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A 
 
 JOURNEY 
 
 ^//^:2X 
 
 TO THE 
 
 WESTERN ISLANDS 
 
 OF 
 
 SCOTLAND. 
 
 BY SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. 
 
 FIRST AMERICAN EDITION. 
 
 Published by Philip H. Nicklin, and Co. Baltimore; Fan-antf, 
 
 Mallory, and Co. Boston; J. Green, Albiuiy; E. Earle, 
 
 and B. B. Hopkins and Co. Phiiaddphia. 
 
 Fj-y and Kammerer, Printers. 
 1810. 
 
aift 
 
 t $ '06 
 
Strand, Oct. 26, 1785. 
 |C7* Since this Work was printed off, the Publisher 
 having been informed that the Author, some years ago, 
 had promised the laird of Raasay to correct, in a future 
 edition, a passage concerning him, p. 97, thinks it a 
 justice due to that gentleman to insert here the adver- 
 tisement relative to this matter, which was published, 
 by Dr. Johnson's desire, in the Edinburgh newspapers 
 in the year 1775, and which has been lately reprinted 
 in Mr. Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides. 
 
 " The Author of the Journey to the Western Islands 
 ** having related that the Macleods of Raasay acknow- 
 •* ledge the chieftainship, or superiority, of the Macleods 
 ♦* of Sky, finds that he has been misinformed or mistaken. 
 " He means in a future edition to correct his errour, 
 « and wishes to be told of more, if more have been dis- 
 « covered." 
 
JOURNEY 
 
 TO THE 
 
 WESTERN ISLANDS OF SCOTLAND. 
 
 I HAD desired to visit the Hebrides, or Wes- 
 tern Islands of Scotland, so long, that I scarcely 
 remember how the wish was originally excited; 
 and was, in the autumn of the year 1773, in- 
 duced to undertake the journey, by finding in 
 Mr. Boswell a companion whose acuteness 
 would help my inquiry, and whose gaiety of con- 
 versation and civility of manners are sufficient 
 to counteract the inconveniences of travel in 
 countries less hospitable than we have passed. 
 On the eighteenth of August we left Edin- 
 burgh, a city too well known to admit descrip. 
 tion, and directed our course northward, along 
 
2 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 the eastern coast of Scotland, accompanied the 
 first day by another gentleman, who could stay 
 with us only long enough to show us how much 
 we lost at separation. 
 
 As we crossed the Frith of Forth, our curio- 
 sity was attracted by Inch Keith, a small island, 
 which neither of my companions had ever visit- 
 ed, though, lying within their view, it had all 
 their lives solicited their notice. Here, by 
 climbing with some difficulty over shattered 
 crags, we made the first experiment of unfre- 
 quented coasts. Inch Keith is nothing more 
 than a rock covered with a thin layer of earth, 
 not wholly bare of grass, and very fertile of 
 thistles. A small herd of cows grazes annually 
 upon it in the summer. It seems never to have 
 afforded to man or beast a permanent habitation. 
 
 We found only the ruins of a small fort, not 
 so injured by time but that it might be easily 
 restored to its former state. It seems never to 
 have been intended as a place of strength, nor 
 was built to endure a siege, but merely to afford 
 cover to a few soldiers, w^io perhaps had the 
 charge of a battery, or were stationed to give 
 signals of approaching danger. There is there^ 
 fore no provision of water within the walls; 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 3 
 
 though the spring is so near, that it might have 
 -been easily enclosed. One of the stones had 
 this inscription: '' Maria Reg. 1564." It has 
 probably been neglected from the time that the 
 whole isla^4 ^^^ the same king. 
 
 •We left this little island with our thoughts 
 employed awhile on the different appearance 
 that it would have made if it had been placed 
 at the same distance from London, with the 
 same facility of approach; with what emulation 
 of price a few rocky acres would have been 
 purchased, and with what expensive industry 
 they would have been cultivated and adorned. 
 
 When we landed, we found our chaise ready, 
 and passed through Kinghorn, Kirkaldy, and 
 Cupar, places not unlike the small or straggling 
 market towns in those parts of England where 
 commerce and manufactures have not yet pro- 
 duced opulence. 
 
 Though we were yet in the most populous 
 part of Scotland, and at so small a distance 
 from the capital, we met few passengers. 
 
 TJie roads are neither rough nor dirty; and 
 it affords a southern stranger a new kind of 
 pleasure to travel so commodiously without the 
 interrifption of toll gates. Where the bottom 
 
^ A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 is rocky, as it seems commonly to be in Scot- 
 land, a smooth way is made indeed with great- 
 labour, but it never wants repairs; and in those 
 parts jvhere adventitious materials are necessa- 
 ry, the ground once consolidated is varcly bro- 
 ken; for the inland commerce is not great, nor 
 are heavy commodities often transported other- 
 wise than by water. The carriages in common 
 use are small carts, drawn each by one little 
 horse; and a man seems to derive some degree 
 of dignity and importance from the reputation 
 of possessing a two-horse cart. 
 
 ST. ANDREW'S, 
 
 At an hour somewhat late we came to St. 
 Andrew's, a city once archiepiscopal; where that 
 university still subsists in which philosophy was 
 formerly taught by Buchanan, whose name has 
 as fair a claim to immortality as can be conferred 
 by modern latinity, and perhaps a Aurer than 
 the instability of vernacular languages admits. 
 
 We found, that by the interposition of some 
 invisible friend, lodgings had been provided for 
 us at the house of one of the professor*, whose 
 easy civility quickly made us forget that we 
 were strangers; and in the whole time%f our 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 5. 
 
 Stay we were gratified by every mode of kind- 
 ness, and entertained with all the elegance of 
 lettered hospitality. 
 
 In the morning we rose to perambulate ^ 
 city, which only history shows to have once 
 flourished, and surveyed the ruins of ancient 
 magnificence, of which even the ruins cannot 
 long be visible, unless some care be taken to 
 preserve them; and where is the pleasure of 
 preserving such mournful memorials? They 
 have been till very lately so much neglected, 
 that every man carried away the stones who 
 fancied that he wanted them. 
 
 The cathedral, of w^hich the foundations may 
 be still traced, and a small part of the wall is 
 standing, appears to have been a spacious and 
 majestick building, not unsuitable to the prima- 
 cy of the kingdom. Of the architecture, the poor 
 remains can hardly exl^bit, even to an artist, a 
 sufficient specimen. I^ was demolished, as is 
 well known, in the tumult and violence of 
 Knox's reformation. 
 
 Not far from the cathedral, on the margin of 
 the water, stands a fragment of the castle, in 
 which the archbishop anciently resided. It was 
 
 never very large, and was built with more at- 
 
 A 2 
 
6 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 tention to security than pleasure. Cardinal Bea- 
 toun is said to have had workmen em ployed in 
 improving its fortifications at the time when he 
 was murdered by the ruffians of reformation, 
 in the manner of which Knox has given what 
 he himself calls a merry narrative. 
 
 The change of religion in Scotland, eager 
 and vehement as it was, raised an epidemical 
 enthusiasm, compounded of sullen scrupulous- 
 ness, and warlike ferocity, which, in a people 
 whom idleness resigned to their own thoughts, 
 and who conversing only with each other, suf- 
 fered no dilution of their zeal from the gradual 
 influx of new opinions, was long transmitted in 
 its full strength from the old to the young, but, 
 by trade and intercourse with England, is now 
 visibly abating, and giving way too fast to that 
 laxity of practice and indifference of opinion, in 
 which men, not sufficiently instructed to find 
 the middle point, too easily shelter themselves 
 from rigour and constraint. 
 
 The city of St. Andrew's, when it had lost 
 its archiepiscopal preeminence, gradually de- 
 cayed: One of its streets is now lost; and in 
 those that remain there is the silence and soli- 
 tude of inactive indigence and gloomy depopu- 
 lation. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 7 
 
 The university, within a few years, consisted 
 of three colleges, but is now reduced to two; 
 the college of St. Leonard being lately dissolved 
 by the sale of its buildings and the appropria- 
 tion of its revenues to the professors of the two 
 others. The chapel of the alienated college is 
 yet standing, a fabBick not inelegant of external 
 structure; but I was always, by some civil ex- 
 cuse, hindered from entering it. A decent at- 
 tempt, as I was since told, has been made to 
 convert it into a kind of greenhouse, by plant- 
 ing its area with shrubs. This new method of 
 gardening is unsuccessful; the plants do not 
 hitherto prosper. To whcU use it will next be 
 put, I have no pleasure in conjecturing. It is 
 something, that its present state is at least not 
 ostentatiously displayed. Where there is yet 
 shame, there may in time be virtue. 
 
 The dissolution of St. Leonard's College was 
 doubtless necessary; but of that necessity there 
 is reason to complain. It is surely not without 
 just reproach, that a nation, of which the com- 
 merce is hourly extending, and the wealth in- 
 creasing, denies any participation of its prospe- 
 rity to its literary societies; and while its mer- 
 chants or its nobles are raising palaces, suiFers 
 its universities to moulder into dust. 
 
 ■m^ 
 
g A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 Of the two colleges yet standing, one is by 
 the institution of its founder appropriated to 
 Divinity. It is said to be capable of containing 
 fifty students; but more than one must occupy 
 a chamber. The library, which is of late erec- 
 tion, is not very rapacious, but elegant and lu- 
 minous. 
 
 The doctor, by whom it was shown, hoped 
 to irritate or subdue my English vanity, by tel- 
 ling me that we had no such repository of books 
 in England. 
 
 St. Andrew's seems to be a place eminently 
 adapted to study and education, being situated 
 in a populous, yet a cheap country, and expo- 
 sing the minds and manners of young men nei- 
 ther to the levity and dissoluteness of a capital 
 city, nor to the gross luxury of a town of com- 
 merce, places naturally unpropitious. to learn- 
 ing; in one the desire of knowledge easily gives 
 way to the love of pleasure, and in the other, is 
 in danger of yielding to the love of money. 
 
 The students, however, are represented as at 
 this time not exceeding a hundred. Perhaps it 
 may be some obstruction to their increase that 
 there is no episcopal chapel in the place. I saw 
 no reason for imputing their paucity to the pre- 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS, 9. 
 
 sent professors; nor can the expense of an aca- 
 demical education be very reasonably objected. 
 A student of the highest class may keep his an- 
 nual session, or, as the English call it, his term, 
 which lasts seven months for about fifteen 
 pounds, and one of lower rank for less than ten; 
 in which, board, lodging, and instruction, are 
 all included. 
 
 The chief magistrate resident in the univer- 
 sity, answering to our vicechancellor, and to 
 the rector magnificus on the continent, had com- 
 monly the title of Locd Rector; but being ad- 
 dressed only as Mr. Rector in an inauguratory 
 speech by the present chancellor, 1^ has fallen 
 from his former dignity of style. Lordship was 
 very liberally annexed by our ancestors, to any 
 station or chai;acter of dignity: They said, the 
 ** Lord General," and " Lord Ambassador;" 
 so we still say, " my Lord," to the judge upon 
 the circuit, and yet retain in our liturgy, " the 
 *' Lords of the Council." 
 
 In walking among the ruins of religious build- 
 ings, we came to two vaults, over which had for- 
 merly stood the house of the sub- prior. One of 
 the vaults was inhabited by an old woman, who 
 claimed the right of abode there, as the widow 
 
10 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 of a man whose ancestors had possessed the 
 same gloomy mansion for no less than four ge- 
 nerations. The right, however began, was con- 
 sidered as established by legal prescription, and 
 the old woman lives undisturbed. She thinks, 
 however, that she has a claim to something 
 more than sufferance; for as her husband's name 
 was Bruce, she„is allied to royalty, and told Mr« 
 Boswell that when there were persons of quali- 
 ty in the place, she was distinguished by some 
 notice; that indeed she is now neglected, but 
 she spins a thread, has the company of her cat^ 
 and is troublesome to nobody. 
 
 Having now seen whatever this ancient city 
 offered to our curiosity, we left it with good 
 wishes, having reason to be highly pleased with 
 the attention that was paid us. But whoever 
 surveys the world must see many things that 
 give him pain. The kindness of the professors 
 did not contribute to abate the uneasy remem- 
 brance of an university declining, a college ali- 
 enated, and a church profaned and hastening to 
 the ground. 
 
 St. Andrew's indeed has formerly suffered 
 more atrocious ravages, and more extensive de- 
 struction, but recent avils affect with greater 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. . H 
 
 force. We were reconciled to the sight of archi- 
 ^piscopal ruins. The distance of a calamity 
 from the present time seems to preclude the 
 mind from contact or sympathy. Events long 
 past are barely known; they are not considered. 
 We read with as little emotion the violence of 
 Knox and his followers, as the irrHptions of 
 Alaric and the Goths. Had the university been 
 destroyed two centuries ago, we should not 
 have regretted it; but to see it pining in decay, 
 and struggling for life, fills the mind with 
 mournful images and ineffectual wishes. 
 
 ABERBROTHICK. 
 As we knew sorrow and wishes to be vain, it 
 was now our business to mind our way. The 
 roads of Scotland afford little diversion to the 
 traveller, who seldom sees himself either en- 
 countered or overtaken, and who has nothing 
 to contemplate but grounds that have no visi- 
 ble boundaries, or are separated by walls of 
 " loose stone. From the bank of the Tweed to 
 St. Andrew's, I had never seen a single tree, 
 which I did not believe to have grown up far 
 within the present century. Now and then about 
 a gentleman's house stands a small plantation. 
 
12 . A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 which in Scotch is called a Polic}^ but of these 
 there are few, and those few all very young. 
 The variety of sun and shade is here utterly 
 unknown. There is no tree for either shelter or 
 timber. The oak and the thorn is equally a 
 stranger, and the whole country is extended in 
 uniform wakedness, except that in the road be- 
 tween Kirkaldy and Cupar, I passed for a few 
 yards between two hedges. A tree might be a 
 show in Scotland as a horse in Venice. At St. 
 Andrew's Mr. Boswell found only one, and re- 
 commended it to my notice; I told him that it 
 was rough and low, or looked as if I thought 
 so. This, said he, is nothing to another a few 
 miles off. I was still less delighted to hear that 
 another tree was not to be seen nearer. Nay, 
 said a gentleman that stood by, I know but of 
 this and that tree in the county. 
 
 The Lowlands of Scotland had once un- 
 doubtedly an equal portion of woods with other 
 countries. Forests are every where gradually 
 diminished, as architecture and cultivation pre- * 
 vail by the increase of people and the introduc- 
 tion of arts. But I believe few regions have 
 been denuded like this, where many centuries 
 must have passed in waste without the least 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 13 
 
 thought of future supply. Davies observes in 
 his account of Ireland, that no Irishman had 
 ever planted an orchard. For that negligence 
 some excuse might be drawn from an unsettled 
 state of life, and the instability of property; but 
 in Scotland possession has long been secure, and 
 inheritance regular, yet it may be doubted whe- 
 ther before the union any man between Edin- 
 burgh and England had ever set a tree. 
 
 Of this improvidence no other account can 
 be given than that it probably began in times 
 of tumult, and continued because it had begun. 
 Established custom isnoteasily broken, till some 
 great event shakes the whole system of things, 
 and life seems to recommence upon new prin- 
 ciples. That before the union the Scots had 
 little trade and little money, is no valid apo- 
 logy; for plantation is the least expensive of all 
 methods of improvement. To drop a seed into 
 the ground can cost nothing, and the trouble 
 is not great of protecting the young plant, till 
 it is out of danger; though it must be allowed 
 to have some difficulty in places like these, 
 where they have neither wood for palisades, nor 
 thorns for hedges. 
 
 Our way was over the Frith of Tay, where^ 
 B 
 
14 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 though the water was not wide, we paid four 
 shillings for ferrying the chaise. In Scotland 
 the necessaries of life are easily procured, but 
 superfluities and elegancies are of the same price 
 at least as in England, and therefore may be 
 considered as much dearer. 
 
 We stopped a while at Dundee, where I re- 
 member nodiing remarkable, and mounting our 
 chaise again, came about the close of the day 
 to Aberbrothick. 
 
 The monastery of Aberbrothick is of great 
 renown in the history of Scotland. Its ruins 
 afford ample testimony of its ancient magnifi- 
 cence: Its extent might, I suppose, easily be 
 found by following the walls among the grass 
 and weeds, and its height is known by some 
 parts yet standing. The arch of one of the 
 gates is entire, and of another only so far dila- 
 pidated as to diversify the appearance. A square 
 apartment of great loftiness is yet standing; its 
 use I could not conjecture, as its elevation was 
 very disproportionate to its area. Two^orner 
 towers particularly attracted our attention. Mr. 
 Boswell, whose inquisitiveness is seconded by 
 great activity, scrambled in at a high window, 
 but found the stairs within broken, and could 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 15 
 
 not reach the top. Of the other tower we were 
 told that the inhabitants sometimes climbed it, 
 but we did not immediately discern the entrance, 
 and as the night was gathering upon us, thought 
 proper to desist. Men skilled in architecture 
 might do what we did not attempt: They might 
 probably form an exact ground-plot of this ve- 
 nerable edifice. They may, from some parts 
 yet standing, conjecture its general form, and 
 perhaps by comparing it with other buildings 
 of the same kind and the same age, attain an 
 idea very near to truth. I should scarcely have 
 regretted my journey, had it afforded nothing 
 more than the sight of Aberbrothick. 
 
 MONTROSE. 
 
 Leaving these fragments of magnificence, w c 
 travelled on to Montrose, which we surveyed in 
 the morning, and found it well built, airy, and 
 clean. The townhouse is a handsome fabrick 
 with a portico. We then went to view the 
 English chapel, and found a small church, clean 
 to a degree unknown in any other part of Scot- 
 land, with commodious galleries, and what was 
 yet less expected, with an organ. 
 
 At our inn we did not find a reception such 
 
16 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 as we thought proportionate to the commercial 
 opulence of the place; but Mr. Boswell desired 
 me to observe that the innkeeper was an Eng- 
 lishman, and I then defended him as well as I 
 could. 
 
 When I had proceeded thus far, I had oppor- 
 tunities of observing what I had never heard, 
 that there were many beggars in Scotland. In 
 Edinburgh the proportion is, I think, not less 
 than in London, and in the smaller places it is 
 far greater than in English towns of the same 
 extent. It must, however, be allowed that they 
 are not importunate, nor clamorous. They so- 
 licit silently, or very modestly, and therefoFC 
 though their behaviour may strike with more 
 force the heart of a stranger, they are certainly 
 in danger of missing the attention of their coun- 
 trymen. Novelty has always some power, an 
 unaccustomed mode of begging excites an un- 
 accustomed degree of pity. But the force of 
 novelty is by its own nature soon at an end; the 
 efficacy of outcry and perseverance is perma- 
 nent and certain. 
 
 The road from Montrose exhibited a conti- 
 nuation of the same appearances. The country 
 is still naked, the hedges are of stone, and the 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 17 
 
 fields so generally ploughed that it is hard to 
 imagine where grass is found for the horses that 
 till them. The harvest, which was almost ripe, 
 appeared very plentiful. 
 
 Early in the afternoon Mr. Bos well observed 
 that we were at no gi'eat distance from the house 
 of lord Monboddo. The magnetism of his con- 
 versation easily drew us out of our way, and the 
 entertainment which we received would have 
 been a sufficient recompense for a much great- 
 er deviation. 
 
 The roads beyond Edinburgh, as they are less 
 frequented, must be expected to grow gradually 
 rougher; but they were hitherto by no means 
 incommodious. We travelled on with the gentle 
 pace of a Scotch driver, who having no rivals 
 in expedition, neither gives himself nor his 
 horses unnecessary trouble. We did not affect 
 the impatience we did not feel, but were satis- 
 fied with the company of each other as Avell rid- 
 ing in the chaise, as sitting at an inn. The night 
 and the day are equally solitary and equally 
 safe; for where there are so few travellers, why 
 should there be robbers? 
 B 2 
 
18 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 ABERDEEN. 
 
 We came somewhat late to Aberdeen, and 
 found the inn so full, that we had some difficul- 
 ty in obtaining admission, till Mr. Boswell made 
 himself known: His name overpowered all ob- 
 jection, and we found a very good house and 
 civil treatment. 
 
 I received the next day a very kind letter 
 from sir Alexander Gordon, whom I had for- 
 merly known in London, and after a cessation 
 of all intercourse for near twenty years met here 
 professor of physick in the King's College. 
 Such unexpected renewals of acquaintance may 
 be numbered among the most pleasing inci- 
 dents of life. 
 
 The knowledge of one professor soon pro- 
 cured me the notice of the rest, and I did not 
 want any token of regard, being conducted 
 wherever there Vv as any thing which I desired 
 to see, and entertained at once with the novelty 
 of the place, and the kindness of communica- 
 tion. 
 
 To write of the cities of our own island with 
 the solemnity of geographical description, as if 
 wc had been cast upon a newly discovered coast, 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 19 
 
 has the appearance of very frivolous ostentation; 
 yet as Scotland is little known to the greater 
 part of those who may read these observations, 
 it is not superfluous to relate, that under the 
 name of Aberdeen are comprised two towns 
 standing about a mile distant from each other, 
 "but governed, I think, by the same magistrates* 
 
 Old Aberdeen is the ancient episcopal city, 
 in which are still to be seen the remains of the 
 cathedral. It has the appearance of a town in 
 decay, having been situated in times when com- 
 merce was yet unstudied, with very little atten- 
 tion to the commodities of the harbour. 
 
 New Aberdeen has all the bustle of prosper- 
 ous trade, and all the show of increasing opu- 
 lence. It is built by the water side. The houses 
 p.re large and lofty, and the streets spacious and 
 clean. They build almost wholly with the gra- 
 nite used in the new pavement of the streets of 
 London, which is well known not to want hard- 
 ness, yet they shape it easily. It is beautiful 
 and must be very lasting. 
 
 What particular parts of commerce are chief- 
 ly exercised by the merchants of Aberdeen, I 
 have not inquired. The manufacture which 
 forces itself upon a stranger's eye is that of knit- 
 
2Q A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 Stockings, on which the women of the lower 
 class are visibly employed. 
 
 In each of these towns there is a college, or, 
 in stricter language, a university; for in both 
 there are professors of the same parts of learn- 
 ing, and the colleges hold their sessions and 
 confer degrees separately, with total indepen- 
 dence of one on the other. 
 
 In Old Aberdeen stands the King's College, 
 of which the first president was Hector Boece, 
 or Boethius, who may be justly reverenced one 
 of the revivers of elegant learning. When he 
 studied at Paris, he was acquainted with Eras- 
 mus, who afterwards gave him a publick testi- 
 mony of his esteem, by inscribing to him a 
 catalogue of his works. The style of Boethius, 
 though perhaps not always rigorously pure, is 
 formed with great diligence upon ancient mo- 
 dels, and wholly uninfected with monastick bar- 
 barity. His history is written with elegance and 
 vigour, but his fabulousness and credulity are 
 justly blamed. His fabulousness, if he was ihe 
 author of the fictions, is a fault for which no 
 apology can be made; but his credulity may be 
 excused in an age when all men were credu- 
 lous. Learning was then rising on the world; 
 
AVESTERN ISLANDS. 21 
 
 but ages so long accustomed to darkness, were 
 too much dazzled with its light to see any thing 
 distinctly. The first race of scholars in the fif- 
 teenth century, and some time after, were, for 
 the most part, learning to speak, rather than to 
 think, and were therefore more studious of ele- 
 gance than of truth. The contemporaries of 
 Boethius thought it sufficient to know what the 
 ancients had delivered. The examination of 
 tenets and of facts was reserved for another 
 generation. 
 
 Boethius, as president of the university, en- 
 joyed a revenue of forty Scottish marks, about 
 two pounds four shillings and sixpence of ster- 
 ling money. In the present age of trade and 
 taxes, it is difficult even for the imagination so 
 to raise the value of money, or so to diminish 
 the demands of life, as to suppose four and forty 
 shillings a year an honourable stipend; yet it 
 was probably equal, not only to the needs, but 
 to the rank of Boethius. The wealth of Eng- 
 land was undoubtedly to that of Scotland more 
 than five to one, and it is known that Henry the 
 Eighth, among whose faults avarice was never 
 reckoned, granted to Roger Ascham, as a re- 
 ward of his learning, a pensiou of ten pounds a 
 year. 
 
22 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 The other, called the Marischal College, is 
 in the new town. The hall is large and well 
 lighted. One of its ornaments is the picture of 
 Arthur Johnston, who was principal of the col- 
 lege, and who holds among the Latin poets of 
 Scotland the next place to the elegant Bucha- 
 nan. 
 
 In the library I was shown some curiosities; 
 a Hebrew manuscript of exquisite penmanship, 
 and a Latin translation of Aristotle's politicks by 
 Leonardus Aretinus, written in the Roman cha- 
 racter with nicety and beauty, which, as the art 
 of printing has made them no longer necessary, 
 are not now to be found. This was one of the 
 latest performances of the transcribers, for Are- 
 tinus died but about twenty years before typo- 
 graphy was invented. This version has been 
 printed, and may be found in libraries, but is 
 little read; for the same books have been since 
 translated both by Victorius and Lambinus, 
 who lived in an age more cultivated; but per- 
 haps owed in part to Aretinus that they w^ere 
 able to excel him. Much is due to those who 
 first broke the way to knowledge, and kft only 
 to their successours the task of smoothing it. 
 
 In both these colleges the methods of instruc- 
 
WESTERN ISLANBS. 23 
 
 t-ion are nearly the same; the lectures differing 
 only by the accidental difference of diligence, 
 or ability in the professors. The students wear 
 scarlet gowns and the professors black, which 
 is, I believe, the academical dress in all the 
 Scottish universities, except that of Edinburgh, 
 where the scholars are not distinguished by any 
 particular habit. In the King's College there is 
 kept a publick table, but the scholars of the Ma- 
 rischal College are boarded in the town. The 
 expense of living is here, according to the in- 
 formation that I could obtain, somewhat more 
 than at St. Andrew's. 
 
 The course of education is extended to four 
 years, at the end of which those who take a de- 
 gree, who are not many, become masters of 
 arts, and whoever is a master, may, if he plea- 
 ses, immediately commence doctor. The title 
 of doctor, however, was for a considerable time 
 bestowed only on physicians. The advocates 
 are examined and approved by their own body; 
 the ministers were not ambitious of titles, or 
 were afraid of being censured for ambition; and 
 the doctorate in every faculty was commonly 
 given or sold into other countries. The minis- 
 ters are now reconciled to distinction, and, as 
 
24 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 it must always happen that some will excel 
 others, have thought graduation a proper testi- 
 mony of uncommon abilities or acquisitions. 
 
 The indiscriminate collation of degrees has 
 justly taken away that respect which they ori- 
 ginally claimed as stamps by which the literary 
 value of men so distinguished was authoritative- 
 ly denoted. That academical honours, or any 
 others, should be conferred with exact propor- 
 tion to merit, is more than human judgment 
 or human integrity has given reason to expect 
 Perhaps degrees in universities cannot be better 
 adjusted by any general rule than by the length 
 of time passed in the publick profession of learn- 
 ing. An English or Irish doctorate cannot be 
 obtained by a very young man, and it is reason- 
 able to suppose, what is likewise by experience 
 commonly found true, that he who is by age 
 qualified to be a doctor, has in so much time 
 gained learning sufficient not to disgrace the 
 title, or wit sufficient not to desire it. 
 
 The Scotch universities hold but one term 
 or session in the year. That of St. Andrew's 
 continues eight months, that of Aberdeen only 
 five, from the first of November to the first of 
 April, 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 25 
 
 In Aberdeen there is an English chapel, in 
 which the congregation was numerous and 
 splendid. The form of publick worship used by 
 the church of England is in Scotland legally 
 practised in licensed chapels, served by clergy- 
 men of English or Irish ordination, and by tacit 
 connivance quietly permitted in separate con- 
 gregations supplied with ministers by the suc- 
 cessours of the bishops who were deprived at 
 the revolution. 
 
 We came to Aberdeen on Saturday August 
 21. On Monday we were invited into the 
 townhall, where I had the freedom of the city 
 given me by the Lord Provost. The honour 
 conferred had all the decorations that politeness 
 could add, and what I am afraid I should not 
 have had to say of any city south of the Tweed, 
 I found no petty officer bowing for a fee. 
 
 The parchment containing the record of ad- 
 mission, is, with the seal appending, fastened to 
 a ribband, and worn for one day by the new ci- 
 tizen in his hat. 
 
 By a lady who saw us at the chapel, the Earl 
 of Errol was informed of our arrival, and we 
 had the honour of an invitation to his seat, called 
 Slanes Castle, as I am told, improperly, from the 
 
^6 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 castle of that name, which once stood at a place 
 not far distant. 
 
 The road beyond Aberdeen grew more stony, 
 and continued equally naked of all vegetable 
 decoration. We travelled over a tract of ground 
 near the sea, which, not long ago, suffered a 
 very uncommon and unexpected calamity. The 
 sand of the shore was raised by a tempest in 
 such quantities, and carried to such a distance, 
 that an estate was overwhelmed and lost. Such 
 and so hopeless was the barenness superinduced, 
 that the owner, when he was required to pay 
 the usualtax, desired rather to resign the ground. 
 
 SLANES CASTLE, THE BULLER OF 
 BUCHAN. 
 
 We came in the afternoon to Slanes Castle, 
 built upon the margin of the sea, so that the 
 walls of one of the towers seem only a continu- 
 ation of a perpendicular rock, the foot of which 
 is beaten by the waves. To walk round the 
 house seemed impracticable. From the windows 
 the eye wanders over the sea that separates Scot- 
 land from Norway, and when the winds beat 
 with violence, must enjoy all the terrifick gran- 
 deur of the tempestuous ocean. I would not 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 27 
 
 for my amusement wish for a storm; but as 
 storms, whether wished or not, will sometimes 
 happen, I may say without violation of huma- 
 nity, that I should willingly look out upon them 
 from Slanes Castle. 
 
 When we were about to take our leave, our 
 departure was prohibited by the Countess, till 
 we should have seen two places upon the coast, 
 which she rightly considered as worthy of cu- 
 riosity. Dun Buy, and the Buller of Buchan, to 
 which Mr. Boyd very kindly conducted us. 
 
 Dun Buy, which in Erse, is said to signify the 
 Yellow Rock, is a double protuberance of stone, 
 open to the main sea on one side, and parted 
 from the land by a very narrow channel on the 
 other. It has its name and its colour from the 
 dung of innumerable sea fowls, w^hich in the 
 spring choose this place as convenient for incu- 
 bation, and have their eggs and their young ta- 
 ken in great abundance. One of the birds that 
 frequnet this rock has, as we are told, its body 
 not larger than a duck's, and yet lays eggs as 
 large as those of a goose. This bird is by the 
 inhabitants named a Coot. That which is called 
 a Coot in England, is here a Cooler. 
 Upon these rocks there was nothing that could 
 
28 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 long detain attention, and we soon turned our 
 eyes to the BuUer, or Bouillor of Buchan, which 
 no man can see with indifference, who has ei- 
 ther sense of danger or delight in rarity. It is a 
 rock perpendicularly tubulated, united on one 
 side with a high shore, and on the other rising 
 steep to a great height, above the main sea. 
 The top is open, from which may be seen a dark 
 gulf of water which flows into the cavity, 
 through a breach made in the lower part of the 
 enclosing rock. It has the appearance of a vast 
 well bordered with a wall. The edge of the 
 BuUer is not wide, and to those that walk round, 
 appears very narrow. He that ventures to look 
 downward sees, that if his foot should slip, he 
 must fall from his dreadful elevation upon stones 
 on one side or into the water on the other. We 
 however went round, and were glad when the 
 circuit was completed. 
 
 When we came down to the sea, we saw some 
 boats, and rowers, and resolved to explore the 
 Buller at the bottom. We entered the arch, 
 which the water had made, and found ourselves 
 in a place, which, though w'e could not think 
 ourselves in danger, we could scarcely survey 
 without some recoil of the mind. The bason 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 29 
 
 in which we floated was nearly circular, perhaps 
 thirty yards in diameter. We were enclosed by 
 a natural wall, rising steep on every side to a 
 height which produced the idea of insurmount- 
 able confinement. The interception of all la- 
 teral light caused a dismal gloom. R und us 
 was a perpendicular rock, above us the distant 
 sky, and below an unknown profundity of wa- 
 ter. If I had any malice against a walking spi- 
 rit, instead of laying him in the Red Sea, I 
 would condemn him to reside in the BuUer of 
 Buchan. 
 
 But terror without danger is only one of the 
 sports of fancy, a voluntary agitation of the 
 mhid that is permitted no longer than it pleases. 
 We were soon at leisure to examine the place 
 with minute inspection, and found many cavi- 
 ties which as the watermen told us, went back- 
 ward to a depth which they had never explo- 
 red. Their extent we had not time to try; they 
 are said to serve different purposes. Ladies 
 come hither sometimes in the summer with 
 collations, and smugglers make them store- 
 houses for clandestine merchandise. It is hard- 
 ly to be doubted but the pirates of ancient times 
 often used them as magazines of arms, or re- 
 positories of pknider. 
 
 c 2 
 
30 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 To the little vessels used by the northern 
 rowers, the Buller may have served as a shelter 
 from storms, and perhaps as a retreat from ene- 
 mies; the entrance might have been stopped, 
 or guarded with little difficulty, and though the 
 vessels that were stationed within would have 
 been battered with stones showered on them 
 from above, yet the crews would have lain safe 
 in the caverns. 
 
 Next morning we continued our journey, 
 pleased with our reception at Slanes Castle, of 
 which we had now leisure to recount the gran- 
 deur and the elegance; for our way afforded us 
 few topicks of conversation. The ground was 
 neither uncultivated nor unfruitful; but it was 
 still all arable. Of flocks or herds there was no 
 appearance. I had now travelled two hundred 
 miles in Scotland, and seen only one tree not 
 younger than myself. 
 
 BANFF. 
 We dined this day at the house of Mr. Fra- 
 zer of Streichton who showed us in his grounds 
 some stones yet standing of a druidical circle, 
 and what I began to think more worthy of no- 
 tice, some forest trees of full growth. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 3 1 
 
 At night we came to Banff, where I remem- 
 ber nothing that particularly claimed my atten- 
 tion. The ancient towns of Scotland have ge- 
 nerally an appearance unusual to Englishmen. 
 The houses, whether great or small, are for the 
 most part built of stones. Their ends are now 
 and then next the streets, and the entrance into 
 them is very often by a flight of steps which 
 reaches up to the second story. The floor, which 
 is level with the ground, being entered only by 
 stairs descending within the house. 
 
 The art of joining squares of glass with lead 
 is little used in Scotland, and in some places is 
 totally forgotten. The frames of their \vindows 
 are all of wood. They are more frugal of their 
 glass than the English, and will often, in houses 
 not otherwise mean, compose a square of two 
 pieces, not joining like cracked glass, but with 
 one edge laid perhaps half an inch over the 
 other. Their windows do not move upon hin- 
 ges, but are pushed up and drawn down in 
 grooves, yet they are seldom accommodated 
 with weights and pulleys. He that would have 
 his window open must hold it with his hand, 
 unless, what may be sometimes found among 
 good contrivers, there be a nail, which he may 
 stick into a hole, to keep it from falling. 
 
32 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 What cannot be done without some uncom- 
 mon trouble or particular expedient will not 
 often be done at all. The incommodiousness of 
 the Scotch windows keeps them very closely 
 shut. The necessity of ventilating human ha- 
 bitations has not yet been found by our north- 
 ern neighbours; and even in houses well built 
 and elegantly furnished, a stranger may be 
 sometimes forgiven, if he allows himself to 
 wish for fresher air. 
 
 These diminutive observations seem to take 
 away something from the dignity of writing, 
 and therefore are never communicated but with 
 hesitation and a little fear of abasement and 
 contempt. But it must be remembered, that 
 life consists not of a series of illustrious actions, 
 or elegant enjoyments; the greater part of our 
 time passes in compliance with necessities, in 
 the performance of daily duties, in the removal 
 of small inconveniencies, in the procurement of 
 petty pleasures; and we are well or ill at ease, 
 as the main stream of life glides on smoothly, 
 or is ruffled by small obstacles and frequent in- 
 terruption. The true state of every nation is 
 the state of common life. The manners of a 
 people are not to be found in the schools of 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 33 
 
 learning, or the palaces of greatness, where the 
 national character is obscured or obliterated by 
 travel or instruction, by philosophy or vanity; 
 nor is publick happiness to be estimated by the 
 assemblies of the gay, or the banquets of the 
 rich. The great mass of nations is neither rich 
 nor gay: They whose aggregate constitutes the 
 people are found in the streets and the villages, 
 in the shops and farms; and from them collec- 
 tively considered must the measure of general 
 prosperity be taken. As they approach to de- 
 licacy a nation is refined; as their convenien- 
 cies are multiplied, a nation, at least a commer- 
 eial nation, must be denominated wealthy. 
 
 ELGIN. 
 Finding nothing to detain us at Banff, we set 
 out in the morning, and having breakfasted at 
 Cullen, about noon came to Elgin, where in the 
 inn, that we supposed the best, a dinner was set 
 before us, which we could not eat. This was 
 the first time, and, except one, the last, that I 
 found any reason to complain of a Scottish ta- 
 ble; and such disappointments, I suppose, must 
 be expected in every country where there is no 
 great frequency of travellers. 
 
34 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 The ruins of the cathedral of Elgin afforded 
 us another proof of the waste of reformation. 
 There is enough yet remaining to show that it 
 was once magnificent. Its whole plot is easily 
 traced. On the north side of the choir, the 
 chapter-house, which is roofed with an arch of 
 stone, remains entire; and on the south side, 
 another mass of building, which we could not 
 enter, is preserved by the care of the family of 
 Gordon; but the body of the church is a mass 
 of fragments. 
 
 A paper was here put into our hands, which 
 deduced from sufficient authorities the history 
 of this venerable ruin. The church of Elgin 
 had, in the intestine tumults of the barbarous 
 ages, been laid waste by the irruption of a High- 
 land chief, whom the bishop had offended; but 
 it w^as gradually restored to the state, of which 
 the traces may be now discerned, and was at 
 last not destroyed by the tumultuous violence of 
 Knox, but more shamefully suffered to dilapidate 
 by deliberate robbery and frigid indifference. 
 There is still extant, in the books of the council, 
 an order, of which I cannot remember the date, 
 but which was doubtless issued after the refor- 
 mation, directing that the lead, which covers the 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 35 
 
 two cathedrals of Elgin and Aberdeen, shall be 
 taken away, and converted into money for the 
 support of the army. A Scotch army was in 
 those times very cheaply kept; yet the lead of 
 two churches must have borne so small a pro- 
 portion to any military expense, that it is hard not 
 to believe the reason alleged to be merely popu- 
 lar, and the money intended for some private 
 purse. The order, however, was obeyed; the two 
 churches were stripped, and the lead was shipped 
 to be sold in Holland. I hope every reader will 
 rejoice that this cargo of sacrilege was lost at sea. 
 
