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.