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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland,
+by Samuel Johnson
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland
+
+
+Author: Samuel Johnson
+
+Release Date: April 20, 2005  [eBook #2064]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A JOURNEY TO THE WESTERN ISLES OF
+SCOTLAND***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1775 edition with the corrections noted in the 1785
+errata by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+
+
+
+
+
+A JOURNEY TO THE WESTERN ISLANDS OF SCOTLAND
+
+
+INCH KEITH
+
+
+I had desired to visit the Hebrides, or Western Islands of Scotland, so
+long, that I scarcely remember how the wish was originally excited; and
+was in the Autumn of the year 1773 induced to undertake the journey, by
+finding in Mr. Boswell a companion, whose acuteness would help my
+inquiry, and whose gaiety of conversation 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 Edinburgh, a city too well known to
+admit description, and directed our course northward, along the eastern
+coast of Scotland, accompanied the first day by another gentleman, who
+could stay with us only long enough to shew us how much we lost at
+separation.
+
+As we crossed the Frith of Forth, our curiosity was attracted by Inch
+Keith, a small island, which neither of my companions had ever visited,
+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 unfrequented 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, who perhaps had the charge
+of a battery, or were stationed to give signals of approaching danger.
+There is therefore no provision of water within the walls, 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 island had 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 Cowpar, places not unlike the small or straggling market-
+towns in those parts of England where commerce and manufactures have not
+yet produced 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.
+
+The roads are neither rough nor dirty; and it affords a southern stranger
+a new kind of pleasure to travel so commodiously without the interruption
+of toll-gates.  Where the bottom is rocky, as it seems commonly to be in
+Scotland, a smooth way is made indeed with great labour, but it never
+wants repairs; and in those parts where adventitious materials are
+necessary, the ground once consolidated is rarely broken; for the inland
+commerce is not great, nor are heavy commodities often transported
+otherwise 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. ANDREWS
+
+
+At an hour somewhat late we came to St. Andrews, 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 fairer
+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 professors, whose
+easy civility quickly made us forget that we were strangers; and in the
+whole time of our stay we were gratified by every mode of kindness, and
+entertained with all the elegance of lettered hospitality.
+
+In the morning we rose to perambulate a city, which only history shews 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 which 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 primacy of the kingdom.  Of the
+architecture, the poor remains can hardly exhibit, even to an artist, a
+sufficient specimen.  It 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 attention to security than pleasure.
+Cardinal Beatoun is said to have had workmen employed 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 scrupulousness and warlike
+ferocity, which, in a people whom idleness resigned to their own
+thoughts, and who, conversing only with each other, suffered 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. Andrews, when it had lost its archiepiscopal
+pre-eminence, gradually decayed: One of its streets is now lost; and in
+those that remain, there is silence and solitude of inactive indigence
+and gloomy depopulation.
+
+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 appropriation of its revenues to the
+professors of the two others.  The chapel of the alienated college is yet
+standing, a fabrick not inelegant of external structure; but I was
+always, by some civil excuse, hindred from entering it.  A decent
+attempt, as I was since told, has been made to convert it into a kind of
+green-house, by planting its area with shrubs.  This new method of
+gardening is unsuccessful; the plants do not hitherto prosper.  To what
+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 commerce is hourly extending,
+and the wealth encreasing, denies any participation of its prosperity to
+its literary societies; and while its merchants or its nobles are raising
+palaces, suffers its universities to moulder into dust.
+
+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 erection, is not very spacious, but elegant and
+luminous.
+
+The doctor, by whom it was shewn, hoped to irritate or subdue my English
+vanity by telling me, that we had no such repository of books in England.
+
+Saint Andrews seems to be a place eminently adapted to study and
+education, being situated in a populous, yet a cheap country, and
+exposing the minds and manners of young men neither to the levity and
+dissoluteness of a capital city, nor to the gross luxury of a town of
+commerce, places naturally unpropitious to learning; 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 present professors; nor can the expence of an academical
+education be very reasonably objected.  A student of the highest class
+may keep his annual 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 university, answering to our vice-
+chancellor, and to the _rector magnificus_ on the continent, had commonly
+the title of Lord Rector; but being addressed only as Mr. Rector in an
+inauguratory speech by the present chancellor, he has fallen from his
+former dignity of style.  Lordship was very liberally annexed by our
+ancestors to any station or character 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 buildings, we came to two vaults
+over which had formerly 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 of a man whose ancestors had possessed the same
+gloomy mansion for no less than four generations.  The right, however it
+began, was considered 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 quality 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 remembrance of an university declining, a
+college alienated, and a church profaned and hastening to the ground.
+
+St. Andrews indeed has formerly suffered more atrocious ravages and more
+extensive destruction, but recent evils affect with greater force.  We
+were reconciled to the sight of archiepiscopal 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 irruptions 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 encountered or overtaken, and who has
+nothing to contemplate but grounds that have no visible boundaries, or
+are separated by walls of loose stone.  From the bank of the Tweed to St.
+Andrews 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, which in Scotch is called a
+policy, 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 nakedness, except that in
+the road between Kirkaldy and Cowpar, I passed for a few yards between
+two hedges.  A tree might be a show in Scotland as a horse in Venice.  At
+St. Andrews Mr. Boswell found only one, and recommended 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 undoubtedly an equal portion of woods
+with other countries.  Forests are every where gradually diminished, as
+architecture and cultivation prevail by the increase of people and the
+introduction of arts.  But I believe few regions have been denuded like
+this, where many centuries must have passed in waste without the least
+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 whether before the Union
+any man between Edinburgh 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 is not easily broken, till some great event shakes the whole
+system of things, and life seems to recommence upon new principles.  That
+before the Union the Scots had little trade and little money, is no valid
+apology; 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 Firth of Tay, where, 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 remember nothing 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 magnificence:
+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
+dilapidated 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 corner 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 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
+venerable 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, we 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 Scotland, with commodious galleries, and
+what was yet less expected, with an organ.
+
+At our inn we did not find a reception such as we thought proportionate
+to the commercial opulence of the place; but Mr. Boswell desired me to
+observe that the innkeeper was an Englishman, and I then defended him as
+well as I could.
+
+When I had proceeded thus far, I had opportunities of observing what I
+had never heard, that there are 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 solicit silently, or very modestly, and therefore though their
+behaviour may strike with more force the heart of a stranger, they are
+certainly in danger of missing the attention of their countrymen.  Novelty
+has always some power, an unaccustomed mode of begging excites an
+unaccustomed degree of pity.  But the force of novelty is by its own
+nature soon at an end; the efficacy of outcry and perseverance is
+permanent and certain.
+
+The road from Montrose exhibited a continuation of the same appearances.
+The country is still naked, the hedges are of stone, and the fields so
+generally plowed 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. Boswell observed that we were at no great
+distance from the house of lord Monboddo.  The magnetism of his
+conversation easily drew us out of our way, and the entertainment which
+we received would have been a sufficient recompense for a much greater
+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 satisfied with the company of each other as well riding 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.
+
+
+
+
+ABERDEEN
+
+
+We came somewhat late to Aberdeen, and found the inn so full, that we had
+some difficulty in obtaining admission, till Mr. Boswell made himself
+known: His name overpowered all objection, 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 formerly known in London, and after a cessation of all
+intercourse for near twenty years met here professor of physic in the
+King's College.  Such unexpected renewals of acquaintance may be numbered
+among the most pleasing incidents of life.
+
+The knowledge of one professor soon procured me the notice of the rest,
+and I did not want any token of regard, being conducted wherever there
+was any thing which I desired to see, and entertained at once with the
+novelty of the place, and the kindness of communication.
+
+To write of the cities of our own island with the solemnity of
+geographical description, as if we had been cast upon a newly discovered
+coast, 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 commerce was yet unstudied, with very
+little attention to the commodities of the harbour.
+
+New Aberdeen has all the bustle of prosperous trade, and all the shew of
+increasing opulence.  It is built by the water-side.  The houses are
+large and lofty, and the streets spacious and clean.  They build almost
+wholly with the granite used in the new pavement of the streets of
+London, which is well known not to want hardness, yet they shape it
+easily.  It is beautiful and must be very lasting.
+
+What particular parts of commerce are chiefly exercised by the merchants
+of Aberdeen, I have not inquired.  The manufacture which forces itself
+upon a stranger's eye is that of knit-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, an
+university; for in both there are professors of the same parts of
+learning, and the colleges hold their sessions and confer degrees
+separately, with total independence 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 as one of the
+revivers of elegant learning.  When he studied at Paris, he was
+acquainted with Erasmus, who afterwards gave him a public testimony of
+his esteem, by inscribing to him a catalogue of his works.  The stile of
+Boethius, though, perhaps, not always rigorously pure, is formed with
+great diligence upon ancient models, and wholly uninfected with monastic
+barbarity.  His history is written with elegance and vigour, but his
+fabulousness and credulity are justly blamed.  His fabulousness, if he
+was the 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
+credulous.  Learning was then rising on the world; 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 fifteenth century,
+and some time after, were, for the most part, learning to speak, rather
+than to think, and were therefore more studious of elegance 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, enjoyed a revenue of forty
+Scottish marks, about two pounds four shillings and sixpence of sterling
+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 England 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 reward of his learning, a pension of ten pounds a year.
+
+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 college, and who holds among the Latin
+poets of Scotland the next place to the elegant Buchanan.
+
+In the library I was shewn some curiosities; a Hebrew manuscript of
+exquisite penmanship, and a Latin translation of Aristotle's Politicks by
+Leonardus Aretinus, written in the Roman character 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 Aretinus died but about twenty years before typography
+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 perhaps owed in part to Aretinus that they were able to
+excel him.  Much is due to those who first broke the way to knowledge,
+and left only to their successors the task of smoothing it.
+
+In both these colleges the methods of instruction 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 public table, but the scholars of the Marischal College are
+boarded in the town.  The expence of living is here, according to the
+information that I could obtain, somewhat more than at St. Andrews.
+
+The course of education is extended to four years, at the end of which
+those who take a degree, who are not many, become masters of arts, and
+whoever is a master may, if he pleases, 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 ministers are now reconciled to
+distinction, and as it must always happen that some will excel others,
+have thought graduation a proper testimony of uncommon abilities or
+acquisitions.
+
+The indiscriminate collation of degrees has justly taken away that
+respect which they originally claimed as stamps, by which the literary
+value of men so distinguished was authoritatively denoted.  That
+academical honours, or any others should be conferred with exact
+proportion to merit, is more than human judgment or human integrity have
+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
+public profession of learning.  An English or Irish doctorate cannot be
+obtained by a very young man, and it is reasonable 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. Andrews continues eight months, that of Aberdeen only five, from
+the first of November to the first of April.
+
+In Aberdeen there is an English Chapel, in which the congregation was
+numerous and splendid.  The form of public worship used by the church of
+England is in Scotland legally practised in licensed chapels served by
+clergymen of English or Irish ordination, and by tacit connivance quietly
+permitted in separate congregations supplied with ministers by the
+successors of the bishops who were deprived at the Revolution.
+
+We came to Aberdeen on Saturday August 21.  On Monday we were invited
+into the town-hall, 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 admission is, with the seal
+appending, fastened to a riband and worn for one day by the new citizen
+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 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 barrenness
+superinduced, that the owner, when he was required to pay the usual tax,
+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 continuation 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 Scotland from Norway, and when the winds beat
+with violence must enjoy all the terrifick grandeur of the tempestuous
+ocean.  I would not for my amusement wish for a storm; but as storms,
+whether wished or not, will sometimes happen, I may say, without
+violation of humanity, 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 curiosity, 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, which in the Spring chuse
+this place as convenient for incubation, and have their eggs and their
+young taken in great abundance.  One of the birds that frequent this rock
+has, as we were 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 Coot in England, is here a Cooter.
+
+Upon these rocks there was nothing that could long detain attention, and
+we soon turned our eyes to the Buller, or Bouilloir of Buchan, which no
+man can see with indifference, who has either 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 inclosing rock.  It has the appearance of a vast well
+bordered with a wall.  The edge of the Buller 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 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 we could
+not think ourselves in danger, we could scarcely survey without some
+recoil of the mind.  The bason in which we floated was nearly circular,
+perhaps thirty yards in diameter.  We were inclosed by a natural wall,
+rising steep on every side to a height which produced the idea of
+insurmountable confinement.  The interception of all lateral light caused
+a dismal gloom.  Round us was a perpendicular rock, above us the distant
+sky, and below an unknown profundity of water.  If I had any malice
+against a walking spirit, instead of laying him in the Red-sea, I would
+condemn him to reside in the Buller of Buchan.
