DIARY CONTINUED. -- STROMNESS. -- BESSY MILLIE'S CHARM. -- CAPE
WRATH. -- CAVE OF SMOWE. -- THE HEBRIDES. -- SCALPA, ETC.
1814
"_Off Stromness, 17th August, 1814._--Went on shore after breakfast,
and found W. Erskine and Marjoribanks had been in this town all last
night, without our hearing of them or they of us. No letters from
Abbotsford or Edinburgh. Stromness is a little dirty straggling
town, which cannot be traversed by a cart, or even by a horse, for
there are stairs up and down, even in the principal streets. We
paraded its whole length like turkeys in a string, I suppose to
satisfy ourselves that there was a worse town in the Orkneys than
the metropolis, Kirkwall. We clomb, by steep and dirty lanes, an
eminence rising above the town, and commanding a fine view. An old
hag lives in a wretched cabin on this height, and subsists by
selling winds. Each captain of a merchantman, between jest and
earnest, gives the old woman sixpence, and she boils her kettle to
procure a favorable gale. She was a miserable figure; upwards of
ninety, she told us, and dried up like a mummy. A sort of
clay-colored cloak, folded over her head, corresponded in color to
her corpselike complexion. Fine light-blue eyes, and nose and chin
that almost met, and a ghastly expression of cunning, gave her quite
the effect of Hecate. She told us she remembered _Gow the pirate_,
who was born near the House of Clestrom, and afterwards commenced
buccaneer. He came to his native country about 1725, with a _snow_
which he commanded, carried off two women from one of the islands,
and committed other enormities. At length, while he was dining in a
house in the island of Eda, the islanders, headed by Malcolm Laing's
grandfather, made him prisoner, and sent him to London, where he
was hanged. While at Stromness, he made love to a Miss Gordon, who
pledged her faith to him by shaking hands, an engagement which, in
her idea, could not be dissolved without her going to London to seek
back again her 'faith and troth,' by shaking hands with him again
after execution. We left our Pythoness, who assured us there was
nothing evil in the intercession she was to make for us, but that we
were only to have a fair wind through the benefit of her prayers.
She repeated a sort of rigmarole which I suppose she had ready for
such occasions, and seemed greatly delighted and surprised with the
amount of our donation, as everybody gave her a trifle, our faithful
Captain Wilson making the regular offering on behalf of the ship. So
much for buying a wind. Bessy Millie's habitation is airy enough for
Æolus himself, but if she is a special favorite with that divinity,
he has a strange choice. In her house I remarked a quern, or
hand-mill.--A cairn, a little higher, commands a beautiful view of
the bay, with its various entrances and islets. Here we found the
vestiges of a bonfire, lighted in memory of the battle of
Bannockburn, concerning which every part of Scotland has its
peculiar traditions. The Orcadians say that a Norwegian prince, then
their ruler, called by them Harold, brought 1400 men of Orkney to
the assistance of Bruce, and that the King, at a critical period of
the engagement, touched him with his scabbard, saying, 'The day is
against us.'--'I trust,' returned the Orcadian, 'your Grace will
_venture again_;' which has given rise to their motto, and passed
into a proverb. On board at half-past three, and find Bessy Millie a
woman of her word, for the expected breeze has sprung up, if it but
last us till we double Cape Wrath. Weigh anchor (I hope) to bid
farewell to Orkney.[81]
"The land in Orkney is, generally speaking, excellent, and what is
not fitted for the plough is admirably adapted for pasture. But the
cultivation is very bad, and the mode of using these extensive
commons, where they tear up, without remorse, the turf of the
finest pasture, in order to make fuel, is absolutely execrable. The
practice has already peeled and exhausted much fine land, and must
in the end ruin the country entirely. In other respects, their mode
of cultivation is to manure for barley and oats, and then manure
again, and this without the least idea of fallow or green crops. Mr.
Rae thinks that his example--and he farms very well--has had no
effect upon the natives, except in the article of potatoes, which
they now cultivate a little more, but crops of turnips are unknown.
