CHAPTER I.

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_LITERARY TOURS_

Literary Tours in

The Highlands and

Islands of Scotland

By D. T. Holmes, B.A.

"Gaudia, discursus, nostri est farrago libelli"

--_Juvenal_, i. 74

_PAISLEY: ALEXANDER GARDNER_

Publisher by Appointment to the late Queen Victoria

1909

* * * * *

_To_

_James Coats, Junr., Esq.,_

_Ferguslie House, Paisley._

_You, but for whom I'd never been

Much further north than Aberdeen;

Whose mandate sent my willing feet

To realms of heather, broom, and peat:

Accept this record of my tours

As something less my own than yours._

_D. T. HOLMES._

_PREFACE._

_White stands the long Kilpatrick row

Of hills with deep and dazzling snow,

And eastward, in a glimmering haze,

Stretch to the Forth the Campsie Braes._

_But see! beyond the Clyde, a stain

Of smoke that runs across the plain,

And flecks for miles the vivid gleam:

It is the tireless steed of steam._

_An old acquaintance! Ben and Strath

Daily behold his thunderous path,

That ceases not, until he feels

The breeze of Mallaig cool his wheels._

_And Memory, fondly gazing back

On many a journey by that track

Of splendour, would, at home, retrace

The charms and lore of every place;_

_Yea, pass, in thought, to storied Skye,

Where all the glens in glamour lie;

And, lightly scorning gust and spray,

Leap o'er the Minch to Stornoway._

_And many a northern beach besides,

Splashed by the foam of racing tides,

Rises in thought: from here to there,

Let Fancy's coinage pay the fare,--_

_Fancy, that wafts us o'er the main

To utmost Thule and home again,

Through mingled din of sea and sky,

Even in the twinkling of an eye._

_D. T. H._

_Ingleholm, Bridge of Weir,

16th January, 1909._

CONTENTS.

PAGE

CHAPTER I.--INTRODUCTORY, 9

Village libraries--Difficulties of travel--Literary Societies in

the Highlands--Gaelic books--Happiness and geniality of

natives--Oban to Gairloch--Winter sailing--A crofting

village--Horrors of the Minch--Notes on Lewis--Highland

doctors--Hotels and anglers--Recent books--Military--Moray

Firth--Among the miners--Handloom weaving--Professor Blackie and

the Highlands.

CHAPTER II.--MUSIC, SPEECHES, AND LITERATURE, 60

Scotch a reading nation--Hardships of students in old

days--Homer in Scalloway--When education ends--Objects of

chapter--Music--M.P.'s--Rural depopulation--Its

causes--Emigration--Village halls--The moon--A lecture in

Islay--Mental and material wealth--Real greatness--A Highland

laird on literature--Varieties of chairmen--"Coming to the

point"--Moral obligation--Compliment to Paisley--Oratory at

Salen--Lecture in a dungeon--Surprises--A visit to the

Borders--Tarbolton--Scotch language--Choice books--The

essayists--A Banff theory--Goldsmith in Gaelic--_Biblia

abiblia_--Favourites for the road--Horace--Shakespeare's

Sonnets--Xenophon--French literature and journalism--Romance and

Augustanism--Victorian writers--Celt and Saxon.

CHAPTER III.--ECCLESIASTICAL, 134

Sectarian feeling--Typical anecdotes--Music and

religion--Ethical teaching in schools--The Moderates--A savoury

book--The Sabbath--"The Men of Skye"--The auldest kirk--The

Episcopal Church--An interlude of metre--The Christian

Brethren--Drimnin in Morven--Craignish--A model

minister--Ministerial trials in olden times--An artful

dodger--Some anecdotes from Gigha--Growing popularity of Ruskin.

CHAPTER IV.--EDUCATIONAL, 180

Some Insular Dominies--Education Act of 1872--Education in the

Highlands--Feeding the hungry--Parish Council

boarders--Dwindling attendances--Arnisdale--Golspie Technical

School--On the Sidlaws--Some surprises--Arran schools--Science

and literature--Study of Scott--The old classical dominie--Vogue

of Latin in former times--Teachers and

examinations--Howlers--Competing subjects.

CHAPTER V.--A TRIP TO SHETLAND, 217

Aberdeen--En route--Lerwick--Past and present saints--Some notes

on the islands--A Shetland poet--A visit to Bressay--From

Lerwick to Sandwick--Quarff--"That holy man,

Noah"--Fladibister--Cunningsburgh--"Keeping off"--The indignant

elder--Torquil Halcrow--Philology--A Sandwick gentleman--Local

tales--Foulah and Fair Isle--The fishing season.

CHAPTER VI.--COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS AND THEIR ANECDOTES, 255

Trials of commercials--The two-est-faced knave--Mary, the maid

of the inn--Anecdotes of the smoking-room: Sonnet to

Raleigh--Peelin's below the tree--"She's away!"--A mean

house--One of the director's wives--Temperance hotels--A

memorial window--The blasted heath--The day for it--The

converted drummer--A circular ticket--A compound

possessive--Sixteen medals--"She's auld, and she's thin, and

she'll keep"--The will o' the dead--Sorry for London--"Raither

unceevil"--An unwelcome recitation--A word in season--A Nairn

critic--A grand day for it--A pro-Boer--"Falls of Bruar, only,

please!"--A bad case of nerves.

CHAPTER VII.--LEGENDS AND LITERARY NOTABILIA, 278

Gairloch folk-lore: Prince Olaf and his bride--A laird who had

seen a fairy--Tales from Loch Broom: The dance of death--The

Kildonan midwife--The magic herring--Taisch--Antiquities of

Dunvegan--Miscellaneous terrors--St. Kilda--Lady

Grange--Pierless Tiree--Lochbuie in Mull--Inveraray Castle--The

sacred isle--Appin--Macdonald's gratitude--Notes on the

Trossachs--Lochfyneside: Macivors, Macvicars, and

Macallisters--Red Hector--Macphail of Colonsay--Tales from

Speyside: Tom Eunan!--Shaws and Grants--The wishing well--Ossian

and Macpherson--At the foot o' Bennachie--Harlaw--Lochaber

reivers--Reay and Twickenham--Rob Donn--Rev. Mr. Mill of

Dunrossness.