+
+But terrour without danger is only one of the sports of fancy, a
+voluntary agitation of the mind that is permitted no longer than it
+pleases.  We were soon at leisure to examine the place with minute
+inspection, and found many cavities which, as the waterman told us, went
+backward to a depth which they had never explored.  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
+storehouses for clandestine merchandise.  It is hardly to be doubted but
+the pirates of ancient times often used them as magazines of arms, or
+repositories of plunder.
+
+To the little vessels used by the northern rovers, the Buller may have
+served as a shelter from storms, and perhaps as a retreat from enemies;
+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 grandeur and
+the elegance; for our way afforded us few topics 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.
+
+
+
+
+BAMFF
+
+
+We dined this day at the house of Mr. Frazer of Streichton, who shewed us
+in his grounds some stones yet standing of a druidical circle, and what I
+began to think more worthy of notice, some forest trees of full growth.
+
+At night we came to Bamff, where I remember nothing that particularly
+claimed my attention.  The ancient towns of Scotland have generally 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 windows 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 hinges, but are
+pushed up and drawn down in grooves, yet they are seldom accommodated
+with weights and pullies.  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.
+
+What cannot be done without some uncommon 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 habitations has not yet been found by our northern
+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 inconveniences, 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 interruption.  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 learning, or the palaces of greatness,
+where the national character is obscured or obliterated by travel or
+instruction, by philosophy or vanity; nor is public 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 collectively considered, must the
+measure of general prosperity be taken.  As they approach to delicacy a
+nation is refined, as their conveniences are multiplied, a nation, at
+least a commercial nation, must be denominated wealthy.
+
+
+
+
+ELGIN
+
+
+Finding nothing to detain us at Bamff, 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 Scotish table; and such disappointments, I
+suppose, must be expected in every country, where there is no great
+frequency of travellers.
+
+The ruins of the cathedral of Elgin afforded us another proof of the
+waste of reformation.  There is enough yet remaining to shew, 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 highland chief, whom the bishop had offended; but it was
+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 Reformation, directing that the lead, which
+covers the 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
+born so small a proportion to any military expence, that it is hard not
+to believe the reason alleged to be merely popular, 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 magnificence, and we are in danger of doing that deliberately,
+which the Scots did not do but in the unsettled state of an imperfect
+constitution.
+
+Those who had once uncovered the cathedrals never wished to cover them
+again; and being thus made useless, they were, first neglected, and
+perhaps, as the stone was wanted, afterwards demolished.
+
+Elgin seems a place of little trade, and thinly inhabited.  The episcopal
+cities of Scotland, I believe, generally fell with their churches, though
+some of them have since recovered by a situation 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 another 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 considerable 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 classic ground.  Our imaginations were heated, and our
+thoughts recalled to their old amusements.
+
+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 Fochabars, 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 travelled on not interrupted by promises of
+kingdoms, and came to Nairn, a royal burgh, which, if once it flourished,
+is now in a state of miserable 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 Highlands; 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 forward to the house of Mr. Macaulay,
+the minister 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 drawbridge 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 notice of a traveller, who
+has never travelled before.  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 governour, 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 every where an
+appearance of the utmost neatness and regularity.  But my suffrage 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, though in consequence of
+our delay we came 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, are not sent in
+vain.
+
+
+
+
+INVERNESS
+
+
+Inverness was the last place which had a regular communication by high
+roads with the southern counties.  All the ways beyond it have, I
+believe, been made by the soldiers in this century.  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 with 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 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 introduced by
+useful violence the arts of peace.  I was told at Aberdeen that the
+people learned from Cromwell's soldiers to make shoes and to plant kail.
+
+How they lived without kail, it is not easy to guess: 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 shew that shoes may be spared: They are not yet considered as
+necessaries of life; for tall boys, not otherwise meanly dressed, run
+without them in the streets; and in the islands the sons of gentlemen
+pass several of their first years 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 have wanted not only the elegancies, but the
+conveniences 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 diligently
+pursued.  The Latin poetry of _Deliciae Poetarum Scotorum_ would have
+done honour to any nation, at least till the publication 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 supply
+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
+Eskimeaux, 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 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 are common.
+There is I think a kirk, in which only 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 farewel to the luxury of travelling, and to enter a
+country upon which perhaps no wheel has ever rolled.  We could indeed
+have used our post-chaise one day longer, along the military road to Fort
+Augustus, but we could have hired no horses beyond Inverness, and we were
+not so sparing of ourselves, as to lead them, merely that we might have
+one day longer the indulgence of a carriage.
+
+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 convenience of having
+disencumbered ourselves, by laying aside whatever we could spare; for it
+is not to be imagined without experience, how in climbing crags, and
+treading bogs, and winding through narrow and obstructed passages, a
+little bulk will hinder, and a little weight will burthen; 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 shew 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 companion said, that he would tire any horse in Inverness.  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 commonly dexterous: their
+narrowness of life confines them to a few operations, and they are
+accustomed to endure little wants more than to remove them.
+
+We mounted our steeds on the thirtieth 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.  Beyond them
+were rocks sometimes covered with verdure, and sometimes towering in
+horrid nakedness.  Now and then we espied a little cornfield, which
+served to impress more strongly the general barrenness.
+
+Lough Ness is about twenty-four miles long, and from one mile to two
+miles broad.  It is remarkable 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
+forgiven, because they can tell but what they are told; and that their
+accounts exceed the truth may be justly supposed, because most men
+exaggerate to others, if not to themselves: but Boethius lived at no
+great distance; if he never saw the lake, he must have been very
+incurious, 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 between 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 pleasant, and is imagined by the natives to
+be medicinal.  We were told, that it is in some places a hundred and
+forty fathoms deep, a profundity scarcely credible, and which probably
+those that relate it have never sounded.  Its fish are salmon, trout, and
+pike.
+
+It was said at fort Augustus, that Lough Ness is open in the hardest
+winters, though a lake not far from it is covered with ice.  In
+discussing these exceptions from the course of nature, the first question
+is, whether the fact be justly stated.  That which is strange is
+delightful, and a pleasing error is not willingly detected.  Accuracy of
+narration is not very common, and there are few so rigidly philosophical,
+as not to represent as perpetual, what is only frequent, 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
+inclose it.  Its profundity though it should be such as is represented
+can have little part in this exemption; for though deep wells are not
+frozen, because their water is secluded from the external air, yet 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
+deserves to be diligently examined.
+
+The 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 apertures 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 almost
+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 interrogated, gave
+to those beasts which live furthest 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 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 licence to a stranger.
+
+A hut is constructed with loose stones, ranged for the most part with
+some tendency to circularity.  It must be placed where the wind cannot
+act upon it with violence, because it has no cement; and where the water
+will run easily 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 center of the thatch to the top of the wall, are
+held firm by the weight of a large stone.  No light is admitted 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 therefore naturally fills the place before
+it escapes.  Such is the general structure of the houses in 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 inspecting 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 goats-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 potatoe-garden, and a small spot of ground on which stood
+four shucks, containing each twelve sheaves of barley.  She has all this
+from the labour of their own hands, and for what is necessary 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 religious, 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 Highland
+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 entertainment 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
+imagination with all the gloom and grandeur of Siberian 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 our guides to shew us the
+fall, and dismounting, clambered over very rugged crags, till I began to
+wish that our curiosity might have been gratified 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
+which 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 asperities of the
+rocky bottom, and we were left to exercise our thoughts, by endeavouring
+to conceive 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 discharging 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
+military 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 pleasure, if not for strength; it stands at the head of the
+lake, and, by a sloop of sixty tuns, is supplied from Inverness with
+great convenience.
+
+We were now to cross the Highlands towards the western coast, and to
+content ourselves with such accommodations, as a way so little frequented
+could afford.  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 the perseverance of a Roman
+legion.
+
+The country is totally denuded of its wood, but the stumps both of oaks
+and firs, which are still found, shew 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 possessed by human beings, except
+that once we saw a corn field, in which a lady was walking with some
+gentlemen.  Their house was certainly at no great distance, but so
+situated that we could not descry it.
+
+Passing on through the dreariness of solitude, we found a party of
+soldiers from the fort, working on the road, under the superintendence 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, begged leave to
+shew our gratitude by a small present.
+
+
+
+
+ANOCH
+
+
+Early in the afternoon we came to Anoch, a village in Glenmollison 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 what 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 I did not
+please him.  I praised the propriety of his language, and was 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 peculiar.  Those Highlanders that can speak English,
+commonly speak it well, with few of the words, and little of the tone by
+which a Scotchman 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 pronunciation.  By their
+Lowland neighbours they would not willingly be taught; for they have long
+considered them as a mean and degenerate 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
+savage 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 turnips and a
+field of potatoes.  It stands in a glen, or valley, pleasantly watered by
+a winding 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, was
+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 embarassment, and told me how much I honoured her
+country by coming to survey it.
+
+She had been at Inverness to gain the common female qualifications, and
+had, like her father, 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, whom 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 at
+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
+carousing 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 morning, he walked by us a great way, and entertained us
+with conversation both on his own condition, and that of the country.  His
+life seemed to be merely pastoral, except that he differed from some of
+the ancient Nomades in having a settled dwelling.  His wealth consists of
+one hundred sheep, as many goats, twelve milk-cows, and twenty-eight
+beeves ready for the drover.
+
+From him we first heard of the general dissatisfaction, 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 answered
+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
+advanced 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, resigned us to our guides.  The
+journey of this day was long, not that the distance was great, but 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 distress, and are every where the scenes of adventures,
+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 commonly 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 one, 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 likely to
+maintain its contest with the sun, till it should be reinforced by
+winter.
+
+The height of mountains philosophically considered is properly computed
+from the surface of the next sea; but as it affects the eye or
+imagination of the passenger, as it makes either a spectacle or an
+obstruction, it must be reckoned 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
+appearance than that of a plane gently inclined, and if a hill placed
+upon such raised ground be described, 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 evening 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 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 themselves a passage
+proportionate to their mass.
+
+Such capricious and temporary waters cannot 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, wandering in the water.
+
+Of the hills many may be called with Homer's Ida 'abundant in springs',
+but few can deserve the epithet which he bestows upon Pelion 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 accustomed to flowery pastures and
+waving harvests is astonished and repelled by this wide extent of
+hopeless sterility.  The appearance is that of matter incapable of form
+or usefulness, dismissed by nature from her care and disinherited of her
+favours, left in its original elemental state, or quickened only with one
+sullen power of useless vegetation.
+
+It will very readily occur, that this uniformity of barrenness can afford
+very little amusement to the traveller; that it is easy to sit at home
+and conceive rocks and heath, and waterfalls; 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 principles of reasoning, and
+found a wider basis of analogy.
+
+Regions mountainous and wild, thinly inhabited, 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 of nature, and with one of the
+great scenes of human existence.
+
+As the day advanced towards noon, we entered a narrow valley not very
+flowery, but sufficiently verdant.  Our guides told us, that the horses
+could not travel all day without rest or meat, and intreated us to stop
+here, because no grass would be found in any other place.  The request
+was reasonable and the argument cogent.  We therefore willingly
+dismounted and diverted ourselves as the place gave us opportunity.
+
+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 day 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 entertainment 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 by the view of an unknown and
+untravelled wilderness are not such as arise in the artificial solitude
+of parks and gardens, a flattering notion of self-sufficiency, a placid
+indulgence of voluntary delusions, a secure expansion of the fancy, or a
+cool concentration of the mental powers.  The phantoms which haunt a
+desert are want, and misery, and danger; 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 little 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 desarts of America?
+
+It was not long before we were invited to mount, and continued our
+journey along the side of a lough, kept full by many streams, 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 season, such as every
+winter may be expected to bring, must precipitate an impetuous and
+tremendous 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.
+Beyond it is a valley called Glensheals, 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 we must
+have wanted bread if we had not brought it.  The people of this valley
+did not appear to know any English, and our guides now became doubly
+necessary as interpreters.  A woman, whose hut was distinguished 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. Boswell 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 children we distributed a small handful of halfpence, which
+they received with great eagerness.  Yet I have been since told, that the
+people 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 milk-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 her to ask for more, but she said a
+shilling was enough.  We gave her half a crown, and I hope got some
+credit for our behaviour; for the company 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 subordinate clan, and having no farms nor stock, were in
+great numbers servants to the Maclellans, who, in the war of Charles the
+First, took arms at the call of the heroic 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 investigate the reason of those peculiarities by
+which such rugged regions as these before us are generally distinguished.
