Edinburgh Castle in the mist. From: Pictures of Magical Scotland At The UniLang Community Homepage http://home.unilang.org/

From oddments of ancient writings and later Roman accounts we catch a glimpse a land almost hidden in the mists of time. To them, Scotland was a land of painted savages with little of value. After only a few half-hearted, abortive attempts to subdue its inhabitants, the Romans were content to isolate it from the civilised world, walling out its denizens lest they disrupt their peace and comfort. How could such a land yield up the people that brought us the values that found expression in the Declaration of Arbroath and the American Declaration of Independence? What, in those barren hills, nurtured the souls of poets and writers such as Walter Scott and Rabbie Burns? What gave birth to the men whose breadth of mind could encompass the world and help us see it more clearly; men like David Hume and Adam Smith? What was in the Scottish blood of so many of the great explorers; Henry Sinclair who rediscovered America a century before Columbus, James Cook the great navigator, Alexander McKenzie who opened up Canada, Mungo Park and David Livingstone and of course my own kinsman, Robert Falcon Scott? Why is it that 31 out of 41 US presidents had Scottish ancestry? What drove the Scots to take a leading place in science and medicine. How, from such a wild, uncivilized land, could spring the innovators that gave us the telephone, the television, the steam engine and so much more? How could those Romans fail to see what they locked out? Surely the world today be a poorer place without the Scots?  The Land, its History and its People:   Maps of Scotland   The Early History  The Building of a Nation   Securing the Nation   The Scotts; the History of a Border Clan   Famous Scots   Pictures of Scotland   Ballad of Kinmont Willie   And if you have THAT question:   L'histoire du clan Scott en Français  To Return to my Home Page

Nemo me impune lacessit *