 Let us not, however, make too much haste to 
 despise our neighbours. Our own cathedrals 
 are mouldering by unregarded dilapidation. It 
 seems to be part of the despicable philosophy of 
 the time to despise monuments of sacred magni- 
 ficence, and we are in danger of doing that de- 
 liberately, which the Scots did not do but in the 
 unsettled state of an imperfect constitution. 
 
 Those who had once uncovered the cathe- 
 drals never wished to cover them again: and 
 being thus made useless, they were first neglect- 
 ed, and perhaps, as the stone was wanted, af- 
 terwards demolished. 
 
 Elgin seems a place of little trade, and thinly 
 
36 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 inhabited. The episcopal cities of Scotland, I be- 
 lieve, generally fell with their churches, though 
 some of them have since recovered by a situa- 
 tion convenient for commerce. Thus Glasgow, 
 though it has no longer an archbishop, has risen 
 beyond its original state by the opulence of its 
 traders; and Aberdeen, though its ancient stock 
 had decayed, flourishes by a new shoot in an- 
 other place. 
 
 In the chief street of Elgin, the houses jut 
 over the lowest story, like the old buildings of 
 timber in London, but with greater prominence; 
 so that there is sometimes a walk for a consi- 
 derable length under a cloister, or portico, which 
 is now indeed frequently broken, because the 
 new houses have another form, but seems to 
 have been uniformly continued in the old city. 
 
 FORES. CALDER. FORT GEORGE. 
 We went forwards the same day to Fores, 
 the town to which Macbeth was travelling, 
 when he met the weird sisters in his way. This 
 to an Englishman is classick ground. Our ima- 
 ginations were heated, and our thoughts recal- 
 led to their old amusements. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 37 
 
 We had now a prelude to the Highlands. We 
 began to leave fertility and culture behind us, 
 and saw for a great length of road nothing but 
 heath; yet at Fochabers, a seat belonging to 
 the duke of Gordon, there is an orchard, which 
 in Scotland I had never seen before, with some 
 timber trees, and a plantation of oaks. 
 
 At Fores we found good accommodation, 
 but nothing worthy of particular remark, and 
 next morning entered upon the road, on which 
 Macbeth heard the fatal prediction; but we tra~ 
 veiled on not interrupted by promises of king- 
 doms, and came to Nairn, a royal burgh, which, 
 if once it flourished, is now in a state of miser- 
 able decay; but I know not whether its chief 
 annual magistrate has not still the title of lord 
 provost. 
 
 At Nairn we may fix the verge of the High- 
 lands; for here I first saw peat fires, and first 
 heard the Erse language. We had no motive 
 to stay longer than to breakfast, and went for- 
 ward to the house of Mr. Macaulay, the minis- 
 ter who published an account of St. Kilda, and 
 by his direction visited Calder Castle, from 
 which Macbeth drew his second title. It has 
 
 been formerly a place of strength. The draw- 
 
 D 
 
38 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 bridge is still to be seen, but the moat is now 
 dry. The tower is very ancient. Its walls are of 
 great thickness, arched on the top with stone, 
 and surrounded with battlements. The rest of 
 the house is later, though far from modern. 
 
 We were favoured by a gentleman, who lives 
 in the castle, with a letter to one of the officers 
 at Fort George, which being the most regular 
 fortification in the island, well deserves the no- 
 tice of a traveller, who has never travelled be- 
 fore. We went thither next day, found a very 
 kind reception, were led round the works by a 
 gentleman, who explained the use of every part, 
 and entertained by sir Eyre Coote, the gover- 
 nour, with such elegance of conversation as left 
 us no attention to the delicacies of his table. 
 
 Of Fort George I shall not attempt to give 
 any account. I cannot delineate it scientifically, 
 and a loose and popular description is of use 
 only, when the imagination is to be amused. 
 There was everywhere an appearance of the 
 Utmost neatness and regularity. But my suf- 
 frage is of little value, because this and Fort 
 Augustus are the only garrisons that I ever saw. 
 
 We did not regret the time spent at the fort, 
 tliough in consequence of our delay we came 
 
WESTERN ISLAND^. 59 
 
 somewhat late to Inverness, the town which may 
 properly be called the capital of the Highlands. 
 Hither the inhabitants of the inland parts come 
 to be supplied with what they cannot make for 
 themselves. Hither the young nymphs of the 
 mountains and valleys are sent for education, 
 and as far as my observation has reached, ate 
 not sent in vain. 
 
 INVERNESS. 
 
 Inverness was the last place which had a re* 
 gular communication by high roads with the 
 southern counties. All the ways beyond it have, 
 1 believe, been made by the soldiers in this cen- 
 tury. At Inverness therefore Cromwell, when 
 he subdued Scotland, stationed a garrison, as at 
 the boundary of the Highlands. The soldiers 
 seem to have incorporated afterwards with the 
 inhabitants, and to have peopled the place witli 
 an English race; for the language of this town 
 has been long considered as peculiarly elegant. 
 
 Here is a castle, called the castle of Macbeth, 
 the walls of which are yet standing. It was no 
 very capacious edifice, but stands upon a rock 
 so high and steep, that I think it was once not 
 accessible, but by the help of ladders, or a 
 
4,0 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 bridge. Over against it, on another hill, was a 
 fort built by Cromwell, now totally demolished; 
 for no faction of Scotland loved the name of 
 Cromwell, or had any desire to continue his 
 memory. 
 
 Yet what the Romans did to other nations, 
 was in a great degree done by Cromwell to the 
 Scots; he civilized them by conquest, and in- 
 troduced by useful violence the arts of peace. 
 I was told at Aberdeen that the people learned 
 Prom Cromwell's soldiers to make shoes and to 
 plant kail. 
 
 How they lived without kail, it is not easy to 
 .^'uess: they cultivate hardly any other plant 
 for common tables, and when they had not kail 
 they probably had nothing. The numbers that 
 go barefoot are still sufficient to show that shoes 
 may be spared; they are not yet considered as 
 necessaries of life; for tall boys, not othervv ise 
 meanly dressed, run without them in the streets 
 and in the islands; the sons of gentlemen pass 
 several of their first rears with naked feet. 
 
 I know not whether it be not peculiar to the 
 Scots to have attained the liberal, without the 
 manual arts, to have excelled in ornamental 
 knowledge, and to liave wanted not only the 
 
WESTERN ISLANBS. 41 
 
 elegancies, but the conveniencies of common 
 life. Literature, soon after its revival, found its 
 way to Scotland, and from the middle of the 
 sixteenth century, almost to the middle of the 
 seventeenth, the politer studies were very dili 
 gently pursued. The Latin poetry of '' Deli- 
 '* ciae Poetarum Scotorum" would have done 
 honour to any nation, at least till the publica- 
 tion of " May's Supplement" the English had 
 very little to oppose. 
 
 Yet men thus ingenious and inquisitive were 
 content to live in total ignorance of the trades 
 by which human wants are supplied, and to sup- 
 ply them by the grossest means. Till the union 
 made them acquainted with English manners, 
 the culture of their lands was unskilful, and 
 their domestick life unformed; their tables were 
 coarse as the feasts of Eskimaux, and their 
 houses filthy as the cottages of Hottentots. 
 
 Since they have known that their condition 
 was capable of improvement, their progress in 
 useful knowledge has been rapid and uniform. 
 What remains to be done they will quickly do, 
 and then wonder, like me, why that which was 
 so necessary and so easy was so long delayed. 
 But they must be for ever content to owe to the 
 D2 
 
4i A JOU RNEY TO THE 
 
 English that elegance and culture, which, if 
 they had been vigilant and active, perhaps the 
 English might have owed to them. 
 
 Here the appearance of life began to alter. I 
 had seen a few women with plaids at Aberdeen; 
 but at Inverness the Highland manners arc 
 common. There is I think a kirk, in which on- 
 ly the Erse language is used. There is likewise 
 an English chapel, but meanly built, where on 
 Sunday we saw a very decent congregation. 
 
 We were now to bid farewell to the luxury 
 of travelling, and to enter a country upon which 
 perhaps no wheel has ever rolled. We could 
 indeed have used ou/postchaise one day long- 
 er, along the military road to Fort Augustus, 
 but we could have hired no horses beyond In- 
 verness, and we were not so sparing of our- 
 selves, as to lead them, merely that .we might 
 have one day longer the indulgence of a car- 
 riage. 
 
 At Inverness, therefore, we procured three 
 horses for ourselves and a servant, and one more 
 for our baggage, which was no very heavy load. 
 We found in the course of our journey the con- 
 venience of having disencumbered ourselves, 
 by laying aside whatever wc could spare; for it 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 45 
 
 as not to be imagined without experience, how 
 in climbing crags, and treading bogs, and wind- 
 ing through narrow and obstructed passages, a 
 little bulk will hinder, and a little weight will 
 burden; or how often a man that has pleased 
 himself at home with his own resolution, will, 
 in the hour of darkness and fatigue, be content 
 to leave behind him every thing but himself. 
 
 LOUGH NESS. 
 We took two Highlanders to run beside us, 
 partly to show us the way, and partly to take 
 back from the sea side the horses, of which they 
 were the owners. One of them was a man of 
 great liveliness and activity, of whom his com- 
 panion said, that he would tire any horse in In- 
 verness. Both of them were civil and ready- 
 handed. Civility seems part of the national 
 character of Highlanders. Every chieftain is a 
 monarch, and politeness, the natural product of 
 royal government, is diffused from the* laird 
 through the whole clan. But they are not com- 
 monly dexterous: their narrowness of life con- 
 fines them to a few operations, and they are ac- 
 customed to endure little wants more than to 
 i^move them. 
 
44 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 We mounted our steeds on the thirteenth of 
 August, and directed our guides to conduct us 
 to Fort Augustus. It is built at the head of 
 Lough Ness, of which Inverness stands at the 
 outlet. The way between them has been cut 
 by the soldiers, and the greater part of it runs 
 along a rock, levelled with great labour and 
 exactness, near the water-side. 
 
 Most of this day's journey was very pleasant. 
 The day, though bright, was not hot; and the 
 appearance of the country, if I had not seen the 
 Peak, would have been wholly new. We went 
 upon a surface so hard and level, that we had 
 little care to hold the bridle, and were therefore 
 at full leisure for contemplation. On the left 
 were high and steep rocks shaded with birch, 
 the hardy native of the north, and covered with 
 fern or heath. On the right the limpid waters 
 of Lough Ness were beating their bank, and 
 waving their surface by a gentle agitation. Be- 
 yond them were rocks sometimes covered with 
 verdure, and sometimes towering in horrid na* 
 kedness. Now and then we espied a little corn- 
 field, which served to impress more strongly 
 the general barrenness. 
 
 Lough Ness is about twenty- four miles long. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 45 
 
 and from one mile to two miles broad. It is re- 
 markable that Boethius, in his description of 
 Scotland, gives it twelve miles of breadth. 
 When historians or geographers exhibit false 
 accounts of places far distant, they may be for- 
 given, because they can tell but what they are 
 told; and that their accounts exceed the truth 
 may be justly supposed, because most men ex- 
 aggerate to others, if not to themselves: but 
 Boethius lived at no great distance; if he never 
 saw the lake, he must have been very incuri- 
 ous, and if he had seen it, his veracity yielded 
 to very slight temptations. 
 
 Lough Ness, though not twelve miles broad, 
 is a very remarkable diffusion of water without 
 islands. It fills a large hollow betweeh two 
 ridges of high rocks, being supplied partly by 
 the torrents which fall into it on either side, 
 and partly, as is supposed, by springs at the 
 bottom. Its water is remarkably clear and plea- 
 sant, and is imagined by the natives to be me- 
 dicinal. We were told, that it is in some places 
 a hundred and forty fathom deep, a profundity 
 scarcely credible, and which probably those that 
 relate it have never sounded. Its fish are sal- 
 mon, trout, and pike. 
 
4S A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 It was said at Fort Augustus, that LougU 
 Ness is open in the hardest winters, though a 
 lake not far from it is covered with ice. In dis- 
 cussing these exceptions from the course of 
 nature, the first question is, whether the fact be 
 justly stated? That which is strange is delight- 
 ful, and a pleasing error is not wilhngly detect- 
 ed. Accuracy of narration is not very common, 
 and there are few so rigidly philosophical, as 
 not to represent as perpetual, what is only fre- 
 quent, or as constant, what is really casual. If 
 it be true that Lough Ness never freezes, it is 
 either sheltered by its high banks from the cold 
 blasts, and exposed only to those winds which 
 have more power to agitate than congeal; or it 
 is kept in perpetual motion by the rush of 
 streams from the rocks that enclose it. Its pro- 
 fundity, though it should be such as is repre- 
 sented, can have little part in this exemption; 
 for though deep wells are not frozen, because 
 their water is secluded from the external air, 
 3^et where a wide surface is exposed to the full 
 influence of a freezing atmosphere, I know not 
 why the depth should keep it open. Natural 
 philosophy is now one of the favourite studies 
 of the Scottish nation, and Lough Ness well 
 deser\^es to be diligently examined. 
 
WESTERN ISLANBS. 47 
 
 Tlie road on which we travelled, and which 
 was itself a source of entertainment, is made 
 along the rock, in the direction of the lough, 
 sometimes by breaking off protuberances, and 
 sometimes by cutting the great mass of stone 
 to a considerable depth. The fragments are 
 piled in a loose wall on either side, with aper- 
 tures left at very short spaces, to give a passage 
 to the wintry currents. Part of it is bordered 
 with low trees, from which our guides gathered 
 nuts, and would have had the appearance of an 
 English lane, except that an English lane is al- 
 most always dirty. It has been made with great 
 labour, but has this advantage, that it cannot^ 
 without equal labour, be broken up. 
 
 Within our sight there were goats feeding or 
 playing. The mountains have red deer, but 
 they came not within view; and if what is said 
 of their vigilance and subtlety be true, they 
 have some claim to that palm of wisdom, which 
 the eastern philosopher, whom Alexander in- 
 terrogated, gave to those beasts which live fur- 
 thest from men. 
 
 Near the way, by the water side, we espied 
 a cottage. This was the first Highland hut that 
 I had seen; and as our business was with life 
 
48 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 and manners, we were willing to visit it. To 
 enter a habitation without leave, seems to be 
 not considered here as rudeness or intrusion. 
 The old laws of hospitality still give this license 
 to a stranger. 
 
 A hut is constructed with loose stones, ranged 
 for the most part with some tendency to circu- 
 larity. It must be placed where the wind can- 
 not act upon it with violence, because it has 
 no cement; and where the water will run ea- 
 sily away, because it has no floor but the naked 
 ground. The wall, which is commonly about 
 six feet high, declines from the perpendicular a 
 little inward. Such rafters as can be procured 
 are then raised for a roof, and covered with 
 heath, which makes a strong and warm thatch, 
 kept from flying off* by ropes of twisted heath, 
 of which the ends, reaching from the centre of 
 the thatch to the top of the wall, are held firm 
 by the weight of a large stone. No light is ad- 
 mitted but at the entrance, and through a hole 
 in the thatch, which gives vent to the smoke. 
 This hole is not directly over the fire, lest the 
 rain should extinguish it; and the smoke there- 
 fore naturally fills the place before it escapes. 
 Such is the general structure of the houses, iii 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 49 
 
 which one of the nations of this opulent and 
 powerful island has been hitherto content to 
 live. Huts, however, are not more uniform 
 than palaces; and this which we were inspect- 
 ing was very far from one of the meanest, for it 
 was divided into several apartments; and its 
 inhabitants possessed such property as a pastoral 
 poet might exalt into riches. 
 
 When we entered, we found an old woman 
 boiling goat's flesh in a kettle. She spoke little 
 English, but we had interpreters at hand; and 
 she was willing enough to display her whole 
 system of economy. She has five children, of 
 which none are yet gone from her. The eldest, 
 a boy of thirteen, and her husband, who is 
 eighty years old, were at work in the wood. 
 Her two next sons were gone to Inverness to 
 buy meal, by which oatmeal is always meant. 
 Meal she considered as expensive food, and 
 told us, that in Spring, when the goats gave 
 milk, the children could live without it. She 
 is mistress of sixty goats, and I saw many kids 
 in an enclosure at the end of her house. She 
 had also some poultry. By the lake we saw a 
 potato garden, and a small spot of ground on 
 which stood four shucks, containing each twelve 
 
50 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 sheaves of barley. She has also this from the 
 labour of their own hands, and for what is ne- 
 cessary to be bought, her kids and her chickens 
 are sent to market. 
 
 With the true pastoral hospitality, she asked 
 us to sit down and drink whisky. She is reli- 
 gious, and though the kirk is four miles off, 
 probably eight English miles, she goes thither 
 every Sunday. We gave her a shilling, and she 
 begged snuff; for snuff is the luxury of a High- 
 land cottage. 
 
 Soon afterwards we came to the General's 
 Hut, so called, because it was the temporary 
 abode of Wade, while he superintended the 
 works upon the road. It is now a house of en- 
 tertainment for passengers, and we found it not 
 ill stocked with provisions. 
 
 FALL OF FIERS. 
 Towards evening we crossed by a bridge, the 
 river which makes the celebrated Fall of Fiers. 
 The country at the bridge strikes the imagina- 
 tion with all the gloom and grandeur of Sibe- 
 rian solitude. The way makes a flexure, and 
 the mountains, covered with trees, rise at once 
 on the left hand and in the front. We desired 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 51 
 
 Giir guides to show us the fall, and dismounting 
 clambered over very rugged crags, till I began 
 to wish that our curiosity might have been gra- 
 tified with less trouble and danger. We came 
 at last to a place where we could overlook the 
 river, and saw a channel torn, as it seems, 
 through black piles of stone, by whiqh the 
 stream is obstructed and broken, till it comes to 
 a very steep descent, of such dreadful depth, 
 that we were naturally inclined to turn aside 
 our eyes. 
 
 But we visited the place at an unseasonable 
 time, and found it divested of its dignity and 
 terror. Nature never gives every thing at once. 
 A long continuance of dry weather, which made 
 the rest of the way easy and delightful, deprived 
 us of the pleasure expected from the Fall of 
 Fiers. The river having now no water but 
 what the springs supply, showed us only a swift 
 current, clear and shallow, fretting over the as- 
 perities of the rocky bottom, and we were left to 
 exercise our thoughts, by endeavouring to con- 
 ceive the effect of a thousand streams poured 
 from the mountains into one channel, struggling 
 for expansion in a narrow passage, exasperated 
 by rocks rising in their way, and at last dis- 
 
52 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 charging all their violence of waters by a sudden 
 fall through the horrid chasm. 
 
 The way now grew less easy, descending by 
 an uneven declivity, but without either dirt or 
 danger. We did not arrive at Fort Augustus 
 till it was late. Mr. Boswell, who, between his 
 father's merit and his own, is sure of reception 
 wherever he comes, sent a servant before to beg 
 admission and entertainment for that night. 
 Mr. Trapaud, the governor, treated us with that 
 courtesy which is so closely connected with the 
 niilitary character. He came out to meet us 
 beyond the gates, and apologized that, at so late 
 an hour, the rules of a garrison suffered him to 
 give us entrance only at the postern. 
 
 FORT AUGUSTUS. 
 In the morning we viewed the fort, which is 
 much less than that of St. George, and is said 
 to be commanded by the neighbouring hills. It 
 was not long ago taken by the Highlanders. 
 But its situation seems well chosen for plea- 
 sure, if not for strength; it stands at the head of 
 the lake, and, by a sloop of sixty tons, is sup- 
 plied from Inverness with great convenience. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 53 
 
 We v/ere now to cross the Highlands towards 
 the western coast, and to content ourselves with 
 such accommodations, as a way so little fre- 
 quented could afibrd. The journey was not 
 formidable, for it was but of two days, very 
 unequally divided, because the only house, 
 where we could be entertained, was not further 
 off than a third of the way. We soon came to 
 a high hill, which we mounted by a military 
 road, cut in traverses, so that as we went upon 
 a higher stage, we saw the baggage following 
 us below in a contrary direction. To make this 
 way, the rock has been hewn to a level with 
 labour that might have broken ^e perseverance 
 of a Roman le^'ion. 
 
 o 
 
 The country is totally denuded of its wood, 
 but the stumps both of oaks and firs, which are 
 still found, show that it has been once a forest 
 of large timber. I do not remember that we 
 saw any animals, but we were told that, in the 
 mountains, there are stags, roebucks, goats, 
 and rabbits. 
 
 We did not perceive that this tract was pos- 
 sessed by human beings, except that once we 
 saw a corn field, in which a lady was walking 
 with some gentlemen. Their house was cer- 
 
 E2 
 
54 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 tainly at no great distance, but so situated that 
 we could not descry it. 
 
 Passing on through the dreariness of soli- 
 tude, we found a party of soldiers from the fort 
 working on the road, under the superintend- 
 ence of a Serjeant. We told them how kindly 
 we had been treated at the garrison, and as we 
 were enjoying the benefit of their labours, beg- 
 ged leave to show our gratitude by a small pre- 
 sent. 
 
 ANOCH. 
 
 Early in the afternoon we came to Anoch, a 
 village in Glenmoilison of three huts, one of 
 which is distinguished by a chimney. Here we 
 were to dine and lodge, and were conducted 
 through the first room, that had the chimney, 
 into another lighted by a small glass window. 
 The landlord attended us with great civility, 
 and told us Vv^hat he could give us to eat and 
 drink. I found some books on a shelf, among 
 which were a volume or more of Prideaux's 
 Connection. 
 
 This I mentioned as something unexpected, 
 and perceived that 1 did not please him. I 
 praised the propriety of his language, and was 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 55 
 
 answered that I need not wonder, for he had 
 learned it by grammar. 
 
 By subsequent opportunities of observation 
 I found that my host^s diction had nothing pe- 
 culiar. Those Highlanders that can speak En- 
 glish commonly speak it well, with few of the 
 words, and little of the tone by which a Scotch- 
 man is distinguished. Their language seems to 
 have been learned in the army or the navy, or 
 by some communication with those who could 
 give them good examples of accent and pro- 
 nunciation. By their Lowland neighbours they 
 would not willingly be taught, for they have 
 long considered them as a mean and degene- 
 rate race. These prejudices are wearing fast 
 away; but so much of them still remains, that 
 when I asked a very learned minister in the 
 islands which they considered as their most sa- 
 vage clans, " Those," said he, '* that live next 
 " the Lowlands." 
 
 As we came hither early in the day, we had 
 time sufficient to survey the place. The house 
 was built like other huts of loose stones, but 
 the part in which we dined and slept was lined 
 with turf and wattled with twigs, which kept 
 the earth from falling. Near it was a garden of 
 
56 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 turnips and a field of potatoes. It stands in a 
 glen, or valley, pleasantly watered by a wind- 
 ing river. But this country, however it may 
 delight the gazer or amuse the naturalist, is of 
 no great advantage to its owners. Our landlord 
 told us of a gentleman who possesses lands 
 eighteen Scotch miles in length and three in 
 breadth, a space containing at least a hundred 
 square English miles. He has raised his rents 
 to the danger of depopulating his farms, and 
 he fells his timber, and by exerting every art of 
 augmentation, has obtained an yearly revenue 
 of four hundred pounds, which for a hundred 
 square miles is three halfpence an acre. 
 
 Some time after dinner we were surprised by 
 the entrance of a young woman, not inelegant 
 either in mien or dress, who asked us whether 
 we would have tea? We found that she was the 
 daughter of our host, and desired her to make 
 it. Her conversation, like her appearance, v»'as 
 gentle and pleasing. We knew that the girls of 
 the Highlands are all gentlewomen, and treated 
 her with great respect, which she received as 
 customary and due, and was neither elated by 
 it nor confused, but repaid my civilities without 
 embarrassment, and told me how much I ho- 
 noured her country by coming to survey it. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 57 
 
 She had been at Inverness to gain the com- 
 mon female qualifications, and had, like her fa- 
 ther, the English pronunciation. I presented 
 her with a book, which I happened to have 
 about me, and should not be pleased to think 
 that she forgets me. 
 
 In the evening the soldiers, w^hom we had 
 passed on the road, came to spend at our inn 
 the little money that we had given them. They 
 had the true military impatience of coin in their 
 pockets, and had marched iit least six miles 
 to find the first place where liquor could be 
 bought. Having never been before in a place 
 so wild and unfrequented, I was glad of their 
 arrival, because I knew that we had made them 
 friends, and to gain still more of their good 
 will, we went to them, where they were ca- 
 rousing in the barn, and added something to 
 our former gift. All that we gave was not much, 
 but it detained them in the barn, either merry 
 or quarrelling, the whole night, and in the 
 morning they went back to their work, with 
 great indignation at the bad qualities of whisky. 
 
 We had gained so much the favour of our 
 host, that when we left his house in the morn- 
 ing, he walked by us a great way, and enter- 
 
58 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 tained us with conversation both on his own 
 condition and that of the country. His life 
 seemed to be merely pastoral, except that he 
 diifered from some of the ancient Nomades in 
 having a settled dwellinge His wealth consists 
 of one hundred sheep, as many goats, twelve 
 milch cows, and twenty-eight beeves ready for 
 the drovers. 
 
 From him we first heard of the general dissa- 
 tisfaction, which is now driving the Highlanders 
 into the other hemisphere; and when I asked him 
 whether they would stay at home if they were 
 well treated, he ansv\^ered with indignation, that 
 no man willingly left his native country. Of the 
 farm which he himself occupied, the rent had, 
 in twenty-five years, been advanded from five 
 to twenty pounds, which he found himself so 
 little able to pay, that he would be glad to try his 
 fortune in some other place. Yet he owned the 
 reasonableness of raising the Highland rents in 
 a certain degree, and declared himself willing 
 to pay ten pounds for the ground which he had 
 formerly had for five. 
 
 Our host having amused us for a time, resign- 
 ed us to our guides. The journey of this day 
 was long, not that the distance was great, but 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 59 
 
 that the way was difficult. We were now in 
 the bosom of the Highlands, with full leisure to 
 contemplate the appearance and properties of 
 mountainous regions, such as have been, in 
 many countries, the last shelters of national dis- 
 tress, and are everywhere the scenes of adven- 
 tures, stratagems, surprises, and escapes. 
 
 Mountainous countries are not passed but 
 with difficulty, not merely from the labour of 
 climbing, for to climb is not always necessary^ 
 but because that which is not mountain is com- 
 monly bog, through which the way must be 
 picked with caution. Where there are hills 
 there is much rain, and the torrents pouring 
 down into the intermediate spaces seldom find 
 so ready an* outlet as not to stagnate till they 
 have broken the texture of the ground. 
 
 Of the hills, which our journey offered to the 
 view on either side, we did not take the height, 
 nor did we see any that astonished us with their 
 loftiness. Towards the summit of ane there 
 was a white spot which I should have called a 
 naked rock, but the guides, who had better 
 eyes, and were acquainted with the phenomena 
 of the country, declared it to be snow. It had 
 already lasted to the end of August, and was 
 
ee A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 likely to maintain its contest with the sun till 
 it should be reenforced by winter. 
 
 The height of mountains philosophically con- 
 sidered is properly computed from the surface 
 of the next sea; but as it affects the eye or ima- 
 gination of the passenger, as it makes either a 
 spectacle or an obstruction, it must be reckon- 
 ed from the place where the rise begins to make 
 a considerable angle with the plain. In extensive 
 continents the land may, by gradual elevation, 
 attain great height, without any other appear- 
 ance than that of a plane gently inclined; and 
 if a hill placed upon such raised ground be de- 
 scribed as having its altitude equal to the whole 
 space above the sea, the representation will be 
 fallacious. 
 
 These mountains may be properly enough 
 measured from the inland base, for it is not 
 much above the sea. As we advanced at even- 
 ing towards the western coast, I did not observe 
 the declivity to be greater than is necessary for 
 the discharge of the inland waters. 
 
 We passed many rivers and rivulets, which 
 commonly ran with a clear shallow stream over 
 a hard pebbly bottom. These channels, which 
 seem so much wider than the water that they 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 61 
 
 convey would naturally require, are formed by 
 the violence of wintry floods, produced by the 
 accumulation of innumerable streams that fall 
 in rainy weather from the hills, and bursting 
 away with resistless impetuosity, make them- 
 selves a passage proportionate to their mass. 
 
 Such capricious and temporary waters can- 
 not be expected to produce many fish. The 
 rapidity of the wintry deluge sweeps them 
 away, and the scantiness of the summer stream 
 would hardly sustain them above the ground. 
 This is the reason why in fording the northern 
 rivers no fishes are seen, as in England, wan- 
 dering in the water. 
 
 Of the hills many may be called with Ho- 
 mer's Ida '' abundant in springs," but few can 
 deserve the epithet which he bestows upon Pe- 
 lion by " waving their leaves." They exhibit 
 very little variety; being almost wholly covered 
 with dark heath, and even that seems to be 
 checked in its growth. What is not heath is 
 nakedness, a little diversified by now and then 
 a stream rushing down the steep. An eye ac- 
 customed to flowery pastures and waving har^ 
 vcBts is astonished and repelled by this wide 
 extent of hopeless sterility. The appearance is 
 
62 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 that of matter incapable of form or usefulness, 
 dismissed by nature from her care and disinhe- 
 rited of her favours, left in its original elemen- 
 tal state, or quickened only with one sullen 
 power of useless vegetation. 
 
 It will very readily occur, that this uniformi- 
 ty of barrenness can afford very little amuse- 
 ment to the traveller; that it is easy to sit at 
 home and conceive rocks and heath, and water- 
 falls; and that these journeys are useless labours, 
 which neither impregnate the imagination, nor 
 enlarge the understanding. It is true that of far 
 the greater part of things, we must content 
 ourselves with such knowledge as description 
 may exhibit or analogy supply; but it is true 
 likewise, that these ideas are always incomplete, 
 and that at least, till we have compared them 
 with realities, we do not know them to be just. 
 As we see more, we become possessed of more 
 certainties, and consequently gain more princi- 
 ples of reasoning, and found a wider basis of 
 analogy. 
 
 Regions mountainous and wild, thinly inha- 
 bited, and little cultivated, make a great part 
 of the earth, and he that has never seen them, 
 must live unacquainted with much of the face 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. - 63 
 
 of nature, and with one of the great scenes of 
 human existence. 
 
 As the day advanced towards noon, we en- 
 tered a narrow valley not very flowery, but suf- 
 ficiently verdant. Our guidtss told us, that the 
 horses could not travel all day without rest or 
 meat, and intreated us to stop here, because n^ 
 grass would be found in any other place. The 
 request was reasonable and the argument co- 
 gent. We therefore willingly dismounted and 
 diverted ourselves as the place gave us oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 I sat down on a bank, such as a writer of 
 romance might have delighted to feign. I had 
 indeed no trees to whisper over my head, but 
 a clear rivulet streamed at my feet. The d>ay 
 was calm, the air soft, and all was rudeness, 
 silence, and solitude. Before me, and on either 
 side, were high hills, which by hindering the 
 eye from ranging, forced the mind to find en- 
 tertainment for itself. Whether I spent the hour 
 well I know not; for here I first conceived the 
 thought of this narration. 
 
 We were in this place at ease and by choice, 
 and had no evils to suffer or to fear; yet the 
 imaginations excited bv the view of an unknown 
 
64 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 and untravellcd wilderness are not such as arise 
 in the artificial solitude of parks and gardens, 
 a flattering notion of selfsufficiency, a placid 
 indulgence of voluntary delusions, a secure ex^ 
 pansion of the fancy, or a cool concentration 
 of the mental powers. The phantoms which 
 haunt a desert are want, and misery, and dan- 
 ger; the evils of dereliction rush upon the 
 thoughts; man is made unwillingly acquainted 
 with his own weakness, and meditation shows 
 him only how little he can sustain, and how lit- 
 tle he can perform. There were no traces of 
 inhabitants, except perhaps a rude pile of clods 
 called a summer hut, in which a herdsman had 
 rested in the favourable seasons. Whoever had 
 been in the place where I then sat, unprovided 
 with provisions and ignorant of the country, 
 might, at least before the roads were made, 
 have wandered among the rocks, till he had 
 perished with hardship, before he could have 
 found either food or shelter. Yet what are these 
 hillocks to the ridges of Taurus, or these spots 
 of wildness to the deserts of America? 
 
 It was not long before we were invited to 
 mount, and continued our Journey along tlae 
 side of a lough, kept full by many streams, 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 65 
 
 which with more or less rapidity and noise 
 crossed the road from the hills on the other 
 hand. These currents, in their diminished state, 
 after several dry months, afford, to one who 
 has always lived in level countries, an unusual 
 and delightful spectacle; but in the rainy sea- 
 son, such as every winter may be expected to 
 bring, must precipitate an impetuous and tre- 
 mendous flood. I suppose the way by which 
 we went, is at that time impassable. 
 
 GLENSHEALS. 
 
 The lough at last ended in a river broad and 
 shallow like the rest, but that it may be passed 
 when it is deeper, there is a bridge over it. Be- 
 yond it .is a valley called Glerisheals, inhabited 
 by the clan of Macrae. Here we found a village 
 called Auknasheals, consisting of many huts, 
 perhaps twenty, built all of dry stone, that is, 
 stones piled up without mortar. 
 
 We had, by the direction of the officers at 
 
 Fort Augustus, taken bread for ourselves, and 
 
 tobacco for those Highlanders who might show 
 
 us any kindness. We were now at a place where 
 
 we could obtain milk, but must have wanted 
 
 bread, if we had not brought it. The people of 
 F2 
 
e6 A JOURNEY ta THE 
 
 this valley did not appear to know any English, 
 and our guides now became doubly necessary 
 as interpreters. A woman, whose hut was dis- 
 tinguished by greater spaciousness and better 
 architecture, brought out some pails of milk. 
 The villagers gathered about us in considerable 
 numbers, I believe without any evil intention, 
 but with a very savage wildness of aspect and 
 manner. When our meal was over, Mr. Bos^ 
 well sliced the bread, and divided it amongst 
 them, as he supposed them never to have tasted 
 a wheaten loaf before. He then gave them little 
 pieces of twisted tobacco, and among the chil- 
 dren we distributed a small handful of half- 
 pence, which they received with great eager- 
 ness. Yet I have been since told, that the peo- 
 ple of that valley are not indigent; and when 
 we mentioned them afterwards as needy and 
 pitiable, a Highland lady let us know, that we 
 might spare our commiseration; for the dame 
 whose milk we drank had probably more than 
 a dozen milch cows. She seemed unwilling to 
 take any price, but being pressed to make a 
 demand, at last named a shilling. Honesty is 
 not greater where elegance is less. One of the 
 bystanders, as we were told afterwards, advised 
 
WESTERN ISLANBS. 57 
 
 kcr to ask more, bat she said a shilling was 
 enough. We gave her half a crown, and I hope 
 got some credit by our behaviour; for the com* 
 pany said, if our interpreters did not flatter us* 
 that they had not seen such a day since the old 
 laird of Macleod passed through their country. 
 The Macraes, as we heard afterwards in the 
 Hebrides, were originally an indigent and sub- 
 ordinate clan, and having no farms nor stock, 
 were in great numbers servants to the Maclel- 
 lans, who, in the war of Charles the first, took 
 ^rms at tlie call of the heroick Montrose, and 
 were, in one of his battles, almost all destroyed. 
 The women that were left at home, being thus 
 deprived of their husbands, like the Scythian 
 ladies of old, married their servants, and the 
 Macraes became a considerable race. 
 
 -THE HIGHLANDS. 
 
 As we continued our journey, we were at 
 leisure to extend our speculations, and to in- 
 vestigate the reason of those peculiarities by 
 which such rugged regions as these before us 
 are generally distinguished. 
 
 Mountainous countries commonly contain 
 the originalj at least the oldest race of inhabit- 
 
68 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 ants, for they are not easily conquered, because 
 they must be entered by narrow ways, exposed 
 to every power of mischief from those that oc- 
 cupy the heights; and every new ridge is a new 
 fortress, where the defendants have again the 
 same advantages. If the assailants either force 
 the strait, or storm the summit, they gain only 
 so much ground; their enemies are fled to take 
 possession of the next rock, and the pursuers 
 stand at gaze, knowing neither where the ways 
 of escape wind among the steeps, nor where the 
 bog has firmness to sustain them: besides that, 
 mountaineers have an agility in climbing and 
 descending distinct from strength or courage, 
 and attainable only by use. 
 
 If the war be not soon concluded, tlie inva- 
 ders are dislodged by hunger; for in those 
 anxious and toilsome marches, provisions can- 
 not easily be carried, and are never to be found. 
 The wealth of mountains is cattle, which, while 
 the men stand in the passes, the women drive 
 away. Such lands at last cannot repay the ex- 
 pense of conquest, and therefore perhaps have 
 not been so often invaded by the mere ambition 
 of dominion, as by resentment of robberies and 
 insults, or the desire of enjoying in security the 
 more fruitful provinces. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. ^9 
 
 As mountains are long before they are con- 
 quered, they are likewise long before they are 
 civilized. Men are softened by intercourse mu- 
 tually profitable, and instructed by comparing 
 their own notions with those of others. Thus 
 Caesar found the maritime parts of Britain made 
 less barbarous by their commerce with the 
 Gauls. Into a barren and rough tract no stranger 
 is brought either by the hope of gain or of plea- 
 sure. The inhabitants having neither commo- 
 dities for sale, nor money for purchase, seldom 
 visit more polished places, or if they do visit 
 them seldom return. 
 
 It sometimes happens that by conquest, in- 
 termixture, or gradual refinement, the cultivat- 
 ed parts of a country change their language. 
 The mountaineers then become a distinct na- 
 tion, cut off by dissimilitude of speech from 
 conversation with their neighbours. Thus in 
 Biscay, the original Cantabrian, and in Dale- 
 carlia, the old Swedish still subsists. Thus 
 Wales and the Highlands speak the tongue of 
 the first inhabitants of Britain, while the other 
 parts have received first the Saxon, and in some 
 degree afterwards the French, and then formed 
 a third language between them. 
 
70 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 That the primitive manners are continued 
 where the primitive language is spoken, no na- 
 tion vi^ill desire me to suppose, for the manners 
 ©f mountaineers are commonly savage, but they 
 are rather produced by their situation than de- 
 rived from their ancestors. 
 
 Such seems to be the disposition of man, 
 that whatever makes a distinction produces ri- 
 valry. England, before other causes of enmity 
 were found, was disturbed for some centuries 
 by the contests of the northern and southern 
 counties; so that at Oxford, the peace of study 
 could for a long time be preserved only by 
 choosing annually one of the proctors from each 
 side of the Trent. A tract, intersected by many 
 ridges of mountains, naturally divides its inha- 
 bitants into petty nations, which are made by a 
 thousand causes enemies to each other. Each 
 will exalt its own chiefs, each will boast the va- 
 lour of its men, or the beauty of its women, 
 and every claim of superiority irritates compe- 
 tition; injuries will sometimes be done, and be 
 more injuriously defended; retaliation will some- 
 times be attemped, and the debt exacted with 
 too much interest. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 7I 
 
 In the Highlands it was a law, that if a rob- 
 ber was sheltered from justice, any man of the 
 same clan might be taken in his place. This 
 was a kind of irregular justice, w^hich, though 
 necessary in savage times, could hardly fail to 
 end in a feud; and a feud once kindled among 
 an idle people with no variety of pursuits to di- 
 vert their thoughts, burnt on for ages either 
 sullenly glowing in secret mischief, or openly 
 blazing into publick violence. Of the effects 
 of this violent judicature, there are not wanting 
 memorials. The cave is now to be seen to which 
 one of the Campbells, who had injured the 
 Macdonalds, retired with a body of his own 
 clan. The Macdonalds required the offender, 
 and being refused, made a fire at the mouth of 
 the cave, by which he and his adherents were 
 suffocated together. 
 