+
+Mountainous countries commonly contain the original, at least the oldest
+race of inhabitants, for they are not easily conquered, because they must
+be entered by narrow ways, exposed to every power of mischief from those
+that occupy 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, the invaders are dislodged by hunger;
+for in those anxious and toilsome marches, provisions cannot 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 expence 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.
+
+As mountains are long before they are conquered, they are likewise long
+before they are civilized.  Men are softened by intercourse mutually
+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 pleasure.
+The inhabitants having neither commodities 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, intermixture, or gradual
+refinement, the cultivated parts of a country change their language.  The
+mountaineers then become a distinct nation, cut off by dissimilitude of
+speech from conversation with their neighbours.  Thus in Biscay, the
+original Cantabrian, and in Dalecarlia, 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.
+
+That the primitive manners are continued where the primitive language is
+spoken, no nation will desire me to suppose, for the manners of
+mountaineers are commonly savage, but they are rather produced by their
+situation than derived from their ancestors.
+
+Such seems to be the disposition of man, that whatever makes a
+distinction produces rivalry.  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 chusing annually one of the
+Proctors from each side of the Trent.  A tract intersected by many ridges
+of mountains, naturally divides its inhabitants into petty nations, which
+are made by a thousand causes enemies to each other.  Each will exalt its
+own chiefs, each will boast the valour of its men, or the beauty of its
+women, and every claim of superiority irritates competition; injuries
+will sometimes be done, and be more injuriously defended; retaliation
+will sometimes be attempted, and the debt exacted with too much interest.
+
+In the Highlands it was a law, that if a robber was sheltered from
+justice, any man of the same clan might be taken in his place.  This was
+a kind of irregular justice, which, 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 divert their thoughts, burnt on for
+ages either sullenly glowing in secret mischief, or openly blazing into
+public 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 themselves as surrounded with enemies, and are always prepared
+to repel incursions, or to make them.  Like the Greeks in their
+unpolished state, described by Thucydides, the Highlanders, till lately,
+went always armed, and carried their weapons to visits, and to church.
+
+Mountaineers are thievish, because they are poor, and having neither
+manufactures nor commerce, can grow richer only by robbery.  They
+regularly plunder their 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 Highlands, this disposition to thievery is very much
+represt.  Thirty years ago no herd had ever been conducted through the
+mountains, without paying tribute in the night, to some of the clans; but
+cattle are now driven, and passengers travel without danger, fear, or
+molestation.
+
+Among a warlike people, the quality of highest esteem is personal
+courage, and with the ostentatious display of courage are closely
+connected 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 publick procession or ceremony, however
+festive, or however solemn, in expectation of the battle, which was sure
+to happen before the company dispersed.
+
+Mountainous regions are sometimes so remote from the seat of government,
+and so difficult 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 reverence 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 advances 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
+oppressions; 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 own lands; till the final
+conquest of the Highlands afforded an opportunity of crushing all the
+local courts, and of extending the general benefits of equal law to the
+low and the high, in the deepest recesses and obscurest corners.
+
+While the chiefs had this resemblance of royalty, they had little
+inclination to appeal, on any question, to superior judicatures.  A claim
+of lands between two powerful lairds was decided like a contest for
+dominion between sovereign 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 Macdonald of Keppoch.  Col.  Macdonald, the
+head of a small clan, refused to pay the dues demanded from him by
+Mackintosh, as his superior 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 complete victory to either.
+This is said to have been the last open war made between the clans by
+their own authority.
+
+The Highland lords made treaties, and formed 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 genealogies.  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 affections, and co-operation of endeavours, that
+constitute a clan.  They who consider themselves as ennobled by their
+family, will think highly of their progenitors, and they 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 Macraes its 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 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 expectation.  At last we came to our inn
+weary and peevish, and began to inquire for meat and beds.
+
+Of the provisions the negative catalogue was very copious.  Here 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 ourselves to be contented, when we had a very
+eminent proof of Highland hospitality.  Along some miles of the way, in
+the evening, a gentleman'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 sugar.  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 kindness was not likely to be ever repaid, and who
+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 directed them to bring a bundle into the
+room, and slept upon it in my riding coat.  Mr. Boswell being more
+delicate, laid himself sheets with hay over and under him, and lay in
+linen like a gentleman.
+
+
+
+
+SKY.  ARMIDEL
+
+
+In the morning, September the second, 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 ferried
+over to the Isle of Sky.  We landed at Armidel, where we were met on the
+sands by Sir Alexander Macdonald, who was at that time there with his
+lady, preparing to leave the island and reside at Edinburgh.
+
+Armidel is a neat house, built where the Macdonalds had once a seat,
+which was burnt in the commotions that followed the Revolution.  The
+walled orchard, which belonged to the former house, still remains.  It is
+well shaded by tall ash trees, of a species, as Mr. Janes the fossilist
+informed me, uncommonly valuable.  This plantation is very properly
+mentioned by Dr. Campbell, in his new account of the state of Britain,
+and deserves attention; because it proves that the present nakedness of
+the Hebrides 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.  Everything
+in those countries has its history.  As the bagpiper was playing, an
+elderly Gentleman informed us, that in some remote time, the Macdonalds
+of Glengary having been injured, or offended by the inhabitants of
+Culloden, and resolving to have justice or vengeance, came to Culloden on
+a Sunday, where finding their enemies at worship, they shut them up in
+the church, which they set on fire; and this, said he, is the tune that
+the piper played while they were burning.
+
+Narrations like this, however uncertain, deserve the notice of the
+traveller, because they are the only records of a nation that has no
+historians, and afford the most genuine representation of the life and
+character of the ancient Highlanders.
+
+Under the denomination of Highlander are comprehended in Scotland all
+that now speak the Erse language, or retain the primitive manners,
+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 improved, 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 forty years 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 domestick
+art, which every man practised for himself, 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 crown.  It will easily occur
+that these representations may both be true, and that, in 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
+saturate his soul with intelligence, if he will acquiesce 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 reporter in unresisting credulity; but, if a second
+question be ventured, it breaks the enchantment; 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 refuge of ignorance.
+
+If individuals are thus at variance with themselves, it can be no wonder
+that the accounts of different men are contradictory.  The traditions 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 opportunity 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 intellectual 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 obeyed.  I have
+seen only one gentleman completely 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 by 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 abolishing 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 unprejudiced
+spectator must appear an incommodious and cumbersome dress; 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 when
+they had anything to do.  It was a dress so unsuitable to war, that the
+same word which signified 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 upon 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 months are
+here a time of great distress; because the summer can do little more than
+feed itself, and winter comes with its cold and its scarcity upon
+families very slenderly provided.
+
+
+
+
+CORIATACHAN IN SKY
+
+
+The third or fourth day after our arrival at Armidel, 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 propagated in these
+narrow countries by the love of talk, which much leisure produces, and
+the relief 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 his 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 ridge of the hill has breadth
+sufficient to allow 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 unsafe, and therefore the journey is made generally 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 tremulous to
+bear the double weight of horse and man.  The rider then dismounts, and
+all shift as they can.
+
+Journies made in this manner are rather tedious than long.  A very few
+miles require several hours.  From Armidel 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. Mackinnon, by whom we were treated with very liberal hospitality,
+among a more numerous and elegant company than it could have been
+supposed easy to collect.
+
+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
+cairne upon it.  A cairne is a heap of stones thrown upon the grave of
+one eminent for dignity of birth, or splendour of atchievements.  It is
+said that by digging, an urn is always found under these cairnes: 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 do I know when it was that these two
+acts of sepulture 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, except one
+from which the family was removed.  Literature is not neglected by the
+higher rank of the Hebridians.
+
+It need not, I suppose, be mentioned, that in countries so little
+frequented as the Islands, there are no houses where travellers are
+entertained 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, however, one inn by the sea-
+side at Sconsor, in Sky, where the post-office 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
+moorgame is every where 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 England, and therefore cannot be supposed to want 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 prescribe.  Every
+kind of flesh is undoubtedly excelled by the variety and emulation of
+English markets; but that which is not best may be yet very far 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, except that
+the geese, by feeding in the sea, have universally a fishy rankness.
+
+These geese seem to be of a middle race, between the wild and domestick
+kinds.  They are so tame as to own a home, and so wild as 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 which unaccustomed palates are not
+easily reconciled.  The barley cakes are thicker and softer; I began to
+eat them without unwillingness; the blackness of their colour raises some
+dislike, but the taste is not disagreeable.  In most houses there is
+wheat flower, with which we were sure to be treated, if we staid long
+enough to have it kneaded and baked.  As neither yeast nor leaven are
+used among them, their bread of every kind is unfermented.  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 morning dram,
+which they call a skalk.
+
+The word whisky signifies water, and is applied by way 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 opportunity 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, whether 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 epicure 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 tea-table 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 exotic 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 provision.  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 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 the viscous kind.
+
+Their more elaborate cookery, or made dishes, an Englishman at the first
+taste is not likely to approve, but the culinary compositions 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 satisfies a Frenchman.
+
+Their suppers are, like their dinners, various and plentiful.  The table
+is always covered with elegant linen.  Their plates for common use are
+often of that kind of manufacture which 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 prohibition 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 national manners so quick, so
+great, and so general, as that which has operated in the Highlands, 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 ferocity of temper is softened, their military ardour is
+extinguished, their dignity of independence is depressed, their contempt
+of government subdued, and the reverence for their chiefs abated.  Of
+what they had before the late conquest of their country, there remain
+only their language and their poverty.  Their language is attacked on
+every side.  Schools are erected, in which 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 is gradually abated, cannot be mentioned among the
+unpleasing consequences of subjection.  They are now acquainted with
+money, and the possibility of gain will by degrees make them industrious.
+Such is the effect of the late regulations, that a longer journey 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 weather 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 facilitated, and our conversation
+enlarged, by the company of Mr. Macqueen, minister of a parish in Sky,
+whose knowledge and politeness give 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 adjacent 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 craggs
+were irregularly broken, and a false step would have been very
+mischievous.
+
+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 landing
+places, I considered this rugged ascent as the consequence of a form of
+life inured to hardships, and therefore not studious of nice
+accommodations.  But I know not whether, for many ages, it was not
+considered as a part of military policy, to keep the country not easily
+accessible.  The rocks are natural fortifications, and an enemy climbing
+with difficulty, was easily destroyed 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 festivity, 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 delightful surprise, analogous
+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 tables in 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 sound of words which I did not understand.
+
+I inquired the subjects of the songs, and was told of one, that it was a
+love song, and of another, 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 America.  What sentiments would arise, 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 translating.
+
+Mr. Macleod 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
+Macleod of Dunvegan as his chief, though his ancestors have formerly
+disputed the pre-eminence.
+
+One of the old Highland alliances has continued for two hundred years,
+and is still subsisting between Macleod of Raasay and Macdonald of Sky,
+in consequence of which, the survivor always inherits the arms of the
+deceased; a natural memorial of military friendship.  At the death of the
+late Sir James Macdonald, his sword was delivered to the present laird of
+Raasay.
+
+The family of Raasay consists of 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 manners, or a more pleasing appearance of domestick
+society, is not found in the most polished countries.
+
+Raasay is the only inhabited island in Mr. Macleod's possession.  Rona
+and Fladda afford only pasture for cattle, of which one hundred and sixty
+winter in Rona, under the superintendence of a solitary herdsman.
+
+The length of Raasay is, by computation, fifteen miles, and the breadth
+two.  These countries have never been measured, and the computation by
+miles is negligent and arbitrary.  We observed in travelling, that the
+nominal and real distance of places had very little relation 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 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 seen, are not
+large; the colour of their flesh is tinged as in England.  Of their eels
+I can give no account, having never tasted them; for I believe they are
+not considered as wholesome food.
+
+It is not very easy to fix the principles upon which mankind have agreed
+to eat some animals, 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 Neapolitans
+lately refused to eat potatoes in a famine.  An Englishman is not easily
+persuaded to dine on snails with an Italian, on frogs with a Frenchman,
+or on horseflesh with a Tartar.  The vulgar inhabitants of Sky, I know
+not whether of the other islands, have not only eels, but pork and bacon
+in abhorrence, and accordingly I never saw a hog in the Hebrides, except
+one at Dunvegan.
+
+Raasay has wild fowl in abundance, but neither 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
+transplanted to America?  Why does tea continue to be brought from China?
