Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/92

1 XXXIV PEEFACE. Broom, at a place where the waters, running east and west, flow from a little lake called Loch Droma, or " the Lake of the Brum" tOl it finally loses itself in the mountains of Sutherland.^ Provinces north Of the early territorial divisions of the country and Clyde*'* north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, two accounts have been preserved to us, in the " Description of " Scotland" (No. xvii.), which, though difi"ering in detaU, state the provinces into which it was divided as having been seven in number. The first account states the seven provinces as having consisted, first, of Angus and Mearns, or the coun- ties of Forfar and Kincardine ; second, Athole and Gowrie, being Perthshire east of the Tay and north of Dunkeld ; third, Strathearn and Monteath, form- ing the south-western part of Perthshire ; fourth, Fife and Fothreve, fonning the modern counties of Fife and Kinross ; fifth, Mar and Buchan, or the counties of Aberdeen and Banfi"; sixth, Murray and Ross, or the counties of Elgin, Nairn, Inverness, Ross, and Cromarty ; and seventh, Cathanesia, or the counties of Sutherland and Caithness. The second account states the seven pro'inces as follows : — The first consisted of a district described as extending from the Forth to the Tay, that is, of Monteath and Strathearn : the second is a district ^ This range was likewise called Brunalban or Brunhere, that is, the Bruinrt, borders or limit of Alban or of Eire, according as it was viewed with reference to Al- bania on the east, or to Erin and its colony of Dalriada on the west. The slopes or "braes" on the east were termed Braighanalban, now softened into Breadalbane.