For this slovenly labor the Orcadians cannot, like the Shetland men,
plead the occupation of fishing, which is wholly neglected by them,
excepting that about this time of the year all the people turn out
for the dogfish, the liver of which affords oil, and the bodies are
a food as much valued here by the lower classes as it is contemned
in Shetland. We saw nineteen boats out at this work. But cod, tusk,
ling, haddocks, etc., which abound round these isles, are totally
neglected. Their inferiority in husbandry is therefore to be
ascribed to the prejudices of the people, who are all peasants of
the lowest order. On Lord Armadale's estate, the number of tenantry
amounts to 300, and the average of rent is about seven pounds each.
What can be expected from such a distribution? and how is the
necessary restriction to take place, without the greatest immediate
distress and hardship to these poor creatures? It is the hardest
chapter in Economics; and if I were an Orcadian laird, I feel I
should shuffle on with the old useless creatures, in contradiction
to my better judgment. Stock is improved in these islands, and the
horses seem to be better bred than in Shetland; at least, I have
seen more clever animals. The good horses find a ready sale; Mr. Rae
gets twenty guineas readily for a colt of his rearing--to be sure,
they are very good.
"_Six o'clock._--Our breeze has carried us through the Mouth of Hoy,
and so into the Atlantic. The north-western face of the island forms
a ledge of high perpendicular cliffs, which might have surprised us
more, had we not already seen the Ord of Bressay, the Noup of Noss,
and the precipices of the Fair Isle. But these are formidable
enough. One projecting cliff, from the peculiarities of its form,
has acquired the name of the Old Man of Hoy, and is well known to
mariners as marking the entrance to the Mouth. The other jaw of this
mouth is formed by a lower range of crags, called the Burgh of
Birsa. The access through this strait would be easy, were it not for
the Island of Græmsay, lying in the very throat of the passage, and
two other islands covering the entrance to the harbor of Stromness.
Græmsay is infamous for shipwrecks, and the chance of these
_God-sends_, as they were impiously called, is said sometimes to
have doubled the value of the land. In Stromness, I saw many of the
sad relics of shipwrecked vessels applied to very odd purposes, and
indeed to all sorts of occasions. The gates, or _grinds_, as they
are here called, are usually of ship planks and timbers, and so are
their bridges, etc. These casualties are now much less common since
the lights on the Skerries and the Start have been established.
Enough of memoranda for the present.--We have hitherto kept our
course pretty well; and a King's ship about eighteen guns or so, two
miles upon our lee-boom, has shortened sail, apparently to take us
under her wing, which may not be altogether unnecessary in the
latitude of Cape Wrath, where several vessels have been taken by
Yankee-Doodle. The sloop of war looks as if she could bite hard, and
is supposed by our folks to be the Malay. If we can speak the
captain, we will invite him to some grouse, or send him some, as he
likes best, for Marchie's campaign was very successful.
"_18th August, 1814._--Bessy Millie's charm has failed us. After a
rainy night, the wind has come round to the north-west, and is
getting almost contrary. We have weathered Whitten-head, however,
and Cape Wrath, the north-western extremity of Britain, is now in
sight. The weather gets rainy and squally. Hamilton and Erskine keep
their berths. Duff and I sit upon deck, like two great bears, wrapt
in watch-cloaks, the sea flying over us every now and then. At
length, after a sound buffeting with the rain, the doubling Cape
Wrath with this wind is renounced as impracticable, and we stand
away for Loch Eribol, a lake running into the extensive country of
Lord Reay. No sickness; we begin to get hardy sailors in that
particular. The ground rises upon us very bold and mountainous,
especially a very high steep mountain, called Ben-y-Hope, at the
head of a lake called Loch Hope. The weather begins to mitigate as
we get under the lee of the land. Loch Eribol opens, running up into
a wild and barren scene of crags and hills. The proper anchorage is
said to be at the head of the lake, but to go eight miles up so
narrow an inlet would expose us to be wind-bound. A pilot-boat comes
off from Mr. Anderson's house, a principal tacksman of Lord Reay's.
After some discussion we anchor within a reef of sunken rocks,
nearly opposite to Mr. Anderson's house of Rispan; the situation is
not, we are given to understand, altogether without danger if the
wind should blow hard, but it is now calm. In front of our anchorage
a few shapeless patches of land, not exceeding a few yards in
diameter, have been prepared for corn by the spade, and bear
wretched crops. All the rest of the view is utter barrenness; the
distant hills, we are told, contain plenty of deer, being part of a
forest belonging to Lord Reay, who is proprietor of all the
extensive range of desolation now under our eye. The water has been
kinder than the land, for we hear of plenty of salmon, and haddocks,
and lobsters, and send our faithful minister of the interior, John
Peters, the steward, to procure some of those good things of this
very indifferent land, and to invite Mr. Anderson to dine with us.