+Life improves but by slow degrees, and much in every place is yet to do.
+Attempts have been made to raise roebucks 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 obtained.  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 England
+from wolves.  The fund for these rewards is a tax of sixpence in the
+pound, imposed by 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 England; but the otters exceed ours in a
+far greater proportion.  I saw one at Armidel, 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, informed 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 imaginary stranger has never yet been seen, and therefore, perhaps,
+the mischief was done by some other animal.  It is not likely that a
+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
+than 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 saw the harvest of a small
+field.  The women reaped the 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 ancient proceleusmatick song, by which
+the rowers of gallies were animated, may be supposed to have been of this
+kind.  There is now an oar-song used by the Hebridians.
+
+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 cavity near the house called the oar-cave, in which the
+seamen, after one of those piratical expeditions, which in rougher times
+were very frequent, used, as tradition tells, to hide their oars.  This
+hollow was near the sea, that nothing so necessary might be far to be
+fetched; and it was secret, 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 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 Pacifick Ocean, and must have been made by a nation to
+which the use of metals was unknown.
+
+The number of this little community has never been counted by its ruler,
+nor have I obtained 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 than those tracts of desolation
+can often show.  They are content with their country, and faithful to
+their chiefs, and yet uninfected with the fever of migration.
+
+Near the house, at Raasay, is a chapel unroofed and ruinous, which has
+long been used only as a place of burial.  About the churches, in the
+Islands, are small squares inclosed with stone, which belong to
+particular families, as repositories for the dead.  At Raasay there is
+one, I think, 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 difficulty
+might have visited the places which he undertakes to describe; yet with
+all his opportunities, he has often suffered himself to be deceived.  He
+lived in the last century, when the chiefs of the clans had lost little
+of their original influence.  The mountains were yet unpenetrated, no
+inlet was opened to foreign novelties, and the feudal institution
+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 forgotten, and have
+delighted his readers with many uncouth customs that are now disused, and
+wild opinions that prevail no longer.  But he probably had not knowledge
+of the world sufficient 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 ignorant.
+
+What he has neglected cannot now be performed.  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 which they are neither interested by fear nor hope.  Their only
+registers are stated observances and practical representations.  For this
+reason an age of ignorance is an age of ceremony.  Pageants, and
+processions, and commemorations, gradually shrink away, as better methods
+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 Calvinism has blasted ceremony and decency together; and if the
+remembrance of papal superstition 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 now 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 necessarily live in total
+ignorance who want the opportunity of vocal instruction.
+
+From these remains of ancient sanctity, which are every where to be
+found, it has been conjectured, that, for the last two centuries, the
+inhabitants of the Islands have decreased in number.  This argument,
+which supposes that the churches have been suffered to fall, only because
+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 worship 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 without them, their decay
+implies no diminution 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
+act 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 power wants no auxiliaries.  Such a seat of
+hospitality, amidst the winds and waters, fills the imagination with a
+delightful contrariety of images.  Without is the rough ocean and the
+rocky land, the beating billows and the howling storm: within is plenty
+and elegance, beauty and gaiety, the song and the dance.  In Raasay, if I
+could have found an Ulysses, I had fancied a Phoeacia.
+
+
+
+
+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 Dunvegan.
+Raasay has a stout boat, built in Norway, 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 the
+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 described,
+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 Mr. Macdonald and his 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 presence.
+
+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 coming 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 perceived that it had
+a visible declivity, and might without much expence or difficulty be
+drained.  But difficulty and expence 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 recompensed 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 all the modes of English
+economy.  Here therefore we settled, and did not spoil the present hour
+with thoughts of departure.
+
+Dunvegan 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 antiquity, supposed to have been a
+Norwegian fortress, when the Danes were masters of the Islands.  It is so
+nearly entire, that it might have easily been made habitable, were there
+not an ominous tradition in the family, that the owner shall not long
+outlive the reparation.  The grandfather of the present Laird, in
+defiance of prediction, began the work, but desisted in a little time,
+and applied his money to worse uses.
+
+As the inhabitants of the Hebrides lived, for many ages, in continual
+expectation of hostilities, 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.
+
+They had formerly reason to be afraid, not only of declared wars and
+authorized 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 plenitude 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 Macleod.  Macdonald having
+married a Macleod upon some discontent dismissed her, perhaps because she
+had brought him no children.  Before 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 them a-drift.  Macleod landed upon Egg,
+and demanded the offenders; but the inhabitants refusing to surrender
+them, retreated to a cavern, into which they thought their enemies
+unlikely to follow them.  Macleod choked 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 willingly 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
+idleness to the wind, except when we were better engaged by listening to
+the ladies.
+
+We had here more wind than waves, and suffered the severity of a tempest,
+without enjoying its magnificence.  The sea being broken by the multitude
+of islands, does not roar with so much noise, nor beat the shore 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.
+
+The country about Dunvegan is rough and barren.  There are no trees,
+except in the orchard, which is a low sheltered spot surrounded 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 make it less fit for use; and
+the family is now better supplied from a stream, which runs by the rock,
+from two pleasing waterfalls.
+
+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 Macleod 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, produces a
+plentiful capture of herrings; and that, if any woman crosses the water
+to the opposite Island, the herrings will desert the coast.  Boetius
+tells the same of some other place.  This 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 Dunvegan 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
+Scotland by the name of their possessions, as Raasay, 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 Maclean,
+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 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 hundred 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 immediate view, seems to be
+very attentive to their happiness.  The devastation of the small-pox,
+when it visits places where it comes seldom, is well known.  He has
+disarmed it of its terrour at Muack, by inoculating eighty of his people.
+The expence was two shillings and sixpence a head.  Many trades they
+cannot have among them, but upon occasion, he fetches a smith 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 yet others smaller about it, one of which has 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 forcible defence to make; and
+we agreed to pursue our journey.  Macleod accompanied us to Ulinish,
+where we were entertained by the sheriff of the Island.
+
+
+
+
+ULINISH
+
+
+Mr. Macqueen travelled with us, and directed our attention to all that
+was worthy of observation.  With him we went to see an ancient building,
+called a dun or borough.  It was a circular inclosure, about forty-two
+feet in diameter, walled round with loose stones, perhaps to the height
+of nine feet.  The walls were very thick, diminishing a little toward 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 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 water, it could not have been a fortress.  In Sky, as
+in every other place, there is an ambition of exalting whatever has
+survived memory, to 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
+inclosures were used to secure the herds and flocks in the night.  When
+they were driven 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 interior inclosures, if the whole building were once a house, were
+the chambers of the chief inhabitants.  If it was a place of security for
+cattle, they were probably the shelters of the keepers.
+
+From the Dun we were conducted to another 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 remain concealed, are formed, I believe, commonly 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 roofed by
+larger stones laid across the cavern, which therefore cannot be wide.
+Over the roof, 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 the 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 cloaths, 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 omission 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
+offence 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 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 refuge, 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 sufficient to engage several 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 formerly written, signed by the
+conspirators, and placed in the hands of one Macleod.
+
+It happened that Macleod had sold some cattle to a drover, who, not
+having ready money, gave him a bond for payment.  The debt was
+discharged, and the bond re-demanded; 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 informed of his danger, called his friends together, and
+provided for his safety.  He made a public feast, and inviting Hugh
+Macdonald and his confederates, placed each of them at the table between
+two men of known fidelity.  The compact of conspiracy was then shewn, and
+every man confronted with his own name.  Macdonald acted with great
+moderation.  He upbraided Hugh, both with disloyalty and ingratitude; 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, endeavoured 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
+explore this curious cavity.  The boatmen, who seemed to be of a rank
+above that of common 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 answer 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 mussels 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 incumbered our 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 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 sometimes of the year, that they are caught like
+whitebait 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 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 interruption.  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 waterfalls.  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. Donald Maclean, 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 Hampshire, to
+learn their practice.  He worked with his 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 applause, 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 carcass.
+
+Col, for he must be named by his possessions, 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 accidentally continued by constraint; we
+derived much pleasure from it, and I hope have given him no reason to
+repent it.
+
+The weather was now almost one continued storm, and we were to snatch
+some happy intermission 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 station that we could take was
+Armidel, which Sir Alexander Macdonald had now left to a gentleman, who
+lived there as his factor or steward.
+
+In our way to Armidel was Coriatachan, where we had already been, and to
+which therefore 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 without light thro' 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 craggs and hollows, benighted, ignorant, and alone?
+
+The fictions of the Gothick romances were not so remote from credibility
+as they are now 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 adventurer might very suddenly pass from the gloom of woods, or
+the ruggedness of moors, to seats of plenty, gaiety, and magnificence.
+Whatever is imaged in the wildest tale, if giants, dragons, and
+enchantment be excepted, would be felt by him, who, wandering 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 or Dunvegan.
+
+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 company, among whom Mr. Macpherson and his
+sister distinguished themselves by their politeness and accomplishments.
+By him we were invited to Ostig, a house not far from Armidel, where we
+might easily hear of a boat, when the weather would suffer us to leave
+the Island.
+
+
+
+
+OSTIG IN SKY
+
+
+At Ostig, of which Mr. Macpherson is minister, we were entertained for
+some days, then removed to Armidel, 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 perpetual ventilation, but by the same blasts is kept
+warm in winter.  Their weather is not pleasing.  Half the 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
+overtakes their summer, and their harvest lies upon the ground drenched
+with rain.  The autumn struggles hard to produce some of our early
+fruits.  I gathered gooseberries in September; 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 cattle 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.  Many of the roebucks perished.
+
+The soil, as in other countries, has its diversities.  In some parts
+there is only a thin layer of earth spread upon a rock, which bears
+nothing but short brown heath, and perhaps is not generally capable of
+any better product.  There are many bogs or mosses of greater or less
+extent, where the soil cannot be supposed to want depth, though it is too
+wet for the plow.  But we did not observe in these any aquatick plants.
+The vallies and the mountains are alike 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 seaweed, 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 fertilising
+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 intricacies among the craggs, that
+there is no room for the action of a team and plow.  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 incommodious, and would
+perhaps be soon improved in a country where workmen could be easily found
+and easily paid.  It has a narrow blade of 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 downwards.  When the farmer encounters a
+stone which is the great impediment of his operations, he drives the
+blade under it, and bringing the knee or angle to the ground, has in the
+long handle a very forcible lever.
+
+According to the different mode of tillage, farms are distinguished into
+long land and short land.  Long land is that which affords room for a
+plow, and short land is turned up by the spade.
+
+The grain which they commit to the furrows thus tediously formed, is
+either 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 countries; 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 triple increase?
+It is in vain to hope for plenty, when a third part of the harvest must
+be reserved for seed.
+
+When their grain is arrived at the state which 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 difficulty, 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 cattle may
+perish.  From this practice they have two petty conveniences.  They dry
+the grain so that it is easily reduced to meal, and they escape the theft
+of the thresher.  The taste contracted 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 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 vegetable 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 subterraneous 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 essayed.  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 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 separated by fire, must,
+if it were found, be carried away in its mineral state, here being no
+fewel 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 commercial 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 knowledge or the pleasing fancies of distant profit.
+
+They have lately found a manufacture considerably 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 regularly to purchase them.  This new source of riches has raised
+the rents of many maritime farms; but the tenants pay, like all other
+tenants, the additional rent with great unwillingness; because they
+consider the profits of the kelp as the mere product of personal labour,
+to which the landlord contributes nothing.  However, 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
+known, neither of them desired the reputation of possessing.
+
+The cattle of Sky are not so small as is commonly 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
+was once one sold for five pounds.  They 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.  Whether this
+difference be specifick, or accidental, 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 unhorned male and female
+together, no man has ever tried, that thought the result worthy of
+observation.
+
+Their horses are, like their cows, of a moderate size.  I had no
+difficulty 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 climate, 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, nothing is left that can be
+converted to food.  The 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
+was 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.  Sheeps 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 common 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 fire-arms made so much 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 would
+have been lost long ago in countries well inhabited, 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 predominance that they have no other
+vermin; for since the great rat took possession of this part of the
+world, 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
+commonly 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 necessarily few.
+The tallest men that I saw are among those of higher rank.  In regions of
+barrenness 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 work-shops, even where no real hardships
+are suffered.  To expand the human face to its full perfection, it seems
+necessary that the mind should co-operate 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.
+
+Having never been supplied with those accommodations, which life
+extensively diversified with trades affords, they supply their wants by
+very insufficient shifts, and endure many inconveniences, which a little
+attention would easily relieve.  I have seen a horse carrying 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 chirurgery, and all compound their own
+medicines.
