MULL

As we were to catch the first favourable breath, we spent the night not

very elegantly nor pleasantly in the vessel, and were landed next day at

Tobor Morar, a port in Mull, which appears to an unexperienced eye formed

for the security of ships; for its mouth is closed by a small island,

which admits them through narrow channels into a bason sufficiently

capacious. They are indeed safe from the sea, but there is a hollow

between the mountains, through which the wind issues from the land with

very mischievous violence.

There was no danger while we were there, and we found several other

vessels at anchor; so that the port had a very commercial appearance.

The young Laird of Col, who had determined not to let us lose his

company, while there was any difficulty remaining, came over with us. His

influence soon appeared; for he procured us horses, and conducted us to

the house of Doctor Maclean, where we found very kind entertainment, and

very pleasing conversation. Miss Maclean, who was born, and had been

bred at Glasgow, having removed with her father to Mull, added to other

qualifications, a great knowledge of the Earse language, which she had

not learned in her childhood, but gained by study, and was the only

interpreter of Earse poetry that I could ever find.

The Isle of Mull is perhaps in extent the third of the Hebrides. It is

not broken by waters, nor shot into promontories, but is a solid and

compact mass, of breadth nearly equal to its length. Of the dimensions

of the larger Islands, there is no knowledge approaching to exactness. I

am willing to estimate it as containing about three hundred square miles.

Mull had suffered like Sky by the black winter of seventy-one, in which,

contrary to all experience, a continued frost detained the snow eight

weeks upon the ground. Against a calamity never known, no provision had

been made, and the people could only pine in helpless misery. One tenant

was mentioned, whose cattle perished to the value of three hundred

pounds; a loss which probably more than the life of man is necessary to

repair. In countries like these, the descriptions of famine become

intelligible. Where by vigorous and artful cultivation of a soil

naturally fertile, there is commonly a superfluous growth both of grain

and grass; where the fields are crowded with cattle; and where every hand

is able to attract wealth from a distance, by making something that

promotes ease, or gratifies vanity, a dear year produces only a

comparative want, which is rather seen than felt, and which terminates

commonly in no worse effect, than that of condemning the lower orders of

the community to sacrifice a little luxury to convenience, or at most a

little convenience to necessity.

But where the climate is unkind, and the ground penurious, so that the

most fruitful years will produce only enough to maintain themselves;

where life unimproved, and unadorned, fades into something little more

than naked existence, and every one is busy for himself, without any arts

by which the pleasure of others may be increased; if to the daily burden

of distress any additional weight be added, nothing remains but to

despair and die. In Mull the disappointment of a harvest, or a murrain

among the cattle, cuts off the regular provision; and they who have no

manufactures can purchase no part of the superfluities of other

countries. The consequence of a bad season is here not scarcity, but

emptiness; and they whose plenty, was barely a supply of natural and

present need, when that slender stock fails, must perish with hunger.

All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries,

he may learn to improve his own, and if fortune carries him to worse, he

may learn to enjoy it.

Mr. Boswell's curiosity strongly impelled him to survey Iona, or

Icolmkil, which was to the early ages the great school of Theology, and

is supposed to have been the place of sepulture for the ancient kings. I,

though less eager, did not oppose him.

That we might perform this expedition, it was necessary to traverse a

great part of Mull. We passed a day at Dr. Maclean's, and could have

been well contented to stay longer. But Col provided us horses, and we

pursued our journey. This was a day of inconvenience, for the country is

very rough, and my horse was but little. We travelled many hours through

a tract, black and barren, in which, however, there were the reliques of

humanity; for we found a ruined chapel in our way.

It is natural, in traversing this gloom of desolation, to inquire,

whether something may not be done to give nature a more cheerful face,

and whether those hills and moors that afford heath cannot with a little

care and labour bear something better? The first thought that occurs is

to cover them with trees, for that in many of these naked regions trees

will grow, is evident, because stumps and roots are yet remaining; and

the speculatist hastily proceeds to censure that negligence and laziness

that has omitted for so long a time so easy an improvement.

To drop seeds into the ground, and attend their growth, requires little

labour and no skill. He who remembers that all the woods, by which the

wants of man have been supplied from the Deluge till now, were self-sown,

will not easily be persuaded to think all the art and preparation

necessary, which the Georgick writers prescribe to planters. Trees

certainly have covered the earth with very little culture. They wave

their tops among the rocks of Norway, and might thrive as well in the

Highlands and Hebrides.

But there is a frightful interval between the seed and timber. He that

calculates the growth of trees, has the unwelcome remembrance of the

shortness of life driven hard upon him. He knows that he is doing what

will never benefit himself; and when he rejoices to see the stem rise, is

disposed to repine that another shall cut it down.

Plantation is naturally the employment of a mind unburdened with care,

and vacant to futurity, saturated with present good, and at leisure to

derive gratification from the prospect of posterity. He that pines with

hunger, is in little care how others shall be fed. The poor man is

seldom studious to make his grandson rich. It may be soon discovered,

why in a place, which hardly supplies the cravings of necessity, there

has been little attention to the delights of fancy, and why distant

convenience is unregarded, where the thoughts are turned with incessant

solicitude upon every possibility of immediate advantage.

Neither is it quite so easy to raise large woods, as may be conceived.

Trees intended to produce timber must be sown where they are to grow; and

ground sown with trees must be kept useless for a long time, inclosed at

an expence from which many will be discouraged by the remoteness of the

profit, and watched with that attention, which, in places where it is

most needed, will neither be given nor bought. That it cannot be plowed

is evident; and if cattle be suffered to graze upon it, they will devour

the plants as fast as they rise. Even in coarser countries, where herds

and flocks are not fed, not only the deer and the wild goats will browse

upon them, but the hare and rabbit will nibble them. It is therefore

reasonable to believe, what I do not remember any naturalist to have

remarked, that there was a time when the world was very thinly inhabited

by beasts, as well as men, and that the woods had leisure to rise high

before animals had bred numbers sufficient to intercept them.

Sir James Macdonald, in part of the wastes of his territory, set or sowed

trees, to the number, as I have been told, of several millions,

expecting, doubtless, that they would grow up into future navies and

cities; but for want of inclosure, and of that care which is always

necessary, and will hardly ever be taken, all his cost and labour have

been lost, and the ground is likely to continue an useless heath.

Having not any experience of a journey in Mull, we had no doubt of

reaching the sea by day-light, and therefore had not left Dr. Maclean's

very early. We travelled diligently enough, but found the country, for

road there was none, very difficult to pass. We were always struggling

with some obstruction or other, and our vexation was not balanced by any

gratification of the eye or mind. We were now long enough acquainted

with hills and heath to have lost the emotion that they once raised,

whether pleasing or painful, and had our mind employed only on our own

fatigue. We were however sure, under Col's protection, of escaping all

real evils. There was no house in Mull to which he could not introduce

us. He had intended to lodge us, for that night, with a gentleman that

lived upon the coast, but discovered on the way, that he then lay in bed

without hope of life.

We resolved not to embarrass a family, in a time of so much sorrow, if

any other expedient could he found; and as the Island of Ulva was over-

against us, it was determined that we should pass the strait and have

recourse to the Laird, who, like the other gentlemen of the Islands, was

known to Col. We expected to find a ferry-boat, but when at last we came

to the water, the boat was gone.

We were now again at a stop. It was the sixteenth of October, a time

when it is not convenient to sleep in the Hebrides without a cover, and

there was no house within our reach, but that which we had already

declined.