Four o'clock,--John has just returned, successful in both
commissions, and the evening concludes pleasantly.
"_19th August, 1814, Loch Eribol, near Cape Wrath._--Went off before
eight A. M. to breakfast with our friend Mr. Anderson. His house,
invisible from the vessel at her moorings, and indeed from any part
of the entrance into Loch Eribol, is a very comfortable one, lying
obscured behind a craggy eminence. A little creek, winding up behind
the crag, and in front of the house, forms a small harbor, and gives
a romantic air of concealment and snugness. There we found a ship
upon the stocks, built from the keel by a Highland carpenter, who
had magnanimously declined receiving assistance from any of the
ship-carpenters who happened to be here occasionally, lest it should
be said he could not have finished his task without their aid. An
ample Highland breakfast of excellent new-taken herring, equal to
those of Lochfine, fresh haddocks, fresh eggs, and fresh butter, not
forgetting the bottle of whiskey, and bannocks of barley, and
oat-cakes, with the Lowland luxuries of tea and coffee. After
breakfast, took the long-boat, and, under Mr. Anderson's pilotage,
row to see a remarkable natural curiosity, called Uamh Smowe, or the
Largest Cave. Stevenson, Marchie, and Duff go by land. Take the
fowling-piece, and shoot some sea-fowl and a large hawk of an
uncommon appearance. Fire four shots, and kill three times. After
rowing about three miles to the westward of the entrance from the
sea to Loch Eribol, we enter a creek, between two ledges of very
high rocks, and landing, find ourselves in front of the wonder we
came to see. The exterior apartment of the cavern opens under a
tremendous rock, facing the creek, and occupies the full space of
the ravine where we landed. From the top of the rock to the base of
the cavern, as we afterwards discovered by plumb, is eighty feet, of
which the height of the arch is fifty-three feet; the rest, being
twenty-seven feet, is occupied by the precipitous rock under which
it opens; the width is fully in proportion to this great height,
being 110 feet. The depth of this exterior cavern is 200 feet, and
it is apparently supported by an intermediate column of natural
rock. Being open to daylight and the sea-air, the cavern is
perfectly clean and dry, and the sides are incrusted with
stalactites. This immense cavern is so well proportioned, that I was
not aware of its extraordinary height and extent, till I saw our two
friends, who had somewhat preceded us, having made the journey by
land, appearing like pigmies among its recesses. Afterwards, on
entering the cave, I climbed up a sloping rock at its extremity, and
was much struck with the prospect, looking outward from this
magnificent arched cavern upon our boat and its crew, the view being
otherwise bounded by the ledge of rocks which formed each side of
the creek. We now propose to investigate the farther wonders of the
cave of Smowe. In the right or west side of the cave opens an
interior cavern of a different aspect. The height of this second
passage may be about twelve or fourteen feet, and its breadth about
six or eight, neatly formed into a Gothic portal by the hand of
nature. The lower part of this porch is closed by a ledge of rock,
rising to the height of between five and six feet, and which I can
compare to nothing but the hatch-door of a shop. Beneath this hatch
a brook finds its way out, forms a black deep pool before the Gothic
archway, and then escapes to the sea, and forms the creek in which
we landed. It is somewhat difficult to approach this strange pass,
so as to gain a view into the interior of the cavern. By clambering
along a broken and dangerous cliff, you can, however, look into it;
but only so far as to see a twilight space filled with dark-colored
water in great agitation, and representing a subterranean lake,
moved by some fearful convulsion of nature. How this pond is
supplied with water you cannot see from even this point of vantage,
but you are made partly sensible of the truth by a sound like the
dashing of a sullen cataract within the bowels of the earth. Here
the adventure has usually been abandoned, and Mr. Anderson only
mentioned two travellers whose curiosity had led them farther. We
were resolved, however, to see the adventures of this new cave of
Montesinos to an end. Duff had already secured the use of a fisher's
boat and its hands, our own long-boat being too heavy and far too
valuable to be ventured upon this Cocytus. Accordingly the skiff was
dragged up the brook to the rocky ledge or hatch which barred up the
interior cavern, and there, by force of hands, our boat's crew and
two or three fishers first raised the boat's bow upon the ledge of
rock, then brought her to a level, being poised upon that narrow
hatch, and lastly launched her down into the dark and deep
subterranean lake within. The entrance was so narrow, and the boat
so clumsy, that we, who were all this while clinging to the rock
like sea-fowl, and with scarce more secure footing, were greatly
alarmed for the safety of our trusty sailors. At the instant when
the boat sloped inward to the cave, a Highlander threw himself into
it with great boldness and dexterity, and, at the expense of some
bruises, shared its precipitate fall into the waters under the
earth. This dangerous exploit was to prevent the boat drifting away
from us, but a cord at its stern would have been a safer and surer
expedient.