+
+It is generally supposed, that life is longer in places where there are
+few opportunities of luxury; but I found no instance here of
+extraordinary 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 injury 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 low lands, 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 scarcely 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 half,
+of any family whose estate was alienated otherwise than by violence or
+forfeiture.  Since money has been brought amongst 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 satisfaction 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 Mackinnon.  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 directly
+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 withold 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 principles 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 duty, moral or political, was absorbed in affection 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
+lease-holder of land, of which he keeps part, as a domain, in his own
+hand, and lets part to under tenants.  The Tacksman is necessarily a man
+capable of securing to the Laird the whole rent, and is commonly a
+collateral relation.  These tacks, or subordinate possessions, were long
+considered as hereditary, and the occupant was distinguished by the name
+of the place at which he resided.  He held a middle station, by which the
+highest 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 advantages 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 experience, who consider the Tacksman as a useless
+burden of the ground, as a drone who lives upon the product of an estate,
+without the right of property, or the merit of labour, and who
+impoverishes at once the landlord and the tenant.  The land, say they, is
+let to the Tacksman at sixpence an acre, and by him to the tenant at ten-
+pence.  Let the owner be the immediate landlord to all the tenants; if he
+sets the ground at eight-pence, he will increase his revenue by a fourth
+part, and the tenant's burthen 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 shew
+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 themselves
+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 on less, and they
+would have sold their work for more.  The salaries of superintendents 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 supply him.
+
+According to these schemes, universal plenty is to begin and end in
+universal misery.  Hope and emulation will be utterly extinguished; 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 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
+diminishing the people, is an expeditious mode of husbandry; but little
+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 direct 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 unskilful,
+and for want of admonition will be negligent.  The Laird in these wide
+estates, which often consist of islands remote from one another, cannot
+extend his personal influence to all his tenants; and the steward having
+no dignity annexed to his character, can have little authority among men
+taught to pay reverence only to birth, and who regard the Tacksman as
+their hereditary superior; nor can the steward have equal zeal for the
+prosperity of an estate profitable 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 farmers.  If
+the Tacksmen be banished, who will be left to impart knowledge, or
+impress civility?  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
+tenants to the wisdom and mercy of a factor.
+
+Of tenants there are different orders, as they have greater or less
+stock.  Land is sometimes leased to a small fellowship, who live in a
+cluster of huts, called a Tenants 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.
+
+The condition of domestick servants, or the price of occasional labour, I
+do not know with certainty.  I was told that the 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 content was a muddy mixture of pride and ignorance, an
+indifference for pleasures which they did not know, a blind veneration
+for their chiefs, and a strong conviction of their own importance.
+
+Their pride has been crushed by the heavy hand of a vindictive conqueror,
+whose seventies have been followed by laws, which, though they cannot be
+called cruel, have produced much discontent, because they operate upon
+the surface of life, and make every eye bear witness to subjection.  To
+be compelled to a new dress has always been found painful.
+
+Their Chiefs being now deprived of their jurisdiction, have already lost
+much of their influence; 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 recollection 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 defenceless, 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 shew them their wants.  They are now in the
+period of education, and feel the uneasiness of discipline, without yet
+perceiving the benefit of instruction.
+
+The last law, by which the Highlanders are deprived of their arms, has
+operated with efficacy beyond expectation.  Of former statutes made with
+the same design, the execution had been feeble, and the effect
+inconsiderable.  Concealment was undoubtedly practised, and perhaps often
+with connivance.  There was tenderness, or partiality, on one side, and
+obstinacy on 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 taking away the
+weapon that is lifted against it.  But the loyal clans murmured, with
+some appearance 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.
+
+Whether by disarming a people thus broken into several 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 subordinate society from
+self-defence, only because the supreme power is able to defend them; and
+therefore where the governor cannot act, he must trust the subject to act
+for himself.  These Islands might be wasted with fire 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 contribution.  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 resistance 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 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 summons to a festal show; and committing their cattle to
+the care of those whom age or nature has disabled, engage the enemy with
+that competition for hazard and for glory, which operate in men that
+fight under the 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, whether a great nation ought to
+be totally commercial? whether amidst the uncertainty of human affairs,
+too much attention to one mode of happiness may not endanger others?
+whether the pride of riches must not sometimes have recourse to the
+protection of courage? and whether, if it be necessary to preserve in
+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
+accustomed to resolve all right into conquest, will have very little
+tenderness or equity.  All the friendship in such a life can be only a
+confederacy 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 other all that malignity could dictate, or precipitance could
+act.  Every provocation was revenged with blood, and no man that ventured
+into a numerous company, by whatever occasion brought together, was sure
+of returning without 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 cessation.
+
+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 considered as their natural judges.  It
+cannot be supposed that a rugged proprietor of the rocks, unprincipled
+and unenlightened, was a nice resolver of entangled claims, or very exact
+in proportioning 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, conferred no security; and
+crimes involved no danger, 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 journies were necessary, nor
+artificial delays could be practised; the character, the alliances, and
+interests of the litigants were known to the court, and all false
+pretences were easily detected.  The sentence, 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 every where more wisely, and
+more equally distributed; the complaint is, that litigation is grown
+troublesome, and that the magistrates are too few, and therefore often
+too remote for general convenience.
+
+Many of the smaller Islands have no legal officer 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 exercised in lower degrees, by some of the
+proprietors, when 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.  All 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.  Perhaps experience, improving on experience,
+may in time effect it.
+
+Those who have long enjoyed dignity and power, ought not to lose it
+without some equivalent.  There was paid to the Chiefs by the publick, in
+exchange for their privileges, perhaps a sum greater than most of them
+had ever possessed, which excited a thirst for riches, of which it shewed
+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
+without the consent of others.  Wealth enables us to obtain the consent
+of others to our gratification.  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 grovels after riches.
+
+The Chiefs, divested of their prerogatives, necessarily turned their
+thoughts to the improvement 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 heavily than before.  He refuses to pay the demand, and is ejected;
+the ground is then let to a stranger, who perhaps brings a larger stock,
+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 eagerness.  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 improved, 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 what the land will produce, 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 becomes no richer.  The proprietors of the
+Highlands might perhaps often increase their income, by subdividing the
+farms, and allotting to every occupier only so many acres as he can
+profitably employ, but that they want people.
+
+There seems now, whatever be the cause, to be through a great part of the
+Highlands a general 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 the product of his labour without a superior.
+
+Those who have obtained grants of American lands, have, as is well known,
+invited settlers from all quarters of the globe; and among other 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 questioned.  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 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 popular songs, and hereditary merriment: they
+change nothing but the place of their 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
+relate that these adventurous visitants of unknown regions, after a
+voyage passed in dreams of plenty and felicity, are dispersed at last
+upon a Sylvan wilderness, where their first years must be spent in toil,
+to clear the ground which is afterwards to be tilled, and that the whole
+effect of their undertakings 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 remember 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 transmarine
+correspondents.  But with equal temptations 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 succession 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
+his abode.
+
+Let it be inquired, whether the first intention of those who are
+fluttering on the wing, and collecting a flock that they may take their
+flight, be to attain good, or to avoid evil.  If they are 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 country by positive evils, and
+disgusted by ill-treatment, real or imaginary, it were fit to remove
+their grievances, and quiet their resentment; since, if they have been
+hitherto undutiful subjects, 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 supposed to keep them distinct from the rest of the nation,
+might disincline them from coalescing with the Pensylvanians, or people
+of Connecticut.  If the restitution of their arms will reconcile them to
+their country, let them have again those weapons, which will not be more
+mischievous at home than in the Colonies.  That 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, restrained 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 resentful, are worthy of a statesman; but it
+affords a legislator little self-applause 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 I believe
+is not true, that they had once more inhabitants than they could
+maintain, and overflowed only because they were full.
+
+This is to estimate the manners of all countries and ages by our own.
+Migration, while the state of life was unsettled, and there was little
+communication of intelligence between distant places, was among the
+wilder nations of Europe, capricious and casual.  An adventurous
+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 Helvetians 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 accumulated 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 danger, 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 overwhelmed with multitudes.  To
+count is a modern practice, the ancient method was to guess; and when
+numbers are guessed they are always magnified.
+
+Thus England has for several years been filled with the atchievements of
+seventy thousand 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 thousand
+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 hundred, only seventy-six survived to see their country again.
+
+The Gothick swarms have at least been multiplied 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 forests of vast extent; and the first
+effect of plenitude of inhabitants is the destruction of wood.  As the
+Europeans spread over America the lands are gradually laid naked.
+
+I would not be understood to say, that necessity had never any part in
+their expeditions.  A nation, whose agriculture is scanty or unskilful,
+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 populousness.  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 were different from want of room may produce a general
+disposition to seek another country is apparent from the present conduct
+of the Highlanders, who are in some places ready to threaten a total
+secession.  The numbers 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 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 polity, may establish new clans in
+the other hemisphere.
+
+That the immediate motives of their desertion 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
+Raasa 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 remains of pastoral life, will not much wonder that a common
+Highlander has no strong adherence to his native soil; for of animal
+enjoyments, 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 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 Ministers have commonly
+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
+Ministers.
+
+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 ingratitude 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 allow 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 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 windows, 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 conducted to my chamber, I found an
+elegant bed of Indian cotton, spread with fine sheets.  The accommodation
+was flattering; I undressed myself, 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 property
+may have art and industry, which make them necessary, and therefore
+valuable.  But 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 therefore who is born
+poor never can be rich.  The son merely occupies the place of the father,
+and life knows nothing of progression or advancement.
+
+The petty tenants, and labouring peasants, live in miserable cabins,
+which afford them little more than shelter from the storms.  The Boor of
+Norway is said to make all his own utensils.  In the Hebrides, whatever
+might be their ingenuity, the want of wood leaves them no materials.  They
+are probably content with such accommodations as stones of different
+forms and sizes can afford them.
+
+Their food is not better than their lodging.  They seldom taste the flesh
+of land animals; for here are no markets.  What each man eats is from his
+own stock.  The great effect of money is to break property into small
+parts.  In towns, he that has a shilling may have a piece of meat; but
+where there is no commerce, no man can eat mutton but by killing a sheep.
+
+Fish in fair weather they need not want; but, I believe, man never lives
+long on fish, but by constraint; he will rather feed upon roots and
+berries.
+
+The only fewel 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 surface.  It appears to be a mass of black earth held
+together by vegetable fibres.  I know 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 yellowish, 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 charked for the smith.  The common method of
+making peat fires, is by heaping it on the hearth; but it burns well 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 unlikely
+to be true, whether known or not to those who relate it.
+
+There are water mills in Sky and Raasa; but where 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
+lower is a little convex, 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 with one hand, and works the handle round with the other.  The corn
+slides down the convexity of the lower 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 travelling has so much difficulty, makes
+frequent intercourse 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 fabric.  Conveniences are
+not missed where they never were enjoyed.
+
+The solace which 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 memory, 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 exhilarated by the bagpipe,
+at Armidale, at Dunvegan, and in Col.
+
+The general conversation of the Islanders has nothing particular.  I did
+not meet with the inquisitiveness of which I have read, and suspect 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 guess the motive, and gazes with surprise
+on things which they, having had them always before 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 comes, and whither he is going.
+
+The Islands were long unfurnished with instruction 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
+which 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 vacation, teaches to read and write in his native Island.
+
+In Sky there are two grammar schools, where boarders are taken to be
+regularly educated.  The price of board is from three pounds, to four
+pounds ten shillings a year, and that of instruction 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 ladies nearer than Inverness, I
+suppose their education is generally domestick.  The elder daughters of
+the higher families are sent into the world, and may contribute by their
+acquisitions to the improvement of the rest.
+
+Women must here study to be either pleasing 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 who pretends to
+no distinction.
+
+The religion of the Islands is that of the Kirk of Scotland.  The
+gentlemen with whom I conversed are all inclined to the English liturgy;
+but they are obliged to maintain the established 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
+opportunity; nor have they any reason to complain of insufficient
+pastors; for I saw not one in the Islands, whom I 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
+admired in men, who have no motive to study, but generous curiosity, or,
+what is still better, desire of usefulness; with such politeness as so
+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 congregations has its different degrees.
+In some parishes 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 suspected 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 perhaps 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 abilities 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 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 imperfection; 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 religion 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 respect, even from
+those who cannot think favourably 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
+Highlander that might not have circulated with propriety within the
+precincts of the King's palace.