CHAPTER VIII.--METRICAL AND SUPPLEMENTARY, 340

Arrival of the Mail-train at a Highland Station--Defoe, the

Father of Journalism--A Village Toper--A Reverend

Hellenist--Antigone--Shadows of the Manse--"My Heart's in the

Highlands"--Saddell, Kintyre--Springtime in Perthshire--Dr.

George Macdonald's Creed--Abbotsford--Carlyle--Shelley--Picture

in an Inn--Rain-storm at Loch Awe--Kinlochewe--General

Wade--Sound of Raasay in December--Les Neiges d' Antan--The

Islands of the Ness--American Tourist Loquitur--The Miners--In a

Country Graveyard--No Place like Home.

INDEX, 369

LITERARY TOURING.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

Village libraries--Difficulties of travel--Literary Societies in

the Highlands--Gaelic books--Happiness and geniality of

natives--Oban to Gairloch--Winter sailing--A crofting

village--Horrors of the Minch--Notes on Lewis--Highland

doctors--Hotels and anglers--Recent books--Military--Moray

Firth--Among the miners--Handloom weaving--Professor Blackie and

the Highlands.

VILLAGE LIBRARIES.

At pretty frequent intervals, during the last four years, I have sallied

forth from my home in Renfrewshire, north, south, east, and west, to

some of the most remote and isolated nooks of insular and provincial

Scotland, on a mission so uncommon as to justify the writing of a book

of impressions and experiences. The Highlands and Islands of Scotland

are, of course, visited every summer by a great host of excursionists,

who go thither to fish, play golf, lounge, climb hills, and otherwise

picturesquely disport themselves. A few earnest devotees of science

spend their holidays botanising in the glens, scanning the geological

strata, looking for fossils, measuring the outlines of brochs and

prehistoric forts, or collecting relics of Culdee churches. My journeys

were undertaken for none of the objects named: they were entirely

connected with _libraries_ and _lecturing_, and, being undertaken mainly

in the months of winter and spring, they have given me the opportunity

of noting a great many interesting particulars that the summer

traveller, bent on recreation or science, cannot be expected to notice.

_I do not think any finer gift could be given to a village community

than a collection of useful and entertaining books._ The libraries with

which my work was connected were sent, free of charge, to strath and

glen, and nothing was asked in return, except that the volumes should be

well housed and delivered to the people to read by some local librarian.

You will find these libraries in all the townships of the Hebrides, from

Ness in Lewis, down the long chain of islands, to Islay and Jura. About

thirty of them are established in the Shetlands, and as many in the

Orkneys. Scores of little villages in Aberdeen, Ross, Sutherland,

Argyle, Bute, and Perth, have been gratuitously supplied with them. The

same is true of many a weather-beaten, quaint, red-tiled little

fishing-village along the shores of the Moray Firth. In the barracks of

Fort-George, Inverness, and Dingwall, the soldiers can solace their

leisure hours by delightful, patriotic, and instructive reading,

furnished to them without money and without price. Even in quiet,

pastoral Roxburghshire, at a spot near the birthplace of Dandie

Dinmont, you will find one of these serviceable collections of books.

It is a pleasure to me to be able to say that I have visited a great

number of the districts mentioned, for the purpose of speaking to the

people in a familiar and non-academic way on some of the books which

have been presented to them. In this way I have spoken to about 40,000

people, the majority of whom had never previously been present at a

discourse on a literary topic. Most of them had, of course, been in the

habit of attending religious services and election meetings: but neither

of these is the very best preparation for a literary evening. Some of my

experiences have been intensely amusing, and I do not think any lecturer

has ever, as regards rough roads, inclement weather, and amazing votes

of thanks, had quite the same joys and sorrows as I have come through. I

have often laughed (good-naturedly, I hope) at what came under my

notice, but I am not so conceited as to suppose that the hilarity was

always on one side.

DIFFICULTIES OF TRAVEL.

It can very easily be seen that he who proposed to visit all the above

districts would have some hard and continuous work in prospect. Even on

the mainland of Scotland there are many villages of difficult access.

The nearest railway station to Durness on Loch Eriboll is Lairg, sixty

miles away. Gairloch in Ross-shire is thirty miles distant from the

railway station of Achnasheen. In the great county of Aberdeen there are

a good many villages that can only be reached by long and tiresome

driving in a mail coach. At different parts of the Moray Firth little

townships lie huddled at the foot of precipitous cliffs, and, at first

sight, seem inaccessible except by sea. To one accustomed to the

sumptuous equipment of the Clyde steamers, even the journey to the

shrine of Hugh Miller at Cromarty is pleasant only in good weather: a

wee, puffing, hard-wrought steam-launch takes a slant course of five

miles from Invergordon to Cromarty pier, accomplishing the journey in

forty-five minutes. The fare between the two piers is one shilling, and

there is no extra charge for the use of the cabin, which is reached by a

perpendicular and very slippery ladder, and would be better suited for

philosophical reflection in a gale if the crew did not use it as a

store-room for engine-grease and old oilskins. In the Outer Islands,

Watt's machine is, of course, unknown, and many of the roads which

imaginative cartographers have inserted in their maps, will perhaps be

finished when the last trump is about to sound.

Railway travelling, too, is attended with some inconveniences in winter.

The Glasgow-Inverness train, for example, may, on the coldest night of

the year, break down at Dalnaspidal; and in such a case the passengers

will have to sit, entertained by howling blasts, till a fresh engine

comes up from Blair Atholl. Such an experience was once mine, and I

always think of it when I read the ninth ode of Horace's first book.

Outside were the great snow-sheeted mountains, and the moon was gazing

in blear-eyed compassion through a screen of haze. From end to end of

the train resounded the rhythmic beat of cold-footed passengers striving

to bring some warmth of blood to the toes.

