to the fishing-grounds north of Tarbet-
ness. For a notice of some geognostic phenomena
connected with the frith, and of the general appear-
ance of its coasts, see following article.

MORAY (Province of), a large district in the
north-east of Scotland, now without any political
assignment of territory, yet quite distinct in the
popular application of its name, the extent of its
geographical limits, and the individuality of its phy-
sical features and historical associations. Though
its boundaries are very variously stated by topo-
graphists, they may easily be ascertained by refer-
ence jointly to ecclesiastical jurisdiction and to phy-
sical configuration ; the extent of the modern synod
having been little altered from that of the ancient
diocese, and the surface of the country forming, with
slight exceptions, a convergence of upland troughs,
from a stupendous line of water-shed, to a great com-
mon plain or laterally prolonged lowland basin. The
Moray frith, inner and outer, naturally constitutes
the boundary on the north-east and the north. The
boundary-line for the other sides commences be-
tween the embouchure of the Doveran and that of
the Spey ; it penetrates the country south-west-



ward up the water-shed between these rivers and
their tributaries, till it scales the Cairngorm moun-
tains, and touches the great central mountain-range
of Scotland ; it then turns westward, and moves
along the summit ridge of that range till it passes the
head of Loch-Laggan, and arrives at the sources of
the Spey ; it now proceeds north-westward to the
head of Loch-Lochy, and thence northward till it
falls upon the river Beauly at the cascade of Kil-
morack ; and it finally passes down that river and
Loch-Beauly north-eastward to the Moray frith.
The province thus comprehends all Elginshire, all
Nairnshire, a considerable part of Banffshire, ajid
nearly a moiety of continental Inverness-shire.

The eastern half of the province is aggregately
much more lowland than the western ; the mountains
which everywhere occupy the south, coming down
with increasing approach to the north, till, for some
distance on the west, they render the whole country
characteristically highland. The northern district
as a whole is champaign, and may be described as a
band of country prolonged for 60 miles from east to
west, with a breadth of from 2 to 12 miles, and a
superficial area of about 240 square miles. This
long belt of lowlands is greatly diversified with
ridgy swells, and terraced or low hilly ranges disposed
parallel to the frith ; and is intersected by the rivers
Ness, Nairn, Findhorn, Lossie, and Spey, running
across it to the sea. The grounds behind the low-
lands appear, as seen from the coast, to be only a
narrow ridge of bold or alpine heights, rising like a
rampart to guard the orchards and the woods, and
the rich expanse of waving fields below from all in-
vasion ; but, when approached, they disclose them-
selves in file behind file of long and broad mountain
masses receding, in all the wildness and intricacy of
Highland arrangement, to a distant summit-line.
Much the larger portion may be viewed as simply
the screens of the vast glen, — the long and grand
mountain-strath of the Spey, and of the numerous
tributaries which cut their way to it along lateral
glens ; another and considerable portion, partly iden-
tical with the former, are the vastly fissured masses
of the Monadleagh mountains, flanking the Findhorn
and its headwaters ; and a third, though much
smaller section, consists of the heights which tower
up from the sides of the east end of the great glen
of Scotland, admitting, amidst a little wilderness of
flips, broad clefts and long narrow vales of picture
and romance. Yet, so much opened are the High-
land districts of the province, and so practicable
many of the declivities to the plough or to other
instruments of cultivation, that the bottoms and the
reclaimed or reclaimable sides of the valleys are
estimated to comprehend about one-third of the en-
tire area.

Nearly all the interest of Moray as a province, and
often all the associations of its name, are coimected
with its lowlands. The coast of the country is al-
most everywhere low ; and the sea-board is remark-
able for a great terrace bank which extends from
the mouth of the Spey to Inverness, and thence up
the great glen to Loch-Ness. This terrace rests
upon a base about 14 feet above ordinary high wa-
ter-mark, and possesses in itself an elevation above
that base of about 76 feet ; it sometimes juts out
into the sea in the form of headlands, but generally
overlooks a belt of low plain lying between it and
the beach, and occasionally recedes several miles
into the interior ; and it varies in breadth from a few
hundred yards to two miles, and is nearly horizontal
in its surface. Other terraces or terraced banks
occur behind along the skirts of the hills, but are
uncontinuous and of comparatively small extent.
Except along its skirt, where the vertebrae of whales



MORAY.



391



and the saltwater shells of existing: species have
been found, the great terrace, so far as has been
ascertained, does not contain any marine deposit,
or discover any decided mark whatever of marine
formation. It seems even free froin either fossils or
fragments of any organized bodies, except a few
stumps of oak and fir trees, and consists throughout
of the sandy particles, the rolled pebbles, and the
massive boulders of all the rocks common to the
circumjacent country. White siindstones and corn-
stones, which occur in sites in the west, have been
carried away in loose fragments, and deposited on
hills about Portsoy and Banff, at and beyond the
eastern frontier of the province ; and a beautiful red
porphyritic granite, which occurs at Calder and Ard-
clach between the Nairn and the Findhorn, appears
sprinkled in rolled boulders over the country as far
east as the mouth of the Spey. Harmoniously with
these appearances in the diluvial formation of the
lowlands, the rocky escarpments on the sides of tlie
interior mountains face generally to the south and
the west, and neighbouring accumulations of their
debris dip, in their slopes or inclined planes, toward
the northwest. Hillocks of drifted sand, free above
tide mark from all shells and other organic remains,
and seemingly brought down from the diluvial ter-
races by the action of the prevailing south-west wind
of the climate, extend for many miles along the mar-
gin of the frith, from Burgh-head to the vicinity of I
Nairn, and are continually changing their forms and
their relative positions.* A curious and singular
formation, locally designated ' the Moray Pan or
Coast,' occurs in various low grounds in the east,
and occasions the worker of the soil no little per-
plexity and labour. It is a thin stratum of sand
and gravel, brought chemically into contact with
black oxide of iron, seemingly by infiltration from
above, and glued by it into a hard compact mass ; it
is so hard as to break any plough which forcibly
touches it, and, at the same time occurs at the in-
convenient shallowness of scarcely a foot from the
surface ; it oifers unconquerable resistance to the
attempts of any trees or siirubs to penetrate it with
their roots, and even kills every plant whose fibres
come in contact with it ; and it so balHes all ordi-
nary methods of georgical operation, that the farmer
has no certain way of counteracting its malign effects
upon the soil, but patiently to demolish it with the