 Mountaineers are warlike, because by their 
 feuds and competitions they consider them- 
 selves as surrounded with enemies, and are al- 
 ways prepared to repel incursions, or to make 
 them. Like the Greeks in their unpolished 
 state, described by Thucydides, the Highland- 
 ers, till lately, went always armed, and carried 
 their weapons to visits, and to church. 
 
72 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 Mountaineers are thievish, because they arc 
 poor, and having neither manufactures nor com- 
 merce, can grow richer only by robbery. They 
 regularly plunder th^-ir neighbours, for their 
 neighbours are commonly their enemies; and 
 having lost that reverence for property, by which 
 the order of civil life is preserved, soon consider 
 all as enemies, whom they do not reckon as 
 friends, and think themselves licensed to invade 
 whatever they are not obliged to protect. 
 
 By a strict administration of the laws, since 
 the laws have been introduced into the High- 
 lands, this disposition to thievery is very much 
 repressed. Thirty years ago no herd had ever 
 been conducted through the mountains, with- 
 out paying tribute in the night to some of the 
 clans; but cattle are now driven, and passen- 
 gers travel without danger, fear, or molestation. 
 
 Among a warlike people, the quality of high- 
 est esteem is personal courage, and with the 
 ostentatious display of courage are closely con- 
 nected promptitude of offence and quickness of 
 resentment. The Highlanders, before they were 
 disarmed, were so addicted to quarrels, that 
 the boys used to follow any public procession 
 or ceremony, however festive, or however 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 73 
 
 solemn, in expectation of the battle, which was 
 sure to happen before the company dispersed. 
 
 Mountainous regions are sometimes so re- 
 mote from the seat of government,- and so diffi- 
 cult of access, that they are very little under the 
 influence of the sovereign, or within the reach 
 of national justice. Law is nothing without 
 power; and the sentence of a distant court 
 could not be easily executed, nor perhaps very 
 safely promulgated, among men ignorantly 
 proud and habitually violent, unconnected with 
 the general system, and accustomed to rever- 
 ence only their own lords. It has therefore been 
 necessary to erect many particular jurisdictions, 
 and commit the punishment of crimes, and the 
 decision of right, to the proprietors of the 
 country who could enforce their own decrees. 
 It immediately appears that such judges will be 
 often ignorant, and often partial; but in the 
 immaturity of political establishments no better 
 expedient could be found. As government ad- 
 vances towards perfection, provincial judicature 
 is perhaps in every empire gradually abolished. 
 
 Those who had thus the dispensation of law, 
 were by consequence themselves lawless. Their 
 vassals had no shelter from outrages and op- 
 
74 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 pressions, but were condemned to endure, 
 without resistance, the caprices of wantonness, 
 and the rage of cruelty. 
 
 In the Highlands, some great lords had an 
 hereditary jurisdiction over counties, and some 
 chieftains over their ow^n lands, till the final 
 conquest of the Highlands afforded an opportu- 
 nity of crushing all the local courts, and of ex- 
 tending the general benefits of equal law to the 
 low and the high, in the deepest recesses apd 
 obscurest corners. 
 
 While the chiefs|had this resemblance of 
 royalty, they had little inclination to appeal, on 
 any question, to superiour judicatures. A claim 
 of lands between two powerful lairds was deci- 
 ded like a contest for dominion between sove- 
 reign powers. They drew their forces into the 
 field, and right attended on the strongest. This 
 was, in ruder times, the common practice, which 
 the kings of Scotland could seldom control. 
 
 Even so lately as in the last years of King 
 William, a battle was fought at Mull Roy, on 
 a plain a few miles to the south of Inverness, 
 between the clans of Mackintosh and Macdo- 
 nald of Keppoch. Col. Macdonald, the head 
 of a small clan, refused to pay the dues de- 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 75 
 
 manded from him by Mackintosh, as his supe- 
 riour lord. They disdained the interposition of 
 judges and laws, and calling each his followers 
 to maintain the dignity of the clan, fought a 
 formal battle, in which several considerable men 
 fell on the side of Mackintosh, without a com- 
 plete victory to either. This is said to have been 
 the last open w^ar made between the clans by 
 their own authority. 
 
 The Highland lords made treaties, and form- 
 ed alliances, of which some traces may still be 
 found, and some consequences still remain as 
 lasting evidences of petty regality. The terms 
 of one of these confederacies were, that each 
 should support the other in the right, or in the 
 wrong, except against the king. 
 
 The inhabitants of mountains form distinct 
 races, and are careful to preserve their genealo- 
 gies. Men in a small district necessarily mingle 
 blood by intermarriages, and combine at last 
 into one family, with a common interest in the 
 honour and disgrace of every individual. Then 
 begins that union of affection^ and cooperation 
 of endeavours, that constitute a clan. They who 
 consider themselves as ennobled by their family, 
 will think highly of their progenitors, and they 
 
76 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 who through successive generations live always 
 together in the same place, will preserve local 
 stories and hereditary prejudices. Thus every 
 Highlander can talk of his ancestors, and recount 
 the outrages which they suffered from the 
 wicked inhabitants of the next valley. 
 
 Such are the effects of habitation among 
 mountains, and such were the qualities of the 
 Highlanders, while their rocks secluded them 
 from the rest of mankind, and kept them an 
 unaltered and discriminated race. They are 
 now losing their distinction, and hastening to 
 mingle with the general community. 
 
 GLENELG. 
 
 We left Auknasheals and the Macreas in the 
 afternoon, and in the evening came to Ratiken, 
 a high hill on which a road is cut, but so steep 
 and narrow, that it is very difficult. There is 
 now a design of making another way round the 
 bottom. Upon one of the precipices, my horse, 
 weary with the steepness of the rise, staggered 
 a little, and I called in haste to the Highlander 
 to hold him. This was the only moment of my 
 journey in which I thought myself endangered. 
 
 Having surmounted the hill at last, we were 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 77 
 
 told that at Glenelg, on the sea side, we should 
 come to a house of lime and slate and glass. 
 This image of magnificence raised our expecta- 
 tions. At last we came to our inn weary and pee- 
 vish, and began to inquire for meat and beds. 
 Of the provisions the negative catalogue was 
 very copious. Kere was no meat, no milk, no 
 bread, no eggs, no wine. We did not express 
 much satisfaction. Here however we were to 
 stay. Whisky we might have, and I believe at 
 last they caught a fowl and killed it. We had 
 some bread, and with that we prepared our- 
 selves to be contented, when we had a very 
 eminent proof of Highland hospitality. Along 
 some miles of the way, in the evening, a gentle- 
 man's servant had kept us company on foot 
 with very little notice on our part. He left us 
 near Glenelg, and we thought on him no more 
 till he came to us again, in about two hours, 
 with a present from his master of rum and su- 
 gar. The man had mentioned his company, 
 and the gentleman, whose name, I think, is 
 Gordon, well knowing the penury of the place, 
 had this attention to two men, whose names 
 perhaps he had not heard, by whom his kind- 
 ness was not likely to be ever repaid, and who 
 
 G 2 
 
78 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 could be recommended to him only by their 
 necessities. 
 
 We were now to examine our lodging. Out 
 of one of the beds on which we were to repose, 
 started up, at our entrance, a man black as a 
 Cyclops from the forge. Other circumstances 
 of no elegant recital concurred to disgust us. 
 We had been frighted by a lady at Edinburgh, 
 with discouraging representations of Highland 
 lodgings. Sleep, however, was necessary. Our 
 Highlanders had at last found some hay, with 
 which the inn could not supply them. I di- 
 rected them to bring a bundle into the room, 
 and slept upon it in my riding coat. Mr. Bos- 
 well being more delicate, laid himself sheets 
 with hay over and under him, and lay in linen 
 like a gentleman. 
 
 SKY. ARMYDEL. 
 In the morning, September the twentiedi, 
 we found ourselves on the edge of the sea. 
 Having procured a boat, we dismissed our 
 Highlanders, whom I would recommend to the 
 service of any future travellers, and were fer- 
 ried over to the Isle of Sky. We landed at 
 Armydel, where we were met on the sands by 
 Sir Alexander Macdonald, who was at that 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 79 
 
 time there with his lady, preparing to teave the 
 island and reside at Edinburgh. 
 
 Armydel is a neat house, built where the 
 Macdonalds had once a seat, which was burnt 
 in the commotions that followed the Revolu- 
 tion. The walled orchard, w^hich belonged to 
 the former house, still remains. It is well sha- 
 ded by tall ash trees, of a species, as Mr. Janes 
 the fossilist informed me, uncommonly valu- 
 able. This plantation is very properly mention- 
 ed by Dr. Campbell, in his new account of the 
 state of Britain, and deserves attention; becausl^ 
 it proves that the present nakedness of the He- 
 brides is not wholly the fault of nature. 
 
 As we sat at Sir Alexander's table, we were 
 entertained, according to the ancient usage of 
 the north, with the melody of the bagpipe. 
 Every thing in those countries has its history. 
 As the bagpiper v\ as playing, an elderly gentle- 
 man informed us, that in some remote time, the 
 Macdonalds of Glengary having been injured, 
 or offended by the inhabitants of Cuiloden, and 
 resolving to have justice or vengeance, came to 
 Cuiloden on a Sunday, where finding their 
 enemies at worship, they shut them up in the 
 church, which they set on fire; and this, said 
 
80 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 he, is the tune that tlie piper played while they 
 were burning. 
 
 Narrations like this, however uncertain, de- 
 serve the notice of a traveller, because they are 
 the only records of a nation that has no histori- 
 ans, and afford the most genuine representation 
 of the life and character of the ancient High- 
 landers. 
 
 Under the denomination of Highlander are 
 comprehended in Scotland all that now speak 
 the Erse language, or retain the primitive man- 
 ners, whether they live among the mountains 
 or in the islands; and in that sense I use the 
 name, when there is not some apparent reason 
 for making a distinction. 
 
 In Sky I first observed the use of brogues, a 
 kind of artless shoes, stitched with thongs so 
 loosely, that though they defend the foot from 
 stones, they do not exclude water. Brogues 
 were formerly made of raw hides, with the hair 
 inwards, and such are perhaps still used in rude 
 and remote parts; but they are said not to last 
 above two days. Where life is somewhat im- 
 proved, they are now made of leather tanned 
 with oak bark, as in other places, or with the 
 bark of birch, or roots of tormentil, a substance 
 recommended in defect of bark, about fortv 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 81 
 
 j^ears ago, to the Irish tanners, by one to whom 
 the parliament of that kingdom voted a reward. 
 The leather of Sky is not completely penetrated 
 by vegetable matter, and therefore cannot be 
 very durable. 
 
 My inquiries about brogues, gave me an 
 early specimen of Highland information. One 
 day I was told, that to make brogues was a do- 
 mestic art, which every man practised for him- 
 self, and that a pair of brogues was the work 
 of an hour. I supposed that the- husband made 
 brogues as the wife made an apron, till next 
 day it was told me, that a brogue maker was a 
 trade, and that a pair would cost half a crow«. 
 It will easily occur that these representations 
 may both be true, and that, i n some places, 
 men may buy them, and in others, make them 
 for themselves; but I had both the accounts in 
 the same house within two days. 
 
 Many of my subsequent inquiries upon more 
 interesting topicks ended in the like uncertainty. 
 He that travels in the Highlands may easily sa- 
 turate his soul with intelligence, if he will ac- 
 quiesce in the first account. The Highlander 
 gives to every question an answer so prompt 
 and peremptory, that skepticism itself is dared 
 into silence, and the mind sinks before the bold 
 
82 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 reporter in unresisting credulity; but if a se- 
 cond question . be ventured, it breaks the en- 
 chantment; for it is immediately discovered, 
 that what was told so confidently was told at 
 hazard, and that such fearlessness of assertion 
 was either the sport of negligence, or the re- 
 fuge of ignorance. 
 
 If individuals are thus at variance with them- 
 selves, it can be no wonder that the accounts 
 of different men are contradictory. The tra- 
 ditions of an ignorant and savage people have 
 been for ages negligently heard, and unskilfully 
 related. Distant events must have been mingled 
 together, and the actions of one man given to 
 another. These, however, are deficiencies in 
 story, for which no man is now to be censured. 
 It were enough, if what there is yet opportu- 
 nity of examining were accurately inspected, 
 and justly represented; but such is the laxity of 
 Highland conversation, that the inquirer is kept 
 in continual suspense, and by a kind of intel- 
 lectual retrogradation, knows less as he hears 
 more. 
 
 In the islands the plaid is rarely worn. The 
 law by which the Highlanders have been obliged 
 to change the form of their dress, has, in all the 
 places that we have visited, been universally 
 
WESTERN ISLANPS. 83 
 
 obeyed. I have seen only one gentleman com- 
 pletely clothed in the ancient habit, and by him 
 it was worn only occasionally and wantonly. 
 The common people do not think themselves 
 under any legal necessity of having coats; for 
 they say that the law against plaids was made 
 b}'^ Lord Hardwicke, and was in force only for 
 his life; but the same poverty that made it 
 then difficult for them to change their clothing, 
 hinders them now from changing it again. 
 
 The fillibeg, or lower garment, is still very 
 common, and the bonnet almost universal; but 
 their attire is such as produces, in a sufficient 
 degree, the effect intended by the law, of abo- 
 lishing the dissimilitude of appearance between 
 the Highlanders and the other inhabitants of 
 Britain; and if dress be supposed to have much 
 influence, facilitates their coalition with their 
 fellow subjects. 
 
 What we have long used we naturally like, 
 and therefore the Highlanders were unwilling 
 to lay aside their plaid, which yet to an unpre- 
 judiced spectator must appear an incommo- 
 dious and cumbersome dre^ for, hanging 
 loose upon the body, it must flutter in a quick 
 motion, or require one of the hands to keep it 
 close. The Romans always laid aside the gown 
 
84 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 when they had any thing to do. It was a dress 
 so unsuitable to war, that the same word which 
 sig-nified a gown signified peace. The chief use 
 of a plaid seems to be this, that they could 
 commodiously wrap themselves in it, when 
 they were obliged to sleep without a better 
 cover. 
 
 In our passage from Scotland to Sky, we 
 were wet for the first time with a shower. This 
 was the beginning of the Highland winter, after 
 which we were told that a succession of three 
 dry days was not to be expected for many 
 months.. The winter of the Hebrides consists 
 of little more than rain and wind. As they are 
 surrounded by an ocean never frozen, the blasts 
 that come to them over the water are too much 
 softened to have the power of congelation. The 
 salt loughs, or inlets of the sea, which shoot 
 very far into the island, never have any ice up- 
 on them, and the pools of fresh water will never 
 bear the walker. The snow that sometimes falls 
 is soon dissolved by the air, or the rain. 
 
 This is not the description of a cruel climate, 
 yet the dark n^^^ths are here a time of great 
 distress, because the summer can do little more 
 than feed itself, and winter comes with its cold 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 85 
 
 and its scarcity upon families very slenderly 
 provided. 
 
 CORIATACHAN IN SKY. 
 
 The third or fourth day after our arrival at 
 Armydel brought us an invitation to the Isle of 
 Raasay, which lies east of Sky. It is incredible 
 how soon the account of any event is propa- 
 gated in these narrow countries by the love of 
 talk, which much leisure produces, and the re- 
 lief given to the mind in the penury of insular 
 conversation by a new topick. The arrival of 
 strangers at a place so rarely visited excites 
 rumour, and quickens curiosity. I know not 
 whether we touched at any corner where fame 
 had not already prepared us a reception. 
 
 To gain a commodious passage to Raasay, 
 
 it was necessary to pass over a large part of 
 
 Sky. We were furnished therefore with horses 
 
 and a guide. In the islands there are no roads, 
 
 nor any marks by which a stranger may find 
 
 kis way. The horseman has always at his side 
 
 a native of the place, who, by pursuing game, 
 
 or tending cattle, or being often employed in 
 
 messages or conduct, has learned where the 
 
 ndge ctf the hill has breadth sufficiejat to ^low 
 
 H 
 
S6 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 a horse and his rider a passage, and where the 
 moss or bog is hard enough to bear them. The 
 bogs are avoided as toilsome at least, if not un- 
 safe, and therefore the journey is made gene- 
 rally from precipice to precipice, from which 
 if the eye ventures to look down, it sees below 
 a gloomy cavity, whence the rush of water is 
 sometimes heard. 
 
 But there seems to be in all this more alarm 
 than danger. The Highlander walks carefully 
 before, and the horse, accustomed to the ground, 
 follows him with little deviation. Sometimes 
 the hill is too steep for the horseman to keep 
 his seat, and sometimes the moss is too tremu- 
 lous to bear the double weight of horse and 
 man. The rider then dismounts, and all shift as 
 they can. 
 
 Journeys made in this manner are rather te- 
 dious than long. A very few miles require se- 
 veral hours. From Armydel we came at night 
 to Coriatachan, a house very pleasantly situated 
 between two brooks, with one of the highest 
 hills of the island behind it. It is the residence 
 of Mr. Mackinlion, by whom we were treated 
 with very liberal hospitality, among a more nu- 
 merous and elegant company than it could have 
 been supposed easy to collect. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. §7 
 
 The hill behind the house we did not climb. 
 The weather was rough, and the height and 
 steepness discouraged us. We were told that 
 there is a cairn upon it. A cairn is a heap of 
 stones thrown upon the grave of one eminent 
 for dignity of birth, or splendour of achieve- 
 ments. It is said that by digging an urn is al- 
 ways found under these cairns: they must 
 therefore have been thus piled by a people 
 whose custom was to burn the dead. To pile 
 stones is, I believe, a northern custom, and to 
 burn the body was the Roman practice; nor diiD 
 I know when it was that these two acts of se- 
 pulture were united. 
 
 The weather was next day too violent for 
 the continuation of our journey; but we had 
 no reason to complain of the interruption. We 
 saw in every place, what we chiefly desired to 
 know, the manners of the people. We had 
 company, and, if we had chosen retirement, we 
 might have had books. 
 
 I never was in any house of the islands where 
 I did not find books in more languages than 
 one, if I staid long enough to want them, ex- 
 cept one from which the family was removed. 
 Literature is not neglected by the higher rank 
 of the Hebridians. 
 
SB A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 It need not, I suppose, be mentioned, that in 
 countries so little frequented as the islands, 
 there are no houses where travellers are enter- 
 tained for money. He that wanders about these 
 wilds, either procures recommendations to 
 those whose habitations lie near his way, or, 
 when night and weariness come upon him, takes 
 the chance of general hospitality. If he finds 
 only a cottage, he can expect little more than 
 shelter; for the cottagers have little more for 
 themselves: but if his good fortune brings him 
 to the residence of a gentleman, he will be glad 
 of a storm to prolong his stay. There is, how- 
 ever, one inn by the sea side at Sconsor, in 
 Sky, where the postoffice is kept. 
 
 At the tables where a stranger is received 
 neither plenty nor delicacy is wanting. A tract 
 of land so thinly inhabited must have much 
 wild fowl; and I scarcely remember to have 
 seen a dinner without them. The moor game 
 is everywhere to be had. That the sea abounds 
 with fish needs not be told, for it supplies a 
 great part of Europe. The Isle of Sky has 
 stags and roebucks, but no hares. They sell 
 very numerous droves of oxen yearly to Eng- 
 land, and therefore cannot be supposed to want 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. $9 
 
 beef at home. Sheep and goats are in great 
 numbers, and they have the common domestick 
 fowls. 
 
 But as here is nothing to be bought, every 
 family must kill its own meat, and roast part 
 of it somewhat sooner than Apicius would pre- 
 scribe. Every kind of flesh is undoubtedly ex- 
 celled by the variety and emulation of English 
 markets; but that which is not best may be yet 
 very free from bad, and he that shall complain 
 of his fare in the Hebrides, has improved his 
 delicacy more than his manhood. 
 
 Their fowls are not like those plumped for 
 sale by the poulterers of London, but they are 
 as good as other places commonly afford, ex- 
 cept that the geese, by feeding in the sea, have 
 universally a fishy rankness. 
 
 These geese seem to be of a middle race, be- 
 tween the wild and domestick kinds. They are 
 so tame as to own a home, and so wild a$ 
 sometimes to fly quite away. 
 
 Their native bread is made of oats or barley. 
 
 Of oatmeal, they spread very thin cakes, coarse 
 
 and hard, to w^hich unaccustomed palates are 
 
 not easily reconciled. The barley cakes are 
 
 thicker and softer. I began to eat them with- 
 H 2 
 
^ A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 out unwillingness. The blackness of their co- 
 lour raises some dislike, but the taste is not dis- 
 agreeable. In most houses there is wheat flour, 
 with which we were sure to be treated, if we 
 stayed long enough to have it kneaded and 
 baked. As neither yest nor leaven are used 
 among them, their bread of every kind is un- 
 fermented. They make only cakes, and never 
 mould a loaf. 
 
 A man of the Hebrides, for of the women's 
 diet I can give no account, as soon as he 
 appears in the morning, swallows a glass of 
 whisky; yet they are not a drunken race, at least 
 I never was present at much intemperance; but 
 no man is so abstemious as to refuse the morn- 
 ing dram, which they call a stalk. 
 
 The word whisky signifies water, and is ap- 
 plied by w^ay of eminence to strong water, or 
 distilled liquor. The spirit drunk in the North 
 is drawn from barley. I never tasted it, except 
 once for experiment at the inn in Inverary, 
 when I thought it preferable to any English 
 malt brandy. It was strong, but not pungent, 
 and was free from the empyreumatick taste or 
 smell. What was the process I had no oppor- 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 91 
 
 tunity of inquiring, nor do I wish to improve 
 the art of making poison pleasant. 
 
 Not long after the dram may be expected 
 the breakfast, a meal in which the Scots, whe- 
 ther of the lowlands or mountains, must be 
 confessed to excel us. The tea and coffee are 
 accompanied not only with butter, but with 
 honey, conserves, and marmalades. If an epi- 
 cure could remove by a wish in quest of sensual 
 gratifications, wherever he had supped he would 
 breakfast in Scotland. 
 
 In the islands, however, they do what I found 
 it not very easy to endure. They pollute the 
 teatable by plates piled with large slices of 
 Cheshire cheese, which mingles its less grateful 
 odours with the fragrance of the tea. 
 
 Where many questions are to be asked some 
 will be omitted. I forgot to inquire how they 
 were supplied with so much exotick luxury. 
 Perhaps the French may bring them wine for 
 wool; and the Dutch give them tea and coffee 
 at the fishing season in exchange for fresh pro- 
 vision. Their trade is unconstrained; they pay 
 no customs, for there is no officer to demand 
 them; whatever therefore is made dear only by 
 impost is obtained here at an easy rate. 
 
 A dinner in the Western Islands differs very 
 
92 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 little from a dinner in England, except that in 
 the place of tarts there are always set different 
 preparations of milk. This part of their diet 
 will admit some improvement. Though they 
 have milk, and eggs, and sugar, few of them 
 know how to compound them in a custard. 
 Their gardens afford them no great variety, but 
 they have always some vegetables on the table. 
 Potatoes at least are never wanting, which, 
 though they have not known them long, are 
 now one of the principal parts of their food. 
 They are not of the mealy, but of the viscous 
 kind. 
 
 Their more elaborate cookery, or made 
 dishes, an Englishman, at the first taste, is not 
 likely to approve, but the culinary composi- 
 tions of every country are often such as become 
 grateful to other nations only by degrees; though 
 I have read a French author, who, in the elation 
 of his heart, says, that French cookery pleases 
 all foreigners, but foreign cookery never satis- 
 fies a Frenchman. 
 
 Their suppers are, like their dinners, various 
 and plentiful. The table is always covered 
 with elegant linen. Their plates for common 
 tjse are often of that kind of manufiicture which 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 93 
 
 is called cream coloured, or queen's ware. They 
 use silver on all occasions where it is common 
 in England, nor did I ever find the spoon of 
 horn, but in one house. 
 
 The knives are not often either very bright, 
 or very sharp. They are indeed instruments 
 of which the Highlanders have not been long 
 acquainted with the general use. They were 
 not regularly laid on the table, before the pro- 
 hibition of arms, and the change of dress. 
 Thirty years ago the Highlander wore his knife 
 as a companion to his dirk or dagger, and when 
 the company sat down to meat, the men who 
 had knives, cut the flesh into small pieces for 
 the women, who with their fingers conveyed it 
 to their mouths. 
 
 There was perhaps never any change of na- 
 tional manners so quick, so great, and so ge- 
 neral, as that which has operated in the High- 
 lands, by the last conquest, and the subsequent 
 laws. We came thither too late to see what we 
 expected, a people of peculiar appearance, and 
 a system of antiquated life. The clans retain 
 little now of their original character, their fero- 
 city of temper is softened, their military ardour 
 is extinguished, their dignity of independence 
 
94 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 is depressed, their contempt of government 
 subdued, and their reverence for their chiefs 
 abated. Of what they had before the late con- 
 quest of their country, there remain only their 
 language and their poverty. Their language is 
 attacked on every side. Schools are erected, in 
 w^hich English only is taught, and there were 
 lately some who thought it reasonable to refuse 
 them a version of the holy scriptures, that they 
 might have no monument of their mother 
 tongue. 
 
 That their poverty has gradually abated, can- 
 not be mentioned among the unpleasing conse- 
 quences of subjection. They are now acquaint- 
 ed with money, and the possibility of gain will 
 by degrees make them industrious. Such is the 
 effect of the late regulations, that a longer jour- 
 ney than to the Highlands must be taken by 
 him whose curiosity pants for savage virtues 
 and barbarous grandeur. 
 
 RAASAY. 
 At the first intermission of the stormy wea- 
 ther we were informed, that the boat, which 
 was to convey us to Raasay, attended us on the 
 coast. We had from this time our intelligence 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 95 
 
 facilitated, and our conversation enlarged, by 
 the company of Mr. Macqueen, minister of a 
 parish in Sky, whose knowledge and politeness 
 gave him a title equally to kindness and respect, 
 and who, from this time, never forsook us till 
 we were preparing to leave Sky, and the adja- 
 cent places. 
 
 The boat was under the direction of Mr. 
 Malcolm Macleod, a gentleman of Raasay. The 
 water was calm, and the rowers were vigorous; 
 so that our passage was quick and pleasant. 
 When we came near the island, we saw the 
 laird's house, a neat modern fabrick, and found 
 Mr. Macleod, the proprietor of the island, with 
 many gentlemen, expecting us on the beach. 
 We had, as at all other places, some difficulty 
 in landing. The crags were irregularly broken, 
 and a false step would have been very mis- 
 chievous. 
 
 It seemed that the rocks might, with no great 
 labour have been hewn almost into a regular 
 flight of steps; and as there are no other land- 
 ing places, I considered this rugged ascent as 
 the consquence of a form of life inured to hard- 
 ships, and therefore not studious of nice accom- 
 modations. But I know not whether, for many 
 
$e A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 ages, it was not considered as a part of military 
 policy, to keep the country not easily accessi- 
 ble. The rocks are natural fortifications, and an 
 enemy climbing with difficulty, was easily de- 
 stroyed by those who stood high above him. 
 
 Our reception exceeded our expectations. 
 We found nothing but civility, elegance, and 
 plenty. After the usual refreshments, and the 
 usual conversation, the evening came upon us. 
 The carpet was then rolled off the floor; the 
 musician was called, and the whole company 
 was invited to dance, nor did ever fairies trip 
 with greater alacrity. The general air of festi- 
 vity, which predominated in this place, so far 
 remote from all those regions which the mind 
 has been used to contemplate as the mansions 
 of pleasure, struck the imagination with a de- 
 lightful surprize, analagous to that which is felt 
 at an unexpected emersion from darkness into 
 light. 
 
 When it was time to sup, the dance ceased, 
 and six and thirty persons sat down to two ta- 
 bles ill the same room. After supper the ladies 
 sung Erse songs, to which I listened as an 
 English audience to an Italian opera, delighted 
 with the sounds of words which I did not un- 
 derstand. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. ^7 
 
 I inquired the subjects of the songs, and was 
 told of one, that it was a love song, and of ano- 
 ther, that it was a farewell composed by one of 
 the islanders that was going, in this epidemical 
 fury of emigration, to seek his fortune in Ame- 
 rica. What sentiments would rise, on such an 
 occasion, in the heart of one who had not been 
 taught to lament by precedent, I should gladly 
 have known; but the lady, by whom I sat, 
 thought herself not equal to the work of trans- 
 lating. 
 
 Mr. M'Leod is the proprietor of the islands 
 of Raasay, Rona, and Fladda, and possesses an 
 extensive district in Sky. The estate has not, 
 during four hundred years, gained or lost a 
 single acre. He acknowledges M'Leod of Dun- 
 vegan as his chief, though his ancestors have 
 formerly disputed the preeminence. 
 
 One of the old Highland alliances has con- 
 tinued for two hundred years, and is still sub- 
 sisting between Macleod of Raasay and Mac- 
 donaid of Sky, in consequence of which, the 
 survivor always inherits the arms of the de- 
 ceased; a natural memorial of military friend- 
 ship. At the death of the late Sir James Mac- 
 
 I 
 
 ^j- 
 
98 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 donald, his sword was delivered to the present 
 laird of Raasay. 
 
 The family of Raasay consists cf the laird, 
 the lady, three sons and ten daughters. For the 
 sons there is a tutor in the house, and the lady 
 is said to be very skilful and diligent in the 
 education of her girls. More gentleness of man- 
 ners, or a more pleasing appearance of domes- 
 tick society, is not found in the most polished 
 countries. 
 
 Raasay is the only inhabited island in Mr. 
 Macleod's possession. Rona and Flodda afford 
 only pasture for cattle, of which one hundred 
 and sixty winter in Rona, under the superin- 
 tendence of a solitary herdsman. 
 
 The length of Raasay is, by computation, 
 fifteen miles, and the breadth two. These coun- 
 tries have never been measured, and the com- 
 putation by miles is negligent and arbitrary. 
 We observed in travelling, that the nominal 
 and real distance of places had very little rela- 
 tion to each other. Raasay probably contains 
 near a hundred square miles. It affords not 
 much ground, notwithstanding its extent, either 
 for tillage or pasture, for it is rough, rocky, and 
 barren. The cattle often perish by falling from 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 99 
 
 the precipices. It is like the other islands, I 
 think, generally naked of shade, but it is naked 
 by neglect, for the laird has an orchard,, and 
 very large forest trees grow about his house. 
 Like other hilly countries it has many rivulets. 
 One of the brooks turns a corn mill, and at 
 least one produces trouts. 
 
 In the streams or fresh lakes of the islands, I 
 have never heard of any other fish than trouts 
 and eels. The trouts, which I have seei\ are 
 not large; the colour of their flesh is tinged as 
 in England. Of their eels I can give no ac- 
 count, having never tasted them, for I believe 
 they arc not considered as wholesome food. 
 
 It is not very easy to fix the principles upon 
 which mankind have agreed to eat some ani- 
 mals, and reject others; and as the principle is 
 not evident, it is not uniform. That which is 
 selected as delicate in one country, is by its 
 neighbours abhorred as loathsome. The Nea- 
 politans lately refused to eat potatoes in a fa- 
 mine. An Englishman is not easily persuaded 
 to dine on snails with an Italian, or frogs with 
 a Frenchman, or on horse flesh with a Tartar. 
 The vulgar inhabitants of Sky, I know not 
 whether of the other islands, have not only eels, 
 
100 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 but pork and bacon in abhorrence; and accord- 
 ingly I never saw a hog in the Hebrides, ex- 
 cept one at Dun vegan. 
 
 Raasay has wild fowl in abundance, but nei- 
 ther deer, hares, nor rabbits. Why it has them 
 not, might be asked, but that of such questions 
 there is no end. Why does any nation want 
 what it might have? Why are not spices trans- 
 planted to America? Why does tea continue to 
 be brought from China? Life improves but by 
 sloAV degrees, and much in every place is yet 
 to do. Attempts have been made to raise roe- 
 bucks in Raasay, but without effect. The young 
 ones it is extremely difficult to rear, and the 
 old can very seldom be taken alive. 
 
 Hares and rabbits might be more easily ob- 
 tained. That they have few or none of either 
 in Sky, they impute to the ravage of the foxes, 
 and have therefore set, for some years past, a 
 price upon their heads, which, as the number 
 was diminished, has been gradually raised, from 
 three shillings and sixpence to a guinea, a sum 
 so great in this part of the world, that, in a short 
 time. Sky may be as free from foxes, as En- 
 gland from wolves. The fund for these rewards 
 is a tax of sixpence in the pound, imposed by 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. IQl 
 
 the farmers on themselves, and said to be paid 
 with great willingness. 
 
 The beasts of prey in the islands are foxes, 
 otters, and weasels. The foxes are bigger than 
 those of Endand; but the otters exceed ours 
 in a far greater proportion. I saw one at Ar- 
 mydel, of a size much beyond that which I 
 supposed them ever to attain; and Mr. Maclean, 
 the heir of Col, a man of middle stature, in- 
 formed me that he once shot an otter, of which 
 the tail reached the ground, when he held up 
 the head to a level with his own. I expected 
 the otter to have a foot particularly formed for 
 the art of swimming; but upon examination, I 
 did not find it differing much from that of a 
 spaniel. As he preys in the sea, he does little 
 visible mischief, and is killed only for his fur. 
 White otters are sometimes seen. 
 
 In Raasay they might have hares and rabbits, 
 for they have no foxes. Some depredations, 
 such as were never made before, have caused 
 a suspicion that a fox has been lately landed in 
 the island by spite or wantonness. This imagi- 
 nary stranger has never yet been seen, and 
 therefore, perhaps, the mischief was done 
 
 by some other animal. It is not likely that ii 
 
 I 2 
 
102 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 creature so ungentle, whose head could have 
 been sold in Sky, for a guinea, should be kept 
 alive only to gratify the malice of sending him 
 to prey upon a neighbour; and the passage from 
 Sky is wider than a fox would venture to swim, 
 unless he were chased by dogs into the sea, and 
 perhaps then his strength would enable him to 
 cross. How beasts of prey came into any 
 islands is not easy to guess. In cold countries 
 they take advantage of hard winters, and travel 
 over the ice; but this is a very scanty solution, for 
 they are found where they have no discoverable 
 means of coming. 
 
 The corn of this island is but little. I saAV 
 the harvest of a small field. The women reaped 
 thie corn, and the men bound up the sheaves. 
 The strokes of the sickle were timed by the 
 modulation of the harvest song, in which all 
 their voices were united. They accompany in 
 the Highlands every action, which can be done 
 in equal time, with an appropriated strain, 
 which has they say, not much meaning; but its 
 effects are regularity and cheerfulness. The an- 
 cient proceleusmatic song, by which the row- 
 ers of galleys were animated, may be supposed 
 to have been of this kind. Their is now an 
 Oar-song used by the Hebridians. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 103 
 
 The ground of Raasay seems fitter for cattle 
 than for corn, and of black cattle I suppose the 
 number is very great. The laird himself keeps 
 a herd of four hundred, one hundred of which 
 are annually sold. Of an extensive domain, 
 which he holds in his own hands, he considers 
 the sale of cattle as repaying him the rent, and 
 supports the plenty of a very liberal table with 
 the remaining product. 
 
 - Raasay is supposed to have been very long 
 inhabited. On one side of it they show caves, 
 into which the rude nations of the first ages 
 retreated from the weather. These dreary vaults 
 might have had other uses. There is still a ca- 
 vity near the house called the oar- cave, in which 
 the seamen, after one of those piratical expedi- 
 tions, which in rougher times was very frequent, 
 used, as tradition tells, to hide their oars. This 
 hollow was near the sea, that nothing so neces- 
 sary might be far to be fetched; and it was se- 
 cret, that enemies, if they landed, could find 
 nothing. Yet it is not very evident of what 
 use it was to hide their oars from those, who, if 
 they were masters of the coast, could take away 
 their boats. 
 
 A proof much stronger of the distance at 
 
104 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 which the first possessors of this island lived 
 from the present time, is afforded by the stone 
 heads of arrows which are very frequently 
 picked up. The people call them Elf-bolts, and 
 believe that the fairies shoot them at the cattle. 
 They nearly resemble those which Mr. Banks 
 has lately brought from the savage countries in 
 the Pacific Ocean, and must have been made 
 by a nation to which the use of metals was un- 
 known. 
 
 The number of this little community has 
 never been counted by its ruler, nor have I ob- 
 tained any positive account, consistent with the 
 result of political computation. Not many 
 years ago, the late laird led out one hundred men 
 upon a military expedition. The sixth part of 
 a people is supposed capable of bearing arms: 
 Raasay had therefore six hundred inhabitants. 
 But because it is not likely, that every man able 
 to serve in the field would follow the summons, 
 or that the chief would leave his lands totally 
 defenceless, or take away all the hands qualified 
 for labour, let it be supposed, that half as many 
 might be permitted to stay at home. The whole 
 number will then be nine hundred, or nine to 
 a square mile; a degree of populousness greater 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 105 
 
 than those tracts of desolation can often show. 
 They are content with their country, and faith- 
 ful to their chiefs, and yet uninfected with the 
 fever of migration. 
 
 Near the house at Raasay, is a chapel un- 
 roofed and ruinous, which has long been used 
 only as a place of burial. About the churches, 
 in the islands, are small squares enclosed with 
 stone, which belong to particular families, as 
 repositories for the dead. At Raasay there is 
 one, 1 tliink, for the proprietor, and one for 
 some collateral house. 
 
 It is told by Martin, that at the death of the 
 lady of the Island, it has been here the custom 
 to erect a cross. This we found not to be true. 
 The stones that stand about the chapel at a 
 small distance, some of which perhaps have 
 crosses cut upon them, are believed to have 
 been not funeral monuments, but the ancient 
 boundaries of the sanctuary or consecrated 
 ground. 
 