In Grantown-on-Spey, I got an uncommon surprise one February. There had

been some snow in the Lowlands, but at Grantown the fall had been

excessive, and the roads were encumbered. On arriving at the station,

the travellers saw a sleigh waiting to convey them to the hotel. The

conveyance suited the weather admirably, and the horses seemed to be

enjoying the fun. No wheeled vehicles were to be seen: even the milkmen

sleighed their commodity from door to door. "_If we had a brace of

grand-dukes and a bomb or two, we could fancy ourselves in Russia_,"

said the facetious hotel-porter. He asserted that it was well for the

country when abundant snow came down early in the year. It seems that

Grantown is apt to suffer from drought in a hot summer following on a

rainless spring. A copious fall of snow early in the year is retained in

the mountains, and ensures plenty of moisture during the months of heat.

Moisture is needed in summer, for the population is trebled then, and

most tourists require a little water, sometimes, to qualify their

potations.

It is evident from what I have said, that the pedantic and vexatious

system adopted by Euclid in his Elements of Geometry could not be

employed in arranging the chapters of this book. The stern

consecutiveness of that immortal but unpopular author would be out of

place in describing journeys which might have been taken in the reverse

order without much difference in the results.

LITERARY SOCIETIES IN THE HIGHLANDS.

Winter with its long nights gives leisure to the remote glensmen and

crofters. The distractions of the town are not there to take their minds

away from study and meditation. Books may not be abundant, but what

literature is available is eagerly fastened on and thoroughly digested.

In the Lowlands we skip over our books and know nothing thoroughly. The

Highlander, with his limited means and choice, is forced to peruse and

re-peruse, even though he has nothing more lively than Boston's

_Fourfold State_, or Hervey's _Meditations among the Tombs_. But he

knows well what he has so often read, and is quite competent to discuss

and criticise his little row of volumes. A few of the Highland townships

have literary societies in which every variety of subject is debated:

the meetings are usually opened with prayer, but not always closed in

that way. There is a tiny clachan, some twenty miles distant from

Ullapool, on the side of a hill, in view of the grotesque peaks of

Suilven, which has a most flourishing literary society--with president,

vice-president, rules, minutes, and committees. Not once, but twice a

week does this society meet, and when the full moon is propitious for a

clear journey home through the morasses, the debates are often unduly

prolonged and the chairman's summing-up luxuriantly prolix. How many

politicians of note in London have been raked fore and aft in that

little schoolroom! What measures and enactments, plausible to the

unthinking metropolitans, have been cut and slashed there, while the

conscious moon, gleaming in at the window, strove vainly to disperse

the loquacious throng! Listen to the chairman's modest remarks: "_I do

not wish_," he says, "_to embarrass the Government, but_...." Unthinking

Asquith, here is a man who does not wish to embarrass you; he could do

it, but he is merciful! You may breathe freely, you and your Cabinet,

for spite of your slips and blunders, the Ross-shire crofters will not

turn round and rend you. They do not wish to embarrass the Government;

but have a care: their eyes are on you, and forbearance has its limits.

Think not because they live remote from train and telegraph, that you

are immune from their censure. Far from it! Round the hill-side at a

stated hour every day, in shine or shower, gust or calm, comes the

mail-coach of King Edward VII., bringing its pile of letters and

newspapers. I see the little throng of village politicians, eager-eyed,

peruse the latest parliamentary news. There they get all the needed

pabulum for the next political debate. If the answers to Mr. Galloway

Weir have been shifty and evasive, it will go hard with the Government

to-night in the little schoolroom, and the plaster will fall in showers

of dust from the ceiling as the iniquities of our rulers are ruthlessly

shown up. I should not like to feel the rough side of that chairman's

tongue.

A library of representative English works, presented to a remote

provincial society like the one I speak of, is a centre of unspeakable

entertainment and instruction. The _entertainment_, during the long

nights of winter, when the natives gather round the ingle and someone

reads aloud, is a very palpable addition to the joys of life. The

_instruction_ is perhaps slower in coming, but is none the less sure.

Only by comparison of books can their relative value as literature be

determined. Bigotry and narrow-mindedness in literature and religion are

almost always the result of ignorance. In the Highlands it is oftenest

the local teacher who is the librarian, and the books are accommodated

in the school. The teacher is thus able to make his instruction in

literature vivid and interesting to his senior pupils; he can authorise

a pupil to take a particular volume home and require an essay to be

written on it within a given time; and he can, in school, read aloud

typical passages of good prose to supplement the limited extracts of the

class text-books. The books have been selected (i.) to form useful

reading for adults; (ii.) to supply suitable pabulum for literary

societies; (iii.) to aid the schemes of the Education Department in

connection with what is called the "Supplementary Course of Instruction

in English Literature." The selection of the books for the use of senior

scholars has been, as a rule, easy enough. Dictionaries of the French

and German languages, good atlases, and works of reference have, in most

cases been included.[1]

[1] Let the southern reader remember that a boy born in a city

like Glasgow has, as respects opportunities of getting on,

infinitely better chances than a lad of equal ability born in a

Highland village. The crofter's son has no reading-room with

costly works of reference, scientific manuals, English

translations of Latin authors, etc., to go to when he is in need

of help. He begins the battle of life at a very serious

disadvantage, and often gives up the fight altogether. Anything

that tends to equalise the chances of town and country, from the

point of view of mental equipment, would do more general good to

Scotland, by bettering the available brain power, than any

half-dozen Acts of Parliament taken at random.

GAELIC BOOKS.

In selecting the books specially intended for the perusal of the older

people, an attempt is made to meet the needs of the various localities.

In the bi-lingual districts there is always a shelf of Gaelic books,

such as the original texts of Norman Macleod's exquisite sermons,

M'Rury's religious compilations, Macleod's clever poetry _The Lyre of

the Grove_, Campbell's _Popular Tales of the West Highlands_, and Magnus

Maclean's manuals of Celtic Literature. There being a distinct dearth of

comely Celtic reading that the ordinary native can understand,

arrangements have been made for the translation into Gaelic in several

volumes by competent scholars, of extracts from Mr. Lang's _True Story

Book_, and from other sources.