* Tlie fiillowinc nolice of tlipse waste and dreary hillocks
ociurB in the 'Sketches' of Lord Teiffnmoiith :— " A sand
bank extends along the coast, from the western shore of the
Fuidhorn river, nine miles in length, and two in breadth.
It consists of finely-pulverized sand, nnmingied with shells or
pebbles, cast up into innumerable hills, some of which rise to
1 20 feet, and are so steep thnt they cannot be ascended without
difficulty, as at each step the leg sinks knee-deep in the yield.
ing material. Not a blade of vegetation appears to vary the
dreary surface, excepting reeds, which appear at a (jistance of
about half-a-mile from the shore : and nothing is visible, ex-
cept from the top of some of ihe highest hills, but a boundless
wilderness of sand, reminding eastern travellers of the deserts
of Arabia. A coujpass is almost necessary to direct one's
course across it; and, during a gale of wind, it would be diffi.
cult to esiape being overwhelmed by the drift. Houses and
various vestiges of great antiquity— of which Sir William Cum-
ining possesses one apparently of Roman origin— have occa-
eioually been disclosed. The accumulation of this vast aggre.
gate of moving sands lias been gradual. The barony of Culbin,
which it covers, was one fertile in natural prodtictions, and
adorned with villages." An aiconnt of the province of Moray,
written by Boethius, dated the commencement of the sand,
drift in 1097, the same year in which the Wfll. known ' Good.
win Siiuds' were formed on the coast of Kent; and it adds,
—"The desolation was completed prior to tlie year l(i95.
'J'lie narrative of the act of parliament then made to prevent
the pulling up of bent— a reedy grass whicli establishes itself
ill this wild region— relates that the barony of Cuibiii, and
iioose and yards thereof is quite ruined and overspread with
Baud. Tradition, conjoined with the narrative of the act of
parliament, relates thiit the desolating visitation began in the
harvest of the year 1097, and before the end of the spring
thereof, had whelmed more than 1,^00 acres of fertile laud."



pickaxe, and expose it in fragments to the attrition
of the weather.

The lowlands of ]Moray have long been known to
fame for mildness and luxuriousness of climate. A
certain dryness of atmosphere, in particular, has been
repeatedly celebrated by historians and poets. But
this property, so delightful in itself, seems to have
intimate connexion with the equally though lugubri-
ously celebrated phenomenon of " the Moray floods."
The high broad range of mountains on the south-
west shelter the lowlands from the prevailing winds
of the country, and exhaust many light vapours and
thinly charged clouds which might otherwise pro-
duce such drizzlings and frequent gentle rains as
distinguish the climate of most other lowland dis-
tricts of Scotland; but, for just the same reason,
they powerfully attract whatever long broad streams
of heavy clouds are sailing in any direction athwart
the sky, and, among the gullies and the upland glens,
amass their discharged contents with amazing rapi-
dity and in singular largeness of volume. The rivers
of the country are, in consequence, peculiarly liable
to sudden freshets and disastrous floods. One gen-
eral and tremendous outbreak, in 1829, in which
they desolated glen and plain, tore up woods and
bridges and houses, and powdered and carpeted
scores of square miles with the wreck of regions
above them, afforded an awful exhibition of the pe-
culiarities of the climate, and will long be remem-
bered, in connexion with the boasted luxuriousness
of Moray, as an illustration of how chastisement and
comfort are blended in a state of things which is
benignly adjusted for the moral discipline of man,
and the correction of moral evil. So full an account
of the floods, ami so generally accessible to the read-
ing population, has been given by the graphic pen
of Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Bart., that we need
not attempt to give any details. A single example
which may, on a small scale, serve as an illustra-
tion of the whole, will be found quoted from the
baronet's work in our article on Knockando. The
average annual fall of rain at Elgin, considerably
east of the middle of the lowlands, was, for three
years ending in 1829, 25.355 inches ; and the aver-
age temperature for the same period was 48° 33'.

Probably no part of Scotland, not even East
Lothian, that exulting retreat of masterly agricul-
ture, can compete with Moray in the number and
brilliance of the spontaneous testimonies which have
been borne to its capabilities and wealth as orchard
and tillage ground. We must, in ordinary duty as
topographists, repeat some of these which have be-
come irksomely hackneyed, and add one or two
which have been less frequently noticed. A very
old and common saying asserts, according to sotne
versions, that Moray has 15, and according to others
that it has 40 days more of summer than most other
parts of Scotland. George Buchanan extols tht
province as superior to any other district in the
kingdom in the mildness of its climate, the richness
of its pastures, and the profit arising from its fruit
trees. Whitelock, referring to the time of Oliver
Cromwell, says, " Ashfield's regiment was marched
into Murray-land, which is the most fruitful coun-
try in Scotland." William Lithgow, after glancing
at Clydesdale and the Carse of Gowrie, says, " The
third most beautiful soil is the delectable plain of
Moray, whose comely gardens, enriched with comes,
plantings, pasturage, stately dwellings, overfaced
with a generous Octavian gentry, and toped with a
noble Earl, its chief patron, may be called a second
Lombardy, or pleasant meadow of the north."