 Martin was a man not illiterate: he was an 
 inhabitant of Sky, and therefore was within 
 reach of intelligence, and with no great diffi- 
 culty might have visited the places which he 
 undertakes to describe; yet with all his oppor- 
 
106 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 tunities, he has often suffered himself to be de- 
 ceived. He lived in the last century, when the 
 chiefs of the clans had lost little of their origi- 
 nal influence. The mountains were yet unpe- 
 netratedj no inlet was opened to foreign novel- 
 ties, and the feudal institutions operated upon 
 life with their full force. He might therefore 
 have displayed a series of subordination and a 
 form of government, which, in more luminous 
 and improved regions, have been long forgot- 
 ten, and have delighted his readers with many 
 uncouth customs that are now disused, and wild 
 opinions that prevail no longer. But he pro- 
 bably had not knowledge of the world sufiicient 
 to qualify him for judging what would deserve 
 or gain the attention of mankind. The mode 
 of life which was familiar to himself, he did not 
 suppose unknown to others, nor imagined that 
 he could give pleasure by telling that of which 
 it was, in his little country, impossible to be ig- 
 norant. 
 
 What he has neglected cannot now be per- 
 formed. In nations, where there is hardly the 
 use of letters, what is once out of sight is lost 
 for ever. They think but little, and of their 
 few thoughts, none are wasted on the past, in 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 10^7 
 
 which they are neither interested by fear nor 
 hope. Their only registers are stated observ- 
 ances and practical representations. For this 
 reason an age of ignorance is an age of cere- 
 mony. Pageants, and processions, and comme- 
 morations, gradually shrink away, as better me- 
 thods come into use of recording events, and' 
 preserving rights. 
 
 It is not only in Raasay that the chapel is 
 unroofed and useless; through the few islands 
 which we visited, we neither saw nor heard of 
 any house of prayer, except in Sky, that was 
 not in ruins. The malignant influence of Cal- 
 vinism has blasted ceremony and decency toge- 
 ther; and if the remembrance of papal super- 
 stition is obliterated, the monuments of papal 
 piety are likewise effaced. 
 
 It has been, for many years, popular to talk 
 of the lazy devotion of the Romish clergy; 
 over the sleepy laziness of men that erected 
 churches, we may indulge our superiority with 
 a new triumph, by comparing it with the fervid 
 activity of those who suffer them to fall. 
 
 Of the destruction of churches, the decay of 
 religion must in time be the consequence; for 
 while the publick acts of the ministry are novy 
 
108 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 performed in houses, a very small number can 
 be present; and as the greater part of the 
 islanders make no use of books, all must neces- 
 sarily live in total ignorance who want the op- 
 portunity of vocal instruction. 
 
 From these remains of ancient sanctity, which 
 are everywhere to be found, it has been con- 
 jectured, that, for the last two centuries, the in- 
 habitants of the islands have decreased in num- 
 ber. This argument, which supposes that the 
 churches have been suffered to fall, only be- 
 cause they were no longer necessary, would 
 have some force, if the houses of worship still 
 remaining were sufficient for the people. But 
 since they have now no churches at all, these 
 venerable fragments do not prove the people of 
 former times to have been more numerous, but 
 to have been more devout. If the inhabitants 
 were doubled with their present principles, it 
 appears not that any provision for publick wor- 
 ship would be made. Where the religion of a 
 country enforces consecrated buildings, the 
 number of those buildings may be supposed to 
 afford some indication, however uncertain, of 
 the populousness of the place; but where by a 
 change of manners a nation is contented to live 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS 109 
 
 without them, their decay implies no diminu^ 
 tion of inhabitants. 
 
 Some of these dilapidations are said to be 
 found in islands now uninhabited; but I doubt 
 whether we can thence infer that they were 
 ever peopled. The religion of the middle age 
 is well known to have placed too much hope 
 in lonely austerities. Voluntary solitude was 
 the great art of propitiation, by which crimes 
 were effaced, and conscience was appeased; it 
 is therefore not unlikely, that oratories were 
 often built in places where retirement was sure 
 to have no disturbance. 
 
 Raasay has little that can detain a traveller, 
 except the laird and his family; but their pow- 
 er w^ants no auxiliaries. Such a seat of hospi- 
 tality, amidst the winds and waters, fills the 
 imagination with a delightful contrariety of im- 
 ages. Without is the rough ocean and the rocky 
 land, the beating billows and the howling storm: 
 within is plenty and elegance, beauty and gai- 
 ety, the song and the dance. In Raasay, if I 
 could have found an Ulysses, I had fancied a 
 Phxacia. 
 
 K 
 
1 10 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 DUNVEGAN. 
 
 At Raasay, by good fortune, Macleod, so the 
 chief of the clan is called, was paying a visit, 
 and by him we were invited to his seat at Dun- 
 vegan. Raasay has a stout boat, built in Nor- 
 way, in which, with six oars, he conveyed us 
 back to Sky. We landed at Port Re, so called, 
 because James the Fifth of Scotland, who had 
 curiosity to visit the islands, came into it. The 
 port is made by an inlet of the sea, deep and 
 narrow, where a ship lay waiting to dispeople 
 Sky, by carrying the natives away to America. 
 
 In coasting Sky, we passed by the cavern in 
 which it was the custom, as Martin relates, to 
 catch birds in the night, by making a fire at tjie 
 entrance. This practice is disused; for the birds, 
 as is known often to happen, have changed 
 their haunts. 
 
 Here we dined at a publick house, I believe 
 the only inn of the island, and having mounted 
 our horses, travelled in the manner already de- 
 scribed till we came to Kingsborough, a place 
 distinguished by that name, because the King 
 lodged here when he landed at Port Re. We 
 were entertained with the usual hospitality by 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 1 i 1 
 
 Mr. Macdonald and Jiis lady Flora Macdonald, 
 a name that will be mentioned in history, and 
 if courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned 
 with honour. She is a woman of middle stature, 
 soft features, gentle manners, and elegant pre- 
 sence. 
 
 In the morning we sent our horses round a 
 promontory to meet us, and spared ourselves 
 part of the day's fatigue, by crossing an arm of 
 the sea. We had at last some difficulty in com- 
 ing to Dunvegan; for our way led over an 
 extensive moor, where every step was to be 
 taken with caution, and we were often obliged 
 to alight, because the ground could not be 
 trusted. In travelling this watery flat, I per- 
 ceived that it had a visible declivity, and might 
 without much expense or difficulty be drained. 
 But difficulty and expense are relative terms, 
 which have different meanings in different 
 places. 
 
 To Dunvegan we came, very willing to be 
 at rest, and found our fatigue amply recom- 
 pensed by our reception. Lady Macleod, who 
 had lived many years in England, was newly 
 come hither with her son and four daughters, 
 who knew all the arts of southern elegance, and 
 
112 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 all the modes of English economy. Here there- 
 fore we settled, and did not spoil the present 
 hour with thoughts of departure. 
 
 Dun vegan is a rocky prominence, that juts 
 out into a bay, on the west side of Sky. The 
 house, which is the principal seat of Macleod, 
 is partly old and partly modern; it is built upon 
 the rock, and looks upon the water. It forms 
 two sides of a small square: on the third side 
 is the skeleton of a castle of unknown antiqui- 
 ty, supposed to have been a Norwegian fortress, 
 when the Danes were masters of the islands. It 
 is so nearly entire, that it miglit have easily 
 been made habitable, were there not an omin- 
 ous tradition in the family, that the owner shall 
 not long outlive the reparation. The grandfa- 
 ther of the present laird, in defiance of predic- 
 tion, began the work, but desisted in a little 
 time, and applied his money to w^orse uses. 
 
 As the inhabitants of the Hebrides lived, for 
 many ages, in continual expectation of hostili- 
 ties, the chief of every clan resided in a fortress. 
 This house was accessible only from the water, 
 till the last possessor opened an entrance by 
 stairs upon the land. 
 
 Thev had fnrmerlv reason to be afraid, not 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. lis 
 
 only of declared wars and authorised invaders, 
 or of roving pirates, which in the northern seas, 
 must have been very common; but of inroads 
 and insults from rival clans, who in the pleni- 
 tude of feudal independence, asked no leave of 
 their sovereign to make war on one another. 
 Sky has been ravaged by a feud between the 
 two mighty powers of Macdonald and Mac- 
 leod. Macdonald having married a Macleod, 
 upon some discontent dismissed her, perhaps 
 because she had brought him no children. Be- 
 fore the reign of James the Fifth, a Highland 
 laird made a trial of his wife for a certain time, 
 and if she did not please him, he was then at 
 liberty to send her away. This however must 
 always have offended, and Macleod resenting 
 the injury, whatever were its circumstances, 
 declared that the wedding had been solemnized 
 without a bonfire, but that the separation should 
 be better illuminated; and raising a little army, 
 set fire to the territories of Macdonald, who 
 returned the visit and prevailed. 
 
 Another story may show the disorderly state 
 of insular neighbourhood. The inhabitants of 
 the Isle of Egg, meeting a boat manned by 
 Macleods, tied the crew hand and foot, and set 
 
 K 2 
 
114 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 them adrift. Macleod landed upon Egg, and 
 demanded the offenders; but the inhabitants 
 refusing to surrender them, retreated to a ca- 
 vern, into which they thought their enemies 
 unlikely to follow them. Macleod choaked 
 them with smoke, and left them lying dead by 
 families as they stood. 
 
 Here the violence of the weather confined us 
 for some time, not at all to our discontent or 
 inconvenience. We would indeed very wil- 
 lingly have visited the islands, which might be 
 seen from the house scattered in the sea, and I 
 was particularly desirous to have viewed Isay; 
 but the storms did not permit us to launch a 
 boat, and we were condemned to listen in idle- 
 iiess to the wind, except when we were better 
 engaged by listening to the ladies. 
 
 We had here more winds than waves, and 
 suffered the severity of a tempest, without en- 
 joying its magnificence. The sea being broken 
 by the multitude of islands, does not roar with 
 so much noise, nor beat the storm with such 
 foamy violence, as I have remarked on the 
 coast of Sussex. Though, while I was in the 
 Hebrides, the wind was extremely turbulent, 
 I never saw very high billows. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. US 
 
 The country about Dunvegan is rough and 
 barren. Tiiere are no trees, except in the or- 
 chard, which is a low sheltered spot surround- 
 ed with a wall. 
 
 When this house was intended to sustain a 
 siege, a well was made in the court, by boring 
 the rock downwards, till water was found, 
 which, though so near to the sea, I have not 
 heard mentioned as brackish, though it has 
 some hardness, or other qualities, which makes 
 it less fit for use; and the family is now better 
 supplied from a stream, which runs by the rock 
 from two pleasing waterfals. 
 
 Here we saw some traces of former manners, 
 and heard some standing traditions. In the 
 house is kept an ox's horn, hollowed so as to 
 hold perhaps two quarts, which the heir of Mac- 
 leod was expected to swallow at one draught, as 
 a test of his manhood, before he was permitted 
 to bear arms, or could claim a seat among the 
 men. It is held, that the return of the laird to 
 Dunvegan, after any considerable absence, pro- 
 duces a plentiful capture of herring; and that, 
 if any woman crosses the water to the opposite 
 island, the herrings will desert the coast. Boe- 
 tius tells the same of some other place. This 
 
115 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 tradition is not uniform. Some hold that no 
 woman may pass, and others that none may- 
 pass but a Macleod. 
 
 Among other guests, which the hospitality 
 of Dun vegan brought to the table, a visit was 
 paid by the laird and lady of a small island 
 south of Sky, of which the proper name is 
 Muack, which signifies swine. It is commonly 
 called Muck, which the proprietor not liking, 
 has endeavoured, without effect, to change to 
 Monk. It is usual to call gentlemen in Scot- 
 land by the name of their possessions, asRaasay, 
 Bernera, Loch Buy, a practice necessary in 
 countries inhabited by clans, where all that live 
 in the same territory have one name, and must 
 be therefore discriminated by some addition. 
 This gentleman, whose name, I think, is Mac- 
 lean, should be regularly called Muck; but the 
 appellation, which he thinks too coarse for his 
 island, he would like still less for himself, and 
 he is therefore addressed by the title of Isle of 
 Muck. 
 
 This little island, however it be named, is of 
 considerable value. It is two English miles 
 long, and three quarters of a mile broad, and 
 consequently contains only nine hundred and 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. II7 
 
 sixty English acres. It is chiefly arable. Half 
 of this little dominion the laird retains in his 
 own hand, and on the other half, live one hun- 
 dred and sixty persons, who pay their rent by 
 exported corn. What rent they pay, we were 
 not told, and could not decently inquire. The 
 proportion of the people to the land is such, as 
 the most fertile countries do not commonly 
 maintain. 
 
 The laird having all his people under his im- 
 mediate view, seems to be very attentive to their 
 happiness. The devastation of the smallpox, 
 when it visits places where it comes seldom, is 
 well known. He has disarmed it of its terror 
 at Muack, by inoculating eighty of his people. 
 The expense was two shillings and sixpence a 
 head. Many trades they cannot have among 
 them, but upon occasion he fetches a smidi 
 from the Isle of Egg, and has a tailor from the 
 main land six times a year. This island well 
 deserved to be seen, but the laird's absence left 
 us no opportunity. 
 
 Every inhabited island has its appendant and 
 subordinate islets. Muck, however small, has 
 vet others smaller about it, one of which has 
 
118 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 only ground sufficient to afford pasture for three 
 wethers. 
 
 At Dunvegan I had tasted lotus, and was in 
 danger of forgetting that I was ever to depart, 
 till Mr. Boswell sagely reproached me with my 
 sluggishness and softness. I had no very forci- 
 ble defence to make, and we agreed to pursue 
 our journey. Macleod accompanied us to Uli- 
 nish, where we were entertained by the sheriff 
 of the island. 
 
 ULINISH. 
 Mr. Macqueen travelled with us, and di- 
 rected our attention to all that was worthy of 
 observation. With him we went to see an an- 
 cient building, called a dun or borough. It 
 was a circular enclosure, about forty -two feet in 
 diameter, walled round with loose stones, per- 
 haps to the height of nine feet. The walls are 
 very thick, diminishing a little towards the top; 
 and though in these countries stone is not 
 brought far, must have been raised with much 
 labour. Within the great circle were several 
 smaller rounds of wall, which formed distinct 
 apartments. Its date and its use are unknown. 
 Some suppose it the original seat of the chiefs' 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 119 
 
 of the Macleods. Mr. Macqueen thought it a 
 Danish fort. 
 
 The entrance is covered with flat stones, and 
 is narrow, because it was necessary that the 
 stones which lie over it should reach from one 
 wall to the other; yet, strait as the passage is, 
 they seem heavier than could have been placed 
 where they now lie, by the naked strength of 
 as many men as might stand about them. They 
 were probably raised by putting long pieces of 
 wood under them, to which the action of a long 
 line of lifters might be applied. Savages, in all 
 countries, have patience proportionate to their 
 unskilfulness, and are content to attain their 
 end by very tedious methods. 
 
 If it was ever roofed, it might once have been 
 a dwelling, but as there is no provision for wa- 
 ter, it could not have been a fortress. In Sky, 
 as in every other place, there is an ambition of 
 exalting whatever has survived memory, t© 
 some important use, and referring it to very 
 remote ages. I am inclined to suspect, that in 
 lawless times, when the inhabitants of every 
 mountain, stole the cattle of their neighbour, 
 these enclosures were used to secure the herds 
 -and flocks in the night. When they were driven 
 
120 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 within the wall, they might be easily watched, 
 and defended as long as could be needful; for 
 the robbers durst not wait till the injured clan 
 should find them in the morning. 
 
 The interiour enclosures, if the whole build- 
 ing were once a house, were the chambers of 
 the chief inhabitants. If it was a place of secu- 
 rity for cattle, they were probably the shelters 
 of the keepers. 
 
 From the Dun we were conducted to ano- 
 ther place of security, a cave carried a great 
 way under ground, which had been discovered 
 by digging after a fox. These caves, of which 
 many have been found, and many probably re- 
 main concealed, are formed, I believe, com- 
 monly by taking advantage of a hollow, where 
 banks or rocks rise on either side. If no such 
 place can be found, the ground must be cut 
 away. The walls are made by piling stones 
 against the earth on either side. It is then roof- 
 ed by large stones laid across the cavern, which 
 therefore cannot be wide. Over the roofs, turfs 
 were placed, and grass was suffered to grow; 
 and the mouth was concealed by bushes, or 
 some other cover. 
 
 These caves were represented to us as th^ 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 121 
 
 cabins of the first rude inhabitants, of which, 
 however, I am by no means persuaded. This 
 was so low, that no man could stand upright in 
 it. By their construction they are all so narrow 
 that two can never pass along them together, 
 and being subterraneous, they must be always 
 damp. They are not the work of an age much 
 ruder than the present, for they are formed with 
 as much art as the construction of a common 
 hut requires. I imagine them to have been 
 places only of occasional use, in which the 
 islander, upon a sudden alarm, hid his utensils 
 or his clothes, and perhaps sometimes his wife 
 .and children. 
 
 This cave we entered, but could not proceed 
 the whole length, and went away without 
 knowing how far it was carried. For this omis- 
 sion we shall be blamed, as we perhaps have 
 blamed other travellers; but the day was rainy, 
 and the ground was damp. We had with us 
 neither spades nor pickaxes, and if love of ease 
 surmounted our desire of knowledge, the of- 
 fence has not the invidiousness of singularity. 
 
 Edifices, either standing or ruined, are the 
 
 chief records of an illiterate nation. In some 
 
 part of this journey, at no great distance from 
 
 L 
 
122 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 our way, stood a shattered fortress, of which 
 the learned minister, to whose communication 
 we are much indebted, gave us an account. 
 
 Those, said he, are the walls of a place of re- 
 fuge, built in the time of James the Sixth, by 
 Hugh Macdonald, who was next heir to the 
 dignity and fortune of his chief. Hugh, being 
 so near his wish, was impatient of delay, and 
 had art and influence sufiicient to engage seve- 
 ral gentlemen in a plot against the laird's life. 
 Something must be stipulated on both sides, 
 for they would not dip their hands in blood 
 merely for Hugh's advancement. The compact 
 was formally written, signed by the conspira- 
 tors, and placed in the hands of one Macleod. 
 
 It happened that Macleod had sold some cat- 
 tle to a drover, who not having ready money, 
 gave him a bond for payment. The debt was 
 discharged, and the bond redemanded; which 
 Macleod, who could not read, intending to put 
 into his hands, gave him the conspiracy. The 
 drover, when he had read the paper, delivered 
 it privately to Macdonald, who being thus in- 
 formed of his danger, called his friends toge- 
 ther, and provided for his safety. He made a 
 publick feast, and inviting Hugh Macdonald and 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 123 
 
 his confederates, placed each of them at the ta- 
 ble between two men of known fidelity. The 
 compact of conspiracy was then shown, and 
 every man confronted with his own name. 
 Macdonald acted with great moderation. He 
 upbraided Hugh both with disloyalty and in- 
 gratitude; but told the rest, that he considered 
 them as men deluded and misinformed. Hugh 
 was sworn to fidelity, and dismissed with his 
 companions; but he was not generous enough 
 to be reclaimed by lenity; and finding no longer 
 any countenance among the gentlemen, endea- 
 voured to execute the same design by meaner 
 hands. In this practice he was detected, taken 
 to Macdonald's castle, and imprisoned in the 
 dungeon. When he was hungry, they let down 
 a plentiful meal of salted meat; and when, after 
 his repast, he called for drink, conveyed to him 
 a covered cup, which, when he lifted the lid> 
 he found empty. From that time they visited 
 him no more, but left him to perish in solitude 
 and darkness. 
 
 We were then told of a cavern by the sea 
 side remarkable for the powerful reverberation 
 of sounds. After dinner we took a boat to ex- 
 plore this curious cavity. The boatmen, whd 
 
124 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 seemed to be of a rank above that of comnioa 
 drudges, inquired who the strangers were, and 
 being told we came one from Scotland, and the 
 other from England, asked if the Englishman 
 could recount a long genealogy. What ans^ver 
 was given them, the conversation being in Erse, 
 I was not much inclined to examine. 
 
 They expected no good event of the voyage, 
 for one of them declared that he heard the cry 
 of an English ghost. This omen I was not told 
 till after our return, and therefore cannot claim 
 the dignity of despising it. 
 
 The sea was smooth. We never left the 
 shore, and came without any disaster to the 
 cavern, which we found rugged and misshapen, 
 about one hundred and eighty feet long, thirty 
 wide in the broadest part, and in the loftiest, as 
 we guessed, about thirty high. It was now dry, 
 but at high water the sea rises in it near six 
 feet. Here I saw what I had never seen before, 
 limpets and muscles in their natural state. But, 
 as a new testimony to the veracity of common 
 fame, here was no echo to be heard. 
 
 We" then walked through a natural arch in 
 the rock, which might have pleased us by its 
 novelty, had the stones, which encumbered our 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 125 
 
 feet, given us leisure to consider it. We were 
 shown the gummy seed of the kelp, that fastens 
 itself to a stone, from which it grows into a 
 strong stalk. 
 
 In our return, we found a little boy upon 
 the point of a rock, catching with his angle, a 
 supper for the family. We rowed up to him, 
 and borrowed his rod, with which Mr. Boswell 
 caught a cuddy. 
 
 The cuddy is a fish of which I know not the 
 philosophical name. It is not much bigger than 
 a gudgeon, but is of great use in these Islands, 
 as it affords the lower people both food, and oil 
 for their lamps. Cuddies are so abundant, at 
 some times of the year, that they are caught 
 like white bait in the Thames, only by dipping 
 a basket and drawing it back. 
 
 If it were always practicable to fish, these 
 Islands could never be in much danger from 
 famine; but unhappily in the winter, when other 
 provision fails, the seas are commonly too rough 
 for nets, or boats. 
 
 TALISKER IN SKY. 
 From Ulinish, our next stage was to Talisker, 
 the house of colonel Macleod, an officer in the 
 
 L2 
 
126 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 Dutch service, who in this time of universal 
 peace, has for several years been permitted to 
 be absent from his regiment. Having been bred 
 to physick, he is consequently a scholar, and 
 his lady, by accompanying him in his different 
 places of residence, is become skilful in several 
 languages. Talisker is the place, beyond all 
 that I have seen, from which the gay and the 
 jovial seem utterly excluded; and where the 
 hermit might expect to grow old in meditation, 
 without possibility of disturbance or interrup- 
 tion. It is situated very near the sea, but upon 
 a coast where no vessel lands but when it is 
 driven by a tempest on the rocks. Towards 
 the land are lofty hills streaming with water- 
 falls. The garden is sheltered by firs, or pines, 
 which grow there so prosperously, that some, 
 which the present inhabitant planted, are very 
 high and thick. 
 
 At this place we very happily met Mr. Do- 
 nald iVlaclean, a young gentleman, the eldest 
 son of the laird of Col, heir to a very great 
 extent of land, and so desirous of improving his 
 inheritance, that he spent a considerable time 
 among the farmers of Hertfordshire, and Hamp- 
 shire, to learn their practice. He worked with 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 127 
 
 -iiis own hands at the principal operations of 
 agriculture, that he might not deceive himself 
 by a false opinion of skill, which if he should 
 find it deficient at home, he had no means of 
 completing. If the world has agreed to praise 
 the travels and manual labours of the Czar of 
 Muscovy, let Col have his share of the like ap- 
 plause, in the proportion of his dominions to 
 the empire of Russia. 
 
 This young gentleman was sporting in the 
 mountains of Sky, and when he was weary 
 with following his game, repaired for lodging 
 to Talisker. At night he missed one of his 
 dogs, and when he went to seek him in the 
 morning, found two eagles feeding on his car- 
 cass. 
 
 Col, for he must be named by his posses- 
 sions, hearing that our intention was to visit 
 Jona, offered to conduct us to his chief, Sir Allan 
 Maclean, who lived in the Isle of Inch Kenneth, 
 and would readily find us a convenient passage. 
 From this time was formed an acquaintance, 
 which being begun by kindness, was acciden- 
 tally continued by constraint; we derived much 
 pleasure from it, and I hope have given him no 
 reason to repent it. 
 
128 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 The weather was now almost one continued 
 storm, and we were to snatch some happy in- 
 termission to be conveyed to Mull, the third 
 island of the Hebrides, lying about a degree 
 south of Sky, whence we might easily find our 
 way to Inch Kenneth, where Sir Allan Maclean 
 resided, and afterward to Jona. 
 
 For this purpose, the most commodious sta- 
 tion that we could take was Armydel, which sir 
 Alexander Macdonald had now left to a gentle- 
 man, who lived there as his factor or steward. 
 
 In our way to Armydel, was Coriatachan, 
 where we had already been, and to which there- 
 fore we were very willing to return. We staid 
 however so long at Talisker, that a great part of 
 our journey was performed in the gloom of the 
 evening. In travelling even thus almost with- 
 out light through naked solitude, when there is 
 a guide whose conduct may be trusted, a mind 
 not naturally too much disposed to fear, may 
 preserve some degree of cheerfulness; but what 
 must be the solicitude of him who should be 
 wandering, among the crags and hollows, be- 
 nighted, ignorant, and alone? 
 
 The fictions of the Gothick romances were 
 not so remote from credibility as they are now 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 1^9 
 
 thought. In the full prevalence of the feudal 
 institution, when violence desolated the world, 
 and every baron lived in a fortress, forests and 
 castles were regularly succeeded by each other, 
 and the r^d venturer might very suddenly pass 
 from the gloom of woods, or the ruggedness 
 of moors, to seats of plenty, gaiety and magni- 
 ficence. Whatever is imaged in the wildest 
 tale, if giants, dragons, and enchantment be 
 excepted, would be felt by him, who, wander- 
 ing in the mountains without a guide, or upon 
 the sea without a pilot, should be carried amidst 
 his terror and uncertainty, to the hospitality and 
 elegance of Raasay and Dun vegan. 
 
 To Coriatachan at last we came, and found 
 ourselves welcomed as before. Here we staid 
 two days, and made such inquiries as curiosity 
 suggested. The house was filled with compa- 
 ny, among whom Mr. Macpherson and his 
 sister distinguished themselves by their po- 
 liteness and accomplishments. By him we 
 were invited to Ostig, a house not far from 
 Armydel, where we might easily hear of a boat, 
 when the weather would suffer us to leave the 
 island. 
 
1^ A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 OSTIG IN SKY. 
 
 At Ostig, of which Mr. Macpherson is miii- 
 ister, we were entertained for some days, then 
 removed to Armydel, where we finished our 
 observations on the Island of Sky. 
 
 As this island lies in the fifty- seventh degree, 
 the air cannot be supposed to have much 
 warmth. The long continuance of the sun 
 above the horizon, does indeed sometimes 
 produce great heat in northern latitudes; but 
 this can only happen in sheltered places, where 
 the atmosphere is to a certain degree stagnant, 
 and the same mass of air continues to receive 
 for many hours the rays of the sun, and the 
 vapours of the earth. Sky lies open on the west 
 and north to a vast extent of ocean, and is 
 cooled in the summer by a perpetual ventila- 
 tion, but by the same blasts is kept warm in 
 winter. Their weather is not pleasing. Hiilfthe 
 year is deluged with rain. From the autumnal 
 to the vernal equinox, a dry day is hardly known, 
 except when the showers are suspended by a 
 tempest. Under such skies can be expected no 
 great exuberance of vegetation. Their winter 
 •vertakes their summer, and their harvest lies 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. i3l 
 
 upon the ground drenched with rain. The au- 
 tumn struggles hard to produce some of our 
 early fruits. I gathered gooseberries in Sep- 
 tember; but they were small, and the husk was 
 thick. 
 
 Their winter is seldom such as puts a full 
 stop to the growth of plants, or reduces the 
 catde to live wholly on the surplusage of the 
 summer. In the year seventy-one they had a 
 severe season, remembered by the name of the 
 Black Spring, from which the island has not yet 
 recovered. The snow lay long upon the ground, 
 a calamity hardly known before. Part of their 
 cattle died for want, part were unseasonably 
 sold to buy sustenance for the owners; and, 
 what I have not read or heard of before, the 
 kine that survived were so emaciated and 
 dispirited, that they did not require the male 
 at the usual time. Manv of the roebucks 
 perished. 
 
 The soil, as in other countries, has its diver- 
 sities. In some parts there is only a thin layer 
 of earth spread upon a rock, which bears no- 
 thing but short brown heath, and perhaps is not 
 generally capable of any better product. There 
 are miiny bogs or mosses of greater or less ex- 
 
 ■i$M 
 
132 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 tent, where the soil cannot be supposed to want 
 depth, though it is too wet for the plough. 
 But we did not observe in these any aquatic 
 plants. The valleys and the mountains are aUke 
 darkened with heath. Some grass, however, 
 grows here and there, and some happier spots 
 of earth are capable of tillage. 
 
 Their agriculture is laborious, and perhaps 
 rather feeble than unskilful. Their chief manure 
 is sea weed, which, when they lay it to rot upon 
 the field, gives them a better crop than those 
 of the Highlands. They heap sea- shells upon 
 the dunghill, which in time moulder into a fer- 
 tilizing substance. When they find a vein of 
 earth where they cannot use it, they dig it up, 
 and add it to the mould of a more commodious 
 place. 
 
 Their corn grounds often lie in such intrica- 
 cies among the crags, that there is no room 
 for the action of a team and plough. The soil 
 is then turned up by manual labour with an 
 instrument called a crooked spade, of a form 
 and weight which to me appeared very incom- 
 modious, and would perhaps be soon improved 
 in a country where workmen could be easily 
 found and easily paid. It has a narrow blade of 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 133 
 
 iron fixed to a long and heavy piece of wood, 
 which must have, about a foot and a half above 
 the iron, a knee or flexure with the angle down- 
 wards. When the farmer encounters a stone, 
 which is the great impediment of his opera- 
 tions, he drives the blade under it, and bring- 
 ing the knee or angle to the ground, has in the 
 long handle a very forcible lever, 
 
 - According to the diff'erent mode of tillage, 
 farms are distinguished into long land and 
 -short land. Long land is that which affbrds 
 room for a plough, and short land is turned up 
 by the spade. 
 
 The grain which they commit to the furrows 
 thus tediously formed, is eidier oats or barley. 
 They do not sow barley without very copious 
 manure, and then they expect from it ten for 
 one, an increase equal to that of better coun- 
 tries; but the culture is so operose that they 
 content themselves commonly with oats; and 
 who can relate without compassion, that after 
 all their diligence they are to expect only a tri- 
 ple increase? It is in vain to hope for plenty, 
 when a third part of the harvest must be re- 
 served for seed. 
 
 When their grain is arrived at the state which 
 M 
 
134 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 they must consider as ripeness, they do not cut, 
 but pull the barley: to the oats they apply the 
 sickle. Wheel carriages they have none, but 
 make a frame of timber, which is drawn by one 
 horse with the two points behind pressing on 
 the ground. On this they sometimes drag home 
 their sheaves, but often convey them home in 
 a kind of open panier, or frame of sticks upon 
 the horse's back. 
 
 Of that which is obtained with so much dif- 
 ficulty, nothing surely ought to be wasted; 
 yet their method of clearing their oats from the 
 husk is by parching them in the straw. Thus 
 with the genuine improvidence of savages, they 
 destroy that fodder for want of which their cat- 
 tle may perish. From this practice they have 
 two petty conveniencies. They dry the grain 
 so that it is easily reduced to meal, and they 
 escape the theft of the thresher. The taste con- 
 tracted from the fire by the oats, as by every 
 other scorched substance, use must long ago 
 have made grateful. The oats that are not 
 parched must be dried in a kiln. 
 
 The barns of Sky I never saw. That which 
 Macleod of Raasay had erected near his house 
 was so contrived, because the harvest is seldom 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 135 
 
 brought home dry, as by perpetual perflation 
 to prevent the mow from heating. 
 
 Of their gardens I can judge only from their 
 tables. I did not observe that the common 
 greens were wanting, and suppose that by 
 choosing an advantageous exposition, they can 
 raise all the more hardy esculent plants. Of ve- 
 getable fragrance or beauty they are not yet 
 studious. Few vows are made to Flora in the 
 Hebrides. 
 
 They gather a little hay, but the grass is 
 mown late; and is so often almost dry and again 
 very wet, before it is housed, that it becomes a 
 collection of withered stalks without taste or 
 fragrance; it must be eaten by cattle that have 
 nothing else, but by most English farmers 
 would be thrown away. 
 
 In the islands I have not heard that any sub- 
 terraneous treasures have been discovered, 
 though where there are mountains, there are 
 commonly minerals. One of the rocks in Col 
 has a black vein, imagined to consist of the ore 
 of lead; but it was never yet opened or assayed. 
 In Sky a black mass was accidentally picked 
 up, and brought into the house of the owner 
 of the land, who found himself strongly inclined 
 
136 A JOURNEY TO TH£ 
 
 to think it a coal, but unhappily it did not burn 
 in the chimney. Common ores would be here 
 of no great value; for what requires to be se- 
 parated by fire, must, if it were found, be car- 
 ried away in its mineral state, here being no 
 fuel for the smelting house or forge. Perhaps 
 by diligent search in this world of stone, some 
 valuable species of marble might be discovered. 
 But neither philosophical curiosity, nor com- 
 mercial industry, have yet fixed their abode 
 here, where the importunity of immediate want 
 supplied but for the day, and craving on the 
 morrow, has left little room for excursive know- 
 ledge, or the pleasing fancies of distant profit. 
 They have lately found a manufacture consi- 
 derably lucrative. Their rocks abound with 
 kelp, a sea plant, of which the ashes are melted 
 into glass. They burn kelp in great quantities, 
 and then send it away in ships, which come re- 
 gularly to purchase it. This new source of 
 riches has raised the rents of many maritime 
 farms; but the tenants pay, like all other te- 
 nants, the additional rent with great unwilling- 
 ness, because they consider the profits of the 
 kelp as the mere product of personal labour, to 
 which the landlord contributes nothing. How- 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 137 
 
 ever, as any man may be said to give what he 
 gives the power of gaining, he has certainly as 
 much right to profit from the price of kelp as 
 of any thing else found or raised upon his 
 ground. 
 
 This new trade has excited a long and eager 
 litigation between Macdonald and Macleod for 
 a ledge of rocks, which, till the value of kelp 
 was know^n, neither of them desired the reputa- 
 tion of possessing. 
 
 The cattle of Sky are not so small as is com- 
 monly believed. Since they have sent their 
 beeves in great numbers to southern marts, 
 they have probably taken more care of their 
 breed. At stated times the annual growth of 
 cattle is driven to a fair by a general drover, 
 and with the money, which he returns to the 
 farmer, the rents are paid. 
 
 The price regularly expected is from two to 
 three pounds a head: there wa§ once one sold 
 for five pounds, rfliey go from the islands very 
 lean, and are not offered to the butcher till they 
 have been long fatted in English pastures. 
 
 Of their black cattle, some are without horns, 
 called by the Scots '* humble" cows, as we call 
 a bee an ** humble" bee that wants a sting. 
 
 M2 
 
138 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 Whether this clifFerence be specific or acciden- 
 tal, though we inquired with great diligence, 
 we could not be informed. We are not very 
 sure that the bull is ever without horns, though 
 we have been told that such bulls there are. 
 What is produced by putting a horned and un- 
 horned male and female together, no man has 
 ever tried, that thought the result worthy of 
 observation. 
 
 Their horses are, like their cows, of a mode- 
 rate size. I had no difSculty to mount myself 
 commodiously by the favour of the gentlemen. 
 I heard of very little cows in Barra, and very 
 little horses in Rum, where perhaps no care is 
 taken to prevent that diminution of size which 
 must always happen where the greater and the 
 less copulate promiscuously, and the young 
 animal is restrained from growth by penury of 
 sustenance. 
 
 The goat is the general inhabitant of the 
 earth, complying with every difference of cli- 
 mate and of soil. The goats of the Hebrides 
 are like others: nor did I hear any thing of 
 their sheep to be particularly remarked. 
 
 In the penury of these malignant regions no- 
 thing is left that can be converted to food. The 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 139 
 
 goats and the sheep are milked like the cows. 
 A single meal of a goat is a quart, and of a 
 sheep a pint. Such at least v/as the account 
 which I could extract from those of whom 
 I am not sure that they ever had inquired. 
 
 The milk of goats is much thinner than that 
 of cows, and that of sheep is much thicker. 
 Sheep's milk is never eaten before it is boiled. 
 As it is thick, it must be very liberal of curd; 
 and the people of St. Kilda form, it into small 
 cheeses. 
 
 The stags of the mountains are less than 
 those of our parks or forests, perhaps not 
 bigger than our fallow deer. Their flesh has no 
 rankness, nor is inferiour in flavour to our com- 
 mon venison. The roebuck I neither saw^ nor 
 tasted. These are not countries for a regular 
 chase. The deer are not driven with horns and 
 hounds. A sportsman, with his gun in his hand, 
 watches the animal, and, when he has wounded 
 him, traces him by the blood. 
 
 They have a race of brinded greyhounds 
 larger and stronger than those with which we 
 course hares, and those are the only dogs used 
 by them for the chase. • 
 
 Man is by the use of firearms made so much 
 
140 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 an overmatch for other animals, that in all 
 countries where they are in use the wild part 
 of the creation sensibly diminishes. There will 
 probably not be long either stags or roebucks 
 in the islands. All the beasts of chase w^ould 
 have been lost long ago in countries well inha- 
 bited, had they not been preserved by laws for 
 the pleasure of the rich. 
 
 There are in Sky neither rats nor mice, but 
 the weasel is so frequent, that he is heard in 
 houses rattling behind chests or beds, as rats 
 in England. They probably owe to his predo- 
 minance that they have no other vermin; for, 
 since the great rat took possession of this part 
 of the ^vorld, scarce a ship can touch at any 
 port but some of his race are left behind. They 
 have within these few years began to infest the 
 Isle of Col, where being left by some trading 
 vessel, they have increased for want of weasels 
 to oppose them. 
 
 The inhabitants of Sky, and of the other 
 islands which I have seen, are commonlv of the 
 middle stature, with fewer among them very 
 tall or very short than are seen in England, or 
 perhaps, as their numbers are small, the chances 
 of any deviation from the common measure are 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 141 
 
 necessarily few. The tallest men that I saw are 
 among those of higher rank. In regions of bar- 
 renness and scarcity, the human race is hindered 
 in its growth by the same causes as other 
 animals. 
 
 The ladies have as much beauty here as in 
 other places, but bloom and softness are not to 
 be expected among the lower classes, whose 
 faces are exposed to the rudeness of the climate, 
 and whose features are sometimes contracted by 
 want, and sometimes hardened by the blasts. 
 Supreme beauty is seldom found in cottages or 
 workshops, even where no real hardships are 
 suffered. To expand the human face to its full 
 perfection, it seems necessary that the mind 
 should cooperate by placidness of content, or 
 consciousness of superiority. 
 
 Their strength is proportionate to their size, 
 but they are accustomed to run upon rough 
 ground, and therefore can with great agility skip 
 over the bog, or clamber the mountain. For a 
 campaign in the wastes of America, soldiers 
 better qualified could not have been found. 
 Having little work to do, they are not willing, 
 nor perhaps able to endure a long continuance 
 of manual labour, and are therefore considered 
 as habitually idle. 
 