The regrettable thing about Gaelic is its hopelessly bewildering

spelling. The sounds are pleasing and melodious in a high degree, but

they hide themselves behind most peculiar disguisements of print. Most

people will admit, I think, that a language which spells Avon,

_Amhuinn_, and Rory, _Ruaridh_, would benefit greatly by a visit from

Pitman. The utility of sane phonetics was brought home to me very

forcibly by a story I heard from a gentleman in the west of Skye. This

gentleman is an excellent English scholar, can speak Gaelic but is

unable to read it. He got a letter once from St. Kilda composed by an

islander who spelt Gaelic by ear and not according to the awe-inspiring

orthography of the dictionary. The gentleman, who could not have made

out the letter had it been spelt correctly, was able to read it as it

stood, without the slightest hesitation. If a more rational spelling

were generally adopted, an immense number of Lowlanders who are

interested in philology, would study the grand old tongue, were it only

to understand the numberless place names of Celtic origin that occur in

British geography.

What I have said about Gaelic spelling explains the inability of a large

percentage of the population to read a book printed in the native idiom.

What is the use then, it may be asked, of translating the _True Story

Book_? The answer is obvious to one who knows the Highlands. In the

Outer Isles there are many old people who know no English and whose only

literary solace comes from listening to others reading. At the evening

_ceilidh_ a competent reader of Gaelic can usually be found. Then,

again, we are likely to see, in the near future, a notable revival of

interest in the old language, consequent on the efforts of the _Mod_,

and on the recognition of Gaelic by the Department as a fit subject of

study in the Highland schools. Such a revival, to be lasting in its

effects, must be enforced and sustained by a constant supply of pure and

interesting Gaelic books, both native and translated. Religious books

there are in abundance, thanks to the zeal of the Protestant clergy.

Needless to say, the compilations of the Dean of Lismore are as

unintelligible to the modern Gael as Cynewulf is to a London cab-driver.

I should like to see a round dozen of good English novels put into

Gaelic by translators who knew the idiom thoroughly.

The fervour displayed at Highland gatherings, admirable as it is from a

sentimental point of view, is apt to grow cold at the prospect of

laborious work to be done. It is not creditable that the great majority

of Gaelic speakers are unable to read a page of Gaelic print. Nor is it

creditable that those who can both read and speak, do so little for the

interpretation of the literature. Blackie's books and translations are

still among the best, and Blackie was a Lowlander, was born, indeed, in

the Saltmarket of Glasgow. My frequent visits to the north and west have

convinced me that another difficulty in the way of a possible resurgence

of Gaelic is the lack of a recognised standard of colloquial speech. The

language is split up into many dialects, each possessing its own special

idioms and vocabulary. A Glasgow firm of printers not long ago conceived

the idea of printing post-cards with Gaelic greetings: they found that

every city Highlander they consulted had either in grammar or turn of

phrase some special way of framing the sentences. "Grand Gaelic to-day!"

is an exclamation sometimes heard at the door of a Highland church in

town, and indicates that the minister who has officiated comes from the

same strath as the person speaking.

A moderate amount of encouragement to Gaelic is all that can reasonably

be expected from the Government, seeing that the prime duty of the

schoolmaster everywhere is to impart a sound knowledge of English.[2]

[2] In an editorial of June 6, 1908, the _Glasgow Herald_

excellently says:--"The first requisite for a Highlander is such

a knowledge of English as will open up to him the lucrative

employment from which ignorance of English must shut him out,

and it is no kindness to him to interfere with his acquisition

of this indispensable accomplishment.... So good a Gael as

Professor Magnus Maclean has observed that 'even more remarkable

than the dearth of philosophical and dramatic poems, and, we

might add, of narrative and pastoral poetry proper, is the

scarcity of Gaelic prose.' By all means, however, let a literary

knowledge of the Gaelic language be encouraged among

Gaelic-speaking children. It is a very different matter to

enforce such steps as would lead to the teaching of Gaelic to

children that live indeed in Gaelic-speaking districts but yet

speak only English."

HAPPINESS AND GENIALITY OF NATIVES.

What has struck me most in my travels by land and sea, is the

extraordinary amount of happiness, geniality, and good humour that still

exists in the world. There is a substantial amount of felicity in the

majority of men. Every one knows the sentence of Emerson: "Give me

health and a day, and I will make the pomp of empires ridiculous." I

like to give concrete examples of philosophic maxims, and I should

particularise Emerson's dictum thus: "Bard Macdonald of Trotternish,

Skye, whose only cow came near being impounded by the Congested

Districts Board in order to pay for the price of seed-potatoes furnished

to him by the said Board, having good health, makes the pomp of empires

ridiculous three hundred and sixty-five days every year." Bard Macdonald

is a very poor man, yet he has contrived to hitch his waggon on to a

fixed star. He lives in one of those low thatch-roofed bothies that,

with the accompanying croft, are rented at from £2 to £4 a year. He has

a wife and a large family. Yet, tormented as he is by present poverty

and past arrears, he eyes the future with serenity. I heard him sing a

Gaelic poem of his own composition, containing twenty-five verses of

intricate versification, and at the conclusion he was far less exhausted

than any of the company. Then, again, Torquil M'Gillivray, schoolmaster

of a rainy township on the sea-edge of one of the Skye _nishes_, has

tranquillity of mind as great as any of the Seven Sages ever enjoyed. He

is perfectly contented with his lot of rural dominie, and when I, in my

presumption, ventured to speak critically of certain social conditions

in his beloved island, he rebuked me by crooning tenderly the following

lines:

"Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome,

I would see them before I die,

But I'd rather not see any one of the three,

Than be exiled for ever from Skye!"

We all know what a unique poetical gem Wordsworth composed after he

heard a Highland girl singing at Inversnaid. I witnessed many fine

examples of concentrated joy which might have resulted in metre if I had

not had the presence of mind to pull myself up and refrain. One was at

Acharacle, where in front of a croft a young fellow was dancing the

Highland fling with such whole-souled and consuming zeal that I stood

transfixed with wonder and awe. He was alone, and I came suddenly upon

him at a sharp bend of the road. He threw his legs about him with such

regardless glee, that for a moment I was afraid one of them would get

unfixed and come spinning through the air to hit me. I watched him like

one fascinated for fully ten minutes. When at length he saw me, the

glory flowed suddenly off his legs; he subsided into a country bumpkin,

and beat a hasty retreat indoors. "If Greek dances were as artistic as

this one," said I, "and if the lines of each chorus had a reference to

the diversity of the steps, it is little wonder that God in His

providence should have sent us so many commentators to explain the

mysteries of ancient scansion."