+
+Legal government has yet something of novelty to which they cannot
+perfectly conform.  The ancient spirit, that appealed only to the sword,
+is yet among them.  The tenant of Scalpa, an island belonging to
+Macdonald, took no care to bring his rent; when the landlord talked of
+exacting payment, he declared his resolution to keep his ground, and
+drive all intruders from the Island, and continued to feed his cattle as
+on his own land, till it became necessary for the Sheriff to dislodge him
+by violence.
+
+The various kinds of superstition which prevailed 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 treated, 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, or 'the Old Man with the Long Beard.'  Whether
+Greogach was courted as kind, or dreaded as terrible, whether they meant,
+by giving him the milk, to obtain good, or avert evil, I was 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 increasing knowledge will bring into
+disuse.
+
+They have opinions, which cannot be ranked with superstition, because
+they regard only natural effects.  They expect better crops of grain, by
+sowing their seed in the moon's increase.  The moon has great influence
+in vulgar philosophy.  In my memory it was a precept annually 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 had little claim to the praise of curiosity, if we had not
+endeavoured with particular attention to examine the question of the
+Second Sight.  Of an opinion received for centuries by a whole nation,
+and supposed to be confirmed through its whole descent, by a series of
+successive facts, it is desirable that the truth should be established,
+or the fallacy detected.
+
+The Second Sight is an impression made either by the mind upon the eye,
+or by the eye upon the mind, by which things distant or future 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 where 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 ceremony, or funeral procession,
+and counts the mourners or attendants, of whom, if he knows them, he
+relates the names, 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, 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 Earse it is called
+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
+proportions 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 recollection 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 expected; 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 reality 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 understanding, universally admit it,
+except the Ministers, who universally deny it, and are suspected 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.
+
+Strong reasons for incredulity will readily occur.  This faculty of
+seeing things 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 ascribed 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
+presuppose 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 premises are not understood; that the Second Sight is only
+wonderful because it is rare, for, considered in itself, it involves no
+more difficulty than dreams, or perhaps than the regular exercise of the
+cogitative faculty; that a general opinion of communicative impulses, or
+visionary representations, has prevailed in all ages and all nations;
+that particular instances have been given, with such evidence, as neither
+Bacon nor Bayle has been able to resist; that sudden 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 affection, 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 distinguished.
+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
+gentleman in the Highlands, who complains of the terrors to which he is
+exposed.
+
+The foresight of the Seers is not always prescience; they are impressed
+with images, of which the event only shews them the meaning.  They tell
+what they have seen to others, who are at that time not more knowing than
+themselves, but may become at last very adequate witnesses, by comparing
+the narrative with its verification.
+
+To collect sufficient testimonies for the satisfaction of the publick, or
+of ourselves, would have required more time than we could bestow.  There
+is, against it, the seeming analogy of things confusedly seen, and little
+understood, and for it, the indistinct cry of national persuasion, 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 expected
+from an illiterate people, whose whole time is a series of distress;
+where every morning is labouring with expedients for the evening; and
+where all mental pains or pleasure arose from the dread of winter, the
+expectation of spring, the caprices of their Chiefs, and the motions 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 generation of ignorance
+effaces the whole series of unwritten history.  Books are faithful
+repositories, which may be a while neglected or forgotten; but when they
+are opened again, will again impart their instruction: memory, once
+interrupted, is not to be recalled.  Written learning is a fixed
+luminary, which, after the cloud that had hidden it has past away, is
+again bright in its proper station.  Tradition is but a meteor, which, if
+once it falls, cannot be rekindled.
+
+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 retained by
+every great family.  After these Bards were some of my first inquiries;
+and I received such answers as, for a while, 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 intelligence.  Of men that
+had lived within memory, some certain knowledge might be attained.  Though
+the office had ceased, its effects 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 practice might be
+different in different times, or at the same time in different families,
+there was yet no reason for supposing that I must necessarily sit down in
+total ignorance.
+
+Soon after I was told by a gentleman, who 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 conversation; but that neither Bard nor Senachi had existed for
+some centuries.  I have no reason 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 or historical, perished with the authors; for in those times
+nothing had been written in the Earse language.
+
+Whether the 'Man of talk' was a historian, whose office was to tell
+truth, or a story-teller, like those which were in the last century, and
+perhaps are now among the Irish, whose trade was only to amuse, it now
+would 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 communicated, or retained; but
+what genius could be expected in a poet by inheritance?
+
+The nation was wholly illiterate.  Neither bards nor Senachies could
+write or read; but if they were ignorant, there was no danger of
+detection; they were believed by those whose vanity they flattered.
+
+The recital of genealogies, which has been considered as very efficacious
+to the preservation 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 masters, or to hide the deficiency of their own memories.
+
+Where the Chiefs of the Highlands have found the histories of their
+descent is difficult to tell; for no Earse genealogy was ever written.  In
+general this only is evident, that the principal 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 primitive customs and ancient manner of life otherwise than
+very faintly and uncertainly remembered by the present race.
+
+The peculiarities which strike the native of a commercial country,
+proceeded in a great measure from the want of money.  To the servants and
+dependents that were not domesticks, and if an estimate be made from the
+capacity of any of their old houses which I have seen, their domesticks
+could have been but few, were appropriated 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 claimed as fees by the several officers, or workmen.  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 followed 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 perhaps
+to be desired, that no change in this particular should have been made.
+When the Laird 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 confounds
+subordination, by overpowering the distinctions of rank and birth, and
+weakens authority by supplying power of resistance, or expedients 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 two-handed sword, and
+afterwards the two-edged 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 fixed; it was heavy and cumberous, and
+accordingly has for some time 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-ax is only a
+slight alteration of the old English bill.
+
+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 gentlemen were perhaps sometimes skilful gladiators, but
+the common men had no other powers than those of violence and courage.
+Yet it is well known, that the onset of the Highlanders was very
+formidable.  As an army cannot consist of philosophers, a panick is
+easily excited by any unwonted mode of annoyance.  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 sometimes for single combats in the field; like those which
+occur so frequently in fabulous wars.  At Falkirk, a gentleman now
+living, was, I suppose after the retreat of the King's troops, engaged at
+a distance from the rest with an Irish dragoon.  They were both skilful
+swordsmen, and the contest was not easily decided: the dragoon at last
+had the advantage, and the Highlander called for quarter; but quarter was
+refused him, and the fight continued till he was reduced 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 reject 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 expence.  This emulation of useless cost has
+been for some time discouraged, and at last in the Isle of Sky is almost
+suppressed.
+
+Of the Earse language, as I understand nothing, 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 will startle when they are told, that the Earse
+never was a written language; that there is not in the world an Earse
+manuscript a hundred years old; and that the sounds of the Highlanders
+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
+Argyle.  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 Orthography; while the Earse merely floated in the breath of the
+people, and could therefore receive little improvement.
+
+When a language begins to teem with books, it is tending to refinement;
+as those who undertake 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 expressions; speech
+becomes embodied and permanent; different modes and phrases are compared,
+and the best obtains an establishment.  By degrees one age improves upon
+another.  Exactness is first obtained, and afterwards elegance.  But
+diction, merely vocal, is always in its childhood.  As no man leaves his
+eloquence 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 suppose; because, if they had read, they could probably
+have written; and how high their compositions may reasonably be rated, an
+inquirer may best judge by considering what stores of imagery, what
+principles of ratiocination, 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 uneducated; but he had some opportunities
+of knowledge; 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
+Earse is, at this time, able to read.
+
+The Earse has many dialects, and the words used in some Islands are not
+always known in others.  In literate nations, though the pronunciation,
+and sometimes the words of common 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 necessary to retain it; and what is once forgotten is lost
+for ever.  I believe there cannot be recovered, in the whole Earse
+language, five hundred 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 knowing the ignorance of all strangers in
+their language 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 always feel their own ignorance.  They are
+not much accustomed to be interrogated by others; and seem never to have
+thought upon interrogating 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 inquiries; and the result of his
+investigations was, that the answer to the second question was commonly
+such as nullified the answer to the first.
+
+We were a while told, that they had an old 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
+believe they were other than Irish.  Martin mentions Irish, but never any
+Earse 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 existed in any other form than that which we have
+seen.  The editor, or author, never could shew the original; nor can it
+be shewn 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 shew 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
+names, and some of the images being recollected, make an inaccurate
+auditor imagine, by the help of Caledonian bigotry, that he has formerly
+heard the whole.
+
+I asked a very learned Minister in Sky, who had used all arts to make me
+believe the genuineness of the book, whether at last he believed 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 was never said that
+any of them could recite six lines.  They remember names, and perhaps
+some proverbial sentiments; and, having no distinct ideas, coin a
+resemblance 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 continue?  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 fortune, an unwritten language, written in a
+character which the natives probably never beheld.
+
+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 original work.  Credulity on one part is a
+strong temptation to deceit on the other, especially to deceit of which
+no personal injury is the consequence, and which flatters the author with
+his own ingenuity.  The Scots have something to plead for their easy
+reception of an improbable 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 Earse 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.
+
+But this is the age, in which those who could not read, have been
+supposed to write; in which the giants of antiquated romance have been
+exhibited as realities.  If we know little of the ancient Highlanders,
+let us not fill the vacuity with Ossian.  If we had not searched the
+Magellanick regions, let us however forbear to people them with Patagons.
+
+Having waited some days at Armidel, 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
+experience, 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, with every other qualification
+which insular life requires, is a very active and skilful mariner,
+piloted us safe into his own harbour.
+
+
+
+
+COL
+
+
+In the morning we found ourselves under the Isle of Col, where we landed;
+and passed the first day and night with Captain Maclean, a gentleman who
+has lived some time in the East Indies; but having dethroned no Nabob, is
+not too rich to settle in own country.
+
+Next day the wind was fair, and we might have had an easy passage to
+Mull; but having, contrarily to our own intention, landed upon a new
+Island, we would not leave it wholly unexamined.  We therefore suffered
+the vessel to depart without us, and trusted the skies for another wind.
+
+Mr. Maclean of Col, having a very numerous family, has, for some time
+past, resided at Aberdeen, that he may superintend their education, 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.
+
+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 floor, but with windows and chimney,
+and not inelegantly furnished.  Mr. Maclean has the reputation of great
+learning: he is seventy-seven years old, but not infirm, with a look of
+venerable dignity, excelling what I remember in any other man.
+
+His conversation was not unsuitable to his appearance.  I lost some of
+his good-will, by treating a heretical writer with more regard than, in
+his opinion, a heretick could deserve.  I honoured his orthodoxy, and did
+not much censure his asperity.  A man who has settled his opinions, does
+not love to have the tranquillity of his conviction disturbed; and at
+seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.
+
+Mention was made of the Earse translation of the New Testament, which has
+been lately published, and of which the learned Mr. Macqueen of Sky spoke
+with commendation; but Mr. Maclean said he did not use it, because he
+could make the text more intelligible to his auditors 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 the Reformation.
+
+The want of churches is not the only impediment to piety: there is
+likewise a want of Ministers.  A parish often contains more Islands than
+one; and each Island can have the Minister only in its own turn.  At
+Raasa they had, I think, a right to service only every third Sunday.  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 impossible 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 tenanted 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 good-humoured, 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 very clear and quick; which is,
+I suppose, one of the most copious streams in the Island.  This place was
+the scene of an action, much celebrated 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 getting some adventurers together, which,
+in those unsettled times, was not hard to do, invaded Col.  He was driven
+away, but was not discouraged, and collecting new followers, in three
+years came again with fifty men.  In his way he stopped at Artorinish in
+Morvern, 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 the 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.  He
+entered the tent alone, with his Lochabar-axe in his hand, and struck
+such terror 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 intelligence, by
+catching the courier, he would give him certain lands in Mull.  Upon this
+promise, Macgill pursued the messenger, and either killed, or stopped
+him; and his posterity, till very lately, held the lands in Mull.
+
+The alarm being thus prevented, he came unexpectedly 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 Macneils, took the castle
+of Brecacig, and conquered 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 seat; a neat new
+house, erected near the old castle, I think, by the last proprietor.  Here
+we were allowed to take our station, and lived very commodiously, while
+we waited for moderate weather and a fair wind, which we 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 Argyle, but the middle
+belongs to Maclean, who is called Col, as the only Laird.
+
+Col is not properly 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 discovers the stone.  Such a soil is
+not for plants that strike deep roots; and perhaps in the whole Island
+nothing has ever yet grown to the height of a table.  The uncultivated
+parts are clothed with heath, among which industry has interspersed 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 orchard; which, if it be sheltered by a
+wall, may perhaps succeed.  He has introduced the culture of turnips, of
+which he has a field, where the whole work was performed by his own hand.
