But General Mackay having receiv’d Orders to build a Fort at Inverlochy, our Regiment, among others, was commanded to that Service.  The two Regiments appointed on the same Duty, with some few Dragoons, were already on their March, which having join’d, we march’d together through Louquebar.  This sure is the wildest Country in the Highlands, if not in the World.  I did not see one House in all our March; and their Oeconomy, if I may call it such, is much the same with that of the Arabs or Tartars.  Hutts, or Cabins of Trees and Trash, are their Places of Habitation; in which they dwell, till their half-horn’d Cattle have devour’d the Grass, and then remove, staying no where longer than that Convenience invites them.

In this March, or rather, if you please, most dismal Peregrination, we could be very rarely go two on a Breast; and oftner, like Geeze in a String, one after another.  So that our very little Army had sometimes, or rather most commonly, an Extent of many Miles; our Enemy, the Highlanders, firing down upon us from their Summits all the Way.  Nor was it possible for our Men, or very rarely at least, to return their Favours with any Prospect of Success; for as they pop’d upon us always on a sudden, they never stay’d long enough to allow any of our Soldiers a Mark; or even time enough to fire:  And for our Men to march, or climb up those Mountains, which to them were natural Champion, would have been as dangerous as it seem’d to us impracticable.  Nevertheless, under all these disheartning Disadvantages, we arriv’d at Inverlochy, and there perform’d the Task appointed, building a Fort on the same Spot where Cromwell had rais’d one before.  And which was not a little remarkable, we had with us one Hill, a Colonel, who had been Governor in Oliver’s Time, and who was now again appointed Governor by General Mackay.  Thus the Work on which we were sent being effected, we march’d back again by the Way of Gillycrancky, where that memorable Battle under Dundee had been fought the Year before.

Some time after, Sir Thomas Levingston, afterwards Earl of Tiviot, having receiv’d Intelligence that the Highlanders intended to fall down into the lower Countries, in a considerable Body, got together a Party of about five Hundred (the Dragoons, call’d the Scotch Greys, inclusive) with which he resolv’d, if possible, to give them a Meeting.  We left Inverness the last Day of April, and encamp’d near a little Town call’d Forrest, the Place where, as Tradition still confidently avers, the Witches met Mackbeth, and greeted him with their diabolical Auspices.  But this Story is so naturally display’d in a Play of the immortal Shakespear, that I need not descend here to any farther Particulars.