"When our _enfant perdu_ had recovered breath and legs, he brought
the boat back to the entrance, and took us in. We now found
ourselves embarked on a deep black pond of an irregular form, the
rocks rising like a dome all around us, and high over our heads. The
light, a sort of dubious twilight, was derived from two chasms in
the roof of the vault, for that offered by the entrance was but
trifling. Down one of those rents there poured from the height of
eighty feet, in a sheet of foam, the brook, which, after supplying
the subterranean pond with water, finds its way out beneath the
ledge of rock that blocks its entrance. The other skylight, if I may
so term it, looks out at the clear blue sky. It is impossible for
description to explain the impression made by so strange a place, to
which we had been conveyed with so much difficulty. The cave
itself, the pool, the cataract, would have been each separate
objects of wonder, but all united together, and affecting at once
the ear, the eye, and the imagination, their effect is
indescribable. The length of this pond, or loch as the people here
call it, is seventy feet over, the breadth about thirty at the
narrowest point, and it is of great depth.
"As we resolved to proceed, we directed the boat to a natural arch
on the right hand, or west side of the cataract. This archway was
double, a high arch being placed above a very low one, as in a Roman
aqueduct. The ledge of rock which forms this lower arch is not above
two feet and a half high above the water, and under this we were to
pass in the boat; so that we were fain to pile ourselves flat upon
each other like a layer of herrings. By this judicious disposition
we were pushed in safety beneath this low-browed rock into a region
of utter darkness. For this, however, we were provided, for we had a
tinder-box and lights. The view back upon the twilight lake we had
crossed, its sullen eddies wheeling round and round, and its echoes
resounding to the ceaseless thunder of the waterfall, seemed dismal
enough, and was aggravated by temporary darkness, and in some degree
by a sense of danger. The lights, however, dispelled the latter
sensation, if it prevailed to any extent, and we now found ourselves
in a narrow cavern, sloping somewhat upward from the water. We got
out of the boat, proceeded along some slippery places upon shelves
of the rock, and gained the dry land. I cannot say _dry_, excepting
comparatively. We were then in an arched cave, twelve feet high in
the roof, and about eight feet in breadth, which went winding into
the bowels of the earth for about an hundred feet. The sides, being
(like those of the whole cavern) of limestone rock, were covered
with stalactites, and with small drops of water like dew, glancing
like ten thousand thousand sets of birthday diamonds under the glare
of our lights. In some places these stalactites branch out into
broad and curious ramifications, resembling coral and the foliage of
submarine plants.
"When we reached the extremity of this passage, we found it declined
suddenly to a horrible ugly gulf, or well, filled with dark water,
and of great depth, over which the rock closed. We threw in stones,
which indicated great profundity by their sound; and growing more
familiar with the horrors of this den, we sounded with an oar, and
found about ten feet depth at the entrance, but discovered in the
same manner, that the gulf extended under the rock, deepening as it
went, God knows how far. Imagination can figure few deaths more
horrible than to be sucked under these rocks into some unfathomable
abyss, where your corpse could never be found to give intimation of
your fate. A water kelpy, or an evil spirit of any aquatic
propensities, could not choose a fitter abode; and, to say the
truth, I believe at our first entrance, and when all our feelings
were afloat at the novelty of the scene, the unexpected plashing of
a seal would have routed the whole dozen of us. The mouth of this
ugly gulf was all covered with slimy alluvious substances, which led
Mr. Stevenson to observe, that it could have no separate source, but
must be fed from the waters of the outer lake and brook, as it lay
upon the same level, and seemed to rise and fall with them, without
having anything to indicate a separate current of its own. Rounding
this perilous hole, or gulf, upon the aforesaid alluvious
substances, which formed its shores, we reached the extremity of the
cavern, which there ascends like a vent, or funnel, directly up a
sloping precipice, but hideously black and slippery from wet and
sea-weeds. One of our sailors, a Zetlander, climbed up a good way,
and by holding up a light, we could plainly perceive that this vent
closed after ascending to a considerable height; and here,
therefore, closed the adventure of the cave of Smowe, for it
appeared utterly impossible to proceed further in any direction
whatever. There is a tradition that the first Lord Reay went through
various subterranean abysses, and at length returned, after
ineffectually endeavoring to penetrate to the extremity of the Smowe
cave; but this must be either fabulous, or an exaggerated account of
such a journey as we performed. And under the latter supposition, it
is a curious instance how little the people in the neighborhood of
this curiosity have cared to examine it.