Another instance of natural and spontaneous bliss came under my notice

about two miles along from Kinlochewe, on the banks of Loch Maree. It

was a glorious, sun-illumined spring morning, and every crevice in the

rough flanks of Ben Slioch was mirrored in the unwrinkled surface of the

noble loch. Ben Eay had a bright covering of Nature's whitest, softest

lawn. No sounds were heard except the low droning of a vagrant bee, the

whizzing of a sea-mew's pinions, or a bark from this croft answered by a

bark from that other a mile away. Suddenly the repose of the morning, in

which a pedestrian could hear the echo of his own feet, was startled by

the voice of a girl singing. For a moment I thought of the _Lorelei_;

but it was soon evident where the notes were coming from. A maiden of

ten or twelve was sitting in front of a cottage that faced the lake,

combing her long, black hair that glistened in the morning rays, and

pouring forth such exquisite trills as might have made Orpheus envious.

The whole beauty of ben, loch, and sky seemed to be gathered up in that

child's song. I had been wandering along in the sparkling air and

feeling that something ought to be done to intimate to Heaven that it

was a heavenly morning. The girl felt so happy in the gracious gift of

another blue day that her nature responded at once in a spontaneous

burst of melody. I was very grateful for her vicarious hymn of praise--

"Now thanks to Heaven! that of its grace

Hath led me to this lonely place.

Joy have I had; and going hence

I bear away my recompense."

OBAN TO GAIRLOCH.

It is impossible for anyone who has a fair supply of the uncurdled milk

of human kindness to sail from Oban to Gairloch and not be struck with

the heartiness and good humour of the native population. Such a trip is

rarely accomplished without some memorable incident or some outstanding

impression. The landscape is doubtless magnificent, but the people one

sees on the way are infinitely more interesting. No one, I am sure, can

fail to observe the well-groomed, fresh, and imperial aspect of the pier

policemen. The general polish of their boots and belts, the

self-satisfied, Parnassian smile that never comes off, the spotless

gloves, the muscular frame, combine to make up a splendid type of

impressive Law grounded on Strength. I am ashamed to employ the term

"policemen" to a body of officials who command such instantaneous

respect. These men are King Edward's Highland satraps, and they both

know it and feel it: law in the North is never undignified or unkempt.

Then, again, the captain of the steamer is a man whom it is impossible

to regard without veneration. All Macbrayne's men are fine fellows; they

look well as they stand in stately fashion on the bridge: yet many a

scowling sky of torrential rain they have to face, many a time have

their beards been shaken by the hurricanes of the Minch. If you speak to

a ship-captain, you are certain to get the utmost civility and

politeness. It is true that most of them have several sets of

vocabularies: to passengers they are urbane and choice of speech; but

they have, within easy reach, another set of phrases, which they find of

service in addressing delinquent mariners.

A student of Virgil in making the trip I have alluded to above, would

run the risk of recalling the passage in which the poet suggests that

the big island of Sicily was at one time connected with the mainland,

but that some huge convulsion of nature disjoined the twain and allowed

the Mediterranean to come roaring in a channel between. The scenery of

Western Scotland stirs the imagination to suppose that some similar

catastrophe permitted the sea to mangle the fair uniformity of a

prehistoric coast, submerge the low-lying lands, and leave a great

number of islands lying in lonely fashion out in the watery waste.

Heavy weather, truly, it must have been ere Coll, Tiree, Rum, and Eigg

were sundered from the mainland by the Atlantic flow.

All the islands I mention (save Tiree) can be seen from the deck of the

_Gael_ during the earlier part of the daily passage of that boat from

Oban in the summer season. Tiree is off the main tourist track, but a

few antiquarians are now finding it worth their while to go and dig

there for relics of byegone civilisation. A friend of mine, a zealous

and erudite F.S.A., has spent many a pleasant holiday in Tiree, and has

come back with loaded trunks of valuable prehistoric remains. Certain

artists go out to the island regularly in order to transfer to canvas

some of Nature's most impressive aspects of cloud, wave, and crag. Nor

let me forget the doughty members of the _Faith Mission_, who evangelise

this and others of the outer isles, and sing such sweet melodies to the

natives as would melt any "Wee Free" heart, let alone an ordinary heart

of stone. Tiree has long been famous for its schools and for its

intelligent inhabitants; as a consequence, the libraries have been

enthusiastically welcomed in its townships, and are regarded by the

teachers there as a new and valuable adjunct of education. I have often

heard it said that Tiree produces more ministers than any other

district, of like population, in the Celtic part of Scotland. The Duke

of Argyll does not allow any licensed house on the island, but he has

not as yet suppressed the _Fingal_ and the parcels post. Should His

Grace ever unbend so far as to permit the temperance hotels to obtain

the licence, learned men might flock in greater numbers to Tiree, and

dazzle themselves and the world with further antiquarian finds.[3]

Rum has not been dowered with a Paisley library, and I regret to say

that the natives have the reputation of not keeping the Sunday with

ostentatious strictness. Eigg, the little island contiguous, is a little

heaven below. The missionary there well deserves a word of commendation:

the island of Muck is under his spiritual supervision, and with a

sandwich and a sermon in his pocket, he often sets sail, scorning gust

and current, to preach to his parishioners in that tiny islet.

[3] Coll is also a very interesting island for the antiquarian.

It contains distinct traces of twenty-nine Hill-forts or Duns,

so that there must have been lively times out there long ago.

Some fine shells, beads, pins and pottery have been found in the

prehistoric _kitchen-middens_. Before the Reformation the island

was thickly peopled, and sites of old churches and deserted

crofts are numerous. Coll has gone back in population; in 1901

it had 432 inhabitants; in 1755 the number of natives was 1,193.

