Transcription

[Page 158]

Balnaboth, Kirriemuir

Aug. 24, [in pencil, 1873]

My dear William Macarthur

When the mischief [indecipherable] the Macleays got to [indecipherable] you will exclaim when you look at the name of the [indecipherable] from whence this is dated, well it is in Forfarshire adjoining Ld. Ainslie's & Dalhousie properties but [indecipherable] name drought might as well have been in Syria for I imagine "Balnaboth" means nothing more or less than the "house of Baal", tho' some interpret it the town of "Beasts", the worship of wh. Phoenician divinity may still be witnessed within.  The name of "Bel-tain" every first of May, [indecipherable] this feast of Scotland when the young people meet on the top of the Hills to aim & leap through large fires & whose temples are still visible in large monolith circles on the top of some of the highest hills around.  Do not 

Sir William Macarthur

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