"In returning, we endeavored to familiarize ourselves with the
objects in detail, which, viewed together, had struck us with so
much wonder. The stalactites, or limy incrustations, upon the walls
of the cavern, are chiefly of a dark-brown color, and in this
respect, Smowe is inferior, according to Mr. Stevenson, to the
celebrated cave of Macallister in the Isle of Skye. In returning,
the men with the lights, and the various groups and attitudes of the
party, gave a good deal of amusement. We now ventured to clamber
along the side of the rock above the subterranean water, and thus
gained the upper arch, and had the satisfaction to see our admirable
and good-humored commodore, Hamilton, floated beneath the lower arch
into the second cavern. His goodly countenance being illumined by a
single candle, his recumbent posture, and the appearance of a
hard-favored fellow guiding the boat, made him the very picture of
Bibo, in the catch, when he wakes in Charon's boat:--
'When Bibo thought fit from this world to retreat,
As full of Champagne as an egg's full of meat,
He waked in the boat, and to Charon he said,
That he would be row'd back, for he was not yet dead.'
"Descending from our superior station on the upper arch, we now
again embarked, and spent some time in rowing about and examining
this second cave. We could see our dusky entrance, into which
daylight streamed faint, and at a considerable distance; and under
the arch of the outer cavern stood a sailor, with an oar in his
hand, looking, in the perspective, like a fairy with his wand. We at
length emerged unwillingly from this extraordinary basin, and again
enjoyed ourselves in the large exterior cave. Our boat was hoisted
with some difficulty over the ledge, which appears the natural
barrier of the interior apartments, and restored in safety to the
fishers, who were properly gratified for the hazard which their
skiff, as well as one of themselves, had endured. After this we
resolved to ascend the rocks, and discover the opening by which the
cascade was discharged from above into the second cave. Erskine and
I, by some chance, took the wrong side of the rocks, and, after some
scrambling, got into the face of a dangerous precipice, where
Erskine, to my great alarm, turned giddy, and declared he could not
go farther. I clambered up without much difficulty, and shouting to
the people below, got two of them to assist the Counsellor, who was
brought into, by the means which have sent many a good fellow out
of, the world--I mean a rope. We easily found the brook, and traced
its descent till it precipitates itself down a chasm of the rock
into the subterranean apartment, where we first made its
acquaintance. Divided by a natural arch of stone from the chasm down
which the cascade falls, there is another rent, which serves as a
skylight to the cavern, as I already noticed. Standing on a natural
foot-bridge, formed by the arch which divides these two gulfs, you
have a grand prospect into both. The one is deep, black, and silent,
only affording at the bottom a glimpse of the dark and sullen pool
which occupies the interior of the cavern. The right-hand rent, down
which the stream discharges itself, seems to ring and reel with the
unceasing roar of the cataract, which envelops its side in mist and
foam. This part of the scene alone is worth a day's journey. After
heavy rains, the torrent is discharged into this cavern with
astonishing violence; and the size of the chasm being inadequate to
the reception of such a volume of water, it is thrown up in spouts
like the blowing of a whale. But at such times the entrance of the
cavern is inaccessible.