WINTER SAILING.

The summer tourist knows Skye very imperfectly, for he goes there in a

commodious steamer and traverses the island at a season when the days

are long and the weather benign. No one should vaunt of knowing Skye

unless he has seen it in winter also. It is the small _Lochiel_ that, in

the dark days of December, bears the passengers along the chilly Sound

of Sleat, and through the narrows of Raasay, into the haven of Portree.

At such a time there is something fearsome and weird in the aspect of

the coast, as seen from the cabin window of the brave little boat as

she battles and plunges along in the teeth of the north-eastern gale.

Her progress is slow, for when passengers are few Macbrayne wisely

economises his coal. The long-stretching hills of Raasay (on the highest

of which Boswell danced a jig) are white from head to foot, and gleam

through the darkness of the afternoon, vivid and ghostly. As Raasay

House, with its lamp-lit windows shining in a snowy recess, is

approached, the engines slow down, and through the howl of the wind can

be heard the plashing of oars. The broad waves swirl and seethe cruelly

around the ferry-boat and toss it about at all angles, up and down, on

crest and in trough, till you fear it will end its struggles keel

upwards, and send the mail-bags down among the mackerel. But the boatmen

know their trade, and so do the dripping, top-booted seamen of the

_Lochiel_. Amid much running and shuffling and casting of ropes and

animated bandying of (I fear) strong expressions in Gaelic sung out upon

the night, the ship's ladder is cast down and the boat tied thereto. In

a few minutes the transfer of mails is over, the ladder up, and the

small boat leaping back to land. (I speak of December 22, 1904). A new

passenger has come on board and is seen to descend the cabin stairs to

unfreeze his fingers over the tiny stove. Half-an-hour's heaving still

remains before Portree. A lady who has been on the border-line of

squeamishness for the last hour, hurriedly leaves the cabin, probably to

see if her luggage is all right. Good news at last for all! Portree is

visible, and its lights are twinkling on the height. The moon comes

graciously out, silvering the snowy shoulders of Essie Hill. What a

contrast is this moonlit haven, with its background of terraced lights,

to the rough surges outside. Glad indeed is everyone to set foot on the

pier and trudge through disregarded slush to the warmth of home or

hotel. We are told by our island friends that all Skye is under snow and

that the roads are impassable. No mail-coach has ventured to Dunvegan

for two days and in other directions, the postmen, turned cavaliers,

have gone off on horseback with their letters. (Let me say in passing,

that a red-bearded Highland postman, clad in post-office livery and

seated on a sheltie, is a sight which any artist would go a hundred

miles to see.)

Winter sailing may at times be as pleasant as a cruise in June. At 8

A.M. in the snug cabin, the breakfast-table, with its tea, ham, eggs,

and sausages, is a welcome piece of scenery, and the genial talk of the

captain and his colleagues is far better than pepsine as a digestive.

After breakfast, a pipe on deck is a necessity. Who that has once seen

Ben-na-ceallich all white to the feet and softly veiled with airy mists,

but wishes he were a Turner to paint, or a Shelley to sing? The sail

from Broadford to Kyle on a calm, cold, snow-dazzling morning is (if one

is wrapped and coated well) absolutely majestic. The sun pours, if not

warmth, at least light and heat on the hundred bens of the mainland and

the breeze aiding, wakens a multitudinous smile on the glittering face

of the cold waters.

I never take this trip without thinking of such books as _The Brave Sons

of Skye_, which gives a record of the brave men born in the misty island

who have come south and distinguished themselves in many a different

walk in life. It is a most inspiring thing to reflect on the dauntless

way in which genius treads the stony road that leads from poverty to

glory. There is not a district in Skye but has its great man, who forms

the subject of conversation round the peat fire when the winter winds

are blowing down the strath. "From Log Cabin to White House" is the

American way of putting it: in Scotland we might say "From Crofter's Cot

to Professor's Chair."

A CROFTING VILLAGE.

The sight of a crofting village is at first rather surprising to one

accustomed to large towns. The low roofs are not far from the ground.

Often, while driving, if you turn a corner swiftly, you run the risk of

being thrown out of the trap on to one of the chimneys. It does not take

much imagination, especially in the dim dusk, to transform a

low-thatched cot into some weird animal that might begin to walk along

the hill-side at any moment. So irregularly grouped are the townships,

dropped here and there, as it were, that you might fancy the houses had

begun at one time to run a race with each other, and in the middle of it

had suddenly stopped. Dr. Johnson complained that the windows were fixed

into the walls and could not, in consequence, be opened to let in the

air. That fault exists to some extent still: I have been told, however,

that peat reek is very purifying, and that its thick fumes make short

work of any noxious germs that might lodge about the nooks of the

interior. Great changes are gradually coming over many of the clachans,

changes not loved by an artist or a devotee of the picturesque. Instead

of thatch, held down by ropes weighted with heavy stones, there is often

to be seen a roofing of tarred cloth or corrugated iron. Romance might

attach itself to a roof of thatch, but corrugated iron, with its

distressing parallelism, could never awaken a genuine lyric note.

Further, it does not make a very comfortable seat, whereas thatch is

soft. Now, children in the Highlands are rather fond of sitting and even

playing on the roof: thatch is less cruel on bare feet than iron is.

HORRORS OF THE MINCH.

I have alluded to the distresses of winter voyaging to Skye. But there

are other routes worse, notably that from Tarbert in Harris to

Lochmaddy, which is a perfect Tartar of a trip. When the wind is high

and contrary, the traveller (if he can stay on deck and maintain an

interest in the scenery), beholds a sight of extreme grandeur. The waves

are to be seen all along the Harris coast leaping up to a terrific

extent with an unbroken line of foam extending for miles. So much does

the boat romp and dance, however, that most passengers forsake the deck

and retire inelegantly below. When a man lies in a stuffy cabin wishing

himself wedged into it to prevent the perpetual rolling to this side and

to that, and hearing the desperate thud of the Minch flinging itself

against the port-hole, a series of vivid panoramic pictures pass before

his mental eye. Home appears so lovely and reposeful: faces of friends

on shore arise, transfigured by the glow of love: the squeamishness and

retching he endures seem to the sufferer a special and direct judgment

on him for impiously endeavouring to find pleasure otherwise than by the

practice of the domestic virtues. Disquieting memories of bursting

boilers surge up to the surface of the mind, and old catches like the

weird ballad of Sir Patrick Spens lilt themselves to the clank of the

staggering ship's machinery--

"The anchor's brak and the tapmast lap,

It was sic a deadly storm,

And the waves dashed into the gude ship's side

Till a' her planks were torn."

