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.