SCOTLAND’S ISLAND WORLD: IONA AND STAFFA
While Scotland is, by its definition, a “pene-insula,” or “peninsula,”
that is, “almost an island,” it has, out in the Atlantic Ocean, an
archipelago of five hundred islands. Of these about one fifth are
inhabited, and of these one third have each a population of only ten or
even fewer souls. This great group lies wholly to the westward, for the
east coast of Scotland is singularly free from islands, the number on
this side being very much like that of angels’ visits, which are spoken
of as few and far between.
These islands are all situated within three degrees of latitude.
Another name for them is the “Hebrides,” which term was formerly
held to embrace all the Scottish western islands, including also the
peninsula of Kintyre and islets in the Firth of Clyde, as well as the
Isle of Man and the Isle of Rathlin.
In discriminating between the Outer and the Inner Hebrides as many do,
this differentiation has a geological basis, for the Outer Hebrides
have a foundation of gneiss, while the more northerly at least of the
Inner Hebrides are of trap rock. Broadly speaking, in popular usage
the term is “Western Islands,” while in literature “Hebrides” is used.
This seems all the more appropriate, because it was the accident of a
misplaced or added letter that gave the islands their literary cognomen.
As in the case of our own country, which has profited so richly through
Scottish emigration from those islands, some of the most delightfully
sounding names, in their present form, have come to us through the
mistake of a transcriber; as, for example, the romantic name, Horicon,
with which tourists on Lake George as well as readers of Cooper’s
novels are familiar. The real word intended for the map is “Iroquois,”
but as a Frenchman wrote it “Horicou,” which was further altered by
a misprint, which made it “Horicon,” it has so remained. So also the
“Hebudes” of Pliny, spelled by a misprint “Hebrides,” has held its
own. Sir Walter Scott adheres to the form “Hebudes.” “Grampian,” which
sounds so pleasant to the ear, is another instance of a false reading
or misprint, which improves the original form and sound.
The total area of these Western Islands is 2812 square miles, or a
fourth larger than Delaware. Only one ninth of the soil is cultivated,
for most of the surface consists of moors and mountains. This region
being at the terminal of the Gulf Stream, the climate is mild, though
so humid that mists are almost perpetual. The drizzling rains are so
common that the mountains are hidden from view or shrouded in fog or
cloud most of the time. The rainfall is heavy. In one place forty-two
inches is the average. Potatoes and turnips, barley and oats form the
staple crops, though with sheep-farming, cattle-raising, fishing,
distilling, slate-quarrying, and the making of tweeds, tartans, and
woollen cloth, with assistance from the patronage of summer tourists,
the people are able to get a living. In religious “persuasion” most of
the inhabitants belong to the United Free Church, though on some of the
islands the people adhere to the forms of religion cherished in the
Roman Catholic Church.
From the earliest centuries the Scandinavian pagans poured into the
islands and among the Celts, to rob and burn, but also to settle down
and be decent. When satiated with robbery and slaughter, they became
peaceful, married the daughters of the land, and adopted the language
and faith of the islanders. The vikings and the immigrants multiplied
in the Hebrides, especially when tyrants in Norway became unusually
active and severe. Battles and fighting between the islanders and the
Norwegians kept the region in turmoil for centuries. Not a few attempts
were made by the Scottish kings to displace the Norsemen. One of these,
John Macdonald, adopted the title of “Lord of the Isles.” He married
the daughter of the earl, who afterwards became Robert II. Battles,
treaties, and alliances followed, but insular sovereignty was abolished
in the reign of James V. Bloody feuds continued, through the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, among the rival clans and their dependent
tribes.
Even the subsidies granted by William III to the chiefs could
not preserve order. Peace dawned only when the tribal system was
broken up. Then, through the abolition of hereditary jurisdiction,
through inheritance, and the appointments in the different districts
of sheriffs who held the writ of the king, peace was secured.
Nevertheless, in the new system of management the rents being made too
high, there began an emigration to America that continued for many
years, threatening at one time to depopulate the islands. Dr. Johnson,
who, with Boswell, made what was virtually an exploration and published
the classic, entitled “A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland,”
in 1773, tells of the ships waiting in the harbors ready to take on
their human cargo for the continent of promise. Thousands crossed the
ocean to Canada or into those Atlantic colonies which became the United
States.
