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.