the Professor’s lodgings at nine o’clock, and they proceeded at ten to a spacious concert-room, plainly but neatly decorated, which they found already filled with a numerous assembly of ladies and gentlemen.  A large space was reserved in the middle of the room and occupied by gentlemen only, who, Smith said, were the judges of the performances that were to take place, and who were all inhabitants of the Highlands or Islands.  The prize was for the best execution of some favourite piece of Highland music, and the same air was to be played successively by all the competitors.  In about half an hour a folding door opened at the bottom of the hall, and the Professor was surprised to see a Highlander advance playing on a bagpipe, and dressed in the ancient kilt and plaid of his country.  “He walked up and down the vacant space in the middle of the hall with rapid steps and a martial air playing his noisy instrument, the discordant sounds of which were sufficient to rend the ear.  The tune was a kind of sonata divided into three periods.  Smith requested me to pay my whole attention to the music, and to explain to him afterwards the impression it made upon me.  But I confess that at first I could not distinguish either air or design in the music.  I was only struck with a piper marching backward and forward with great rapidity, and still presenting the same warlike countenance, he made incredible efforts with his body and his fingers to bring into play the different reeds of his instrument, which emitted sounds that were to me almost insupportable.  He received, however, great praise.”  Then came a second piper, who seemed to excel the first, judging from the clapping of hands and cries of bravo that greeted him from every side; and then a third and a fourth, till eight were heard successively; and the Professor began at length to realise that the first part of the music was meant to represent the clash and din and fury of war, and the last part the wailing for the slain,—­and this last part, he observed, always drew tears from the eyes of a number of “the beautiful Scotch ladies” in the audience.  After the music came a “lively and animated dance,” in which some of the pipers engaged, and the rest all played together “suitable airs possessing expression and character, though the union of so many bagpipes produced a most hideous noise.”  He does not say whether his verdict was satisfactory to Smith, but the verdict was that it seemed to him like a bear’s dancing, and that “the impression the wild instrument made on the greater part of the audience was so different from the impression it made on himself, that he could not help thinking that the lively emotion of the persons around him was not occasioned by the musical effect of the air itself, but by some association of ideas which connected the discordant sounds of the pipe with historical events brought forcibly to their recollection."[318]