The romance of the sea is apt to vanish as you look out upon a

wilderness of foaming water, tossing the boat like an insignificant toy,

drenching the bulwarks and vehemently smiting everything in its riotous

anger. Neptune seems a mere blind force without reverence or mercy for

the works of man. It is good for a boy of romantic disposition to cross

to the Long Island in a gale: it will effectually cure him of all desire

to take up the profession of pirate. What a sad moment for such a youth

when he sees his breakfast where it shouldn't be, and reflects that he

has not the staying power of Sir Ralph the Rover!

I regret to say that I have no specific to give as a preventive for

sea-sickness. Even the Phoenicians who had time, during the intervals

of their hardy voyaging, to invent the alphabet, were unable to devise a

remedy for the _mal de mer_. Custom does not create immunity, for even

the mighty Nelson, who had a life-long acquaintance with the ocean, was

afflicted with sea-sickness to the end of his days. In France there

exists a _Ligue contre le mal de mer_, commenting upon which a French

journalist says: _Avec une ligue on est toujours assuré d'une chose: à

défaut de progrès, qu'elle nous fera peut-être attendre, elle fera des

congrès: et c'est du moins une consolation que de pouvoir discourir de

son mal._

He that will to Cupar maun through Fife, and he that has business in the

Lews must brave the billows of the Minch.

NOTES ON LEWIS.

The great island of Lewis, formerly so distant from Edinburgh and

Glasgow, can now be reached in fourteen hours by one who leaves the

latter city at 5.40 A.M. The old route was very tiresome and circuitous:

the traveller had to proceed to Inverness, take the Dingwall and Skye

line to Strome Ferry, and then sail over the Minch to Stornoway. The

opening up of the West Highlands by the railway to Mallaig has changed

all that. At Mallaig pier, when you leave the train, you find the

connecting steamer ready to set off, at noon, for its journey to

Stornoway, where it arrives about eight in the evening.

I don't think anyone would want to stay more than a week at a time in

Stornoway. The town itself is just like the fishy part of

Boulogne-sur-Mer, only more so. There is a pervading odour of mussels,

bait, and herring, and the gulls go flapping overhead in crowds

everywhere. If the tourist remained a week in the place, he would go

every day to the Castle grounds. Here, if anywhere, is the paradise of

the Lews. There is a profusion of dells, burns, glades, ivy-grown

bridges, and far-extending vistas over sea, moorland, and town. As with

a knife (so precise is the division) the well-wooded policies are

separated from the barren and disheartening moor. When one gets to the

highest point of the grounds and gazes over the long, tiresome slopes of

the island, one's belief in _design in nature_ gets a sudden stab. A man

will think long and sore before he arrives at any _raison d'être_ for

including such a wilderness of bogs in the scheme of creation.

The men of the island are, in the main, shrewd, resourceful, and

intelligent--qualities fostered by their constant fighting with the sea.

"The young fellows here," said one of the hotel-keepers to me, "will

either make a spoon or spoil a horn. They come to a decision speedily

and put it into practice at once. It is hit or miss with them, usually

hit. At sea, in a gale, there is no time for parliamenting; and Lewismen

act on land with the swift decision that is needed in a tempest." All

round the coast are fishing-villages, thickly populated by these

intrepid children of the tempest.

Fishing is a precarious industry, and often fails. The harvest of the

land may fail at the same time as that of the sea: in such a case the

plight of the islanders is sad indeed. During the last five years, the

trade of weaving has been wisely fostered by the Government, so that in

future, when sea and soil are churlish, the loom will to some extent

supply the lack. The Duchess of Sutherland and the Congested Districts

Board have done excellent service in encouraging the tweed-weaving

industry all over the Long Island. Her Grace, some years ago, made a

progress through Lewis and addressed the people by means of an

interpreter, on the advantages of such industry in their homes. She also

instituted exhibition sales of work in the big cities of the south, with

the result that large quantities of cloth were sold and a precious

publicity given to the scheme. Depots for receiving the cloth from the

workers are now established in Stornoway and Harris. The Congested

Districts Board advance money without interest for the purchase of

looms, provide an experienced instructor to supply the people with new

patterns, and give an adequate supply of dye-pots free of charge. This

instructor goes over the whole of Lewis and Harris, spending month about

in each, erecting new looms and modernising old ones. There is a large

carding mill in Stornoway, where the natives can have the wool

expeditiously carded in the most approved modern style. An industry thus

fostered and supervised is bound to succeed.

Educationally, the Long Island is making great progress. Higher

education is almost entirely centred in the Nicolson Institute,

Stornoway, a school admirably conducted and finely equipped. The pupils

of marked ability in the elementary schools of Lewis come here to

continue their higher studies, and, in many cases, to prepare themselves

for the University. I have seen specimens of a magazine, annually put

forth by the senior pupils of this school, and containing many

interesting essays and poems, grave and gay. The English of the essays

was remarkably good, and contained here and there some piquant

suggestions of Gaelic idiom. The pupils read French well, probably

because their native Gaelic contains such a rich reservoir of nasal

sounds to draw upon.

HIGHLAND DOCTORS.