142 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 Having never been supplied with these ac- 
 commodations, which Ufe extensively diversi- 
 fied with trader> affords, they supply their 
 wants by very insufficient shifts, and endure 
 many inconveniencies, which a little attention 
 would easily relieve. I have seen a horse carry- 
 ing home the harvest on a crate. Under his tail 
 was a stick for a crupper, held at the two ends 
 by twists of straw. Hemp will grow in their 
 islands, and therefore ropes may be had. If 
 they wanted hemp, they might make better 
 cordage of rushes, or perhaps of nettles, than 
 of straw. 
 
 Their method of life neither secures them 
 perpetual health, nor exposes them to any 
 particular diseases. There are physicians in 
 the Islands, who, I believe, all practise chirur- 
 gery, and all compound their own medicines. 
 
 It is generally supposed, that life is longer in 
 places where there are few opportunities of lux- 
 ury; but I found no instance here of extraordi- 
 nary longevity. A cottager grows old over his 
 oaten cakes, like a citizen at a turtle feast. He 
 is indeed seldom incommoded by corpulence. 
 Poverty preserves him from sinking under the 
 burden of himself, but he escapes no other in- 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 143 
 
 jury of time. Instances of long life are often 
 related, which those who hear them are more 
 willing to credit than examine. To be told that 
 any man has attained a hundred years, gives 
 hope and comfort to him who stands trembling 
 on the brink of his own climacterick. 
 
 Length of life is distributed impartially to 
 very different modes of life in very different 
 climates; and the mountains have no greater 
 examples of age and health than the lowlands, 
 where I was introduced to two ladies of high 
 quality; one of whom in her ninety-fourth year, 
 presided at her table with the full exercise of 
 all her powers; and the other has attained her 
 eighty -fourth, without any diminution of her 
 vivacity, and with little reason to accuse time 
 of depredations on her beauty. 
 
 In the islands, as in most other places, the 
 inhabitants are of different rank, and one does 
 not encroach here upon another. Where there 
 is no commerce nor manufacture, he that is born 
 poor can scarce become rich; and if none are 
 able to buy estates, he that is born to land 
 cannot annihilate his family by selling it. This 
 was once the state of these countries. Perhaps 
 there is no example, till within a century and a 
 
144 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 half, of any family whose estate was alienated 
 otherwise than by violence or forfeiture. Since 
 money has been brought aniongst them, they 
 have found, like others, the art of spending 
 more than they receive; and I saw with grief 
 the chief of a very ancient clan, whose island 
 was condemned by law to be sold for the satis- 
 faction of his creditors. 
 
 The name of highest dignity is Laird, of 
 which there are in the extensive Isle of Sky 
 only three, Macdonald, Macleod, and Mac- 
 kinnon. The laird is the original owner of the 
 land, whose natural power must be very great> 
 where no man lives but by agriculture; and 
 where the produce of the land is not conveyed 
 through the labyrinths of traffick, but passes di- 
 rectly from the hand that gathers it to the mouth 
 that eats it. The laird has all those in his power 
 that live upon his farms. Kings can, for the 
 most part, only exalt or degrade. The laird at 
 pleasure can feed or starve, can give bread or 
 withhold it. This inherent power was yet 
 strengthened by the kindness of consanguinity, 
 and the reverence of patriarchal authority. The 
 laird was the father of the clan, and his tenants 
 commonly bore his name. And to these prin- 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 145 
 
 ciplcs of original command was added, for many 
 ages, an exclusive right of legal jurisdiction. 
 
 This multifarious and extensive obligation 
 operated with force scarcely credible. Every 
 diUy, moral or political, was absorbed in affec- 
 tion and adherence to the chief. Not many 
 years have passed since the clans knew no law 
 but the laird's will. He told them to whom 
 they should be friends or enemies, what king 
 they should obey, and what religion they should 
 profess. 
 
 When the Scots first rose in arms against the 
 succession of the house of Hanover, Lovat, the 
 chief of the Frasers, was in exile for a rape. 
 The Frasers were very numerous, and very 
 zealous against the government. A pardon was 
 sent to Lovat. He came to the English camp, 
 and the clan immediately deserted to him. 
 
 Next in dignity to the laird is the tacksman, 
 a large taker or leaseholder of land, of which 
 he keeps part, as a domain in his own hand, 
 and lets part to undertenants. The tacksman 
 is necessarily a man capable of securing to the 
 laird the whole rent, and' is commonly a colla- 
 teral relation. These tacks, or subordinate pos- 
 sessions, were long considered as hereditary, 
 
 N 
 
146 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 and the occupant was distinguished by the 
 name of the place at which he resided. He 
 held a middle station, by which the higliest and 
 the lowest orders were connected. He paid rent 
 and reverence to the laird, and received them 
 from the tenants. This tenure still subsists, 
 with its original operation, but not with the 
 primitive stability. Since the islanders, no 
 longer content to live, have learned the desire 
 of growing rich, an ancient dependent is in 
 danger of giving way to a higher bidder, at the 
 expense of domestick dignity and hereditary 
 power. The stranger, whose money buys him 
 preference, considers himself as paying for all 
 that he has, and is indifferent about the laird's 
 honour or safety. The commodiousness of 
 money is indeed great; but there are some ad- 
 vantages which money cannot buy, and which 
 therefore no wise man will by the love of money 
 be tempted to forego. 
 
 I have found in the hither parts of Scotland, 
 men not defective in judgment or general ex- 
 perience, who consider the tacksman as a use- 
 less burden of the groimd, as a drone who lives 
 upon the product of an estate, without the right 
 of property, or the merit of labour, and who 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 147 
 
 impoverishes at once the landlord and the te- 
 nant. The land, say they, is let to the tacks- 
 man at sixpence an acre, and by him to the te- 
 nant at tenpence. Let the owner be the im- 
 mediate landlord to all the tenants; if he sets 
 the ground at eightpence, he will increase his 
 revenue by a fourth part, and the tenant's bur- 
 den will be diminished by a fifth. 
 
 Those who pursue this train of reasoning, 
 seem not sufficiently to inquire whither it will 
 lead them, nor to know that it will equally show 
 the propriety of suppressing all wholesale trade, 
 of shutting up the shops of every man who sells 
 what he does not make, and of extruding all 
 whose agency and profit intervene between the 
 manufacturer and the consumer. They may, 
 by stretching their understandings a little wider, 
 comprehend, that all those who by undertaking 
 large quantities of manufacture, and affording 
 employment to many labourers, make them- 
 selves considered as benefactors to the publick, 
 have only been robbing their workmen with 
 one hand, and their customers with the other. 
 If Crowley had sold only what he could make, 
 and all his smiths had wrought their own iron 
 with their own hammers, he would have lived 
 
148 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 on less, and they would have sold their work 
 for more. The salaries of superintendants and 
 clerks would have been partly saved, and partly 
 shared, and nails been sometimes cheaper by a 
 farthing in a hundred. But then if the smith 
 could not have found an immediate purchaser, 
 he must have deserted his anvil; if there had 
 by accident at any time been more sellers than 
 buyers, the workmen must have reduced their 
 profit to nothing, by underselling one another; 
 and as no great stock could have been in any 
 hand, no sudden demand of large quantities 
 could have been answered, and the builder 
 must have stood still till the nailer could sup- 
 ply him. 
 
 According to these schemes, universal plen- 
 ty is to begin and end in universal misery. 
 Hope and emulation will be utterly extinguish- 
 ed; and as all must obey the call of immediate 
 necessity, nothing that requires extensive views, 
 or provides for distant consequences, will ever 
 be performed. 
 
 To the southern inhabitants of Scotland, the 
 state of the mountains and the islands is equally 
 unknown with that of Borneo or Sumatra: Of 
 both they have only heard a little, and guess 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 149 
 
 the rest. They are strangers to the language 
 and the manners, to the advantages and wants 
 of the people, whose life they would model, and 
 whose evils they would remedy. 
 
 Nothing is less difficult than to procure one 
 convenience by the forfeiture of another. A 
 soldier may expedite his march by throwing 
 away his arms. To banish the tacksman is 
 easy, to make a country plentiful by diminish- 
 ing the people, is an expeditious mode of hus- 
 bandry; but that abundance, which there is 
 nobody to enjoy, contributes little to human 
 happiness. 
 
 As the mind must govern the hands, so in 
 every society the man of intelligence must di- 
 rect the man of labour. If the tacksmen be 
 taken away, the Hebrides must in their present 
 state be given up to grossness and ignorance; 
 the tenant, for want of instruction, will be un- 
 skilful, and for want of admonition will be ne- 
 gligent. The laird, in these wide estates, which 
 often consist of islands remote from one ano- 
 ther, cannot extend his personal influence to all 
 his tenants; and the steward having no dignity 
 annexed to his character, can have little autho- 
 rity among men taught to pay reverence only 
 N 2 
 
150 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 to birth, and who regard the tacksman as their 
 hereditary superiour; nor can the steward have 
 equal zeal for the prosperity of an estate pro- 
 fitable only to the laird, with the tacksman, 
 who has the laird's income involved in his own. 
 
 The only gentlemen in the islands are the 
 lairds, the tacksmen, and the ministers, who 
 frequently improve their livings by becoming 
 fiirmers. If the tacksmen be banished, who 
 will be left to impart knowledge, or impress ci- 
 vility? The laird must always be at a distance 
 from the greater part of his lands; and if he 
 resides at all upon them, must drag his days in 
 solitude, having no longer either a friend or a 
 companion; he will therefore depart to some 
 more comfortable residence, and leave the te- 
 nants to the wisdom and mercy of a factor. 
 
 Of tenants there are diiferent orders, as they 
 have greater or less stock. Land is sometimes 
 leased to a small fellowship, who live in a clus- 
 ter of huts, called a tenant's town, and are 
 bound jointly and separately for the payment of 
 their rent. These, I believe, employ in the care 
 of their cattle, and the labour of tillage, a kind 
 of tenants yet lower; who having a hut, with 
 grass for a certain number of cows and sheep, 
 pay their rent by a stipulated quantity of labour. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 151 
 
 The condition of donncstick servants, or the 
 price of occasional labour, I do not know with 
 certainty. I was told that tlie maids have sheep, 
 and are allowed to spin for their own clothing; 
 perhaps they have no pecuniary wages, or none 
 but in very wealthy families. The state of life 
 which has hitherto been purely pastoral, begins 
 now to be a little variegated with commerce; 
 but novelties enter by degrees, and till one 
 mode has fully prevailed over the other, no 
 settled notion can be formed. 
 
 Such is the system of insular subordination, 
 which, having little variety, cannot afford much 
 delight in the view, nor long detain the mind 
 in contemplation. The inhabitants were for a 
 long time perhaps not unhappy; but their con- 
 tent was a muddy mixture of pride and igno- 
 rance, an indifference for pleasures which they 
 did not know, a blind veneration for their 
 chiefs, and a strong conviction of their own im- 
 portance. 
 
 Their pride has been crushed by the heavy 
 hand of a vindictive conqueror, whose severities 
 have been followed by laws, which, though 
 they cannot be called cruel, have produced 
 much discontent, because they operate upon the 
 
152 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 surface of life, and make every eye bear wit- 
 ness to subjection. To be compelled to a new 
 dress has always been found painful. 
 
 Their chiefs being now deprived of their ju- 
 risdiction, have already lost much of their influ- 
 ence; and as they gradually degenerate from 
 patriarchal rulers to rapacious landlords, they 
 will divest themselves of the little that remains. 
 
 That dignity which they derived from an 
 opinion of their military importance, the law, 
 which disarmed them, has abated. An old 
 gentleman, delighting himself with the recol- 
 lection of better days, related, that forty years 
 ago, a chieftain walked out attended by ten 
 or twelve followers, with their arms rattling. 
 That animating rabble has now ceased. The 
 chief has lost his formidable retinue; and the 
 Highlander walks his heath unarmed and de- 
 fenceless, with the peaceable submission of a 
 French peasant or English cottager. 
 
 Their ignorance grows every day less, but 
 their knowledge is yet of little other use than 
 to show them their wants. They are now in 
 the period of education, and feel the uneasiness 
 of discipline, without yet perceiving the benefit 
 of instruction. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 15S 
 
 The last law, by which the Highlanders arc 
 deprived of their arms, has operated with effi- 
 cacy beyond expectation. Of former statutes 
 made with the same design, the execution had 
 been feeble, and the effect inconsiderable. Con- 
 cealment was undoubtedly practised, and per- 
 haps often with connivance. There was ten- 
 derness or partiality on one side, and obstinacy 
 ©n the other. But the law which followed the 
 victory of Culloden, found the whole nation 
 dejected and intimidated; informations were 
 given without danger, and without fear, and 
 the arms were collected with such rigour, that 
 every house was despoiled of its defence. 
 
 To disarm part of the Highlands, could give 
 no reasonable occasion of complaint. Every 
 government must be allowed the power of ta- 
 king away the weapon that is lifted against it. 
 But the loyal clans murmured, with some ap- 
 pearance of justice, that after having defended 
 the king, they were forbidden for the future to 
 defend themselves; and that the sword should 
 be forfeited, which had been legally employed. 
 Their case is undoubtedly hard, but in political 
 regulations, good cannot be complete, it can 
 only be predominant* 
 
154 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 Whether by disarming a people thus broken 
 into sev' ral tribes, and thus remote from the 
 seat of power, more good than evil has been 
 produced, may deserve inquiry. The supreme 
 power in every community has the right of 
 debarring every individual, and every subordi- 
 nate society, from selfdefence, only because 
 the supreme power is able to defend them; 
 and therefore where the governour cannot act, 
 he must trust the subject to act for himself. 
 These islands might be wasted with lire and 
 sword before their sovereign would know their 
 distress. A gang of robbers, such as has been 
 lately found confederating themselves in the 
 Highlands, might lay a wide region under con- 
 tribution. The crew of a petty privateer might 
 land on the largest and most wealthy of the 
 islands, and riot without control in cruelty and 
 waste. It was observed by one of the chiefs of 
 Sky, that fifty armed men might, without re- 
 sistance, ravage the country. Laws that place 
 the subjects in such a state, contravene the first 
 principles of the compact of authority: they 
 exact obedience, and yield no protection. 
 
 It affords a generous and manly pleasure to 
 conceive a little nation gathering its fruits and 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 155 
 
 tending its herds with fearless confidence, 
 though it lies open on every side to invasion; 
 where, in contempt of walls and trenches, 
 every man sleeps securely with his sword beside 
 him; where all on the first approach of hostility 
 came together at the call to battle, as at a sum- 
 mons to a festal show; and committing their 
 cattle to the care of those w hom age or nature 
 has disabled, engage the enemy with that com- 
 petition for hazard and for glory which operate 
 in men that fight under vhe eye of those whose 
 dislike or kindness they have always considered 
 as the greatest evil or the greatest good. 
 
 This was, in the beginning of the present 
 century, the state of the Highlands. Every 
 man was a soldier, who partook of national 
 confidence, and interested himself in national 
 honour. To lose this spirit, is to lose what no 
 small advantage will compensate. 
 
 It may likewise deserve to be inquired, whe- 
 ther a great nation ought to be totally com- 
 mercial? whether, amidst the uncertainty of 
 human affairs, too much attention to one mode 
 of happiness may not endanger others? whe- 
 ther the pride of riches must not sometimes 
 have recourse to the protection of courage? 
 
156 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 and whether, if it be necessary to preserve io 
 some part of the empire the military spirit, it 
 can subsist more commodiously in any place, 
 than in remote and unprofitable provinces, 
 where it can commonly do little harm, and 
 whence it may be called forth at any sudden 
 exigence? 
 
 It must however be confessed, that a man 
 who places honour only in successful violence, 
 is a very troublesome and pernicious animal in 
 time of peace; and that the martial character 
 cannot prevail in a whole people, but by the 
 diminution of all other virtues. He that is ac- 
 customed to resolve all right into conquest, 
 will have very little tenderness or equity. All 
 the friendship in such a life can only be a con- 
 federacy of invasion, or alliance of defence. 
 The strong must flourish by force, and the weak 
 subsist by stratagem. 
 
 Till the Highlanders lost their ferocity, with 
 their arms, they suffered from each odier all 
 that malignity could dictate, or precipitance 
 could act. Every provocation was revenged 
 with blood, and no man that ventured mto 
 a numerous company, by whatever occasion 
 brought together, was sure of returning without 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 157 
 
 a wound. If they are now exposed to foreign 
 hostilities, they may talk of the danger, but can 
 seldom feel it. If they are no longer martial, 
 they are no longer quarrelsome. Misery is 
 caused for the most part, not by a heavy crush 
 of disaster, but by the corrosion of less visible 
 evils, which canker enjoyment, and undermine 
 security. The visit of an invader is necessarily 
 rare, but domestick animosities allow no cessa- 
 tion. 
 
 The abolition of the local jurisdictions, which 
 had for so many ages been exercised by the 
 chiefs, has likewise its evil and its good. The 
 feudal constitution naturally diffused itself into 
 long ramifications of subordinate authority. To 
 this general temper of the government was 
 added the peculiar form of the country, broken 
 by mountains into many subdivisions scarcely 
 accessible but to the natives, and guarded by 
 passes, or perplexed with intricacies, through 
 which national justice could not find its way. 
 
 The power of deciding controversies, and of 
 punishing offences, as some such power there 
 must always be, was intrusted to the lairds of 
 the country, to those whom the people consi- 
 dered as their natural judges. It cannot be 
 o 
 
158 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 supposed that a rugged proprietor of the rocks, 
 unprincipled and unenlightened, was a nice re- 
 solver of entangled claims, or very exact in pro- 
 portioning punishment to offences. But the 
 more he indulged his own will, the more he 
 held his vassals in dependence. Prudence and 
 innocence, without the favour of the chief, con- 
 ferred no security; and crimes involved no dan- 
 ger, when the judge was resolute to acquit. 
 
 When the chiefs were men of knowledge 
 and virtue, the convenience of a domestick 
 judicature was great. No long journeys were 
 necessary, nor artificial delays could be practis- 
 ed; the character, the alliances, and interests of 
 the litigants were known to the court, and all 
 false pretences were easily detected. The sen- 
 tence, when it was past, could not be evaded; 
 the power of the laird superseded formalities, 
 and justice could not be defeated by interest or 
 stratagem. 
 
 I doubt not but that since the regular judges 
 have made their circuits through the whole 
 country, right has been everywhere more 
 wisely and more equally distributed; the com- 
 plaint is, that litigation is grown troublesome, 
 and that the magistrates are too few, and there- 
 fore often too remote for general convenience* 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 159 
 
 Many of the smaller islands have no legal of- 
 ficer within them. I once asked, If a crime 
 should be committed, by what authority the 
 offender could be seized? and was told, that 
 the laird would exert his right; a right which 
 he must now usurp, but which surely necessity 
 must vindicate, and which is therefore yet exer- 
 cised in lower degrees by some of the proprie- 
 tors, w^hen legal processes cannot be obtained. 
 
 In all greater questions, however, there is 
 now happily an end to all fear or hope from 
 malice or from favour. The roads are secure in 
 those places through which, forty years ago, no 
 traveller could pass without a convoy. Ail trials 
 of right by the sword are forgotten, and the 
 mean are in as little danger from the powerful 
 as in other places. No scheme of policy has, 
 in any country, yet brought the rich and poor 
 on equal terms into courts of judicature. Per- 
 haps experience, improving on experience, may 
 in time effect it. 
 
 Those who have long enjoyed dignity and 
 power ought not to lose it without some equi- 
 valent. There was paid to the chiefs by the 
 publick, in exchange for their privileges, per- 
 haps a sum greater than most of them had ever 
 
160 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 possessed, which excited a thirst for riches, of 
 which it showed them the use. When the power 
 of birth and station ceases, no hope remains 
 but from the prevalence of money. Power and 
 wealth supply the place of each other. Power 
 confers the ability of gratifying our desire with- 
 out the consent of others. Wealth enables us 
 to obtain the consent of others to our gratifica- 
 tion. Power, simply considered, whatever it 
 confers on one, must take from another. Wealth 
 enables its owner to give to others, by taking 
 only from himself. Power pleases the violent 
 and proud: wealth delights the placid and the 
 timorous. Youth therefore flies at power, and 
 age groveis after riches. 
 
 The chiefs divested of their prerogatives, ne- 
 cessarily turned their thoughts to the improve- 
 ment of their revenues, and expect more rent^ 
 as they have less homage. The tenant, who is 
 far from perceiving that his condition is made 
 better in the same proportion as that of his 
 landlord is made worse, does not immediately 
 see why his industry is to be taxed more hea- 
 vily than before. He refuses to pay the de- 
 mand, and is ejected; the ground is then let to 
 a stranger, who perhaps brings a larger stock 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 16 i 
 
 but who, taking the land at its full price, treats 
 with the laird upon equal terms, and considers 
 him not as a chief, but as a trafficker in land. 
 Thus the estate perhaps is improved, but the 
 clan is broken. 
 
 It seems to be the general opinion that the 
 rents have been raised with too much eager- 
 ness. Some regard must be paid to prejudice. 
 Those who have hitherto paid but little, will 
 not suddenly be persuaded to pay much, though 
 they can afford it. As ground is gradually im- 
 proved, and the value of money decreases, the 
 rent may be raised without any diminution of 
 the farmer's profits: yet it is necessary in these 
 countries, where the ejection of a tenant is a 
 greater evil than in more populous places, to 
 consider not merely Vv hat the land will pro- 
 duce, but with what ability the inhabitant can 
 cultivate it. A certain stock can allow but a 
 certain payment; for if the land be doubled, 
 and the stock remains the same, the tenant be- 
 comes no richer. The proprietors of the High- 
 lands might perhaps often increase their income, 
 by subdividing the farms, and allotting to every 
 occupier only so many acres as he can profit- 
 ably employ, but that they want people. 
 O 2 
 
162 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 There seems now, whatever be the cause, to 
 be through a great part of the Higlilands a ge- 
 neral discontent. That adherence which was 
 lately professed by every man to the chief of 
 his name, has now little prevalence; and he 
 that cannot live as he desires at home, listens to 
 the tale of fortunate islands and happy regions, 
 where every man may have land of his own, 
 and eat tlie product of his labour without a 
 superiour. 
 
 Those who have obtained grants of Ameri- 
 can lands, have, as is well known, invited set- 
 tlers from all quarters of the globe; and among 
 oiher places, where oppression might produce 
 a wish for new habitations, their emissaries 
 would not fail to try their persuasions in the 
 isles of Scotland, where at the time when the 
 clans were newly disunited from their chiefs, 
 and exasperated by unprecedented exactions, 
 it is no wonder that they prevailed. 
 
 Whether the mischiefs of emigration were 
 immediately perceived, may be justly question- 
 ed. They who went first, were probably such 
 as could best be spared; but the accounts sent 
 by the earliest adventurers, whether true or 
 false, inclined many to follow them; and whole 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 163 
 
 neighbourhoods formed parties for removal; so 
 that departure from their native country is no 
 longer exile. He that goes thus accompanied, 
 carries with him all that makes life pleasant. 
 He sits down in a better climate, surrounded 
 by his kindred and his friends: they carry with 
 them their language, their opinions, their pop- 
 ular songs, and hereditary merriment: they 
 change nothing but their place of abode: and 
 of that change they perceive the benefit. 
 
 This is the real effect of emigration, if those 
 that go away together settle on the same spot, 
 and preserve their ancient union. But some re- 
 late that these adventurous visitants of unknown 
 regions, after a voyage passed in dreams of plen- 
 ty and felicity, are dispersed at last upon a syl- 
 van wilderness, where their first years must be 
 spent in toil, to clear the ground which is af- 
 terwards to be tilled, and that the whole effect 
 of their undertaking is only more fatigue and 
 equal scarcity. 
 
 Both accounts may be suspected. Those who 
 are gone will endeavour by every art to draw 
 others after them; for as their numbers are 
 greater, they will provide better for themselves. 
 When Nova Scotia was first peopled, I remem- 
 
164 A JOURNEr TO THE 
 
 ber a letter, published under the character of a 
 new planter, who related how much the climate 
 put him in mind of Italy. Such intelligence the 
 Hebridians probably receive from their trans- 
 marine correspondents. But with equal temp- 
 tations of interest, and perhaps with no greater 
 niceness of veracity, the owners of the islands 
 spread stories of American hardships to keep 
 their people content at home. 
 
 Some method to stop this epidemick desire 
 of wandering, which spreads its contagion from 
 valley to valley, deserves to be sought with 
 great diligence. In more fruitful countries, the 
 removal of one, only makes room for the suc- 
 cession of another; but in the Hebrides, the loss 
 of an inhabitant leaves a lasting vacuity; for 
 nobody born in any other parts of the world 
 will choose this country for his residence; and 
 an island once depopulated will remain a desert, 
 as long as the present facility of travel gives 
 every one who is discontented and unsettled, 
 the choice of h s abode. 
 
 Let it be inquired whether the first intention 
 of those who are fluttering on the wing, and col- 
 lecting a flock that they may take their flight, 
 be to attain good, or to avoid evil. If they are 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 165 
 
 dissatisfied with that part of the globe, which 
 their birth has allotted them, and resolve not to 
 live without the pleasures of happier climates: 
 if they long for bright suns, and calm skies, and 
 flowery fields, and fragrant gardens, I know not 
 by what eloquence they can be persuaded, or 
 by what offers they can be hired, to stay. 
 
 But if they are driven from their native coun- 
 try by positive evils, and disgusted by ill treat- 
 ment, real or imaginary, it were fit to remove 
 their grievances, and quiet their resentment; 
 since, if they have been hitherto undutiful sub- 
 jects, they will not much mend their principles 
 by American conversation. 
 
 To allure them into the army, it was thought 
 proper to indulge them in the continuance of 
 their national dress. If this concession could 
 have any effect, it might easily be made. That 
 dissimilitude of appearance, which was sup- 
 posed to keep them distinct from the rest of the 
 nation, might disincline them from coalescing 
 with the Pennsylvanians or people of Connec- 
 ticut. If the restitution of their arms will recon- 
 cile them to their country, let them have again 
 those weapons, which will not be more mis- 
 chievous at home than in the colonies. That 
 
166 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 they may not fly from the increase of rent, I 
 know not whether the general good does not 
 require that the landlords be, for a time, re- 
 strained in their demands, and kept quiet by 
 pensions proportionate to their loss. 
 
 To hinder insurrection by driving away the 
 people, and to govern peaceably by having no 
 subjects, is an expedient that argues no great 
 profundity of politicks. To soften the obdurate, 
 to convince the mistaken, to mollify the re- 
 sentful, are worthy of a statesman; but it af- 
 fords a legislator little selfapplause to consider, 
 that where there was formerly an insurrection, 
 there is now a wilderness. 
 
 It has been a question often agitated without 
 solution, why those northern regions are now 
 so thinly peopled, which formerly overwhelmed 
 with their armies the Roman empire. The 
 question supposes what 1 believe is not true, 
 that they hM once more inhabitants than they 
 could maintain, and overflowed only because 
 they were full. 
 
 This is to estimate the manners of all coun- 
 tries and ages by our own. Migration, while 
 the state of life was unsettled, and there was 
 little communication of intelligence between 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 167 
 
 distant places, was, among the wilder nations of 
 Europe, capricious and casual. An adventitious 
 projector heard of a fertile coast unoccupied, 
 and led out a colony; a chief of renown for 
 bravery, called the young men together, and 
 led them out to try what fortune would present. 
 When Caesar was in Gaul, he found the Helve- 
 tians preparing to go they knew not whither, 
 and put a stop to their motions. They settled 
 again in their own country, where they were 
 so far from wanting room, that they had accu- 
 mulated three years' provision for their march. 
 The religion of the North was military; if 
 they could not find enemies, it was their duty 
 to make them; they travelled in quest of dan- 
 ger, and willingly took the chance of empire or 
 death. If their troops were numerous, the 
 countries from which they were collected are of 
 vast extent, and without much exuberance of 
 people great armies may be raised where every 
 man is a soldier. But their true numbers were 
 never known. Those who were conquered by 
 them are their historians, and shame may have 
 excited them to say, that they were overwhelm- 
 ed with multitudes. To count is a modern prac- 
 tice, the ancient method was to guess; and when 
 numbers are guessed they are always magnified. 
 
168 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 Thus England has for several years been 
 filled with the achievements of seventy thou- 
 sand Highlanders employed in America. I 
 have heard from an English officer, not much 
 inclined to favour them, that their behaviour 
 deserved a very high degree of military praise; 
 but their number has been much exaggerated. 
 One of the ministers told me, that seventy thou- 
 sand men could not have been found in all the 
 Highlands, and that more than twelve thousand 
 never took the field. Those that went to the 
 American war, went to destruction. Of the old 
 Highland regiment, consisting of twelve hun- 
 dred, only seventy-six survived to see their 
 country again. 
 
 The Golhick swarms have at least been mul- 
 tiplied with equal liberality. That they bore no 
 great proportion to the inhabitants, in whose 
 countries they settled, is plain from the paucity 
 of northern words now found in the provincial 
 languages. Their country was not deserted for 
 want of room, because it was covered with fo- 
 rests of vast extent; and the first efiect of pleni- 
 tude of inhabitants is the destruction of wood. 
 As the Europeans spread over America, the 
 lands are gradually laid naked. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 169 
 
 I would not be understood to say, that ne- 
 cessity had never any part in their expeditions. 
 A nation, whose agriculture is scanty or un- 
 skilful, may be driven out by famine. A nation 
 of hunters may have exhausted their game. I 
 only affirm that the northern regions were not, 
 when their irruptions subdued the Romans, 
 overpeopled with regard to their real extent of 
 territory, and power of fertility. In a country 
 fully inhabited, however afterward laid waste, 
 evident marks will remain of its former popu- 
 lousness. But of Scandinavia and Germany, 
 nothing is known but that as we trace their 
 state upwards into antiquity, their woods were 
 greater, and their cultivated ground was less. 
 
 That causes very different from want of room 
 may produce a general disposition to seek ano- 
 ther country, is apparent from the present con- 
 duct of the Highlanders, who are in some places 
 ready to threaten a total secession. The num- 
 bers which have already gone, though like 
 other numbers they may be magnified, are very 
 great, and such as if they had gone together 
 and agreed upon any certain settlement, might 
 have founded an independent government in 
 the depths of the western continent. Nor are 
 
170 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 they only the lowest and most indigent; many 
 men of considerable wealth have taken with 
 them their train of labourers and dependants; 
 and if they continue the feudal scheme of po- 
 lity, may establish new clans in the other hemi- 
 sphere. 
 
 That the immediate motives of their deser- 
 tion must be imputed to their landlords, may 
 be reasonably concluded, because some lairds 
 of more prudence and less rapacity have kept 
 their vassals undiminished. From Raasay only 
 one man had been seduced, and at Col there 
 was no wish to go away. 
 
 The traveller who comes hither from more 
 opulent countries, to speculate upon the re- 
 mains of pastoral life, will not much wonder 
 that a common Highlander has no strong adhe- 
 rence to his native soil; for of animal enjoy- 
 ments, or of physical good, he leaves nothing 
 that he may not find again wheresoever he may 
 be thrown. 
 
 The habitations of men in the Hebrides may 
 be distinguished into huts and houses. By a 
 house^ I mean a building with one story over 
 another; by a hut, a dwelling with only one 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 171 
 
 floor. The laird, who formerly lived in a castle, 
 now lives in a house; sometimes sufficiently 
 neat, but seldom very spacious or splendid. 
 The tacksmen and the mmisters have com- 
 monly houses. Wherever there is a house, the 
 stranger finds a welcome ; and to the other 
 evils of exterminating tacksmen may be added 
 the unavoidable cessation of hospitality, or the 
 devolution of too heavy a burden on the mi- 
 nisters. 
 
 Of the houses little can be said. They are 
 small, and by the necessity of accumulating 
 stores, where there are so few opportunities of 
 purchase, the rooms are very heterogeneously 
 filled. With want of cleanliness it were ingra- 
 titude to reproach them. The servants having 
 been bred upon the naked earth, think every 
 floor clean, and the quick succession of guests, 
 perhaps not always over-elegant, does not al- 
 low much time for adjusting their apartments. 
 
 Huts are of many gradations; from murky 
 dens to commodious dwellings. 
 
 The wall of a common hut is always built 
 without mortar, by a skilful adaptation of loose 
 stones. Sometimes perhaps a double wall of 
 stones is raised, and the intermediate space 
 
172 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 filled with earth. The air is thus completely 
 excluded. Some walls are, I think, formed of 
 turfs, held together by a wattle, or texture of 
 twigs. Of the meanest huts, the first room is 
 lighted by the entrance, and the second by the 
 smoke hole. The fire is usually made in the 
 middle. But there are huts, or dwellings, of 
 only one story, inhabited by gentlemen, which 
 have walls cemented with mortar, glass win- 
 dows, and boarded floors. Of these all have 
 chimneys, and some chimneys have grates. 
 
 The house and the furniture are not always 
 nicely suited. We were driven once, by missing 
 a passage, to the hut of a gentleman, where, 
 after a very liberal supper, when I was con- 
 ducted to my chamber, I found an elegant bed 
 of Indian cotton, spread with fine sheets. The 
 accommodation was flattering; I undressed my- 
 self, and felt my feet in the mire. The bed 
 stood upon the bare earth, which a long course 
 of rain had softened to a puddle. 
 
 In pastoral countries the condition of the 
 lowest rank of people is sufficiently wretched. 
 Among manufacturers, men that have no pro- 
 perty may have art and industry, which make 
 them necessary, and therefore valuable. But 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. I73 
 
 where flocks and corn are the only wealth, 
 there are always more hands than work, and 
 of that work there is little in which skill and 
 dexterity can be much distinguished. He there- 
 fore who is born poor never can be rich. The 
 son merely occupies the place of the father, and 
 life knows nothing of progression or advance- 
 ment. 
 
 The petty tenants, and labouring peasants, 
 live in miserable cabins, which afford them lit- 
 tle more than shelter from the storms. The 
 boor of Norway is said to make all his ow^n 
 utensils. In the Hebrides, whatever might be 
 their ingenuity, the w^ant of wood leaves them 
 no materials. They are probably content with 
 such accommodations as stones of difi'erent 
 forms and sizes can afford them. 
 
 Their food is not better than their lodging. 
 They seldom taste the flesh of laud animals, 
 for here are no markets. What each man eats 
 is from his own stock. The great effect of mo- 
 ney is to break property into small parts. In 
 towns, he that has a shilling may have a piece 
 of meat; but w^here there is no commerce, no 
 man can eat mutton but by killing a sheep. 
 
 Fish, in fair weather, they need not want; 
 P 2 
 
1 74 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 but, I believe, man never lives long on fish but 
 by constraint; he will rather feed upon roots 
 and berries. 
 
 The only fuel of the islands is peat. Their 
 wood is all consumed, and coal they have not 
 yet found. Peat is dug out of the marshes, 
 from the depth of one foot to that of six. That 
 is accounted the best which is nearest the sur- 
 face. It appears to be a mass of black eardi 
 held together by vegetable fibres. I knoAv not 
 whether the earth be bituminous, or whether 
 the fibres be not the only combustible part; 
 which, by heating the interposed earth red hot, 
 make a burning mass. The heat is not very 
 strong nor lasting. The ashes are yellovv^ish, 
 and in a large quantity. When they dig peat, 
 they cut it into square pieces, and pile it up to 
 dry beside the house. In some places it has an 
 offensive smell. It is like wood charred for the 
 smith. The common method of making peat 
 fires, is by heaping it on the hearth; but it 
 burns wtII in grates, and in the best houses is 
 so used. 
 
 The common opinion is, that peat grows 
 again where it has been cut; which, as it seems 
 to be chiefly a vegetable substance, is not un- 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 175 
 
 likely to be true, whether known or not to 
 those who relate it. 
 
 There are w^itermills in Sky and Raasay; 
 but w^here they are too far distant, the house- 
 wives grind their oats with a quern or hand- 
 mill, which consists of two stones, about a foot 
 and a half in diameter; the low^r is a little con- 
 vex, to which the concavity of the upper must 
 be fitted. In the middle of the upper stone is 
 a round hole, and on one side is a long handle. 
 The grinder sheds the corn gradually into the 
 hole wuth one hand, and works the handle round 
 with the other. The corn slides down the con- 
 vexity of the lowGT stone, and by the motion of 
 the upper is ground in its passage. These stones 
 are found in Lochabar. 
 
 The islands afford few pleasures, except to 
 -the hardy sportsman, who can tread the moor 
 and climb the mountain. The distance of one 
 family from another, in a country where travel- 
 ling has so much difficulty, makes frequent in- 
 tercourse impracticable. Visits last several days, 
 and are commonly paid by water; yet I never 
 saw a boat furnished with benches, or made 
 commodious by any addition to the first fabrick. 
 Conveniencies are not missed where they never 
 were enjoyed. 
 
176 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 The solace ^vhich the bagpipe can give they 
 have long enjoyed; but among other changes, 
 which the last revolution introduced, the use of 
 the bagpipe begins to be forgotten. Some of 
 the chief families still entertain a piper, whose 
 office was anciently hereditary. Macrimmon 
 was piper to Macleod, and Rankin to Maclean 
 of Col. 
 
 The tunes of the bagpipe are traditional. 
 There has been in Sky, beyond all time of me- 
 mory, a college of pipers, under the direction 
 of Macrimmon, which is not quite extinct. 
 There was another in Mull, superintended by 
 Rankin, which expired about sixteen years ago. 
 To these colleges, while the pipe retained its 
 honour, the students of musick repaired for 
 education. I have had my dinner exhilirated by 
 the bagpipe, at Armydale, at Dunvegan, and 
 in Col. 
 
 The general conversation of the islanders has 
 nothing particular. 1 did not meet with the 
 inquisitiveness of which I have read, and sus- 
 pect the judgment to have been rashly made. 
 A stranger of curiosity comes into a place 
 where a stranger is seldom seen; he importunes 
 the people with questions, of which they cannot 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. J77 
 
 guess the motive, and gazes with surprise on 
 things which they, having had them always be- 
 fore their eyes, do not suspect of any thing 
 wonderful. He appears to them like some being 
 of another world, and then thinks it peculiar 
 that they take their turn to inquire whence he 
 eomes, and whither he is going. 
 
 The islands were long unfurnished with in- 
 struction for youth, and none but the sons of 
 gentlemen could have any literature. There 
 are now parochial schools, to which the lord of 
 every manor pays a certain stipend. Here the 
 children are taught to read; but by the rule of 
 their institution, they teach only English, so 
 that the natives read a language Avhich they may 
 never use or understand. If a parish, which 
 often happens, contains several islands, the 
 school being but in one, cannot assist the rest. 
 This is the state of Col, which, however, is 
 more enlightened than some other places; for 
 the deficiency is supplied by a young gentleman, 
 who for his own improvement, travels every 
 year on foot over the Highlands to the session 
 at Aberdeen; and at his return, during the va- 
 cation, teaches to read and write in his native 
 island. 
 
178 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 In Sky there are two grammar schools, 
 where boarders are taken to be regularly educat- 
 ed. The price of board is from three pounds, to 
 four pounds ten shillings a year, and that of in- 
 struction is half a crown a quarter. But the 
 scholars are birds of passage, who live at school 
 only in the summer; for in winter provisions 
 cannot be made for any considerable number in 
 one place. This periodical dispersion impresses 
 strongly the scarcity of these countries. 
 
