Rannoch, a bleak, desolate moorland of north-west Perthshire, with a mean elevation of 1000 feet above sea-level, and measuring 28 miles by 15. Its surface is mostly a broad, silent, featureless tract of bog, heath, and moss, girdled by dark, distant mountains. In its western part is Loch Lydoch ( miles mile; 924 feet above sea-level), which winds amid flat and dismal scenery. Stretching eastward from the moor is Loch Rannoch ( miles mile; 668 feet), which is overhung by Schiehallion, contains a crannog with a later fortress, and sends off the Tummel 29 miles eastward and south-south-eastward to the Tay. Loch Tummel ( miles mile; 480 feet) is an expansion of this river, on which are also the Falls of Tummel, 20 feet high.
Ransom—corrupted from the Latin redemptio—is the price paid by a prisoner-of-war, or paid on his behalf, in consideration of his being granted liberty to return to his own country. In early times, when armies received little or no regular pay, the soldier looked for his reward in the booty he might capture, and this booty included the bodies as well as the chattels of the vanquished. The conqueror had the option of slaying his prisoner; but for his profit, he would make him his slave, or sell him into slavery. The transition would be natural to accepting compensation from the prisoner himself, and setting him at liberty. In feudal warfare the ransoms formed a large portion of a soldier's gains; those for persons of low degree belonging to the individual captors, but those for princes or great nobles to the king. Ransoms were sometimes of large amount, more than the immediate family of the captive could pay. His retainers were then required by feudal usage to contribute; as in the case of redeeming King Richard I. for £100,000, when twenty shillings was assessed on every knight's fee, and the clergy subscribed liberally. David Bruce of Scotland was ransomed for 100,000 marks, and King John of France for £500,000, payable in installments. After the battles of St Quentin and Gravelines, in the war between France and Philip of Spain, the ransoms due by French prisoners to the Prince of Orange, Counts Egmont and Horn, and a few other superior commanders were estimated at 2 million crowns; the Duc de Longueville paid Count Horn 80,000 crowns as his ransom.—In modern warfare, where the fighting is performed by professional soldiers, pecuniary ransoms are never resorted to, freedom being granted to prisoners in exchange for others of corresponding rank captured on the opposite side.