+His intention is to provide food for his cattle in the winter.  This
+innovation was considered 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 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 tempestuous.  I know not that I
+ever heard the wind so loud in any other place; and Mr. Boswell observed,
+that its noise was all its own, for there were no trees to increase 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 support him in
+denying it.  The reason why it is 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 before 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 certainly 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 are 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.
+
+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 probably 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 waste
+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 supposed, that a computed mile contains
+a mile and a half, as was commonly found true in the mensuration of the
+English roads, and we shall then allot nearly twelve to a mile, which
+agrees much better with ocular observation.
+
+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 greater part of Col, but of the extensive Island of
+Rum, and a very considerable territory in Mull.
+
+Rum is one of the larger Islands, almost square, and therefore of great
+capacity in proportion 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
+whoever 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.
+
+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 countenance of the Laird's sister, a
+zealous Romanist, till one Sunday, as they were going to mass under 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
+Earse had no name, and drove them to the kirk, from which 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 curious in it, but the cave in
+which a former generation of the Islanders were smothered by Macleod.
+
+If we had travelled with more leisure, it had not been fit to have
+neglected the Popish Islands.  Popery is favourable to ceremony; and
+among ignorant nations, ceremony is the only preservative of tradition.
+Since protestantism was extended 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 Clanronald.  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 appeared, they
+forsook their work and clustered about him: he took them by the hand, and
+they seemed mutually delighted.  He has the proper disposition of a
+Chieftain, and seems desirous to continue the customs of his house.  The
+bagpiper played regularly, when dinner was served, whose person and dress
+made a good appearance; and he brought no disgrace upon the family 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 two 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 under-tenure.  The Tacksman admits
+some of his inferior neighbours to the cultivation of his grounds, on
+condition that performing all the 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 Tacksmen, that have got smaller
+tenants under them; for in every place, where money is not the general
+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 charity requires
+some trouble and some thought.  A penny is easily given upon the first
+impulse of compassion, or impatience of importunity; but few will
+deliberately 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 wander from Island to Island.  We
+had, in our passage to Mull, the company of a woman and her child, who
+had exhausted the charity of Col.  The arrival of a beggar on an Island
+is accounted a sinistrous event.  Every body considers that he shall have
+the less for what he gives away.  Their alms, I believe, is generally
+oatmeal.
+
+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 considered 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 for the
+ministry; and now, at every vacation, opens a school in Col.
+
+Life is here, in some respects, improved beyond 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 common 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 balance of existence between good and evil.  To live in
+perpetual want of little 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 with
+succedaneous means for many common purposes.  I have seen the chief man
+of a very wide district riding with a halter for a bridle, and governing
+his hobby 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
+appearance 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 pretensions to be called a
+town, except in the Isle of Lewis, which I have not seen.
+
+If Lewis is distinguished by a town, Col has also something peculiar.  The
+young Laird has attempted what no Islander perhaps ever thought on.  He
+has begun a road capable of a wheel-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 clan.  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 remain, but the heat is gone.  Their
+power consisted in their concentration: when they are dispersed, they
+have no effect.
+
+It may be thought that they are happier by the change; but they are not
+happy as a nation, for they are a nation no longer.  As they contribute
+not to the prosperity of any community, they must want that security,
+that dignity, that happiness, whatever it be, which a prosperous
+community throws back upon individuals.
+
+The inhabitants of Col have not yet learned to be weary of their heath
+and rocks, but attend their agriculture and their 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 inhabitants; but the people, when they found themselves too
+numerous, instead of extending cultivation, provided for themselves by a
+more compendious method, and sought better fortune in other countries.
+They did not indeed go away in collective bodies, but withdrew invisibly,
+a few at a time; but the whole number of fugitives was not less, and the
+difference between other times and this, is only the same as between
+evaporation and effusion.
+
+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 dependants on overburdened families,
+or men who had no property; and therefore carried away only themselves.
+In the present eagerness of emigration, families, and almost communities,
+go away together.  Those who were considered 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 themselves, 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
+every where something may be gleaned.
+
+How ladies were portioned, when there was no money, it would be difficult
+for an Englishman to guess.  In 1649, Maclean of Dronart in Mull married
+his sister Fingala to Maclean of Coll, with a hundred and eighty kine;
+and stipulated, that if she became a widow, her jointure should be three
+hundred and sixty.  I suppose some proportionate tract of land was
+appropriated to their pasturage.
+
+The disposition to pompous and expensive funerals, which has at one time
+or other prevailed 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 procession.
+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 victuals 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 New-year'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
+beat with sticks.  He runs with all this noise round the house, which all
+the company quits in a counterfeited fright: the door is then shut.  At
+New-year's eve there is no great pleasure to be had out of doors in the
+Hebrides.  They are sure soon to recover from their terrour enough to
+solicit for re-admission; which, for the honour of poetry, is not to be
+obtained but by repeating 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 inscription, 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 conquered Barra,
+had obtained, it is said, from James the Second, a grant of the lands of
+Lochiel, forfeited, I suppose, by some offence against the state.
+
+Forfeited estates were not in those days quietly 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 Augustus now stands, in which Lochiel obtained
+the victory, and Maclean, with his followers, was defeated and destroyed.
+
+The lady fell into the hands of the conquerours, and being found pregnant
+was placed in the custody of Maclonich, one of a tribe or family 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 likewise, had a girl about the same
+time at which lady Maclean brought a boy, and Maclonich with more
+generosity to his captive, than fidelity to his trust, contrived that the
+children should be changed.
+
+Maclean being thus preserved from death, in time recovered his original
+patrimony; and in 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 Maclonich.
+
+This story, like all other traditions of the Highlands, is variously
+related, but though some circumstances are uncertain, the principal fact
+is true.  Maclean undoubtedly owed his preservation to Maclonich; for the
+treaty between the two families has been strictly observed: it did not
+sink into disuse and oblivion, but continued in its full force while the
+chieftains 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 shelter
+in the Isle of Col.
+
+The power of protection subsists no longer, 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 away, 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
+proportionable extent of ground, without rent, for their pasturage.  If
+every cow brings a calf, half belongs 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 returns to the parent, 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 supposed 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 therefore Col, whether he sent him cattle or not, could grant him no
+land.  The Dalt, however, at his return, brought back a considerable
+number 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.
+
+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 profit 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 vallies will partake of the general progress
+of life.
+
+The rents of the parts which belong to the Duke of Argyle, 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 farm in Southuist has risen in ten years from a rent of
+thirty pounds to one hundred and eighty.
+
+He who lives in Col, and finds himself condemned 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.  Without 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 was 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 pleasantly 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 of ships; for its mouth is closed by a small island,
+which admits them through narrow channels into a bason sufficiently
+capacious.  They are indeed 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 appearance.
+
+The young Laird of Col, who had determined not to let us lose his
+company, while there was any difficulty remaining, came over with us.  His
+influence soon appeared; for he procured 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 Earse language, which she had
+not learned in her childhood, but gained by study, and was the only
+interpreter of Earse poetry that I could ever find.
+
+The Isle of Mull is perhaps in extent the third of the Hebrides.  It is
+not broken by waters, 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 containing 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 calamity never known, no provision had
+been made, and the people could only pine in helpless misery.  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
+intelligible.  Where by vigorous and artful cultivation of a soil
+naturally fertile, there is commonly 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 no worse effect, than that of condemning the lower orders of
+the community to sacrifice a little luxury to convenience, or at most a
+little convenience to necessity.
+
+But where the climate is unkind, and the ground penurious, so that the
+most fruitful years will produce only enough to maintain themselves;
+where life unimproved, and unadorned, fades into something little more
+than naked existence, and every one is busy for himself, without any arts
+by which the pleasure of others may be increased; if to the daily burden
+of distress any additional weight be added, nothing 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 purchase no part of the superfluities of other
+countries.  The consequence of a bad season is here not scarcity, but
+emptiness; and they whose plenty, was barely a supply of natural and
+present need, when that slender stock fails, must perish with hunger.
+
+All travel has its advantages.  If the passenger visits better countries,
+he may learn to improve his own, and if fortune carries him to worse, he
+may learn to enjoy it.
+
+Mr. Boswell's curiosity strongly impelled him to survey Iona, or
+Icolmkil, which was to the early ages the great school of Theology, and
+is supposed to have been the place of sepulture 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 Mull.  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 desolation, to inquire,
+whether something may not be done to give nature a more cheerful face,
+and whether those hills and moors that afford 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 remaining; and
+the speculatist hastily proceeds to censure that negligence and laziness
+that has omitted for so long a time so easy an improvement.
+
+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 of man have been supplied from the Deluge till now, were self-sown,
+will not easily be persuaded to think all the art and preparation
+necessary, which the Georgick writers prescribe 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 Hebrides.
+
+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 futurity, saturated with present good, and at leisure to
+derive gratification from the prospect of posterity.  He that pines with
+hunger, is in little 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 unregarded, where the thoughts are turned with incessant
+solicitude upon every possibility of immediate 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, inclosed at
+an expence 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 plowed
+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 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 number, as I have been told, of several millions,
+expecting, doubtless, that they would grow up into future navies and
+cities; but for want of inclosure, and of that care which is always
+necessary, 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 day-light, 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 always struggling
+with some obstruction or other, and our vexation was not balanced by any
+gratification of the eye or mind.  We were now 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 only on our own
+fatigue.  We were however sure, under Col's protection, of escaping 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 discovered 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 he 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 convenient to sleep in the Hebrides without a cover, and
+there was no house within our reach, but that which we had already
+declined.
+
+
+
+
+ULVA
+
+
+While we stood deliberating, we were happily 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 before noon the next day.  A
+very exact description therefore will not be expected.  We were told,
+that it is an Island of no great extent, rough and barren, inhabited by
+the Macquarrys; a clan not powerful nor numerous, but of antiquity, which
+most other families are content to reverence.  The name is supposed to be
+a depravation of some other; for the Earse language does not afford it
+any etymology.  Macquarry is proprietor both of Ulva and some adjacent
+Islands, among which is Staffa, so lately raised to renown by Mr. Banks.
+
+When the Islanders 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 always seen it; and none but
+philosophers, nor they always, are struck with wonder, otherwise than by
+novelty.  How would it surprise an unenlightened 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
+expected.
+
+Inquiring after the reliques of former manners, I found that in Ulva,
+and, I think, no where 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 ancient customs in old
+families.  This payment, like others, was, for want of money, made
+anciently in the produce of the land.  Macquarry was used to demand a
+sheep, for which he now takes a crown, by that inattention to the
+uncertain proportion between the value and the denomination of money,
+which has brought much disorder into Europe.  A sheep has always 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 ardent times: it has still to show
+what was once a church.
+
+
+
+
+INCH KENNETH
+
+
+In the morning we went again into the boat, and were landed on Inch
+Kenneth, an Island about a mile long, and perhaps half a mile broad,
+remarkable for pleasantness and fertility.  It is verdant and grassy, and
+fit both for pasture and tillage; but it has no trees.  Its only
+inhabitants were Sir Allan Maclean and two young ladies, his daughters,
+with their servants.
+
+Romance does not often exhibit a scene that strikes the imagination more
+than this little desert in these depths of Western obscurity, occupied
+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, practised all the kindness of
+hospitality, and refinement of courtesy.
+
+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
+Macdonald.  Though by the misconduct of his ancestors, most of the
+extensive territory, which would have descended to him, has been
+alienated, he still retains much of the dignity and authority of his
+birth.  When soldiers 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 Macquarry, 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.  We
+entered, and wanted little that palaces afford.  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 without some religious distinction, and invited us
+to partake in his acts of domestick worship; which I hope neither Mr.
+Boswell nor myself will be suspected of a disposition to refuse.  The
+elder of the Ladies read the English service.
+
+Inch Kenneth was once a seminary of ecclesiasticks, subordinate, I
+suppose, to Icolmkill.  Sir Allan had a mind to trace the foundations of
+the college, but neither I nor Mr. Boswell, who bends a keener eye on
+vacancy, were able to perceive them.
+
+Our attention, however, was sufficiently engaged 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 venerableness 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 Icolmkill.  It was not without some
+mournful emotion that we contemplated the ruins of religious structures
+and the monuments of the dead.