"Taking leave of this scene with regret, we rowed back to Loch
Eribol. Having yet an hour to spare before dinner, we rowed across
the mouth of the lake to its shore on the east side. This rises into
a steep and shattered stack of mouldering calcareous rock and stone,
called Whitten-head. It is pierced with several caverns, the abode
of seals and cormorants. We entered one, where our guide promised to
us a grand sight, and so it certainly would have been to any who had
not just come from Smowe. In this last cave the sea enters through a
lofty arch, and penetrates to a great depth; but the weight of the
tide made it dangerous to venture very far, so we did not see the
extremity of Friskin's Cavern, as it is called. We shot several
cormorants in the cave, the echoes roaring like thunder at every
discharge. We received, however, a proper rebuke from Hamilton, our
commodore, for killing anything which was not fit for _eating_. It
was in vain I assured him that the Zetlanders made excellent
hare-soup out of these sea-fowl. He will listen to no subordinate
authority, and rules us by the Almanach des Gourmands. Mr. Anderson
showed me the spot where the Norwegian monarch, Haco, moored his
fleet, after the discomfiture he received at Largs. He caused all
the cattle to be driven from the hills, and houghed and slain upon a
broad flat rock, for the refreshment of his dispirited army. Mr.
Anderson dines with us, and very handsomely presents us with a
stock of salmon, haddocks, and so forth, which we requite by a small
present of wine from our sea stores. This has been a fine day; the
first fair day here for these eight weeks.
"_20th August, 1814._--Sail by four in the morning, and by half-past
six are off Cape Wrath. All hands ashore by seven, and no time
allowed to breakfast, except on beef and biscuit. On this dread
Cape, so fatal to mariners, it is proposed to build a lighthouse,
and Mr. Stevenson has fixed on an advantageous situation. It is a
high promontory, with steep sides that go sheer down to the
breakers, which lash its feet. There is no landing, except in a
small creek about a mile and a half to the eastward. There the foam
of the sea plays at long bowls with a huge collection of large
stones, some of them a ton in weight, but which these fearful
billows chuck up and down as a child tosses a ball. The walk from
thence to the Cape was over rough boggy ground, but good sheep
pasture. Mr. ---- Dunlop, brother to the laird of Dunlop, took from
Lord Reay, some years since, a large track of sheep-land, including
the territories of Cape Wrath, for about £300 a year, for the period
of two-nineteen years and a life-rent. It is needless to say that
the tenant has an immense profit, for the value of pasture is now
understood here. Lord Reay's estate, containing 150,000 square
acres, and measuring eighty miles by sixty, was, before commencement
of the last leases, rented at £1200 a year. It is now worth £5000,
and Mr. Anderson says he may let it this ensuing year (when the
leases expire) for about £15,000. But then he must resolve to part
with his people, for these rents can only be given upon the
supposition that sheep are generally to be introduced on the
property. In an economical, and perhaps in a political point of
view, it might be best that every part of a country were dedicated
to that sort of occupation for which nature has best fitted it. But
to effect this reform in the present instance, Lord Reay must turn
out several hundred families who have lived under him and his
fathers for many generations, and the swords of whose fathers
probably won the lands from which he is now expelling them. He is a
good-natured man, I suppose, for Mr. A. says he is hesitating
whether he shall not take a more moderate rise (£7000 or £8000), and
keep his Highland tenantry. This last war (before the short peace),
he levied a fine fencible corps (the Reay fencibles), and might
have doubled their number. _Wealth_ is no doubt _strength_ in a
country, while all is quiet and governed by law, but on any
altercation or internal commotion, it ceases to be strength, and is
only the means of tempting the strong to plunder the possessors.