Following the loss of so many able-bodied men and women, the standard
of civilization in these islands began to sink, even though the
population, which subsisted almost wholly on potatoes and herring, kept
multiplying. When in 1846 the potato blight reduced the masses, both in
Ireland and in western Scotland, to the verge of starvation, another
large emigration of thousands to Australia and America took place. Had
Carlyle’s advice been followed, Canada would have forty million and
South Africa ten million loyal British subjects. This sage wanted the
Government to turn men-of-war into emigrant ships, in order to give
free transport of people to waste lands beyond sea. A royal commission,
appointed by Parliament, later secured legislation which has made life
for the crofters in the island more tolerable.
Steering south from Oban, we passed some rocky isles, one of which is
called, from its shape, the Dutchman’s Cap. When in front of Fingal’s
Cave, we are awed by its imposing entrance which is formed by a series
of basaltic columns from twenty to forty feet high, which sustain an
arch sixty feet above the sea. We land in a boat amid the fuming waves
and climb into the cave, which for a distance of about two hundred feet
has a sort of rather rough natural sidewalk made of fallen columns.
The waves beneath us are continually surging and the thunderous echoes
resound continually. The island, of volcanic origin, is nothing more or
less than the fragment of an ancient stream of lava. In Fingal’s Cave
there is first a basement of tufa, from which rise colonnades of basalt
in pillars which form the walls and faces of the grotto, the roof of
which consists of amorphous basalt.
Fingal’s Cave was first noted and described by Sir Joseph Banks in
1773. The grotto is two hundred and twenty-seven feet long, forty-two
feet wide, and sixty-six feet high. But the height of the pillars is
irregular, being thirty-six feet on one side and but eighteen on the
other. Its waters are the haunts of seals and of sea-birds.
Happily for us, instead of seeing nothing but the sombre gray, in an
atmosphere of fog or cloud, or storm-tossed waves, which on occasions
do not allow passengers to disembark, the bursts of sunlight made
unique beauty, both in atmospheric conditions and in an exquisite play
of colors. The basalt appeared to combine every tint of warm red,
brown, and rich maroon, while the seaweed and lichen of green and gold
seemed like the upholstery of a palace. Through the percolation of the
limestone water, the walls were in places of a snow-white tint. Looking
upward we could see yellow, crimson, and white stalactites. When we
examined the columns they appeared to possess a regularity so perfect
as to suggest the work of a Greek sculptor rather than the play of
Nature’s forces in her moods of agony. The Gaelic form of the name is
taken from the murmuring of the sea, meaning the “Cave of Music.” In
times of storm the compressed air rushes out producing a sound as of
thunder.
“Fingal” is the name of the hero in the poems of Ossian, which are
based on the ancient traditions of the Gaelic people of Scotland and
Ireland, still known and told among the people, so many of whom in the
outer islands use this ancient tongue. The Finn in these old stories
was the Rig or King of the Fenians of Leinster, Ireland, who lived at a
“du” or fort in the County of Kildare, and who was killed on the Boyne
by a fisherman, A.D. 283. As for the name “Fingal,” it is thought to
mean a “fair foreigner,” or Norwegian; the word “Dubgal,” meaning a
“dark foreigner” or invader; the blond pirates or intruders being the
Norwegians and the swarthy ones coming from Denmark. Both varieties of
these unscientific marauders ravaged Ireland in the ninth century.
Only the chief caves have names. On the south-east coast is the Clam
Shell, or Scallop Cave. It is thirty feet high, eighteen feet wide, and
about one hundred and thirty feet long, one side of it consisting of
ridges of basalt which stand out like the ribs of a ship. Near by is
the Rock of the Herdsmen, from a supposed likeness to a shepherd’s cap.
The Isle of Columns can be fully seen only at low water.
No human habitations were noted on the Island of Staffa by us, during
our short stay. We got on board the steamer again and proceeded
to Iona, that is, “_the_ island”; for Columkill, or the Island of
Columba, from time unrecorded has had a fertile soil. This fertility,
supposed to be in the dark ages miraculous, led probably to its early
occupation.
Iona’s history begins in the year 563 when St. Columba, from Ireland,
landed on its shores with twelve apostles. By his life and work he
rendered the place so rich in holy associations that to-day the hosts
of divided Christendom, Roman Catholic, Protestant Episcopal, and
Presbyterian, claim Iona as the cradle of their faith, and on different
days--never together in holy union--visit the sacred isle. Sweethearts
and wives must not meet. Which is which?