 Having heard of no boarding school for la- 
 dies nearer than Inverness, I suppose their edu- 
 cation is generally domestick. The eldest daugh- 
 ters of the higher flimilies are sent into the 
 world, and may contribute by their acquisitions 
 to the improvement of the rest. 
 
 Women must here study to be either pleas- 
 ing or useful. Their deficiencies are seldom 
 supplied by very liberal fortunes. A hundred 
 pounds is a portion beyond the hope of any but 
 the laird's daughter. They do not indeed often 
 give money with their daughters; the question 
 is, How many cows a young lady will bring her 
 husband? A rich maiden has from ten to forty; 
 but two cows are a decent fortune for one whQ 
 pretends to no distinction. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 179 
 
 The religion of the islands is that of the Kirk 
 of Scotland. The gentlemen with whom I 
 conversed are all inclined to the English litur- 
 gy; but they are obliged to maintain the esta- 
 blished minister, and the country is too poor to 
 afford payment to another, who must live wholly 
 on the contribution of his audience. 
 
 They therefore all attend the worship of the 
 Kirk, as often as a visit from their minister, or 
 the practicability of travelling gives them op- 
 portunity; nor have they any reason to com- 
 plain of insufficient pastors; for I saw not one in 
 the islands, whom 1 had reason to think either 
 deficient in learning, or irregular in life; but 
 found several with whom I could not converse 
 without wishing, as my respect increased, that 
 they had not been Presbyterians. 
 
 The ancient rigour of puritanism is now very 
 much relaxed, though all are not yet equally 
 enlightened. I sometimes met with prejudices 
 sufficiently malignant, but they were prejudices 
 of ignorance. The ministers in the islands had 
 attained such knowledge as may justly be ad- 
 mired in men, who have no motive to study, 
 but generous curiosity, or, what is still better, 
 desire of usefulness; with such politeness as so 
 
180 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 narrow a circle of converse could not have 
 supplied, but to minds naturally disposed to 
 elegance. 
 
 Reason and truth will prevail at last. The 
 most learned of the Scottish doctors would now 
 gladly admit a form of prayer, if the people 
 would endure it. The zeal or rage of congre- 
 gations has its different degrees. In some pa- 
 rishes the Lord's Prayer is suffered: in others 
 it is still rejected as a form; and he that should 
 make it part of his supplication would be sus- 
 pected of heretical pravity. 
 
 The principle upon which extemporary 
 prayer was originally introduced, is no longer 
 admitted. The minister formerly, in the effusion 
 of his prayer, expected immediate, and per- 
 haps perceptible inspiration, and therefore 
 thought it his duty not to think before what he 
 should say. It is now universally confessed, 
 that men pray as they speak on other occasions, 
 according to the general measure of their abi- 
 lities and attainments. Whatever each may think 
 of a form prescribed by another, he cannot but 
 believe that he can himself compose by study 
 and meditation a better prayer than will rise in 
 his mind at a sudden call; and if he has any 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 181 
 
 hope of supernatural help, why may he not as 
 well receive it when he writes as when he 
 speaks? 
 
 In the variety of mental powers, some must 
 perform extemporary prayer with much imper- 
 fection; and in the eagerness and rashness of 
 contradictory opinions, if publick liturgy be left 
 to the private judgment of every minister, the 
 congregation may often be offended or misled. 
 
 There is in Scotland, as among ourselves, a 
 restless suspicion of popish machinations, and a 
 clamour of numerous converts to the RomisH 
 religion. The report is, I believe, in both parts 
 of the island equally false. The Romish reli- 
 gion is professed only in Egg and Canna, two 
 small islands, into which the reformation never 
 made its way. If any missionaries are busy in 
 the Highlands, their zeal entitles them to re- 
 spect even from those who cannot think favour- 
 ably of their doctrine. 
 
 The political tenets of the islanders I was not 
 curious to investigate, and they were not eager 
 to obtrude. Their conversation is decent and 
 inoffensive. They disdain to drink for their 
 principles, and there is no disaffection at their 
 tables. I never heard a health offered by a 
 
 Q 
 
182 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 Highlander that might not have circulated with 
 propriety within the precincts of the king's 
 palace. 
 
 Legal government has yet something of no- 
 velty to which they cannot perfectly conform. 
 The ancient spirit that appealed only to the 
 sword is yet among them. The tenant of Scal- 
 pa, an island belonging to Macdonald, took no 
 care to bring his rent; when the landlord talk- 
 ed of exacting payment, he declared his resolu- 
 tion to keep his ground, and drive all intruders 
 from the island, and continued to feed his cat- 
 tle as on his own land, till it became necessary 
 for the sheriff to dislodge him by violence. 
 
 The various kinds of superstition which pre- 
 vailed here, as in all other regions of ignorance, 
 are, by the diligence of the ministers, almost 
 extirpated. 
 
 Of Browny, mentioned by Martin, nothing 
 has been heard for many years. Browny was a 
 sturdy fairy, who if he was fed and kindly treat- 
 ed, would, as they said, do a great deal of work. 
 They now pay him no wages, and are content 
 to labour for themselves. 
 
 In Troda, within these three and thirty years, 
 milk was put every Saturday for '* Greogach,'' 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 183 
 
 or *Hhe Old Man with the Long Beard." Whe- 
 ther Greogach was courted as kind, or dreaded 
 as terrible; whether they meant, by giving him 
 the milk, to obtain good, or avert evil, I w^as 
 not informed. The minister is now living by 
 whom the practice was abolished. 
 
 They have still among them a great number 
 of charms for the cure of different diseases; 
 they are all invocations, perhaps transmitted to 
 them from the times of popery, which increas- 
 ing knowledge will bring into disuse. 
 
 They have opinions which cannot be ranked 
 with superstition, because they regard only na- 
 tural effects. They expect better crops of grain 
 by sowing their seed in the moon's increase. 
 The moon has great influence in vulgar philo- 
 sophy. In my memory it was a precept annu- 
 ally given in one of the English almanacks, " to 
 ** kill hogs when the moon was increasing, and 
 *' the bacon would prove the better in boiling.'* 
 
 We should have little claim to the praise of 
 curiosity, if we had not endeavoured with par- 
 ticular attention to examine the question of the 
 second sight. Of an opinion received for cen- 
 turies by a whole nation, and supposed to be 
 confirmed through its whole descent by a series 
 
184 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 of successive facts, it is desirable that the truth 
 should be established, or the fallacy detected. 
 
 The second sight is an impression made ei- 
 ther by the mind upon the eye, or by the eye 
 upon the mind, by which things distant or fu- 
 ture are perceived, and seen as if they were 
 present. A man on a journey far from home 
 falls from his horse, another, who is perhaps at 
 work about the house, sees him bleeding on the 
 ground, commonly with a landscape of the 
 place v/here the accident befalls him. Another 
 seer, driving home his cattle, or wandering in 
 idleness, or musing in the sunshine, is suddenly 
 surprised by the appearance of a bridal cere- 
 mony, or funeral procession, and counts the 
 mourners or attendants, of whom, if he knows 
 them, he relates the name, if he knows them 
 not, he can describe the dresses. Things distant 
 are seen at the instant when they happen. Of 
 things future I know not that there is any rule 
 for determining the time between the sight and 
 the event. 
 
 This receptive faculty, for power it cannot 
 be called, is neither voluntary nor constant. 
 The appearances have no dependence upon 
 choice: they cannot be summoned, detained, 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 135 
 
 or recalled. The impression is sudden, and the 
 effect often painful. 
 
 By the term second sight seems to be meant 
 a mode of seeing, superadded to that which 
 Nature generally bestows. In the Erse it is cal- 
 led Taisch, which signifies likewise a spectre 
 or a vision. I know not, nor is it likely that 
 the Highlanders ever examined, whether by 
 Taisch, used for second sight, they mean the 
 power of seeing, or the thing seen. 
 
 I do not find it to be true, as it is reported, 
 that to the second sight nothing is presented 
 but phantoms of evil. Good seems to have the 
 same proportion in those visionary scenes as it 
 obtains in real life. Almost all remarkable 
 events have evil for their basis; and are either 
 miseries incurred, or miseries escaped. Our 
 sense is so much stronger of what we suffer, 
 than of what we enjoy, that the ideas of pain 
 predominate in almost every mind. What is re- 
 collection but a revival of vexations, or history 
 but a record of wars, treasons, and calamities? 
 Death, which is considered as the greatest evil, 
 happens to all. The greatest good, be it what 
 it will, is the lot but of a part. 
 
 That they should often see death is to be ex- 
 
 Q2 
 
186 A JOURNEY TO THK 
 
 pected; because death is an event frequent and 
 important. But they see likewise more pleasing 
 incidents. A gentleman told me, that when he 
 had once gone far from his own island, one of 
 his labouring servants predicted his return, and 
 described the livery of his attendant, which he 
 had never worn at home; and which had been, 
 without any previous design, occasionally given 
 him. 
 
 Our desire of information was keen, and our 
 inquiry frequent. Mr. Boswell's frankness and 
 gaiety made every body communicative; and 
 we heard many tales of these airy shows, with 
 more or less evidence and distinctness. 
 
 It is the common talk of the Lowland Scots, 
 that the notion of the second sight is wearing 
 away with other superstitions; and that its reali- 
 ty is no longer supposed, but by the grossest 
 people. How far its prevalence ever extended, 
 or what ground it has lost, I know not. The 
 islanders of all degrees, whether of rank or un- 
 derstanding, universally admit it, except the 
 ministers, who universally deny it, and are sus- 
 pected to deny it, in consequence of a system, 
 against conviction. One of them honestly told 
 me, that he came to Sky with a resolution not 
 to believe it. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 187 
 
 Strong reasons for incredulity will readily 
 occur. This faculty of seeing tilings out of sight 
 is local, and commonly useless. It is a breach 
 of the common order of things, without any 
 visible reason or perceptible benefit. It is as- 
 cribed only to a people very little enlightened; 
 and among them, for the most part, to the mean 
 and the ignorant. 
 
 To the confidence of these objections it may 
 be replied, that by presuming to determine 
 what is fit, and what is beneficial, they presup- 
 pose more knowledge of the universal system 
 than man has attained; and therefore depend 
 upon principles too complicated and extensive 
 for our comprehension; and that there can be 
 no security in the consequence, when the pre- 
 mises are not understood; that the second sight 
 is only wonderful because it is rare, for consi- 
 dered in itself, it involves no more difficulty 
 than dreams, or perhaps than the regular exer- 
 cise of the cogitative faculty; that a general 
 opinion of communicative impulses, or vision- 
 ary representations, has prevailed in all ages 
 and all nations; that particular instances have 
 been given, with such evidence, as neither Ba- 
 con nor Bayle has been able to resist; that sud- 
 
188 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 den impressions, which the event has verified, 
 have been felt by more than own or publish 
 them; that the second sight of the Hebrides 
 implies only the local frequency of a power, 
 which is nowhere totally unknown; and that 
 where we are unable to decide by antecedent 
 reason, we must be content to yield to the force 
 of testimony. 
 
 By pretension to second sight, no profit was 
 ever sought or gained. It is an involuntary af- 
 fection, in which neither hope nor fear are 
 known to have any part. Those who profess to 
 feel it, do not boast of it as a privilege, nor are 
 considered by others as advantageously distin- 
 guished. They have no temptation to feign; 
 and their hearers have no motive to encourage 
 the imposture. 
 
 To talk with any of these seers is not easy. 
 There is one living in Sky, with whom we 
 would have gladly conversed; but he was very 
 gross and ignorant, and knew no English. The 
 proportion in these countries of the poor to the 
 rich is such, that if we suppose the quality to 
 be accidental, it can very rarely happen to a 
 man of education; and yet on such men it has 
 sometimes fallen. There is now a second sighted 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 189 
 
 gentleman in the Highlands, who complains of 
 the terrors to which he is exposed. 
 
 The foresight of the seers is not always pre- 
 science: they are impressed with images, of 
 which the event only shows them the meaning. 
 They tell what they have seen to others, who 
 are at that time not more knowing than them- 
 selves, but may become at last very adequate 
 witnesses, by comparing the narrative with its 
 verification. 
 
 To collect sufficient testimonies for the satis- 
 iaction of the publick, or of ourselves, would 
 have required more time than we could bestOvV. 
 There is, against it, the seeming analogy of 
 things confusedly seen, and little understood; 
 and for it, the indistinct cry of national persua- 
 sion, which may be perhaps resolved at last into 
 prejudice and tradition. I never could advance 
 my curiosity to conviction, but came away at 
 last only willing to believe. 
 
 As there subsists no longer in the islands 
 much of that peculiar and discriminative form 
 of life, of which the idea had delighted our 
 imagination, we were willing to listen to such 
 accounts of past times as would be given us. 
 But we soon found what memorials were to be 
 
190 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 expected from an illiterate people, whose whole 
 time is a series of distress; where every morn- 
 ing is laboui ing with expedients for the even- 
 ing; and where all mental pains or pleasure arose 
 from the dread of winter, the expectation of 
 spring, the caprices of their chiefs, and the mo- 
 tions of the neighbouring clans; where there 
 was neither shame from ignorance, nor pride in 
 knowledge; neither curiosity to inquire, nor 
 vanity to communicate. 
 
 The chiefs indeed were exempt from urgent 
 penury, and daily difficulties; and in their 
 houses were preserved what accounts remained 
 of past ages. But the chiefs were sometimes 
 ignorant and careless, and sometimes kept busy 
 by turbulence and contention; and one genera- 
 tion of ignorance effaces the whole series of un- 
 written history. Books are faithful repositories, 
 which may be awhile neglected or forgotten; 
 but when they are opened again, will again im- 
 part their instruction: memory, once interrupted, 
 is not to be recalled. Written learning is a fixed 
 luminary, which, after the cloud that had hid- 
 den it has past away, is again bright in its pro- 
 per station. Tradition is but a meteor, which, 
 if once it falls, cannot be rekindled. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 191 
 
 It seems to be universally supposed, that 
 much of the local history was preserved by the 
 bards, of whom one is said to have been retain- 
 ed by every great family. After these bards 
 were some of my first inquiries, and I received 
 such answers as, for awhile, made me please 
 myself with my increase of knowledge, for I had 
 not then learned how to estimate the narration 
 of a Highlander. 
 
 They said that a great family had a bard and 
 a senachi, who were the poet and historian of 
 the house; and an old gentleman told me that 
 he remembered one of each. Here was a dawn 
 of intelligefice. Of men that had lived within 
 memory some certain knowledge might be at- 
 tained. Though the office had ceased, its ef- 
 fects might continue; the poems might be found 
 though there was no poet. 
 
 Another conversation indeed informed me, 
 that the same man was both bard and senachi. 
 This variation discouraged me; but as the prac- 
 tice might be different in different times, or at 
 the same time in different families, there was 
 yet no reason for supposing that I must neces- 
 sarily sit down in total ignorance. 
 
 Soon after I was told by a gentleman, who 
 
192 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 is generally acknowledged the greatest master 
 of Hebridian antiquities, that there had indeed 
 once been both bards and senachies; and that 
 senachi signified ** the Man of Talk," or of con- 
 versation; but that neither bard nor senachi 
 had existed for some centuries. I have no rea- 
 son to suppose it exactly known at what time 
 the custom ceased, nor did it probably cease in 
 all houses at once. But whenever the practice 
 of recitation was disused, the works, whether 
 poetical orh istorical, perished with the authors, 
 for in those times nothing had been written in 
 the Erse language. 
 
 Whether the '*Man of Talk" was a historian, 
 whose office was to tell truth, or a storyteller, 
 like those which were in the last century, and 
 perhaps are now among the Irish, whose trade 
 was only to amuse, it would now be vain to 
 inquire. 
 
 Most of the domestick offices were, I believe, 
 hereditary; and probably the laureat of a clan 
 was always the son of the last laureat. The 
 history of the race could no otherwise be com- 
 municated or retained; but what genius could 
 be expected in a poet by inheritance? 
 
 The nation was whollv illiterate. Neither 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 193 
 
 bards nor senachies could write or read; but if 
 they were ignorant, there was no danger of de- 
 tection; they were believed by those whose 
 vanity they flattered. 
 
 The recital of genealogies, which has been 
 considered as very efficacious to the preserva- 
 tion of a true series of ancestry, was anciently 
 made, when the heir of the family came to 
 manly age. This practice has never subsisted 
 within time of memory, nor was much credit 
 due to such rehearsers, who might obtrude 
 fictitious pedigrees, either to please their mas- 
 ters, or to hide the deficiency of their own me- 
 mories. 
 
 Whore the chiefs of the Highlands have 
 found the histories of their descent, is difficult 
 to tell; for no Erse genealogy was ever written. 
 In general this only is evident, that the princi- 
 pal house of a clan must be very ancient, and 
 that those must have lived long in a place, of 
 whom it is not known when they came thither. 
 
 Thus hopeless are all attempts to find any 
 traces of Highland learning. Nor are their pri- 
 mitive customs and ancient manner of life 
 otherwise than very faintly and uncertainly 
 
 remembered by the present race. 
 
 R 
 
1 94 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 ' The peculiarities which strike the native of a 
 commercial country, proceeded in a great mea- 
 sure from the want of money. To the servants 
 and dependants that were not domesticks, and if 
 an estimate be made from the capacity of any 
 of their old houses which I have seen, their do- 
 mesticks could have been but few, were appro- 
 priated certain portions of land for their support. 
 Macdonald has a piece of ground yet, called 
 the Bards or Senachies' field. When a beef was 
 killed for the house, particular parts were claim- 
 ed as fees by the several officers or w^orkmen. 
 What was the right of each I have not learned. 
 The head belonged to the smith, and the udder 
 of a cow to the piper; the weaver had likewise 
 his particular part; and so many pieces follow- 
 ed these prescriptive claims, that the laird's was 
 at last but little. 
 
 The payment of rent in kind has been so long 
 disused in England, that it is totally forgotten. 
 It was practised very lately in the Hebrides, and 
 probably still continues, not only in St. Kilda, 
 where money is not yet known, but in others 
 of the smaller and remoter islands. It were per- 
 haps to be desired, that no change in this par- 
 ticular should have been made. When the laird 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 195 
 
 could only eat the produce of his lands, he was 
 under the necessity of residing upon them; and 
 when the tenant could not convert his stock 
 into more portable riches, he could never be 
 tempted away from his farm, from the only 
 place where he could be wealthy. Money con- 
 foujpds subordination, by overpo\^ering the dis- 
 tinctions of rank and birth, and weakens autho- 
 rity by supplying power of resistance, or expe- 
 dients for escape. The feudal system is formed 
 for a nation employed in agriculture, and has 
 never long kept its hold where gold and silver 
 have become common. 
 
 Their arms were anciently the glaymore, or 
 great twohanded sword, and afterwards the 
 twoedged sword and target, or buckler, which 
 was sustained on the left arm. In the midst of 
 the target, which was made of wood, covered 
 with leather, and studded with nails, a slender 
 lance, about two feet long, was sometimes fix- 
 ed; it was heavy and cumberous, and accord- 
 ingly has for sometime past been gradually laid 
 aside. Very few targets were at Culloden. The 
 dirk, or broad dagger, I am afraid, was of more 
 use in private quarrels than in battles. The 
 Lochaber axe is only a slight alteration of the 
 old English bill. 
 
196 A JOURNEY TO TlfE 
 
 After all that has been said of the force and 
 terrour of the Highland sword, I could not find 
 that the art of defence was any part of common 
 education. The gentleinen were perhaps some- 
 times skilful gladiators, but the common men 
 had no other powers than those of violence and 
 courage. Yet it is well known, that the ons#t of 
 the Highlanders was very formidable. As an 
 army cannot consist of philosophers, a panick is 
 easily excited by any unwonted mode of annoy- 
 ance. New dangers are naturally magnified; and 
 men accustomed only to exchange bullets at a 
 distance, and rather to hear their enemies than 
 see them, are discouraged and amazed when 
 they find themselves encountered hand to hand, 
 and catch the gleam of steel flashing in their 
 faces. 
 
 The Highland weapons gave opportunity for 
 many exertions of personal courage, and some- 
 tiipes for single combats in the field; like- those 
 which occur so frequently in fabulous wars. 
 At Falkirk, a gentleman now living, was, I sup- 
 pose after the retreat of the king's troops, en- 
 gaged at a distance from the rest with an Irish 
 dragoon. They were both skilful swordsmen* 
 and the contest was not easily decided: the dra- 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 197 
 
 goon at last had the advantage, and the High- 
 lander called for quarter; but quarter was refu- 
 sed him, and the fight continued till he was re- 
 duced to defend himself upon his knee. At 
 that instant one of the Macleods came to his 
 rescue; who, as it is said, offered quarter to the 
 dragoon, but he thought himself obliged to re- 
 ject what he had before refused, and, as battle 
 gives little time to deliberate, was immediately 
 killed. 
 
 Funerals were formerly solemnized by calling 
 multitudes together, and entertaining them at 
 great expense. This emulation of useless cost 
 has been for some time discouraged, and at last 
 in the Isle of Sky is almost suppressed. 
 
 Of the Erse language, as I understand no- 
 thing, I cannot say more than I have been told. 
 It is the rude speech of a barbarous people, 
 who had few thoughts to express, and were 
 content, as they conceived grossly, to be grossly 
 understood. After what has been lately talked 
 of Highland bards and Highland genius, many 
 wull startle when they are told, that the Erse 
 never was a written language; that tliere is not 
 in the world an Erse manuscript a hundred 
 
 years old; and that the sounds of tlic High- 
 R 2 
 
198 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 landers were never expressed by letters, till 
 some little books of piety were translated, and 
 a metrical version of the Psalms was made by 
 the Synod of Argyll. Whoever therefore now 
 writes in this language, spells according to his 
 own perception of the sound, and his own idea 
 of the power of the letters. The Welsh and 
 the Irish are cultivated tongues. The Welsh, 
 two hundred years ago, insulted their English 
 neighbours for the instability of their orthogra- 
 phy; while the Erse merely floated in the 
 breath of the people, and could therefore re- 
 ceive little improvement. 
 
 When a language begins to teem with books, 
 it is tending to refinement; as those v. ho un- 
 dertake to teach others must have undergone 
 some labour in improving themselves, they set 
 a proportionate value on their own thoughts, 
 and wish to enforce them by efficacious expres- 
 sions; speech becomes embodied and perma- 
 nent; different modes and phrases are compar- 
 ed, and the best obtains an establishment. By- 
 degrees one age improves upon another. Ex- 
 actness is first obtained, and afterwards ele- 
 gance. But diction, merely vocal, is always in 
 its childhood. As no man leaves his eloquence 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 199 
 
 behind him, the new generations have all to 
 learn. There may possibly be books without a 
 polished language, but there can be no polished 
 language without books. 
 
 That the bards could not read more than the 
 rest of their countrymen, it is reasonable to sup- 
 pose; because, if they had read, they could 
 probably have written; and how high their 
 compositions may reasonably be rated, an in- 
 quirer may best judge, by considering what 
 stores of imagery, what principles of ratiocina- 
 tion, what comprehension of knowledge, and 
 what delicacy of elocution, he has known any 
 man attain who cannot read. The state of the 
 bards was yet more hopeless. He that cannot 
 read, may now converse with those that can; 
 but the bard was a barbarian among barbarians, 
 who, knowing nothing himself, lived with 
 others that knew no more. 
 
 There has lately been in the islands one of 
 these illiterate poets, who, hearing the bible 
 read at church, is said to have turned the sacred 
 history into verse. I heard part of a dialogue, 
 composed by him, translated by a young lady 
 in Mull, and thought it had more meaning 
 than I expected from a man totally uneducat- 
 
OQO A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 ed; but he had some opportunities of know- 
 ledge; he lived among a learned people. After 
 all that has been done for the instruction of 
 the Highlanders, the antipathy between their 
 language and literature still continues; and no 
 man that has learned only Erse, is, at this time, 
 able to read. 
 
 The Erse has many dialects, and the words 
 used in some islands are not always known in 
 others. In literate nations, though the pro- 
 nunciation, and sometimes the words of com- 
 mon speech may differ, as now in England, 
 compared with the south of Scotland, yet there 
 is a written diction, which pervades all dialects, 
 and is understood in every province. But where 
 the whole language is colloquial, he that has 
 only one part never gets the rest, as he cannot 
 get it but by change of residence. 
 
 In an unwritten speech, nothing that is not 
 very short is transmitted from one generation 
 to another. Few have opportunities of hearing a 
 long composition often enough to learn it, or 
 have inclination to repeat it so often as is ne- 
 cessary to retain it; and what is once forgotten 
 is lost for ever. I believe there cannot be re- 
 covered, in the whole Erse language, five hun- 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 201 
 
 dred lines of which there is any evidence to 
 prove them a hundred years old. Yet I hear 
 that the father of Ossian boasts of two chests 
 more of ancient poetry, which he suppresses, 
 because they are too good for the English. 
 
 He that goes into the Highlands with a mind 
 naturally acquiescent, and a credulity eager for 
 wonders, may come back with an opinion very 
 different from mine; for the inhabitants know- 
 ing the ignorance of all strangers in their lan- 
 guage and antiquities, perhaps are not very 
 scrupulous adherents to truth; yet I do not say 
 that they deliberately speak studied falsehood, 
 or have a settled purpose to deceive. They have 
 inquired and considered little, and do not al- 
 ways feel their own ignorance. They are not 
 much accustomed to be interrogated by others, 
 and seem never to have thought upon interro- 
 gating themselves; so that if they do not know 
 what they tell to be true, they likewise do not 
 distinctly perceive it to be false. 
 
 Mr. Boswell was very diligent in his inqui- 
 ries; and the result of his investigations was, 
 that the answer to the second question was com- 
 monly such as nullified the answer to the first. 
 
 We were awhile told that they had an old 
 
202 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 translation of the scriptures, and told it till it 
 would appear obstinacy to inquire again; yet, by 
 continued accumulation of questions, we found 
 that the translation meant, if any meaning there 
 were, was nothing else than the Irish bible. 
 
 We heard of manuscripts that were or that 
 had been in the hands of somebody's father or 
 grandfather; but at last we had no reason to be- 
 lieve they were other than Irish. Martin men- 
 tions Irish, but never any Erse manuscripts, 
 to be found in the islands in his time. 
 
 I suppose my opinion of the poems of Ossian 
 is already discovered. I believe they never ex- 
 isted in any other form than that which we have 
 seen. The editor or author never could show 
 the original, nor can it be shown by any other. 
 To revenge reasonable incredulity, by refusing 
 evidence, is a degree of insolence with which 
 the world is not yet acquainted; and stubborn 
 audacity is the last refuge of guilt. It would be 
 easy to show it if he had it; but whence could 
 it be had? It is too long to be remembered, and 
 the language formerly had nothing written. He 
 has doubtless inserted names that circulate in 
 popular stories, and may have translated some 
 wandering ballads, if any can be found; and the 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 203 
 
 names and some of the images being recollect- 
 ed, make an inaccurate auditor imagine, by the 
 help of Caledonian bigotry, that he has former- 
 ly heard the whole. 
 
 I asked a very learned minister in Sky, who 
 had used all arts to make me believe the ge- 
 nuineness of the book, whether at last he be- 
 lieved it himself? but he would not answer. He 
 wished me to be deceived for the honour of his 
 country, but would not directly and formally 
 deceive me. Yet has this man's testimony been 
 publickly produced, as of one that held Fingal 
 to be the work of Ossian. 
 
 It is said, that some men of integrity profess 
 to have heard parts of it, but they all heard 
 them when they were boys; and it never was 
 said that any of them could recite six lines. 
 They remember names, and perhaps seme pro- 
 verbial sentiments, and, having no distinct 
 ideas, coin a resem])Iance without an original. 
 The persuasion of the Scots, however, is far 
 from universal; and in a question so capable of 
 proof, why should doubt be suffered to conti- 
 nue? The editor has been heard to say, that part 
 of the poem was received by him in the Saxon 
 character. He has then found, by some peculiar 
 
204 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 fortune, an unwritten language, written in a 
 character which the natives probably never be- 
 held. 
 
 I have yet supposed no imposture but in the 
 publisher; yet I am far from certainty that 
 some translations have not been lately made, 
 that may now be obtruded as parts of the ori- 
 ginal work. Credulity on one part is a strong 
 temptation to deceit on the other, especially to 
 deceit of which no personal injury is the con- 
 sequence, and which flatters the author with 
 his own ingenuity. The Scots have something 
 to plead for their easy reception of an improba- 
 ble fiction: they are seduced by their fondness 
 for their supposed ancestors. A Scotchman 
 must be a very sturdy moralist who does not 
 love Scotland better than truth; he will always 
 love it better than inquiry; and if falsehood 
 flatters his vanity, will not be very diligent to 
 detect it. Neither ought the English to be much 
 influenced by Scotch authority; for of the past 
 and present state of the whole Erse nation the 
 Lowlanders are at least as ignorant as ourselves. 
 To be ignorant is painful; but it is dangerous 
 to quiet our uneasiness by the delusive opiate 
 of hasty persuasion. 
 
WESTERN ISLAND^. 205 
 
 But this is the age in which those who could 
 not read have been supposed to wTite; in which 
 the giants of antiquated romance have been ex- 
 hibited as realities. If we know little of the an- 
 cient Highlanders, let us not fill the vacuity 
 with Ossian. If we have not searched the Ma- 
 gellanick regions, let us however forbear to 
 people them with Patagons. 
 
 Having waited some days at Armydel, we 
 were flattered at last with a wind that promised 
 to convey us to Mull. We went on board a 
 boat that was taking in kelp, and left the Isle 
 of Sky behind us. We were doomed to expe- 
 rience, like others, the danger of trusting to the 
 wind, which blew against us, in a short time, 
 with such violence, that we, being no seasoned 
 sailors, were willing to call it a tempest. I was 
 sea-sick, and lay down. Mr. Boswell kept the 
 deck. The master knew not well whither to 
 go; and our difficulties might perhaps have filled 
 a very pathetick page, had not Mr. Maclean of 
 Col, who, vvith every other qualification which 
 insular life requires, is a very active and skilful 
 mariner, piloted us safe into his own harbour. 
 
 S 
 
206 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 COL. 
 
 in the morning we found ourselves under tht 
 Isle of Col, where we landed, and passed the 
 first day and night with captain Maclean, a gen- 
 tleman who has lived some time in the East 
 Indies; but having dethroned no nabob, is not 
 too rich to settle in his own country. 
 
 Next day the wind was fair, and we might 
 have had an easy passage to Mull; but having, 
 Gontrarily to our own intention, landed upon a 
 new island, we would not leave it wholly unex- 
 amined. We therefore suffered the vessel to 
 depart without us, and trusted the skies for 
 another wind. 
 
 Mr. Maclean of Col, having a very nume- 
 rous family, has, for some time past, resided at 
 Aberdeen, that he may superintend their edu- 
 cation, and leaves the young gentleman, our 
 friend, to govern his dominions, with the full 
 power of a Highland chief. By the absence of 
 the laird's family, our entertainment was made 
 more difficult, because the house was in a great 
 degree disfurnished; but young Col's kindness 
 and activity supplied all defects, and procured 
 us more than sufficient accommodation. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 207 
 
 Here I first mounted a little Highland steed; 
 and, if there had been many spectators, should 
 have been somewhat ashamed of my figure in 
 the march. The horses of the islands, as of 
 other barren countries, are very low: they are 
 indeed musculous and strong, beyond what 
 their size gives reason for expecting; but a 
 bulky man upon one of their backs makes a 
 very disproportionate appearance. 
 
 From the habitation of captain Maclean we 
 went to Grissipol, but called by the way on Mr. 
 Hector Maclean, the minister of Col, whom we 
 found in a hut, that is, a house of only one fioor, 
 but with windows and chimney, and not inele- 
 gantly furnished. Mr. Maclean has the repu- 
 tation of great learning: he is seventy -seven 
 years old, but not infirm, with a look of vene 
 rable dignity, excelling what I remember in an\ 
 other man. 
 
 His conversation was not unsuitable to his 
 appearance. I lost some of his goodwill, by 
 treating a heretical writer with more regard 
 than, in his opinion, a heretick could deserve. 
 1 honoured his orthodoxy, and did not much 
 censure his asperity. A man who has settled 
 his opinions does not love to have the tranquil- 
 
2Q8 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 lity of his conviction disturbed; and at se vent} - 
 seven it is time to be in earnest. 
 
 Mention was made of the Erse translation of 
 the New Testament, w^hich has been lately 
 published, and of which the learned Mr. Mac- 
 queen of Sky spoke with commendation; but 
 Mr. Maclean said he did not use it, because he 
 could make the text more intelligible to.his au- 
 ditors by an extemporary version. From this I 
 inferred that the language of the translation was 
 not the language of the isle of Col. 
 
 He has no publick edifice for the exercise of 
 his ministry, and can officiate to no greater 
 number than a room can contain; and the 
 room of a hut is not very large. This is all the 
 opportunity of worship that is now granted to 
 the inhabitants of the island, some of whom 
 must travel thither perhaps ten miles. Two 
 chapels were erected by their ancestors, of 
 which I saw the skeletons, which now stand 
 faithful witnesses of the triumph of reformation. 
 
 The want of churches is not the only impe- 
 diment to piety: there is likewise a want of mi- 
 nisters. A parish often contains more islands 
 than one, and each island can have the minister 
 only in its own turn. At Raasay they had, I 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 209 
 
 think, a right to service only every third Sun- 
 day. All the provision made by the present 
 ecclesiastical constitution for the inhabitants of 
 about a hundred square miles is a prayer and 
 sermon in a little room once in three weeks; 
 and even this parsimonious distribution is at the 
 mercy of the weather; and in those islands 
 where the minister does not reside, it is impos- 
 sible to tell how many weeks or months may 
 pass without any publick exercise of religion. 
 
 GRISSIPOL IN COL. 
 
 After a short conversation with Mr. Maclean, 
 we went on to Grissipol, a house and farm te- 
 nanted by Mr. Macsweyn, where I saw more 
 of the ancient life of a Highlander than I had 
 yet found. Mrs. Macsweyn could speak no 
 English, and had never seen any other places 
 than the islands of Sky, Mull, and Col; but she 
 was hospitable and goodhumoured, and spread 
 her table with sufficient liberality. We found 
 tea here, as in every other place; but our spoons 
 were of horn. 
 
 The house of Grissipol stands by a brook ve- 
 ry clear and quick; which is, I suppose, one of 
 the most copious streams in the island. This 
 
210 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 place was the scene of an action, much celebra- 
 ted in the traditional history of Col, but which 
 probably no two relaters will tell alike. 
 
 Some time, in the obscure ages, Macneil of 
 Barra married the lady Maclean, who had the 
 Isle of Col for her jointure. Whether Macneil 
 detained Col, when the widow was dead, or 
 whether she lived so long as to make her heirs 
 impatient, is perhaps not now known. The 
 younger son, called John Gerves, or John the 
 Giant, a man of great strength, who was then 
 in Ireland, either for safety, or for education, 
 dreamed of recovering his inheritance; and get- 
 ting some adventurers together, which in those 
 unsettled times was not hard to do, invaded 
 Col. He was driven away, but was not dis- 
 couraged, and collecting new followers, in three 
 years came again with fifty men. In his way 
 he stopped at Artorinish in Morven, where his 
 uncle was prisoner to Macleod, and was then 
 with his enemies in a tent. Maclean took with 
 him only one servant, whom he ordered to stay 
 at he outside; and where he should see the tent 
 pressed outwards to strike with his dirk; it being 
 the intention of Maclean, as any man provoked 
 him, to lay hands upon him, and push him back. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 211 
 
 He entered the tent alone, with his Lochaber 
 axe in his hand, and struck such terrour into the 
 whole assembly, that they dismissed his uncle. 
 
 When he landed at Col, he saw the sentinel 
 who kept watch towards the sea, running off to 
 Grissipol, to give Macneil, who was there with 
 a hundred and twenty men, an account of the 
 invasion. He told Macgill, one of his followers, 
 that if he intercepted that dangerous intelli- 
 gence, by catching the courier, he would give 
 him certain lands in Mull. Upon this promise, 
 Macgill pursued the messenger, and either kill- 
 ed, or stopped him; and his posterity, till very 
 lately, held the lands in Mull. 
 
 The alarm being thus prevented, he came un- 
 expectedly upon Macneil. Chiefs were in those 
 days never wholly unprovided for an enemy. 
 A fight ensued, in which one of their followers 
 is said to have given an extraordinary proof of 
 activity; by bounding backwards over the brook 
 of Grissipol. Macneil being killed, and many 
 of his clan destroyed, Maclean took possession 
 of the island, which the Macneils attempted to 
 conquer by another invasion, but were defeated 
 and repulsed. 
 
 Maclean in his turn, invaded the estate of the 
 
212 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 Macneils, took the castle of Brecacig, and con- 
 quered the isle of Barra, which he held for seven 
 years, and then restored it to the heirs. 
 
 CASTLE OF COL. 
 
 From Grissipol, Mr. Maclean conducted us 
 to his father's scat; a neat new house, erected 
 near the old castle, I think, by the last proprie- 
 tor. Here we were allowed to take our station, 
 and lived very commodiously, while we w^aited 
 for moderate weather and a fair wind, which 
 w^e did not so soon obtain, but we had time to 
 get some information of the present state of Col, 
 partly by inquiry, and partly by occasional 
 excursions. 
 
 Col is computed to be thirteen miles in length, 
 and three in breadth. Both the ends are the 
 property of the Duke of Argyll, but the middle 
 belongs to Maclean, who is called Col, as the 
 only laird. 
 
 Col is not prpperly rocky; it is rather one 
 continued rock, of a surface much diversified 
 with protuberances, and covered with a thin 
 layer of earth, which is often broken, and dis- 
 covers the stone. Such a soil is not for plants 
 that strike deep roots; and perhaps in the whole 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 213 
 
 island nothing has ever yet grown to the height 
 of a table. The uncultivated parts are clothed 
 with heath, among which industry has inter- 
 spersed spots of grass and corn; but no attempt 
 has yet been made to raise a tree. Young Col, 
 who has a very laudable desire of improving his 
 patrimony, purposes some time to plant an or- 
 chard; which, if it be sheltered by a wall, may 
 perhaps succeed. He has introduced the cul- 
 1 lure of turnips, of which he has a field, where 
 the whole work was performed by his own 
 liand. His intention is to provide food for his 
 cattle in the winter. This innovation was con- 
 sidered by Mr. Macsweyn as the idle project 
 of a young head, heated with English fancies; 
 but he has now found that turnips will really 
 grow, and that hungry sheep and cows will 
 really eat them. 
 
 By such acquisitions as these, the Hebrides 
 may in time rise above their annual distress. 
 Wherever heath will grow, there is reason to 
 think something better may draw nourishment; 
 and by trying the production of other places, 
 plants will be found suitable to every soil. 
 