Much may be said on both sides.[82]
"Cape Wrath is a striking point, both from the dignity of its own
appearance, and from the mental association of its being the extreme
cape of Scotland, with reference to the north-west. There is no land
in the direct line between this point and America. I saw a pair of
large eagles, and if I had had the rifle-gun might have had a shot,
for the birds, when I first saw them, were perched on a rock within
about sixty or seventy yards. They are, I suppose, little disturbed
here, for they showed no great alarm. After the Commissioners and
Mr. Stevenson had examined the headland, with reference to the site
of a lighthouse, we strolled to our boat, and came on board between
ten and eleven. Get the boat up upon deck, and set sail for the
Lewis with light winds and a great swell of tide. Pass a rocky islet
called Gousla. Here a fine vessel was lately wrecked; all her crew
perished but one, who got upon the rocks from the boltsprit, and was
afterwards brought off. In front of Cape Wrath are some angry
breakers, called the _Staggs_; the rocks which occasion them are
visible at low water. The country behind Cape Wrath swells in high
sweeping elevations, but without any picturesque or dignified
mountainous scenery. But on sailing westward a few miles,
particularly after doubling a headland called the Stour of Assint,
the coast assumes the true Highland character, being skirted with a
succession of picturesque mountains of every variety of height and
outline. These are the hills of Ross-shire--a waste and thinly
peopled district at this extremity of the island. We would willingly
have learned the names of the most remarkable, but they are only
laid down in the charts by the cant names given them by mariners,
from their appearance, as the Sugar-loaf, and so forth. Our breeze
now increases, and seems steadily favorable, carrying us on with
exhilarating rapidity, at the rate of eight knots an hour, with the
romantic outline of the mainland under our lee-beam, and the dusky
shores of the Long Island beginning to appear ahead. We remain on
deck long after it is dark, watching the phosphoric effects
occasioned, or made visible, by the rapid motion of the vessel, and
enlightening her course with a continued succession of sparks and
even flashes of broad light, mingled with the foam which she flings
from her bows and head. A rizard haddock and to bed. Charming
weather all day.
"_21st August, 1814._--Last night went out like a lamb, but this
morning came in like a lion, all roar and tumult. The wind shifted
and became squally; the mingled and confused tides that run among
the Hebrides got us among their eddies, and gave the cutter such
concussions, that, besides reeling at every wave, she trembled from
head to stern, with a sort of very uncomfortable and ominous
vibration. Turned out about three, and went on deck; the prospect
dreary enough, as we are beating up a narrow channel between two
dark and disconsolate-looking islands, in a gale of wind and rain,
guided only by the twinkling glimmer of the light on an island
called Ellan Glas.--Go to bed and sleep soundly, notwithstanding the
rough rocking. Great bustle about four; the light-keeper having seen
our flag, comes off to be our pilot, as in duty bound. Asleep again
till eight. When I went on deck, I found we had anchored in the
little harbor of Scalpa, upon the coast of Harris, a place dignified
by the residence of Charles Edward in his hazardous attempt to
escape in 1746. An old man, lately alive here, called Donald
Macleod, was his host and temporary protector, and could not, until
his dying hour, mention the distresses of the adventurer without
tears. From this place, Charles attempted to go to Stornoway; but
the people of the Lewis had taken arms to secure him, under an idea
that he was coming to plunder the country. And although his faithful
attendant, Donald Macleod, induced them by fair words, to lay aside
their purpose, yet they insisted upon his leaving the island. So the
unfortunate Prince was obliged to return back to Scalpa. He
afterwards escaped to South Uist, but was chased in the passage by
Captain Fergusson's sloop of war. The harbor seems a little neat
secure place of anchorage. Within a small island, there seems more
shelter than where we are lying; but it is crowded with vessels,
part of those whom we saw in the Long-Hope--so Mr. Wilson chose to
remain outside. The ground looks hilly and barren in the extreme;
but I can say little for it, as an incessant rain prevents my
keeping the deck. Stevenson and Duff, accompanied by Marchie, go to
examine the lighthouse on Ellan Glas. Hamilton and Erskine keep
their beds, having scarce slept last night--and I bring up my
journal. The day continues bad, with little intermission of rain.
Our party return with little advantage from their expedition,
excepting some fresh butter from the lighthouse. The harbor of
Scalpa is composed of a great number of little uninhabited islets.
The masts of the vessels at anchor behind them have a good effect.
To bed early, to make amends for last night, with the purpose of
sailing for Dunvegan in the Isle of Skye with daylight."
Footnotes of the Chapter XXX.
[81: Lord Teignmouth, in his recent _Sketches of the Coasts
and Islands of Scotland_, says: "The publication of _The Pirate_
satisfied the natives of Orkney as to the authorship of the Waverley
Novels. It was remarked by those who had accompanied Sir Walter
Scott in his excursions in these Islands, that the vivid
descriptions which the work contains were confined to those scenes
which he visited."--Vol. i. p. 28.]
[82: The whole of the immense district called _Lord Reay's
country_--the habitation, as far back as history reaches, of the
clan Mackay--has passed, since Sir W. Scott's journal was written,
into the hands of the noble family of Sutherland.]