+
+On the next day we took a more distinct view of the place, and went with
+the boat to see oysters in the bed, out of which the boatmen forced up as
+many as were wanted.  Even Inch Kenneth has a subordinate Island, named
+Sandiland, I suppose in contempt, where we landed, and found a rock, with
+a 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 covered with a little earth and grass, on which 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 minutes, in
+which we met with nothing very observable, were again safe upon dry
+ground.
+
+We told Sir Allan our desire of visiting Icolmkill, and entreated him to
+give us his protection, 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 promised 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 harpsichord, 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 be all 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 man, 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 regular, to a height which we could not measure; but I
+think it about thirty feet.
+
+This part of our curiosity was nearly frustrated; for though we went to
+see a cave, and knew that caves are dark, we forgot to carry tapers, and
+did not discover our omission till we were wakened by our wants.  Sir
+Allan then 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 venture 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 apartment was
+very warm, but not oppressive, nor loaded with vapours.  Our light showed
+no tokens 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 adventurer,
+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, having been made with a walking
+pole, such as it is convenient to carry in these rocky countries, of
+which I guessed the length by standing against it.  In this there could
+be no great errour, 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 instruments for taking heights and
+distances.
+
+There is yet another cause of errour not always easily surmounted, though
+more dangerous 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 convenience 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 accuracy 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 no imaginable motive to deceive.  They trusted
+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 Spon described with irreconcilable contrariety things
+which they surveyed together, and which both undoubtedly 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 broken 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 Icolmkill.
+
+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 just been censuring, in neglecting, as we passed, to note the
+series of this placid navigation.
+
+We were very near an Island, called Nun's Island, perhaps from an ancient
+convent.  Here is said to have been dug the stone that 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 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 barbarians
+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 were 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 thinking beings.  Far from me and from my friends, be such
+frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any
+ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue.  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 Iona!
+
+We came too late to visit monuments: some care was necessary for
+ourselves.  Whatever was in the Island, Sir Allan could command, for the
+inhabitants were Macleans; but having little they could not give us much.
+He went to the headman 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 than 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 inelegant.  I brought away rude measures of the
+buildings, such as I cannot much trust myself, inaccurately taken, and
+obscurely noted.  Mr. Pennant's delineations, which are doubtless exact,
+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.
+
+That these edifices are of different ages seems 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 nothing approaching to a complete apartment.
+
+The bottom of the church is so incumbered 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
+as more sacred than any other obligation, and which could not be violated
+without the blackest infamy.  In those days of violence and rapine, it
+was of great importance to impress upon savage minds the sanctity of an
+oath, by some particular and extraordinary circumstances.  They would not
+have recourse to the black stones, upon small or common occasions, and
+when they had established their faith by this 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 covered 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 because in
+an island utterly destitute of wood, it was wanted for use, and was
+consequently the first plunder of needy rapacity.
+
+The chancel of the nuns' chapel is covered with an arch of stone, to
+which time has done no injury; and a small apartment communicating 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 the church the bason for holy water is yet unbroken.
+
+The cemetery of the nunnery was, till very lately, regarded with such
+reverence, that only women were buried in it.  These reliques of
+veneration always produce some mournful pleasure.  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 refectory 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 consecrated edifices is covered with
+gravestones, 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 imagination with the
+thoughts that naturally rise in places where the great and the powerful
+lie mingled with the dust, let him listen in submissive silence; for if
+he asks any questions, his delight is at an end.
+
+Iona has long enjoyed, without any very credible attestation, the honour
+of being reputed 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 fishponds 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 shewn a
+chimney at the other end, which was only a nich, without perforation, but
+so much does antiquarian credulity, or patriotick vanity prevail, that 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 inhabitants; 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 are always in the most
+pleasant and fruitful places.  While the world allowed the monks their
+choice, it is surely no dishonour that they chose well.  This Island is
+remarkably fruitful.  The village near the churches is said to contain
+seventy families, 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 fruitfulness of Iona is now its whole 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 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 reverence due
+to 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 was 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 seemed 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 revolutions of the world, Iona may
+be sometime again the instructress of the Western Regions.
+
+It was no long voyage to Mull, where, under Sir Allan's protection, we
+landed in the evening, and were 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 places 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 addressed 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 eminent genealogist,
+considered himself as disrespectfully 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.
+
+Our afternoon journey was through a country of such gloomy desolation,
+that Mr. Boswell thought no part of the Highlands equally terrifick, yet
+we came without any difficulty, at evening, to Lochbuy, where we found a
+true Highland Laird, rough and haughty, and tenacious of his dignity;
+who, hearing my name, inquired whether I was of the Johnstons of
+Glencroe, 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 magnificence, yet they bare testimony to the
+progress of arts and civility, as they shew that rapine and surprise are
+no longer dreaded, and are much more commodious than the ancient
+fortresses.
+
+The castles of the Hebrides, many of which are standing, and many ruined,
+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 defences of the coast; for it was equally accessible
+in other places.  Had they been sea-marks or light-houses, they would
+have been of more use to the invader than the natives, who could want no
+such directions of their own waters: for a watch-tower, 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 retreat, the situation seems
+not well chosen; for the Laird of an Island is safest from foreign
+enemies in the center; on the coast he might be more suddenly surprised
+than in the inland parts; and the invaders, if their enterprise
+miscarried, might more easily retreat.  Some convenience, however,
+whatever it was, their position on the shore afforded; for uniformity of
+practice seldom continues long without good reason.
+
+A castle in the Islands is only a single tower of three or four stories,
+of which the walls are sometimes eight or nine feet thick, with narrow
+windows, and close winding stairs of stone.  The top rises in a cone, or
+pyramid of stone, encompassed by battlements.  The intermediate floors
+are sometimes frames of timber, as in common houses, and sometimes arches
+of stone, or alternately stone and timber; so that there was very little
+danger from fire.  In the center 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 fire-place.  They had not
+capacity to contain many people, or much provision; but their enemies
+could seldom stay to blockade them; for if they failed in the first
+attack, their next care was to escape.
+
+The walls were 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 was built with a square cavity, not unlike a chimney,
+continued to the top.  Through this hollow the defendants let fall stones
+upon those who attempted 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 use of the well is evident.
+The dungeon is a deep subterraneous cavity, walled on the sides, and
+arched on the top, into which the descent is through a narrow door, by a
+ladder or a rope, so 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, with 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 were raised, such as they are, by men who
+had no money, in countries where the labourers and artificers could
+scarcely be fed.  The buildings in different parts of the Island shew
+their degrees of wealth and power.  I believe that for all the castles
+which I have seen beyond the Tweed, the ruins yet remaining of some one
+of those 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 seignory lived in his hold lawless and unaccountable,
+with all the licentiousness and insolence of uncontested superiority and
+unprincipled power.  The traveller, whoever he might be, coming to the
+fortified habitation of a Chieftain, would, probably, have been
+interrogated from the battlements, admitted with caution at the gate,
+introduced to a petty Monarch, fierce with habitual hostility, and
+vigilant with ignorant suspicion; who, according 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.
+
+Lochbuy 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 amusement, 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 justice were opened; and it was not proper to live
+too long upon hospitality, however liberally imparted.
+
+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 proportion to the space which they 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 commonly made according to the pecuniary price of the
+necessaries of life; a principle of judgment which is never certain,
+because it supposes 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 competent enough 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, to which, however
+scarce, where gold and silver are yet scarcer, they can never be raised.
+
+In the Western Islands there is so little internal 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 different 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 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 peny,
+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 foreigner should happen to collect, not that eggs are many, but
+that pence are few.
+
+Money and wealth have by the use of commercial 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 concerning payments of money,
+that could surmount the illiberal desire of deceiving me, by representing
+every thing as dearer than it is.
+
+From Lochbuy we rode a very few miles to the side of Mull, which faces
+Scotland, where, having taken leave of our kind protector, Sir 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 southwards.  The weather was
+tempestuous.  For half the day the ground was rough, and our horses were
+still small.  Had they required much restraint, we might have been
+reduced to difficulties; 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 travelled with great security, busied with
+contemplating 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 musick of nature than it had
+ever been my chance to hear before.  The streams, which ran cross the way
+from the hills to the main current, were so frequent, that after a while
+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 Inverary, where we found an inn, not only
+commodious, but magnificent.
+
+The difficulties of peregrination were now at an end.  Mr. Boswell had
+the honour of being known to the Duke of Argyle, by whom we were very
+kindly entertained at his splendid seat, and supplied with conveniences
+for surveying his spacious park and rising forests.
+
+After two days stay at Inverary we proceeded Southward over Glencroe, 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 sufficiently laborious.  In the middle, at the top of the
+hill, is a seat with this inscription, 'Rest, and be thankful.'  Stones
+were placed to mark the distances, which the inhabitants have taken away,
+resolved, they said, 'to have no new miles.'
+
+In this rainy season the hills streamed with waterfalls, which, crossing
+the way, formed currents on the other side, that ran in contrary
+directions 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 Glencroe we passed through a pleasant country to the banks of Loch
+Lomond, and were received at the house of Sir James Colquhoun, 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 happier climate, it would have
+been the boast of wealth and vanity to own one of the little spots which
+it incloses, 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, instead of soft lawns; and shady
+thickets, nothing more than uncultivated ruggedness.
+
+Where the Loch discharges itself into a river, called the Leven, we
+passed a night with Mr. Smollet, a relation of Doctor Smollet, 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 post-
+chaise, 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 cathedral was left standing in the rage of Reformation.  It is
+now divided into many separate places of worship, which, taken all
+together, compose 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 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 continued 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 adjusted 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 students, for the most part,
+go thither boys, and depart before they are men; they carry with them
+little fundamental knowledge, and therefore the superstructure cannot be
+lofty.  The grammar schools are not generally well supplied; for the
+character of a school-master being there less honourable than in England,
+is seldom accepted 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 cannot 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 widely diffused
+among them, and which countenanced in general by a national combination
+so invidious, that their friends cannot defend it, and actuated in
+particulars by a spirit of enterprise, 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 a long series of ancestors, to Mr. Boswell's father, the present
+possessor.  In our way we found several places remarkable enough in
+themselves, but already described by those who viewed them at more
+leisure, or with much more skill; and stopped two days at Mr. Campbell's,
+a gentleman married to Mr. Boswell's sister.
+
+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 all the Western side of Scotland,
+incommoded by very frequent rain.  It was, with the rest of the country,
+generally 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 annual 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 patrimony.  He has built a house of hewn
+stone, very stately, and durable, and has advanced the value of his lands
+with great tenderness to his tenants.
+
+I was, however, less delighted with the elegance of the modern mansion,
+than with the sullen dignity of the old castle.  I clambered with Mr.
+Boswell among the ruins, which afford 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 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, who perhaps might have extinguished the
+family, had he not in a few days been seized and hanged, together with
+his sons, by Douglas, who came with 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 summer-house,
+at less expence, as Lord Auchinleck 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 men of
+learning, whose names want no advancement from my commemoration, 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 peculiarities wear fast away; their dialect is likely to
+become in half a century provincial and rustick, 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 curiosity to be found in Edinburgh,
+which no other city has to shew; a college of the deaf and dumb, who are
+taught to speak, to read, to write, and to practice arithmetick, by a
+gentleman, 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 afterwards
+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. Braidwood's pupils is wonderful.
+They not only speak, write, and understand what is written, but if he
+that speaks looks towards them, and modifies his organs by distinct and
+full utterance, they know so well what is spoken, that it is an
+expression scarcely figurative to say, they hear with the eye.  That any
+have 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 consider this subject, that Mr.
+Braidwood's scholars spell accurately.  Orthography is vitiated among
+such as learn first to speak, and then to write, by imperfect notions of
+the relation between letters and vocal utterance; but to those students
+every character is of equal importance; for letters are to them not
+symbols of names, but of things; when they write they do not represent a
+sound, but delineate a form.
+
+This school I visited, and found some of the scholars waiting for their
+master, whom they are said to receive at his entrance with smiling
+countenances and sparkling eyes, delighted with the hope of new ideas.
+One of the young Ladies had her slate before her, on which I wrote a
+question 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 shew that she had it only
+to write.
+
+It was pleasing to see one of the most desperate of human calamities
+capable of so much help; whatever enlarges hope, will exalt courage;
+after having seen the deaf taught arithmetick, 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 of
+wider survey and more varied conversation.  Novelty and ignorance must
+always be reciprocal, and I cannot but be conscious that my thoughts on
+national manners, are the thoughts of one who has seen but little.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A JOURNEY TO THE WESTERN ISLES OF
+SCOTLAND***
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