 Col has many lochs, some of which have 
 trouts and eels, and others have never yet been 
 
214 A JOURNEY lO THE 
 
 stocked; another proof of the negligence of the 
 islanders, who might take fish in the inland 
 waters, when they cannot go to sea. 
 
 Their quadrupeds are horses, cows, sheep, 
 and goats. They have neither deer, hares nor 
 rabbits. They have no vermin, except rats, 
 which have been lately brought thither by sea, 
 as to other places; and are free from serpents, 
 frogs, and toads. 
 
 The harvest in Col, and in Lewis, is ripe 
 sooner than in Sky, and the winter in Col is 
 
 never cold, but very tcHipcbUioUb. I know not 
 
 that I ever heard the wind so loud in any other 
 place; and Mr. Bos well observed, that its noise 
 was all its own, for there were no trees to in- 
 crease it.. 
 
 Noise is not the worst effect of the tempests; 
 for they have thrown the sand from the shore 
 over a considerable part of the land; and it is 
 said still to encroach and destroy more and 
 more pasture; but I am not of opinion, that by 
 any surveys or landmarks, its limits have been 
 ever fixed, or its progression ascertained. If 
 one man has confidence enough to say that it 
 advances, nobody can bring any proof to sup- 
 port him in denying it. The reason why it is 
 
WESTERN ISLANBS. 215 
 
 not spread to a greater extent, seems to be, that 
 the wind and rain come almost together, and 
 that it is made close and heavy by the wet be- 
 fore the storms can put it in motion. So thick 
 is the bed, and so small the particles, that if a 
 traveller should be caught by a sudden gust in 
 dry weather, he would find it very difficult to 
 escape with life. 
 
 For natural curiosities, I was shown only two 
 great masses of stone, which lie loose upon the 
 ground; one on the top of a hill, and the other 
 at a small distance from the bottom. They cer- 
 tainly were never put into their present places 
 by human strength or skill; and though an 
 earthquake might have broken off the lower 
 stone, and rolled it into the valley, no account 
 can be given of the other, which lies on the 
 hill, unless, which I forgot to examine, there 
 be still near it some higher rock, from which 
 it might be torn. All nations have a tradition, 
 that their earliest ancestors were giants, and 
 these stones arc said to have been thrown up 
 and down by a giant and his mistress. There 
 are so many more important things, of which 
 human knowledge can give no account, that it 
 may be forgiven us if we speculate no longer 
 on two stones in CoL 
 
216 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 This island is very populous. About nine 
 and twenty years ago, the fencible men of Col 
 were reckoned one hundred and forty, which is 
 the sixth of eight hundred and forty; and pro- 
 bably some contrived to be left out of the list. 
 The minister told us, that a few years ago the 
 inhabitants were eight hundred, between the 
 ages of seven and of seventy. Round numbers 
 are seldom exact. But in this case the authority 
 is good, and the errour likely to be little. If to 
 the eight hundred be added what the laws of 
 computation require, they will be increased to 
 at least a thousand; and if the dimensions of 
 the country have been accurately related, 
 every mile maintains more than twenty-five. 
 
 This proportion of habitation is greater than 
 the appearance of the country seems to admit; 
 for wherever the eye wanders, it sees much 
 w^aste and little cultivation. I am more inclined 
 to extend the land, of which no measure has 
 ever been taken, than to diminish the people, 
 ■who have been really numbered. Let it be sup- 
 posed, that a computed mile contains a mile and 
 a half, as was commonly found true in the men- 
 suration of the English roads, and we shall then 
 allot nearly twelve to a mile, which agrees much 
 better with ocular observation. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 217 
 
 Here, as in Sky and other islands, are the 
 laird, the tacksmen, and the under tenants. 
 
 Mr. Maclean, the laird, has very extensive 
 possessions, being proprietor, not only of far 
 the gTCiiier part of Col, but of the extensive 
 Island of Rum, and a very considerable territo- 
 ry in Mull. 
 
 Rum is one of the larger islands, almost 
 square, and therefore of great capacity in pro- 
 portion to its sides. By the usual method of 
 estimating computed extent, it may contain 
 more than a hundred and twenty square miles. 
 
 It originally belonged to Clanronald, and was 
 purchased by Col; who, in some dispute about 
 the bargain, made Clanronald prisoner, and 
 kept him nine months in confinement. Its 
 owner represents it as mountainous, rugged 
 and barren. In the hills there are red deer. The 
 horses are very small, but of a breed eminent 
 for beauty. Col, not long ago, bought one of 
 them from a tenant, who told him, that as he 
 was of a shape uncommonly elegant, he could 
 not sell him but at a high price; and that who- 
 ever had him should pay a guinea and a half. 
 
 There are said to be in Barra a race of horses 
 yet smaller, of which the highest is not above 
 thirty-six inches. 
 
218 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 The rent of Rum is not great. Mr. Maclean 
 declared, that he should be very rich if he could 
 set his land at two-pence-halfpenny an acre. 
 The inhabitants are fifty- eight families, who 
 continued papists for some time after the laird 
 became a protestant. Their adherence to their 
 old religion was strengthened by the counte- 
 nance of the laird's sister, a zealous Romanist, 
 till one Sunday, as they were going to mass un- 
 der the conduct of their patroness, Maclean met 
 them on the way, gave one of them a blow on 
 the head with a yellow stick, I suppose a cane, 
 for which the Erse had no name, and drove 
 them to the kirk, from w^hich they have never 
 since departed. Since the use of this method of 
 conversion, the inhabitants of Egg and Canna, 
 who continue Papists, call the Protestantism of 
 Rum, the religion of the Yellow Stick. 
 
 The only Popish islands are Egg and Canna. 
 Egg is the principal island of a parish, in which, 
 though he has no congregation, the Protestant 
 minister resides. I have heard of nothing curi- 
 ous in it, but the cave in which a former gene- 
 ration of the islanders were smothered by Mac- 
 leod. 
 
 If we had travelled widi more leisure, it had 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 219 
 
 flot been fit to have neglected the Popish islands. 
 Popery is favourable to ceremony; and among 
 ignorant nations, ceremony is the only preserv- 
 ative of tradition. Since Protestantism was ex- 
 tended to the savage parts of Scotland, it has 
 perhaps been one of the chief labours of the 
 ministers to abolish stated observances, because 
 they continued the remembrance of the former 
 religion. We therefore who came to hear old 
 traditions, and see antiquated manners, should 
 probably have found them amongst the Papists. 
 
 Canna, the other Popish island, belongs to 
 Clanronaid. It is said not to comprise more 
 than twelve miles of land, and yet maintains as 
 many inhabitants as Rum. 
 
 We were at Col under the protection of the 
 young laird, without any of the distresses, which 
 Mr. Pennant, in a fit of simple credulity, seems 
 to think almost worthy of an elegy by Ossian. 
 Wherever we roved, we were pleased to see the 
 reverence with which his subjects regarded him. 
 He did not endeavour to dazzle them by any 
 magnificence of dress; his only distinction was a 
 feather in his bonnet; but as soon as he appear- 
 ed, they forsook their work, and clustered about 
 him: he took them by the hand, and they seem- 
 
220 A J^OURxNTEY TO THE 
 
 ed mutually delighted. He has the proper dis- 
 position of a chieftain, and seems desirous t© 
 continue the customs of his house. The bagpi- 
 per played regularly, when dinner was served, 
 whose person and dress made a good appear- 
 ance; and he brought no disgrace upon the fa- 
 mily of Rankin, which has long supplied the 
 lairds of Col with hereditary musick. 
 
 The tacksmen of Col seem to live with less 
 dignity and convenience than those of Sky, 
 where they had good houses, and tables not 
 only plentiful, but delicate. In Col only tw^« 
 houses pay the window tax; for only two have 
 six windows, which, I suppose, are the laird's 
 and Mr. Macsweyn's. 
 
 The rents have, till within seven years, been 
 paid in kind, but the tenants finding that cattle 
 and corn varied in their price, desired for the 
 future to give their landlord money; which, 
 not having yet arrived at the philosophy of 
 commerce, they consider as being every year 
 of the same value. 
 
 We were told of a particular mode of un- 
 dertenure. The tacksman admits some of his 
 inferiour neighbours to the cultivation of his 
 grounds, on condition that performing all the 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 221 
 
 work, and giving a third part of the seed, they 
 shall keep a certain number of cows, sheep, and 
 goats, and reap a third part of the harvest. 
 Thus, by less than the tillage of two acres, they 
 pay the rent of one. 
 
 There are tenants below the rank of tacks- 
 men, that have got smaller tenants under them; 
 for in tvtry place, where money is not the ge- 
 neral equivalent, .there must be some whose 
 labour is immediately paid by daily food. 
 
 A country that has no money, is by no means 
 convenient for beggars, both because such 
 countries are commonly poor, and because cha- 
 rity requires some trouble and some thought. 
 A penny is easily given upon the first impulse 
 of compassion, or impatience of importunity; 
 but few will deliberate!}' search their cupboards 
 or their granaries, to find out something to give. 
 A penny is likewise easily spent; but victuals, 
 if they are unprepared, require houseroom, and 
 fire, and utensils, which the beggar knows not 
 where to find. 
 
 Yet beggars there sometimes are, who wan-^ 
 der from island to island. We had, in our pas- 
 sage to Mull, the company of a woman and her 
 child, who had exhausted the charity of Col. 
 
 T 2 
 
222 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 The arrival of a beggar on an island is account- 
 ed a sinistrous event. Every body considers 
 that he shall have the less for what he gives 
 away. Their alms, I believe, is generally oat- 
 meal. 
 
 Near to Col is another island called Tireye, 
 eminent for its fertility. Though it has but 
 half the extent of Rum, it is so well peopled, 
 that there have appeared, not long ago, nine 
 hundred and fourteen at a funeral. The plenty 
 of this island enticed beggars to it, who seemed 
 so burdensome to the inhabitants, that a formal 
 compact was drawn up, by which they obliged 
 themselves to grant no more relief to casual 
 wanderers, because they had among them an 
 indigent woman of high birth, whom they con- 
 sidered as entitled to all that they could spare. 
 I have read the stipulation, which was indited 
 with juridical formality, but was never made 
 valid by regular subscription. 
 
 If the inhabitants of Col have nothing 'to 
 give, it is not that they are oppressed by their 
 landlord; their leases seem to be very profitable. 
 One farmer, who pays only seven pounds a year, 
 has maintained seven daughters and three sons, 
 of whom the eldest is educated at Aberdeen foi* 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 223 
 
 the ministry; and now, at every vacation, opens 
 a school in Col. 
 
 Life is here, in some respects, improved be- 
 yond the condition of some other islands. In 
 Sky what is wanted can only be bought, as the 
 arrival of some wandering pedlar may afford an 
 opportunity; but in Col there is a standing 
 shop, and in Mull there are two. A shop in the 
 islands, as in other places of little frequentation, 
 is a repository of every thing requisite for com- 
 mon use. Mr. Boswell's journal was filled, and 
 he bought some paper in Col. To a man that 
 ranges the streets of London, where he is 
 tempted to contrive wants for the pleasure of 
 supplying them, a shop affords no image worthy 
 of attention; but in an island, it turns the ba- 
 lance of existence between good and evil. To 
 live in perpetual want of httle things, is a state 
 not indeed of torture, but of constant vexation. 
 I have in Sky had some difficulty to find ink 
 for a letter; and if a woman breaks her needle 
 the work is at a stop. 
 
 As it is, the islanders are obliged to content 
 themselves whh succedaneous means for many 
 common purposes. I have seen the chief man 
 of a very wide district riding with a halter for 
 
224 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 a bridle, and governing his hobb}^ with a wooden 
 curb. 
 
 The people of Col, however, do not want 
 dexterity to supply some of their necessities. 
 Several arts which make trades, and demand 
 apprenticeships in great cities, are here the 
 practices of daily economy. In every house 
 candles are made, both moulded and dipped. 
 Their wicks are small shreds of linen cloth. 
 They all know how to extract from the Cuddy, 
 oil for their lamps. They all tan skins, and 
 make brogues. 
 
 As we travelled through Sky, we saw many 
 cottages, but they very frequently stood single 
 on the naked ground. In Col, where the hills 
 opened a place convenient for habitation, we 
 found a petty village of which every hut had a 
 little garden adjoining; thus they made an ap- 
 pearance of social commerce and mutual offices, 
 and of some attention to convenience and future 
 supply. There is not in the Western Islands 
 any collection of buildings that can make pre- 
 tensions to be called a town, except in the Isle 
 of Lewis, which I liave not seen. 
 
 If Lewis is distinguished by a town. Col has 
 also something peculiar. The young laird has 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS, 225 
 
 attempted what no islander perhaps ever thought 
 ©n. He has begun a road capable of a wheels 
 carriage. He has carried it about a mile, and 
 will continue it by annual elongation from his 
 house to the harbour. 
 
 Of taxes here is no reason for complaining; 
 they are paid by a very easy composition. The 
 malt tax for Col is twenty shillings. Whisky is 
 very plentiful: there are several stills in the 
 island, and more is made than the inhabitants 
 consume. 
 
 The great business of insular policy is now 
 to keep the people in their own country. As the 
 world has been let in upon them, they have 
 heard of happier climates, and less arbitrary 
 government; and if they are disgusted, have 
 emissaries among them ready to offer them land 
 and houses, as a reward for deserting their 
 chief and clanT Many have departed both from 
 the main of Scotland, and from the islands; 
 and all that go may be considered as subjects 
 lost to the British crown; for a nation scattered 
 in the boundless regions of America resembles 
 rays diverging from a focus. All the rays re- 
 main, but the heat is gone. Their power con- 
 sisted in their concentration; when they are dis- 
 perbcd they have no effect. 
 
226 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 It may be thought that they are happier by 
 the change; but they are not happy as a na- 
 tion, for they are a nation no longer. As they 
 contribute not to the prosperity of any commu- 
 nity, they must want that security, that dignity, 
 that happiness, whatever it be, which a pros- 
 perous community throws back upon indivi- 
 duals. 
 
 The inhabitants of Col have not yet learned 
 to be weary of their heath and rocks, but at- 
 tend their agriculture and th(;ir dairies, without 
 listening to American seducements. 
 
 There are some however who think that this 
 emigration has raised terrour disproportionate to 
 its real evil; and that it is only a new mode of 
 doing what was always done. The Highlands, 
 they say, never maintained their natural inha- 
 bitants; but the people, when they found them- 
 selves too numerous, instead of extending cul- 
 tivation, provided for themselves by a more 
 compendious method, and sought better for- 
 tune in other countries. They did not indeed 
 go away in collective bodies, but withdrew in- 
 visibly, a few at a time; but the whole number 
 of fugitives was not less, and the difference be- 
 tween other times and this is only the same as 
 between evaporation and effusion. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 227 
 
 This is plausible, but I am afraid it is not 
 true. Those who went before, if they were not 
 sensibly missed, as the argument supposes, 
 must have gone either in less number, or in a 
 manner less detrimental than at present, because 
 formerly there was no complaint. Those who 
 then left the country were generally the idle 
 dependents on overburdened families, or men 
 who had no property, and therefore carried 
 away only themselves. In the present eagerness 
 of emigration, families, and almost communi- 
 ties, go away together. Those who were consi- 
 dered as prosperous and wealthy sell their stock, 
 and carry away the money. Once none went 
 away but the useless and poor; in some parts 
 there is now reason to fear, that none will stay 
 but those who are too poor to remove them- 
 selves, and too useless to be removed at the 
 cost of others. 
 
 Of antiquity there is not more knowledge in 
 Col than in other places; but everywhere 
 something may be gleaned. 
 
 How ladies were portioned, when there was 
 no money, it would be difficult for an English- 
 man to guess. In 1649, Maclean of Dronart in 
 Mull married his sister Fingala to Maclean of 
 
228 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 Col, with a hundred and eighty kine; and sti- 
 pulated, that if she became a widow, her join- 
 ture should be three hundred and sixty. I sup- 
 pose some proportionate tract of land was ap- 
 propriated to their pasturage. 
 
 The disposition to pompous and expensive 
 funerals, which has at one time or other pre- 
 vailed in most parts of the civilized world, is 
 not yet suppressed in the islands, though some 
 of the ancient solemnities are worn away, and 
 singers are no longer hired to attend the pro- 
 cession. Nineteen years ago, at the burial of 
 the laird of Col, were killed thirty cows, and 
 about fifty sheep. The number of the cows is 
 positively told, and we must suppose other vic- 
 tuals in like proportion. 
 
 Mr. Maclean informed us of an odd game, of 
 which he did not tell the original, but which 
 may perhaps be used in other places, where the 
 reason of it is not yet forgot. At newyear's 
 eve, in the hall or castle of the laird, where, at 
 festal seasons, there may be supposed a very 
 numerous company, one man dresses himself 
 in a cow's hide, upon which other men bea^ 
 with sticks. He runs with all this noise round 
 the house, \yhich all the company quits in a 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 229 
 
 counterfeited fright; the door is then shut. At 
 newy ear's eve there is no great pleasure to be 
 had out of doors in the Hebrides. They are 
 sure soon to recover from their terror enough 
 to solicit for read mission; which, for the honour 
 of poetry, is not to be obtained but by repeat- 
 ing a verse, with which those that are knowing 
 and provident take care to be furnished. 
 
 Very near the house of Maclean stands the 
 castle of Col, which was the mansion of the 
 laird, till the house was built. It is built upon 
 a rock, as Mr. Boswell remarked, that it might 
 not be mined. It is very strong, and having 
 been not long uninhabited, is yet in repair. On 
 the wall was, not long ago, a stone with an in- 
 scription, importing, that *' if any man of the 
 " clan of Maclonich shall appear before this 
 " castle, though he come at midnight, with a 
 " man's head in his hand, he shall there find 
 " safety and protection against all but the 
 " king." 
 
 This is an old Highland treaty made upon a 
 very memorable occasion. Maclean, the son of 
 John Gerves, who recovered Col, and conquer- 
 ed Barra, had obtained, it is said, from James 
 the Second, a grant of the lands of Lochiel, for- 
 
 u 
 
230 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 feited, I suppose, by some offence against the 
 state. 
 
 Forfeited estates were not in those days qui- 
 etly resigned; Maclean, therefore, went with an 
 armed force to seize his new possessions, and, 
 I know not for what reason, took his wife with 
 him. The Camerons rose in defence of their 
 chief, and a battle was fought at the head of 
 Loch Ness, near the place where Fort Augus- 
 tus now stands, in which Lochiel obtained the 
 victory, and iMaclean, with his followers, was 
 defeated and destroyed. 
 
 The lady fell into the hands of the conquer- 
 ors, and being found pregnant, was placed in 
 the custody of Maclonich, one of a tribe or fa- 
 mily branched from Cameron, with orders, if 
 she brought a boy, to destroy him, if a girl, to 
 spare her. 
 
 Maclonich's wife, who was with child like- 
 wise, had a girl about the same time at which 
 lady Maclean brought a boy; and Maclonich, 
 with more generosity to his captive, than fide- 
 lity to his trust, contrived that the children 
 should be changed. 
 
 Maclean being thus preserved from death, in 
 time recovered his original patrimony; and in 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 23 1 
 
 gratitude to his friend, made his castle a place 
 of refuge to any of the clan that should think 
 himself in danger; and as a proof of reciprocal 
 confidence, Maclean took upon himself and his 
 posterity the care of educating the heir of Ma- 
 elonich. 
 
 This story, like all other traditions of the 
 Highlands, is variously related; but though 
 some circumstances are uncertain, the princi- 
 pal fact is true. Maclean undoubtedly owed his 
 preservation to Maclonich; for the treaty be- 
 tween the two families has been strictly ob- 
 served: it did not sink into disuse and oblivion, 
 but continued in its full force while the chief- 
 tains retained their power. I have read a demand 
 of protection, made not more than thirty- seven 
 years ago, for one of the Maclonichs, named 
 Ewen Cameron, who had been accessory to the 
 death of Macmartin, and had been banished 
 by Lochiel, his lord, for a certain term; at the 
 expiration of which he returned married from 
 France; but the Macmartins, not satisfied with 
 the punishment, when he attempted to settle, still 
 threatened him with vengeance. He therefore 
 asked, and obtained sheher in the isle of Col. 
 
 The power of protection subsists no longer; 
 
232 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 but what the law permits is yet continued, and 
 Maclean of Col now educates the heir of 
 Maclonich. 
 
 There still remains in the islands, though it 
 is passing fast av/ay, the custom of fosterage. 
 A laird, a man of wealth and eminence, sends 
 his child, either male or female, to a tacksman, 
 or tenant, to be fostered. It is not always his 
 own tenant, but some distant friend that obtains 
 this honour; for an honour such a trust is very 
 reasonably thought. The terms of fosterage 
 seem to vary in different islands. In Mull the 
 father sends with his child a certain number of 
 cows, to which the same number is added by 
 the fosterer. The father appropriates a propor- 
 tionable extent of ground, without rent, for their 
 pasturage. If every cow brings a calf, half be- 
 longs to the fosterer, and half to the child; 
 but if there be only one calf between two 
 cows, it is the child's, and when the child re- 
 turns to the parents, it is accompanied by all 
 the cows given, both by the father and by the 
 fosterer, with half of the increase of the stock 
 by propagation. These beasts are considered 
 as a portion, and called Macalive cattle, of 
 which the father has the produce, but is sup- 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 233 
 
 posed not to have the full property, but to owe 
 the same number to the child, as a portion to 
 the daughter, or a stock for the son. 
 
 Children continue with the fosterer perhaps 
 six years, and cannot, where this is the practice, 
 be considered as burdensome. The fosterer, if 
 he gives four cows, receives likewise four, and 
 has while the child continues with him, grass 
 for eight without rent, with half the calves, and 
 all the milk, for which he pays only four cows 
 when he dismisses his Dalt, for that is the name 
 for a foster child. 
 
 Fosterage is, I believe, sometimes performed 
 upon more liberal terms. Our friend the young 
 laird of Col, was fostered by Macsweyn of 
 Grissipol. Macsweyn then lived a tenant to Sir 
 James Macdonald in the isle of Sky; and there- 
 fore Col, whether he sent him cattle or not, 
 could grant him no land. The dalt, however, 
 at'his return, brought back a considerable num- 
 ber of macalive cattle; and of the friendship so 
 formed there have been good effects. When 
 Macdonald raised his rents, Macsweyn was, 
 like other tenants, discontented, and, resigning 
 his farm, removed from Sky to Col, and was 
 established at Grissipol. 
 
 U 2 
 
234 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 These observations we made by favour of 
 the contrary wind that drove us to Col, an 
 island not often visited; for there is not much 
 to amuse curiosity, or to attract avarice. 
 
 The ground has been hitherto, I believe, used 
 chiefly for pasturage. In a district, such as the 
 eye can command, there is a general herdsman, 
 who knows all the cattle of the neighbourhood, 
 and whose station is upon a hill, from which he 
 surveys the lower grounds; and if one man's 
 cattle invade another's grass, drives them back 
 to their own borders. But other means of pro- 
 fit begin to be found; kelp is gathered and 
 burnt, and sloops are loaded with the concreted 
 ashes. Cultivation is likely to be improved by 
 the skill and encouragement of the present heir, 
 and the inhabitants of those obscure valleys will 
 partake of the general progress of life. 
 
 The rents of the parts which belong to the 
 Duke of Argyll have been raised from fifty- 
 five to one hundred and five pounds, whether 
 from the land or the sea I cannot tell. The 
 bounties of the sea have lately been so great, 
 that a flu m in South Uist has risen in ten years 
 from a rent of thirty pounds to one hundred 
 and eighty. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 235 
 
 He who lives in Col, and finds himself con- 
 demned to solitary meals, and incommunicable 
 reflection, will find the usefulness of that middle 
 order of tacksmen, which some who applaud 
 their own wisdom are wishing to destroy. With- 
 out intelligence man is not social, he is only 
 gregarious; and little intelligence will there be, 
 where all are constrained to daily labour, and 
 every mind must wait upon the hand. 
 
 After having listened for some days to the 
 tempest, and wandered about the island till our 
 curiosity w^as satisfied, we began to think about 
 our departure. To leave Col in October was 
 not very easy. We however found a sloop 
 which lay on the coast to carry kelp; and for 
 a price which we thought levied upon our 
 necessities, the master agreed to carry us to 
 Mull, whence we might readily pass back to 
 Scotland. 
 
 MULL. 
 As we were to catch the first favourable breath, 
 we spent the night not very elegantly nor plea- 
 santly in the vessel, and were landed next day 
 at Tobor Morar, a port in Mull, which appears 
 to an unexperienced eye formed for the security 
 
236 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 of ships; for its mouth is closed by a small island, 
 which admits them through narrow channels in- 
 to a bason sufficiently capacious. They are m- 
 deed safe from the sea, but there is a hollow 
 between the mountains, through which the wind 
 issues from the land with very mischievous 
 violence. 
 
 There was no danger while we were there, 
 and we found several other vessels at anchor; 
 so that the port had a very commercial appear- 
 ance. , 
 
 The young laird of Col, who had determin- 
 ed not to let us lose his company while there 
 was any difficulty remaining, came over with 
 us. His influence soon appeared; for he procur- 
 ed us horses, and conducted us to the house of 
 Doctor Maclean, where we found very kind 
 entertainment, and very pleasing conversation. 
 Miss Maclean who was born, and had been bred 
 at Glasgow, having removed with her father to 
 Mull, added to other qualifications, a great 
 knowledge of the Erse language, which she 
 had not learned in her childhood, but gained 
 by study, and was the only interpreter of Erse 
 poetry that I could ever find. 
 
 The Isle of Mull is perhaps in extent the 
 third of the Hebrides. It is not broken by wa- 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 237 
 
 ters, nor shot into promontories, but is a solid 
 and compact mass, of breadth nearly equal to 
 its length. Of the dimensions of the larger 
 islands, there is no knowledge approaching to 
 exactness. I am willing to estimate it as con- 
 taining about three hundred square miles. 
 
 Mull had suffered like Sky by the black 
 winter of seventy-one, in which, contrary to all 
 experience, a continued frost detained the snow 
 eight weeks upon the ground. Against a cala- 
 mity never known, no provision had been made, 
 and the people could only pine in helpless mi- 
 sery. One tenant was mentioned, whose cattle 
 perished to the value of three hundred pounds; 
 a loss which probably more than the life of 
 man is necessary to repair. In countries like 
 these, the descriptions of famine become intelli- 
 gible. Where by vigorous and artful cultiva- 
 tion of a soil naturally fertile, there is common- 
 ly a superfluous growth both of grain and grass; 
 where the fields are crowded with cattle; and 
 where every hand is able to attract wealth from 
 a distance, by making something that promotes 
 ease, or gratifies vanity, a dear year produces 
 only a comparative want, which is rather seen 
 than felt, and which terminates commonly in 
 
238 A JOURNEY TO TlIE 
 
 no worse effect, than ihiit of condemning the 
 lower orders of the community to sacrilice a 
 little luxury to convenience, or at most a little 
 convenience to necessit3^ 
 
 But where the climate is unkind, and the 
 ground penurious, so that the most fruitful 
 years produce only enough to maintain them- 
 selves; where life unimproved, and unadorned, 
 fades into something little more than naked ex- 
 istence, and every one is busy for himself, with- 
 out any arts by which the pleasure of others 
 may be increased; if to the daily burden of dis- 
 tress any additional weight be added, nothings 
 remains but to despair and die. In Mull the 
 disappointment of a harvest, or a murrain 
 among the cattle, cuts off the regular provision; 
 and they who have no manufactures can pur- 
 chase no part of the superfluities of other coun- 
 tries. The consequence of a bad season is here 
 not scarcity, but emptiness; and they whose 
 plenty was barely a supply of natural and pre- 
 sent need, when that slender stock fails, must 
 perish with hunger. * 
 
 All travel has its advantages. If the passen- 
 ger visits better countries, he may learn to im« 
 prove his own; and if fortune carries him to 
 worse, he may learn to enjoy it. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 239 
 
 Mr. Boswell's curiosity strongly impelled 
 him to survey lona, or Icolmkill, which was to 
 the early ages the great school of Theology, 
 and is supposed to have been the place of se- 
 pulture for the ancient kings. I, though less 
 eager, did not oppose him. 
 
 That we might perform this expedition, it 
 was necessary to traverse a great part of iVIull. 
 We passed a day at Dr. Maclean's, and could 
 have been well contented to stay longer. But 
 Col provided us horses, and we pursued our 
 journey. This was a day of inconvenience, for 
 the country is very rough, and my horse was 
 but little. We travelled many hours through a 
 tract, black and barren, in which, however, 
 there were the reliques of humanity, for we 
 found a ruined chapel in our way. 
 
 It is natural, in traversing this gloom of de- 
 solation, to inquire, whether something may 
 not be done to give nature a more cheerful 
 face, and whether those hills and muirs that af- 
 ford heath cannot, with a little care and labour, 
 bear something better? The first thought that 
 occurs is to cover them with trees, for that in 
 many of these naked regions trees will grow, 
 is evident, because stumps and roots are yet 
 
^40 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 remaining; and the speculatist hastily proceeds 
 to censure that negligence and laziness that has 
 omitted for so long a time so easy an improve- 
 ment. 
 
 To drop seeds into the ground, and attend 
 their growth, requires little labour, and no skill. 
 He who remembers that all the woods, by which 
 the wants ^ f man have been supplied from the 
 deluge till now, were self-sown, will not easily 
 be persuaded to think all the art and prepara- 
 » tion necessary, which the Georgick writers pre- 
 scribe to planters. Trees certainly have covered 
 the earth with very little culture. They wave 
 their tops among the rocks of Norway, and 
 might thrive as well in the Highlands and He- 
 brides. 
 
 But there is a frightful interval between the 
 seed and timber. He that calculates the growth 
 of trees, has the unwelcome remembrance of 
 the shortness of life driven, hard upon him. He 
 knows that he is doing what will never benefit 
 himself; and when he rejoices to see the stem 
 rise, is disposed to repine that another shall cut 
 it down. 
 
 Plantation is naturally the employment of a 
 mind unburdened with care, and vacant to fu- 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. :241 
 
 turity, saturated with present good, and at lei- 
 sure to derive gratification from the prospect of 
 posterity. He that pines with hunger, is in lit- 
 tle care how others shall be fed. The poor man 
 is seldom studious to make his grandson rich. 
 It may be soon discovered, why in a place, 
 which hardly supplies the cravings of necessity, 
 there has been little attention to the delights of 
 fancy, and why distant convenience is unre- 
 garded, where the thoughts are turned with in* 
 cessant solicitude upon every possibility of im- 
 mediate advantage. 
 
 Neither is it quite so easy to raise large 
 woods, as may be conceived. Trees intended 
 to produce timber must be sown where they 
 are to grow; and ground sown with trees must 
 be kept useless for a long time, enclosed at an 
 expense from which many will be discouraged 
 by the remoteness of the profit, and watched 
 with that attention, which, in places where it is 
 most needed, will neither be given nor bought* 
 That it cannot be ploughed is evident; and if 
 cattle be suffered to graze upon it, they will 
 devour the plants as fast as they rise. Even in 
 coarser countries, where herds and flocks are 
 
 not fed, not only the deer and the wild goats 
 
 X 
 
242 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 will browse upon them, but the hare and rabbit 
 will nibble them. It is therefore reasonable to 
 believe, what I do not remember any naturalist 
 to have remarked, that there was a time when 
 the world was very thinly inhabited by beasts, 
 as well as men, and that the woods had leisure 
 to rise high before animals had bred numbers 
 sufficient to intercept them. 
 
 Sir James Macdonald, in part of the wastes 
 of his territory, set or sowed trees, to the num- 
 ber, as I have been told, of several millions, 
 expecting, doubtless, that they would grow up 
 into future navies and cities; but for want of 
 enclosure, and of that care which is always ne- 
 cessary, and will hardly ever be taken, all his 
 cost and labour have been lost, and the ground 
 is likely to continue an useless heath. 
 
 Having not any experience of a journey in 
 Mull, we had no doubt of reaching the sea 
 by daylight, and therefore had not left Dr. 
 Maclean's very early. We travelled diligently 
 enough, but found the country, for road there 
 was none, very difficult to pass. We were al- 
 ways struggling with some obstruction or other, 
 and our vexation was not balanced by any gra- 
 tification of the eye or mind. We were nov^ 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 243 
 
 long enough acquainted with hills and heath to 
 have lost the emotion that they once raised, 
 whether pleasing or painful, and had our mind 
 employed onl^ on our own fatigue. We were 
 however sure, under Col's protection, of es- 
 caping all real evils. There was no house in 
 Mull to which he could not introduce us. He 
 had intended to lodge us, for that night, with 
 a gentleman that lived upon the coast, but dis- 
 covered on the way, that he then lay in bed 
 without hope of life. 
 
 We resolved not to embarrass a family in a 
 time of so much sorrow, if any other expedient 
 could be found; and as the island of Ulva was 
 over against us, it was determined that we 
 should pass the strait and have recourse to the 
 laird, who, like the other gentlemen of the 
 islands, was known to Col, We expected to 
 find a ferry boat, but when at last we came to 
 the water, the boat was gone. 
 
 We were now again at a stop. It was the 
 sixteenth of October, a time when it is not con- 
 venient to sleep in the Hebrides without a co- 
 ver, and there was no house within our reach^ 
 
 > ■ 
 
 but that which we had already declined. 
 
244 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 ULVA. 
 
 While we stood deliberating, we were hap- 
 pily espied from an Irish ship, that lay at anchor 
 in the strait. The master saw that we wanted a 
 passage, and with great civility sent us his 
 boat, which quickly conveyed us to Ulva, 
 where we were very liberally entertained by 
 Mr. Macquarry. 
 
 To Ulva we came in the dark, and left it be- 
 fore noon the next day. A very exact descrip- 
 tion therefore will not be expected. We were 
 told that it is an island of no great extent, 
 rough and barren, inhabited by the Macquar- 
 ry s; a clan not powerful nor numerous, but of 
 antiquity, which most other families are con- 
 tent to reverence. The name is supposed to be 
 a depravation of some other, for the Erse lan- 
 guage does not afford it any etymology. Mac- 
 quarry is proprietor both of Ulva and some 
 adjacent islands, among which is Staffa, so 
 lately raised to renown by Mr. Banks. 
 
 When the islands were reproached with their 
 ignorance or insensibility of the wonders of 
 Staffa, they had not much to reply. They had 
 indeed considered it little, because they had 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 245 
 
 always seen it; and none but philosophers, nor 
 they always, are struck with wonder, otherwise 
 than by novelty. How would it surprize an un- 
 enlightened ploughman to hear a company of 
 sober men inquiring by what power the hand 
 tosses a stone, or why the stone, when it is 
 tossed, falls to the ground! 
 
 Of the ancestors of Macquarry, who thus 
 lies hid in his unfrequented island, I have found 
 memorials in all places where they could be ex- 
 pected. 
 
 Inquiring after the relicks of former man- 
 ners, I found that in Ulva, and I think nowhere 
 else, is continued the payment of the mercheta 
 mulierum^ a fine in old times due to the laird at 
 the marriage of a virgin. The original of this 
 claim, as of our tenure of Borough English, is 
 variously delivered. It is pleasant to find an- 
 cient customs in old families. This payment, 
 like others, was, for want of money, made an- 
 ciently in the produce of the land. Macquarry 
 was used to demand a sheep, for v/hich he now 
 takes a crown, by that inattention to the un- 
 certain proportion between the value and the 
 denomination of money, which has brought 
 much disorder into Europe. A sheep has al- 
 
246 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 ways the same power of supplying human 
 wants, but a crown will bring at one time more, 
 at another less. 
 
 Ulva was not neglected by the piety of an- 
 cient times; it has still to show what was once 
 3, church. 
 
 INCH KENNETH. 
 
 In the morning we went again into the boat, 
 «nd were landed on Inch Kenneth, an island 
 about a mile long, and perhaps half a mile 
 broad, remarkable for pleasantness and fertility. 
 It is-^erdant and grassy, and fit both for pasture 
 tmd tillage; but it has no trees. Its only inha- 
 bitants were Sir Allan Maclean and two young 
 Jladies, his daughters, with their servants. 
 
 Romance does not often exhibit a scene that 
 strikes the imagination more than this little de- 
 sert in these depths of western obscurity, occu- 
 pied not by a gross herdsman, or amphibious 
 fisherman, but by a gentleman and two ladies, 
 of high birth, polished manners, and elegant 
 conversation, who, in a habitation raised not 
 very far above the ground, but furnished with 
 unexpected neatness and convenience, practis- 
 ed all the kindness of hospitality and refinement 
 ef courtesy. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 24? 
 
 Sir Allan is the chieftain of the great clan of 
 Maclean, which is said to claim the second 
 place among the Highland families, yielding 
 only to Mucdonald. Though by the miscon- 
 duct of his ancestors, most of the extensive ter- 
 ritory, which would have descended to him, 
 has been alienated, he still retains much of the 
 dignity and authority of his birth. When sol- 
 diers were lately wanting for the American war 
 application was made to Sir Allan, and he 
 nominated a hundred men for the service, who 
 obeyed the summons, and bore arms under his 
 command. 
 
 He had then for some time resided with the 
 young ladies in Inch Kenneth, where he lives 
 not only with plenty, but with elegance, having 
 conveyed to his cottage a collection of books, 
 and what else is necessary to make his hours 
 pleasant. 
 
 When we landed, we were met by Sir Allan 
 and the ladies, accompanied by Miss Macquar- 
 ry, who had passed some time with them, and 
 now returned to Ulva with her father. 
 
 We all walked together to the mansion, where 
 we found one cottage for Sir Allan, and I think 
 two more for the domesticks and the offices. 
 
248 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 We entered, and wanted little that palaces af- 
 ford. Our room was neatly floored, and well 
 lighted; and our dinner which was dressed in one 
 of the other huts, was plentiful and delicate. 
 
 In the afternoon Sir Allan reminded us, that 
 the day was Sunday, which he never suffered to 
 pass w ithout some religious distinction, and in- 
 vited us to partake in his acts of domestick wor- 
 ship; which 1 hope neither Mr. Bosweli nor 
 myself will be suspected of a disposition to re- 
 fuse. The elder of the ladies read the English 
 service. 
 
 Inch Kenneth was once a seminary of eccle* 
 siasticks, subordinate, I suppose, to IcolmkilL 
 Sir Allan had a mind to trace the foundation of 
 the college, but neither I nor Mr. Bosweli, who 
 bends a keener eye on vacancy^ were able to per- 
 ceive them. 
 
 Our attention, however, was sufficiently en- 
 gaged by a venerable chapel, which stands yet 
 entire, except that the roof is gone. It is about 
 sixty feet in length, and thirty in breadth. On 
 one side of the altar is a bas relief of the blessed 
 Virgin, and by it lies a little bell; which, though 
 cracked, and without a clapper, has remained 
 there for ages, guarded only by the venerable- 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 241^ 
 
 ness of the place. The ground round the chapel 
 is covered with gravestones of chiefs and ladies; 
 and still continues to be a place of sepulture. 
 