Iona’s scenery was ever attractive, with its precipitous cliffs, its
dazzling stretches of white shells and sand, its fertile fields, and
its grassy hollows. Its natural charms drew visitors from afar and made
those dwelling upon its acres content. Even before the name of Christ
was uttered, it had been, as the Highlanders called it in their Gaelic
tongue, the “Island of the Druids.” It was therefore famous, before it
became the centre of Celtic Christianity, and the mother community,
whose children were the depositories of the human spirit. From its
numerous monastic houses, hundreds of alumni went out as missionaries
to convert all northern Britain. In a word, the story of humanity in
all the earth is told here. The strata of religions, the deposits of
the human soul, are almost as discernible on Iona as are the layers of
geology, or the floors of successive cities revealed by the spade, in
Egypt or Palestine, in the terpen of Holland or the mounds of Babylon.
Even the humorous side of religion is here discernible to sharp eyes.
Some of the carvings in the choir stalls and chisellings of the marble
aloft show the joker in stone. The demons are represented as having
their fun--and this is equally true in the art of Buddhism in Japan and
of mediævalism in Iona. The tower of the church of St. Mary, on this
island, has one bit of sculpture representing an angel weighing souls
in a pair of scales, one of which is kept down by a demon’s paw. It
reminded us of Dr. Franklin’s Yankee characterization of the Dutchman’s
trade with the Indians.
Iona was at times so sacred a place, with its scores of monasteries
and nunneries, with its small forest of crosses, and with architecture
that enthralled by its beauty, that it was for centuries a spot to
which pilgrims came from all lands, and in its holy soil kings and
nobles longed to be buried; yet it was not free from the robber pagan
and the bloody spoiler. The North Sea rovers, from Sweden, Norway, and
Denmark, descended in the eighth century to plunder, to burn, and to
kill. For two hundred years Iona lay desolate, until Queen Margaret
restored the desecrated monastery, building the chapel over the site
of St. Columba’s grave. Later came the Benedictine monks, who expelled
or absorbed the Celtic community. Intermittently the island was the
seat of the bishopric of the Western Isles, but at the Reformation the
monastic buildings were dismantled by order of the legal authorities.
When Dr. Johnson visited Iona in 1773, only two persons on the island
could speak English. None could read or write.
Of Iona’s political fortunes the story is brief, the most interesting
point to an American being that, when oppression and the severe
conditions made life here undesirable or scarcely possible, the people
emigrated. From the hardy race, inhabiting this and other of the
Western Isles, the United States received a noble contingent, to enrich
its grand composite of humanity.
We spent some time in the cemetery called “the Burial Place of Kings,”
which is reputed to contain the dust of forty-eight Scottish, four
Irish, and eight Danish and Norwegian monarchs, besides many monumental
stones. The number of crosses set up on Iona was nearly equal to
that of the days of the year. These were standing, up to Reformation
times, when most of them were thrown into the sea by order of the
Synod of Argyl. Yet a few still remain. The finest are the Maclean’s
cross and St. Martin’s cross, both being almost perfect in form,
despite centuries of weathering. Both are richly carved with runic
inscriptions, emblematic devices, and fanciful scroll-work.
[Illustration: THE KINGS’ GRAVES, IONA]
It was certainly a brain stimulant and a heart-warmer to ramble
among these ruins. Imagination re-created the scenes in those ancient
days when the light of the gospel was brought by a saintly man filled
with the spirit of Jesus. We realized, in measure at least, how great
was his work and how far-reaching was his influence in winning men to
Christ, before Latin and Germanic disputes for mastery had divided the
Christian Church. Columba’s coming quickly changed the landscape of
pagan Scotland. First in the cities and then in almost every village,
the cross, symbol of the sacrificial death of Him who came to give life
more abundantly, arose, first in wood and then in enduring stone. The
savage people, whose passions and appetites had so closely allied them
to the brutes, were transformed and uplifted.
In time the children of the first hearers of the gospel message were
converted, not only outwardly to the acceptance of creeds,--which in
their scholastic form they could not at first understand,--not only
to symbols, which are ever but the shadows of eternal truths, but
were inwardly transformed in the renewing of their minds. Gradually
they became so changed in heart and life that we, after having seen
Christianity in very many of its varied ethnic forms, and met its
exemplars in lands not a few, cannot but feel that in the home, the
school, and the church, there is no land on earth in which Christianity
is more genuine than in Scotland. Between Columba’s homilies and “The
Cotter’s Saturday Night” long centuries were to pass slowly away.
Nothing in literature, or art, or history, or statistics, furnishes
so true a picture of the leavening of a whole nation, or illustrates
more finely the truth that among believers, even the common people
may be “kings and priests unto God,” than this poem of Burns. It is a
revelation of “Old Scotia’s grandeur.”