 Inch Kenneth is a proper prelude to Icoltn- 
 kill. It was not without some mournful emo- 
 tion that we contemplated the ruins of religious 
 structures, and the monuments of the dead. 
 
 On the next day we took a more distinct view 
 ©f the place, and went with a boat to see oys- 
 ters in the bed, out of which the boatmen forced 
 up as many as were wanted. Even Inch Ken- 
 neth has a subordinate island, named Sandiland, 
 I suppose, in contempt, where we landed, and 
 found a rock, with the surface of perhaps four 
 acres, of which one is naked stone, another 
 spread with sand and shells, some of which I 
 picked up for their glossy beauty, and two co- 
 vered with a little earth and grass, on Avhich Sir 
 Allan has a few sheep. I doubt not but- when 
 there was a college at Inch Kenneth, there was 
 a hermitage upon Sandiland. 
 
 Having wandered over those extensive plains, 
 we committed ourselves again to the winds and 
 waters; and after a voyage of about ten mi- 
 nutes, in which we met with nothing very ob- 
 servable, were again safe upon dry ground. 
 
250 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 We told Sir Allan our desire of visiting 
 Icolmkill, and entreated him to give us his pro- 
 tection and his company. He thought proper to 
 hesitate a little; but the ladies hinted, that as 
 they knew he would not finally refuse, he would 
 do better if he preserved the grace of ready 
 compliance. He took their advice, and promis- 
 ed to carry us on the morrow in his boat. 
 
 We passed the remaining part of the day in 
 such amusements as were in our power. Sir 
 
 Allan related the American campaign, and at 
 
 evening one of the ladies played on her harpsi- 
 chord, while Col and Mr. Boswell danced a 
 Scottish reel with the other. 
 
 We could have been easily persuaded to a 
 longer stay upon Inch Kenneth, but life will 
 not all be passed in delight. The session at 
 Edinburgh was approaching, from which Mr. 
 Boswell could not be absent. 
 
 In the morning our boat was ready: it was 
 high and strong. Sir Allan victualled it for the 
 day, and provided able rowers. We now parted 
 from the young laird of Col, who had treated 
 us with so much kindness, and concluded his 
 favours by consigning us to Sir Allan; Here 
 we had the last embrace of this amiable mail; 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 2Sl 
 
 who, while these pages were preparing to attest 
 his virtues, perished in the passage between 
 Ulva and Inch Kenneth. 
 
 Sir Allan, to whom the whole region was 
 well known, told us of a very remarkable cave, 
 to which he would show us the way. We had 
 been disappointed already by one cave, and 
 were not much elevated by the expectation of 
 another. 
 
 It was yet better to see it, and we stopped at 
 some rocks on the coast of Mull. The mouth 
 is fortified by vast fragments of stone, over 
 which we made our way, neither very nimbly 
 nor very securely. The place, however, well 
 repaid our trouble. The bottom, as far as the 
 flood rushes in, was encumbered with large 
 pebbles, but as we advanced was spread over 
 with smooth sand. The breadth is about forty- 
 five feet: the roof rises in an arch, almost regu- 
 lar, to a height which we could not measure; 
 but I think it about thirty feet. 
 
 This part of our curiosity was nearly frustrat- 
 ed; for though w^e WTnt to see a cave, and 
 knew that caves are dark, we forgot to carry 
 tapers, and did not discover our omission till we 
 were awakened by our wants. Sir Allan then 
 
252 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 sent one of the boatmen into the country, who 
 soon returned with one little candle. We were 
 thus enabled to go forward, but could not ven- 
 ture far. Having passed inward from the sea 
 to a great depth, we found on the right hand a 
 narrow passage, perhaps not more than six feet 
 wide, obstructed by great stones, over which 
 we climbed and came into a second cave, in 
 breadth twenty-five feet. The air in this apart- 
 ment was very warm, but not oppressive, nor 
 loaded with vapours. Our light shewed no to- 
 kens of a feculent or corrupted atmosphere. 
 Here was a square stone, called, as we are told,. 
 Fingal's Table. 
 
 If we had been provided with torches, we 
 should have proceeded in our search, though 
 we had already gone as far as any former adven- 
 turer, except some who are reported never to 
 have returned; and, measuring our way back, 
 we found it more than a hundred and sixty 
 yards, the eleventh part of a mile. 
 
 Our measures were not critically exact, hav- 
 ing been made with a walking pole, such as it 
 is convenient to carry in these rocky countries^ 
 of which ] guessed the length by standing 
 against it. In this there could be no great er- 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 253 
 
 rour, nor do I much doubt but the Highlander, 
 whom we employed, reported the number right. 
 More nicety however is better, and no man 
 should travel unprovided with mstruments for 
 taking heights and distances. 
 
 There is yet another cause of errour not al- 
 ways easily surmounted, though more danger- 
 ous to the veracity of itinerary narratives, than 
 imperfect mensuration. An observer deeply 
 impressed by any remarkable spectacle does not 
 suppose, that the traces will soon vanish from 
 his mind, and having commonly no great con- 
 venience for writing, defers the description to a 
 time of more leisure, and better accommodation. 
 
 He who has not made the experiment, or 
 who is not accustomed to require rigorous ac- 
 curacy from himself, will scarcely believe how 
 much a few hours take from certainty of 
 knowledge, and distinctness of imagery; how 
 the succession of objects will be broken, how 
 separate parts will be confused, and how many 
 particular features and discriminations will be 
 compressed and conglobated into one gross and 
 general idea. 
 
 To this dilatory notation must be imputed 
 
 the false relations of travellers, where there is 
 
 t 
 
254 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 no imaginable motive to deceive. They trust- 
 ed to memory what cannot be trusted safely 
 but to the eye, and told by guess what a few 
 hours before they had known with certainty. 
 Thus it was that Wheeler and Spen described 
 with irreconcilable contrariety, things which 
 they surveyed together, and which both un- 
 doubtedly designed to show as they saw them. 
 
 When we had satisfied our curiosity in the 
 cave, so far as our penury of light permitted us, 
 we clambered again to our boat, and proceeded 
 along the coast of Mull to a headland, called 
 Atun, remarkable for the columnar form of the 
 rocks, which rise in a series of pilasters, with 
 a degree of regularity, which Sir Allan thinks 
 not less worthy of curiosity than the shore of 
 StafFa. 
 
 Not long after we came to another range of 
 black rocks, which had the appearance of bro- 
 ken pilasters, set one behind another to a great 
 depth. This place was chosen by Sir Allan for 
 our dinner. We were easily accommodated 
 with seats, for the stones were of all heights, 
 and refreshed ourselves and our boatmen, who 
 could have no other rest till we were at Icolm- 
 kill. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 255 
 
 The evening was now approaching, and we 
 were yet at a considerable distance from the 
 end of our expedition. We could therefore 
 stop no more to make remarks in the way, but 
 set forward with some degree of eagerness. The 
 day soon failed us, and the moon presented a 
 very solemn and pleasing scene. The sky was 
 clear, so that the eye commanded a wide circle: 
 the sea was neither still nor turbulent: the wind 
 neither silent nor loud. We were never far 
 from one coast or another, on which, if the 
 weather had become violent, we could have 
 found shelter, and therefore contemplated at 
 ease the region through which we glided in the 
 tranquillity of the night, and saw now a rock and 
 now an island grow gradually conspicuous and 
 gradually obscure. I committed the fault which 
 I have been just censuring, in neglecting, as wc 
 passed, to note the series of this placid navi- 
 gation. 
 
 We were very near an island, called Nun's 
 Island, perhaps from an ancient convent. Here 
 is said to have been dug the stone which was 
 used in the buildings of Icolmkill. Whether it 
 is now inhabited we could not stay to inquire. 
 
 At last we came to Icolmkill, but found no 
 
-256 A JOURNEY TO THB 
 
 convenience for landing. Our boat could not 
 be forced very near the dry ground, and our 
 Highlanders carried us over the water. 
 
 We were now treading that illustrious island 
 which was once the luminary of the Caledonian 
 regions, whence savage clans and roving barba- 
 rians derived the benefits of knowledge, and the 
 blessings of religion. To abstract the mind 
 from all local emotion would be impossible, if 
 it were endeavoured, and would be foolish, if it 
 vi^ere possible. Whatever withdraws us from 
 the power of our senses; whatever makes the 
 past, the distant, or the future predominate over 
 the present, advances us in the dignity of think- 
 ing beings. Far from me and from my friends, 
 be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us 
 indiiferent and unmoved over any ground which 
 has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or vir- 
 tue. That man is little to be envied, whose 
 patriotism would not gain force upon the plain 
 of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow 
 warmer among the ruins of lona. 
 
 We came too late to visit monuments: some 
 care w-as necessary for ourselves. Whatever 
 was in the island, Sir Allan could demand, for 
 &e inhabitants were Macleans; but having lit- 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 257 
 
 tie they could not give us much. He went to 
 the head man of the island, whom Fame, but 
 Fame delights in amplifying, represents as worth 
 no less than fifty pounds. He was perhaps proud 
 enough of his guests, but ill prepared for our 
 entertainment; however, he soon produced 
 more provision ihan men not luxurious require. 
 Our lodging was next to be provided. We 
 found a barn well stocked with hay, and made 
 our beds as soft as we could. 
 
 In the morning we rose and surveyed the 
 place. The churches of the two convents are 
 both standing, though unroofed. They were 
 built of unhewn stone, but solid, and not inele- 
 gant. 1 brought avv'ay rude measures of the 
 buildings, such as I cannot much trust myself, 
 inaccurately taken, and obscurely noted. Mr. 
 Pennant's delineations, which are doubtless ex- 
 act, have made my unskilful description less 
 necessary. 
 
 The episcopal church consists of two parts, 
 
 separated by the belfry, and built at different 
 
 times. The original church had, like others, 
 
 the altar at one end, and tower at the other; 
 
 but as it grew too small, another building of 
 
 equal dimension was added, and the tower then 
 
 was necessarily in the middle. 
 
 Y s 
 
S58 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 That these edifices are of different ages seemfr 
 evident. The arch of the first church is Roman, 
 being part of a circle; that of the additional 
 building is pointed, and therefore Gothick, or 
 Saracenical; the tower is firm, and wants only 
 to be floored and covered. 
 
 Of the chambers or cells belonging to the 
 monks, there are some walls remaining, but no- 
 thing approaching to a complete apartment. 
 
 The bottom of the church is so encumbered 
 with mud and rubbish, that we could make no 
 discoveries of curious inscriptions, and what 
 there are have been already published. The 
 place is said to be known where the black 
 stones lie concealed, on which the old Highland 
 chiefs, when they made contracts and alliances, 
 used to take the oath, which was considered a& 
 more sacred than any other obligation, and 
 which coiiid not be violated without the black- 
 est infamy. In those days of violence and ra- 
 pine, it was of great importance to impress 
 upon savage minds the sanctity of an oath, by 
 some particular and extraordinary circumstan- 
 ces. They would not have recourse to the black 
 stones, upon small or common occasions, and 
 when they had established their faith by this 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 259 
 
 tremendous sanction, inconstancy and treachery 
 were no longer feared. 
 
 The chapel of the nunnery is now used by 
 the inhabitants as a kind of general cow house, 
 and the bottom is consequently too miry for 
 examination. Some of the stones which cover- 
 ed the later abbesses have inscriptions, which 
 might yet be read, if the chapel were cleansed. 
 The roof of this, as of all the other buildings, 
 is totally destroyed, not only because timber 
 quickly decays when it is neglected, but be- 
 cause in an island utterly destitute of wood, it 
 was wanted for use, and was consequently the 
 first plunder of needy rapacity. 
 
 I'he chancel of the nuns' chapel is covered 
 with an arch of stone, to which time has done 
 no injury; and a small apartment communicat- 
 ing with the choir, on the north side, like the 
 chapter house in cathedrals, roofed with stone 
 in the same manner, is likewise entire. 
 
 In one of the churches was a marble altar, 
 which the superstition of the inhabitants has 
 destroyed. Their opinion was, that a fragment 
 of this stone was a defence against shipwrecks, 
 fire, and miscarriages. In one corner of tlie 
 church the bason for holy water is yet unbroken. 
 
260 A journp:y to the 
 
 The cemetery c f the nunnery was, till very 
 lately, regarded with such reverence, that only 
 women were buried in it. These relicks of 
 veneration always produce some mournful plea- 
 sure. I could have forgiven a great injury more 
 easily than the violation of this imaginary 
 sanctity. 
 
 South of the chapel stand the walls of a large 
 room, which was probably the hall, or refec- 
 tory of the nunnery. This apartment is capable 
 of repair. Of the rest of the convent there are 
 only fragments. 
 
 Besides the two principal churches, there 
 are, I think, five chapels yet standing, and three 
 more remembered. There are also crosses, of 
 which two bear the names of St. John and St. 
 Matthew. 
 
 A large space of ground about these conse- 
 crated edifices is covered with grave stones, 
 few of which have any inscription. He that 
 surveys it, attended by an insular antiquary, 
 may be told where the kings of many nations 
 are buried, and if he loves to sooth his imagi- 
 nation with the thoughts that naturally rise in 
 places where the great and the povveriiil lie 
 mingled with the dust, let him listen in sub- 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. ^61 
 
 missive silence; for if he asks any questions, 
 his delight is at an end. 
 
 lona has long enjoyed, without any very 
 credible attestation, the honour of being re- 
 puted the cemetery of the Scottish kings. It is 
 not unlikely, that, when the opinion of local 
 sanctity was prevalent, the chieftains of the 
 isles, and perhaps some of the Norwegian or 
 Irish princes, were reposited in this venerable 
 enclosure. But by whom the subterraneous 
 vaults are peopled is now utterly unknown. 
 The graves are very numerous, and some of 
 them undoubtedly contain the remains of men, 
 who did not expect to be so soon forgotten. 
 
 Not far from this awful ground, may be 
 traced the garden of the monastery: the fish- 
 ponds are yet discernible, and the aqueduct, 
 which supplied them, is still in use. 
 
 There remains a broken building, which is 
 called the bishop's house, I know not by what 
 authority. It was once the residence of some 
 man above the common rank, for it has two 
 stories and a chimney. We were shown a chim- 
 ney at the other end, which was only a niche, 
 without perforation, but so much does antiqua- 
 mn credulity, pr patriotick vanity prevail, that 
 
262 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 it was not much more safe to trust the eye of 
 our instructor than the memory. 
 
 There is in the island one house more, and 
 only one, that has a chimney; we entered it, 
 and found it neither wanting repair nor inhabi- 
 tants; but to the farmers, who now possess it, 
 the chimney is of no great value; for their fire 
 was made on the floor, in the middle of the 
 room, and notwithstanding the dignity of their 
 mansion, they rejoiced, like their neighbours, 
 in the comforts of smoke. 
 
 It is observed, that ecclesiastical colleges arc 
 always in the most pleasant and fruitful places. 
 While the world allowed the monks theirchoice 
 it is surely no dishonour that they chose well. 
 This island is remarkably fruitful. The village 
 near the churches is said to contain seventy fa- 
 milies, which, at five in a family, is more than 
 a hundred inhabitants to a mile. There are 
 perhaps other villages; yet both corn and cattle 
 are annually exported. 
 
 But the fruit fulness of lona is now^ its v/hole 
 prosperity. The inhabitants are remarkably 
 gross, and remarkably neglected: I know not if 
 they are visited by any minister. The island, 
 which was once the metropolis of learning and 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 263 
 
 piety, has now no school for education, nor 
 temple for worship, only two inhabitants that 
 can speak English, and not one that can write 
 or read. 
 
 The people are of the clan of Maclean; and 
 though Sir Allan had not been in the place for 
 many years, he was received with all the reve- 
 rence due their chieftain. One of them being 
 sharply reprehended by him, for not sending 
 him some rum, declared after his departure, in 
 Mr. Boswell's presence, that he had no design 
 of disappointing him, '* for," said he, " I would 
 ** cut my bones for him; and if he had sent his 
 ** dog for it, he should have had it." 
 
 When we were to depart, our boat w^as left 
 by the ebb at a great distance from the water, 
 but no sooner did we wish it afloat, than the 
 islanders gathered round it, and, by the union 
 of many hands, pushed it down the beach; 
 every man who could contribute his help seem- 
 ed to think himself happy in the opportunity 
 of being, for a moment, useful to his chief. 
 
 We now left those illustrious ruins, by which 
 Mr. Boswell was much affected, nor would I 
 willingly be thought to have looked upon them 
 without some emotion. Perhaps, in the revolu- 
 
264 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 tions of the world, lona may be some time again 
 the instructress of the Western regions. 
 
 It was no long voyage to Mull, where, under 
 Sir Allan's protection, we landed in the even- 
 ing, and v/ere entertained for the night by Mr. 
 Maclean, a minister that lives upon the coast, 
 whose elegance of conversation, and strength 
 of judgment, would make him conspicuous in 
 persons of greater celebrity. Next day we dined 
 with Dr. Maclean, another physician, and then 
 travelled on to the house of a very powerful 
 laird, Maclean of Lochbuy; for in this country 
 every man's name is Maclean. 
 
 Where races are thus numerous, and thus 
 combined, none but the chief of a clan is ad- 
 dressed by his name. The laird of Dunvegan 
 is called Macleod, but other gentlemen of the 
 same family are denominated by the places 
 where they reside, as Raasa or Talisker. The 
 distinction of the meaner people is made by 
 their christian names. In consequence of this 
 practice, the late laird of Macfarlane, an emi- 
 nent genealogist, considered himself as disre- 
 spectfully treated, if the common addition was 
 applied to him. Mr. Macfarlane, said he, may 
 with equal propriety be said to many; but I, 
 and I only, am Macfarlane. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 265 
 
 Our afternoon journey was through a coun- 
 try of such gloomy desolation, that Mr. Boswell 
 thought no part of the Highlands equally ter- 
 rifick, yet we came without any difficulty, at 
 evening, to Lochbuy, where we found a true 
 Highland laird, rough and haughty, and tena- 
 cious of his dignity; who, hearing my name, 
 inquired whether I was of the Johnstons of 
 Glencoe, or of Ardnamurchan? 
 
 Lochbuy has, like the other insular chieftains, 
 quitted the castle that sheltered his ancestors, 
 and lives near it, in a mansion not very spacious 
 or splendid. I have seen no houses in the islands 
 much to be envied for convenience or magnifi- 
 cence, yet they bear testimony to the progress 
 of arts and civility, as they show that rapine and 
 surprise are no longer dreaded, and are much 
 more commodious than the ancient fortresses. 
 
 The castles x)f the Hebrides, many of which 
 are standing, and many ruii^^, were always 
 built upon points of land, on the margin of the 
 sea. For the choice of this situation there must 
 have been some general reason, which the 
 change of manners has left in obscurity. They 
 were of no use in the days of piracy, as defen- 
 ces of the coast; for it was equally accessible 
 
266 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 in other places. Had they been seamarks or 
 lighthouses, they would have been of more use 
 to the invader than the natives, who could want 
 no such directions on their own waters: for a 
 watchtower, a cottage on a hill would have 
 been better, as it would have commanded a 
 wider view. 
 
 If they be considered merely as places of re- 
 treat, the situation seems not well chosen; for . 
 the laird of an island is safest from foreign ene- 
 mies in the centre: on the coast he might be 
 more suddenly surprised than in the inland parts; 
 and the invaders, if their enterprise miscarried^ 
 jnight more easily retreat. Some convenience, 
 however, whatever it was, their position on the 
 shore afforded; for uniformity of practice sel- 
 dom continues long without good reason. 
 
 A castle in the islands is only a single tower 
 «f three or four stories, of which the v/alls are 
 sometimes eiglU or nine feet thick, with narrow 
 windows, and close winding stairs of stone. The 
 top rises in a cone, or pyramid of stone, en- 
 compassed by battlements. The intermediate 
 floors are sometimes frames of timber, as in 
 common houses, and sometimes arches of stone, 
 er alternsitely stone and timber; so that there 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 267 
 
 was very little danger from fire. In the centre 
 of every floor, from top to bottom, is the chief 
 room, of no great extent, round which there 
 are narrow cavities, or recesses, formed by small 
 vacuities, or by a double wall. I know not 
 whether there be ever more than one fireplace, 
 They had not capacity to contain many people, 
 ©r much provision; but their enemies could 
 seldom stay to blockade them; for if they fail- 
 ed in the first attack, their next care was td 
 escape. 
 
 The walls are always too strong to be shaken 
 by such desultory hostilities; the windows were 
 too narrow to be entered, and the battlements 
 too high to be scaled. The only danger was 
 at the gates, over which the wall w^as built with 
 a square cavity, not unlike a chimney, conti- 
 nued to the top. Through this hollow the de- 
 fendants let fall stones upon those who attempt- 
 ed to break the gate, and poured down water, 
 perhaps scalding water, if the attack was made 
 with fire. The castle of Lochbuy was secured 
 by double doors, of which the outer was an 
 iron grate. 
 
 In every castle is a well and a dungeon. The 
 dse of the well is evident. The dungeon is a 
 
268 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 deep subterraneous cavity, walled on the sides, 
 and arched on the top, into which the descent 
 }S thrpugh a narrow door, by a ladder or a rope, 
 sp that it seems impossible to escape, when the 
 rope or ladder is drawn up. The dungeon was, 
 I suppose, in war, a prison for such captives as 
 were treated with severity, and, in peace, for 
 such delinquents as had committed crimes 
 within the laird's jurisdiction; for the mansions 
 .of many lairds were, till the late privation of 
 their privileges, the halls of justice to their own 
 tenants. 
 
 As these fortifications were the productions 
 of mere necessity, they are built only for safety, 
 wdth little regard to convenience, and with none 
 to elegance or pleasure. It was sufficient for a 
 laird of the Hebrides, if he had a strong house, 
 in which he could hide his wife and children 
 from the next clan. That they are not large 
 nor splendid, is no wonder. It is not easy to 
 find how they are raised, such as they are, by 
 men w ho had no money, in countries where the 
 labourers and artificers could scarcely be fed. 
 The buildings in different parts of the islands 
 i>how their degrees of wealth and power. I be- 
 lieve that for all the castles which I have seen 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 269 
 
 beyond the Tweed, the ruins yet remaining of 
 some one of these which the English built in 
 Wales, would supply materials. 
 
 These castles afford another evidence that the 
 fictions of romantick chivalry had for their basis 
 the real manners of the feudal times, when 
 every lord of a seigniory lived in his hold law- 
 less and unaccountable, with all the licentious- 
 ness and insolence of imcontested superiority 
 and unprincipled power. The traveller, who- 
 ever he might be, coming to the fortified habi- 
 tation of a chieftain, would, probably, have 
 been interrogated from the battlements, admit- 
 ted with caution at the gate, introduced to a 
 petty monarch, fierce with habitual hostility, 
 and vigilant with ignorant suspicion; who, ac- 
 cording to his general temper, or accidental 
 humour, would have seated a stranger as his 
 guest at the table, or as a spy confined him in 
 the dungeon. 
 
 Loch buy means the Yellow Lake, which is 
 the name given to an inlet of the sea, upon 
 which the castle of Mr. Maclean stands. The 
 reason of the appellation we did not learn. 
 
 We were now to leave the Hebrides, where 
 we had spent some weeks with sufficient amuse- 
 
 Z2 
 
2JQ. -^ JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 ment, and where we had amplified our thoughts 
 with new scenes of nature, and new modes of 
 life. More time would have given us a more 
 distinct view, but it was necessary that Mr. 
 Boswell should return before the courts of jus- 
 tice were opened; and it was not proper to live 
 too long upon hospitality, however liberally im- 
 parted. 
 
 Of these islands it must be confessed, that 
 they have not many allurements, but to the 
 mere lover of naked nature. The inhabitants 
 are thin, provisions are scarce, and desolation" 
 and penury give little pleasure. 
 
 The people collectively considered are not 
 few, though their numbers are small in propor- 
 tion to the space which tl\ey occupy. Mull is 
 said to contain six thousand, and Sky fifteen 
 thousand. Of the computation respecting Mull, 
 I can give no account; but when I doubted the 
 truth of the numbers attributed to Sky, one of 
 the ministers exhibited such facts as conquered 
 my incredulity. 
 
 Of the proportion, which the product of any 
 region bears to the people, an estimate is com- 
 monly made according to the pecuniary price 
 0f Ae necessaries of life; a principle of judg- 
 
WESTERN ISLAND^^. 271 
 
 ment which is never certain, because it sup- 
 poses what is far from truth, that the value of 
 money is always the same, and so measures an 
 unknown quantity by an uncertain standard. It 
 is competentenough when the markets of the 
 same country, at different times, and those 
 times not too distant, are to be compared; but 
 of very little use for the purpose of making one 
 nation acquainted with the state of another. 
 Provisions, though plentiful, are sold in places 
 of great pecuniary opulence for nominal prices, 
 which, however scarce, where gold and silver 
 are yet scarcer, they can never be raised. 
 
 In the Western Islands there is so little in- 
 ternal commerce, that hardly any thing has a 
 known or settled rate. The price of things 
 brought in, or carried out, is to be considered 
 as that of a foreign market; and even this there 
 is some difficulty in discovering, because their 
 denominations of quantity are diiferent from 
 ours; and when there is ignorance on both 
 sides, no appeal can be made to a common 
 measure. 
 
 • This, however, is not the only impediment. 
 The Scots, with a vigilance of jealousy which 
 never goes to sleep, always suspect that an 
 
272 A JOUHNEY TO THE 
 
 Englishman despises them for their poverty, 
 and to convince him that they are not less rich 
 than their neighbours, are sure to tell him a 
 price higher than the true. When Lesley, two 
 hundred years ago, related* so punctiliously, 
 that a hundred hen eggs, new laid, were sold 
 in the islands for a penny, he supposed that no 
 inference could possibly follow, but that eggs 
 were in great abundance. Posterity has since 
 grown wiser; and having learned, that nominal 
 and real value may differ, they now tell no such 
 stories, lest the foreigners should happen to 
 collect, not that eggs are many, but that pence 
 are few, 
 * Money and wealth have, by the use of com- 
 mercial language, been so long confounded, 
 that they are commonly supposed to be the 
 same; and this prejudice has spread so widely 
 in Scotland, that I know not whether I found 
 man or woman, whom I interrogated concern- 
 ing payments of money, that could surmount 
 the illiberal desire of deceiving me, by repre- 
 senting every thing as dearer than it is. 
 
 From Lochbuy we rode a very few miles te 
 the side of Mull, which faces Scotland, where, 
 having taken leave of our kind protector, sir 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 273 
 
 Allan, we embarked in a boat, in which the 
 seat provided for our accommodation was a 
 heap of rough brushwood; and on the twenty- 
 second of October reposed at a tolerable inn on 
 the main land. 
 
 On the next day we began our journey south- 
 wards. The weather was tempestuous. For half 
 the day the ground was rough, and our horses 
 were still small. Had they required much re- 
 straint, we might have been reduced to difficul- 
 ties; for I think we had amongst us but one 
 bridle. We fed the poor animals liberally, and 
 they performed their journey well. In the latter 
 part of the day, we came to a firm and smooth 
 road, made by the soldiers, on which we tra- 
 velled with great security, busied with contem- 
 plating the scene about us. The night came on 
 while we had yet a great part of the way to go, 
 though not so dark but that we could discern 
 the cataracts which poured down the hills on 
 one side, and fell into one general channel that 
 ran with great violence on the other. The wind 
 was loud, the rain was heavy, and the whistling 
 of the blast, the fall of the shower, the rush of 
 the cataracts, and the roar of the torrent, made 
 a nobler chorus of the rough mtisick of nature,, 
 
274 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 than it had ever been my chance to hear be- 
 fore. The streams, which ran cross the way 
 from the hills to the main current, were so fre- 
 quent, that after awhile I began to count them; 
 and, in ten miles, reckoned fifty-five, probably 
 missing some, and having let some pass before 
 they forced themselves upon my notice. At last 
 we came to Inveraray, where we found an inn, 
 not only commodious, but magnificent* 
 
 The difficulties of peregrination v/ere now at 
 an end. Mr. Boswell had the honour of being 
 known to the duke of Argyll, by whom we 
 were very kindly entertained at his splendid 
 seat, and supplied with conveniencies for sur- 
 veying his spacious park and rising forests. 
 
 After two days' stay at Inveraray we proceed- 
 ed southward over Glencoe, a black and dreary 
 region, now made easily passable by a military 
 road, which rises from either end of the glen, 
 by an acclivity not dangerously steep, but suffi- 
 ciently laborious. In the middle, at the top of 
 the hill, is a seat with this inscription: " Rest, 
 '*and be thankful.'' Stones wxre placed to 
 mark the distances, which the inhabitants have 
 taken away, resolved, they said, " to have no 
 ." new miles." 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 275 
 
 In this rainy season the hills streamed with 
 waterfals, which, crossing the way, formed cur- 
 rents on the other side, that ran in contrary di- 
 rections as they fell to the north or south of 
 the summit. Being, by the favour of the duke, 
 well mounted, I went up and down the hill 
 with great convenience. 
 
 From Glencoe we passed through a pleasant 
 country to the banks of Loch Lomond, and 
 were received at the house of Sir James Col- 
 quhoun, who is owner of almost all the thirty 
 islands of the Loch, which we went in a boat 
 next morning to survey. The heaviness of the 
 rain shortened our voyage, but we landed on 
 one island planted with yew, and stocked with 
 deer, and on another containing perhaps not 
 more than half an acre, remarkable for the ruins 
 of an old castle, on which the osprey builds her 
 annual nest. Had Loch Lomond been in a hap- 
 pier climate, it would have been the boast of 
 wealth and vanity to own one of the little spots 
 which it encloses, and to have employed upon 
 it all the arts of embellishment. But as it is, 
 the islets, which court the gazer at a distance, 
 disgust him at his approach, when he finds, in- 
 stead of soft lawns and shady thickets, nothing 
 more than uncultivated ruggedness. 
 
276 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 Where the loch discharges itself into a river, 
 called the Leven, we passed a night with Mr. 
 Smollett, a relation of Doctor Smollett, to 
 whose memory he has raised an obelisk on 
 the bank near the house in which he was born. 
 The civility and respect which we found at 
 every place, it is ungrateful to omit, and tedious 
 to repeat. Here we were met by a postchaise, 
 that conveyed us to Glasgow. 
 
 To describe a city so much frequented as 
 Glasgow, is unnecessary. The prosperity of its 
 commerce appears by the greatness of many 
 private houses, and a general appearance of 
 wealth. It is the only episcopal city whose ca- 
 thedral was left standing in the rage of refor- 
 mation. It is now divided into many separate 
 places of worship, which, taken altogether, com- 
 pose a great pile, that had been some centuries 
 in building, but was never finished; for the 
 change of religion intercepted its progress, 
 before the cross isle was added, which seems 
 essential to a Gothick cathedral. 
 
 The college has not had a sufficient share of 
 the increasing magnificence of the place. The 
 session was begun; for it commences on the 
 tenth of October, and continues to the tenth of 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 277 
 
 June; but the students appeared not numerous, 
 being, I suppose, not yet returned from their 
 several homes. The division of the academical 
 year into one session, and one recess, seems to 
 me better accommodated to the present state of 
 life, than that variegation of time by terms and 
 vacations derived from distant centuries, in 
 - which it was probably convenient, and still con- 
 tinued in the English universities. So many 
 solid months as the Scotch scheme of education 
 joins together, allow and encourage a plan for 
 each part of the year; but with us, he that has 
 settled himself to study in the college is soon 
 tempted into the country, and he that has ad- 
 justed his life in the country, is summoned 
 back to his college. 
 
 * Yet when I have allowed to the universities 
 of Scotland a more rational distribution of time, 
 I have given them, so far as my inquiries have 
 informed me, all that they can claim. The stu- 
 dents, for the most part, go thither boys, and 
 depart before they are men; they carry with 
 them little fundamental knowledge, and there- 
 fore the superstructure cannot be lofty. The 
 grammar schoolsarenot generally well supplied; 
 
 for the character of a schoolmaster being there 
 2 A 
 
278 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 less honourable than in England, is seldom ac- 
 cepted by men who are capable to adorn it, 
 and where the school has been deficient, the 
 college can effect little. 
 
 Men bred in the universities of Scotland can- 
 not be expected to be often decorated with the 
 splendours of ornamental erudition, but they 
 obtain a mediocrity of knowledge, between 
 learning and ignorance, not inadequate to the 
 purposes of common life, which is, I believe, 
 very W'idely diffused among them, and which, 
 countenanced in general by a national combi- 
 nation so invidious, that their friends cannot 
 defend it, and actuated in particulars by a spirit 
 of enterprize, so vigorous, that their enemies 
 are constrained to praise it, enables them to find, 
 or to make their way to employment, riches, 
 and distinction. 
 
 From Glasgow we directed our course to 
 Auchinleck, an estate devolved, through along 
 series of ancestors, to* Mr. BoswelPs father, the 
 present possessor. In our way we found several 
 places remarkable enough in themselves, but 
 already described by those who view^ed them 
 at more leisure, or with much more skill, and 
 stopped two days at Mr. Campbell's, a gentle- 
 man married to Mr Boswell's sister. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 279 
 
 Auchinleck, which signifies a Stony Field, 
 seems not now to have any particular claim to 
 its denomination. It is a district generally level, 
 and sufficiently fertile, but like ail the Western 
 side of Scotland, incommoded by very frequent 
 rain. It was, .with the rest of the country, ge- 
 nerally naked, till the present possessor finding, 
 by the growth of some stately trees near his old 
 castle, that the ground was favourable enough 
 to timber, adorned it very diligently with an- 
 nual plantations. 
 
 Lord -Auchinleck, who is one of the judges 
 of Scotland, and therefore not wholly at leisure 
 for domestick business or pleasure, has yet 
 found time to make improvements in his patri- 
 mony. He has built a house of hewn stone, very 
 stately and durable, and has advanced the value 
 of his lands with great tenderness lo his tenants. 
 
 I was, however, less delighted with the ele- 
 gance of the modern mansion, than with the 
 sullen dignity of the old castle. 1 clambered 
 with Mr. Bosw^eli among the ruins, which af- 
 ford striking images of ancient life. It is, like 
 other castles, built upon a point of rock, and 
 was, I believe, anciently surrounded with a 
 moat. There is another rock near it, to which 
 
280 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 the drawbridge, when it was let down, is said 
 to have reached. Here, in the ages of tumult 
 and rapine, the laird was surprised and killed 
 by the neighbouring chief, w^ho perhaps might 
 have extinguished the family, had he not in a 
 few days been seized arid hanged, together with 
 his sons, by Douglas, who came w ith his forces 
 to the relief of Auchinleck. 
 
 At no great distance from the house runs a 
 pleasing brook,- by a red rock, out of which has 
 been hewn a very agreeable and commodious 
 summerhouse, at less expense, as lord Auchin- 
 leck told me, than would have been required 
 to build a room of the same dimensions. The 
 rock seems to have no more dampness than 
 any other wall. Such opportunities of variety it 
 is judicious not to neglect. 
 
 We now returned to Edinburgh, where I 
 passed some days with raen of learning, whose 
 names want no advancement from my comme- 
 moration, or with women of elegance, which 
 perhaps disclaims a pedant's praise. 
 
 The conversation of the Scots grows every 
 day less unpleasing to the English; their pecu- 
 liarities wear fast away; their dialect is likely to 
 become in half a century provincial and rustick. 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 281 
 
 even to themselves. The great, the learned, 
 the ambitious, and the vain, all cultivate the 
 English phrase, and the English pronunciation, 
 and in splendid companies Scotch is not much 
 heard, except now and then from an old lady. 
 
 There is one subject of philosophical curi- 
 osity to be found in Edinburgh, which no other 
 city has to show; a college of the deaf and 
 dumb, who are taught to speak, to read, to 
 write, and to practise arithmetick, by a gentle- 
 man, whose name is Braidwood. The number 
 which attends him is, I think, about twelve,, 
 which he brings together into a little school, 
 and instructs according to their several degrees 
 of proficiency. 
 
 I do not mean to mention the instruction of 
 the deaf as new. Having been first practised 
 upon the son of a constable of Spain, it was af- 
 terwards cultivated with much emulation in 
 England, by Wallis and Holder, and was lately 
 professed by Mr. Baker, who once flattered me 
 with hopes of seeing his method published. How 
 far any former teachers have succeeded, it is 
 not easy to know; the improvement of Mr. 
 Braidwocd's pupils is wonderful. They not 
 ©nly speak, write, and understand what is writ- 
 
282 A JOURNEY TO THE 
 
 ten, but if he that speaks looks towards them, 
 and modifies his organs by distinct and full ut- 
 terance, they know so well what is spoken, that 
 it is an expression scarcely figurative to say, 
 they hear with the eye. That any h^ve attained 
 to the power mentioned by Burnet, of feeling 
 sounds, by laying a hand on the. speaker's 
 mouth, I know not; but I have seen so much, 
 that I can believe more; a single word, or a 
 short sentence, I think, may possibly be so 
 distinguished. 
 
 It will readily be supposed by those that con- 
 sider this subject, that Mr. Braid wood's scho- 
 lars spell accurately. Orthography is vitiated 
 among such as learn first to speak, and then 
 to write, by imperfect notions oi" the relation 
 between letters and vocal utterance; but to those 
 students every character is of equal importance; 
 for letters are to them not s} mbols of names, 
 but of things; when they write they do not re- 
 present a sound, but delineate a form. 
 
 This school I visited, and found some of the 
 scholars waiting for their master, whom they arc 
 said to receive at his entrance with smihng 
 Countenances and sparkling eyes, delighted with 
 the hope of new ideas. One of the youngs 
 
WESTERN ISLANDS. 283 
 
 adies had her slate before her, on which I wrote 
 a quesiion consisting of three figures, to be 
 multiplied by two figures. She looked upon it, 
 and quivering her fingers in a manner which I 
 thought very pretty, but of which I know not 
 whether it was art or play, multiplied the sum 
 regularly in two lines, observing the decimal 
 place; but did not add the two lines together, 
 -probably disdaining so easy an operation. I 
 pointed at the place, where the sum total should 
 stand, and she noted it with such expedition as 
 seemed to show that she had it only to write. 
 
 It was pleasing to see one of the most despe- 
 rate of human calamities capable of so much 
 help: whatever enlarges hope, will exalt cou- 
 rage; after having seen the deaf taught arith- 
 metick, who would be afraid to cultivate the 
 Hebrides? 
 
 Such are the things which this journey has 
 given me an opportunity of seeing, and such 
 are the reflections which that sight has raised. 
 Having passed my time almost wholly in cities, 
 I may have been surprised by modes of life and 
 appearances of nature, that are familiar to men 
 
2S4 A JOURNEY TO THE, Sec. 
 
 of wider survey and more varied conversation. 
 Novelty and ignorance must always be recipro- 
 cal, and I cannot but be conscious that my 
 thoughts on national manners, are the thoughts 
 of one who has seen but little. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 IBJL C7