I have a great respect for the medical gentlemen who have taken up their

position in remote districts of Scotland, and devote themselves to the

healing art under most disadvantageous circumstances. The distances are

incredibly long and dangerous in winter: I have in my mind an insular

doctor who has a deal of midnight boating to do in glacial weather, and

whose bills are often paid not in coin but _in fleece newly off the

sheep's back_. As the population gets smaller, the doctor's work becomes

more laborious and less remunerative. The institution of district nurses

has been a great success, and I wish there were more of them. A

sympathetic and competent _nurse_ is a valuable asset in a crofting or

seafaring community. In one district of Mull, recently visited, I found

that the nurse was also the village librarian. She was quite at home

both with lotions and literature, and could recommend a poet or prepare

a poultice with equal skill. The ante-room to the village hall was her

dispensary: it seemed to me remarkably complete, and to have as

scientific an odour as any city pharmacy. I was glad to see that the

Clan Maclean was so well supplied with the resources of modern

civilisation.

In every one of the village libraries there is a copy of Black's

_Medical Dictionary_, a most useful compilation, written in clear and

simple language, and detailing all the commonest remedies. Many rural

teachers and clergymen have considerable skill in coping with illness.

Every country minister should have at least a smattering of medical

knowledge.[4]

[4] At Spean Bridge there is a worthy old farmer, Mr. Chalmers,

who has a widespread fame for dexterous bone-setting, a talent

which is said to have descended to him from a long line of

forbears. A young gentleman from Glasgow was in the hotel there

during my stay, and from personal experience spoke of Mr.

Chalmers's remarkable powers. He told me that patients come from

far and near (after eminent surgeons have failed to give

benefit), in order to be treated at Spean Bridge.

HOTELS AND ANGLERS.

Wherever the angler goes, you find a good hotel. Uist is low-lying and

barren, with nothing to attract the eye--no tourist would go near the

place for anything it has to show in the way of scenery. But as it has

hundreds of small lochs, full of fish, ardent anglers go thither from

all parts of the British Isles; and so at Lochmaddy and Lochboisdale the

hotels are not merely good, they are excellent. The recording angel is

kept busy, during the season, in taking a note of all the myths told

there by the fishers in the evening over the whisky and soda.

There may be heard, at night, in most hotels in the Western Isles, the

riotous scampering of rats overhead and along the walls. In Lochmaddy

hotel there used to be an old frisker (perhaps he is living still) that

gave great entertainment, though no one ever saw him. He lifted a stone,

evidently with his mouth, ran a yard or two with it, and then dropped it

with a great clatter. The game was a pleasure to him, for he would

practice it for half an hour at a time. The anglers who frequented the

hotel called him _the mason_.

I have got into conversation with innumerable knights of the rod, and

can sympathise to a slight extent with their enthusiasm. Nothing seems

to take hold of a man so irrevocably as Walton's mania. Travelling by

night in the north lately, I looked out into the dusk from the carriage

window and beheld a bright flash of lightning, and by the gleam thereof

saw a midnight maniac with his rod silhouetted against the vast inane.

How few fishers nowadays, except perhaps Mr. Andrew Lang, can write

their experiences in good marrowy English--

The quaint loquacious wits of long ago,

Whose ease was never broken by the shrill

Whistle of engine panting round the hill,

Could by the brook where fishful waters flow,

Spend the long hours in angling to and fro,

And hooking lusty trout and salmon, till

The low-descending sun and evening chill

Would send them to the merry ingle-glow;

Then, after fit refection, pen and ink

Would consecrate on paper all their feats

In rippling phrases flashing with the blink

Of forest glades and living water-sheets;

The race is poorer now than it was then:

We have no anglers that can wield the pen.

I believe the best region in all Scotland for trout is the wild and

picturesque county of Sutherland. In the district of Assynt alone there

are 150 lochs, fine sheets of water most of them, lying about among the

hills. Half-way between the two seas and just on the borders of

Sutherland and Ross, is the cosy wee hotel of Altnacealgach, with a

well-stocked loch at the door, from which hundredweights of trout are

taken every year. The air that blows about the house is to that of

London as champagne is to dish-water.

There is a close connection, as I said, between the frequentation of a

district by anglers and the excellence of its hotels. Where there is no

great influx of tourists, the hotel accommodation is decidedly poor. I

remember one inn, at a cold windy clachan on the west coast, which only

stress of weather and dire necessity would make a man enter. Dirty stone

steps, worn and crumbled in the centre, led to an upper room which had

apparently not been swept out for a year or two. Not even the city of

Cologne in Coleridge's time could have produced from among its imposing

catalogue of stenches anything to match the complex ensemble of that

malodorous inn. There was stale fish intil't, and bad beer intil't, and

peat reek intil't, and mice intil't, and candle grease intil't, and the

devil and all intil't. Though I was the only visitor, I feared I should

not have the bed to myself: so I e'en wrapped myself in my Highland

plaidie (after the minimum of disinvestiture), and stretched my limbs on

an arthritic settee, with intent to sleep. No sleep came till the

quaffing roysterers of the clachan had ceased fighting under the moon

outside, about 2 A.M. namely. Rather than stay two nights in such a

place, I boated out early next day into the mid-channel of the Sound of

Mull, and clambered up the sides of Macbrayne's _Lapwing_, which took me

to Oban.

RECENT BOOKS.

The most charming of recent works on the Outer Islands is that one of

which the preface was written in Jerusalem. I refer to the volume of

Miss Goodrich Frere, a lady whose vivacity, fervour, and picturesque

style are deserving of unqualified praise. All the libraries in the

bilingual districts contain the book, and few are so often asked for. In

conversation and publicly I have often given myself the pleasure of

recommending it, alike to Highlander and Lowlander. My admiration for

Miss Frere's talents makes me wish that one or two of her prejudices had

been less glaringly displayed. She speaks, for example, with something

like scornful reproach of Lochmaddy, because the habit of taking

afternoon tea is common in that township. It would have been more to the

purpose if Miss Frere had issued a general warning to the people of the

Hebrides not to drink tea as black as porter, and, above all, not to

boil it. The pale anæmic faces one so often sees in the north and west,

the mental prostration and actual insanity so alarmingly on the increase

in the Long Island, are unquestionably due, in great measure, to the

abominably strong tea that is swilled in such quantities there. A

Tarbert doctor told me that the medical profession now talk quite

familiarly of the Harris stomach just as drapers talk of Harris tweed:

the former is, he averred, as weak and devoid of tone as the latter is

strong and of good texture. This doctor was called up at two one morning

to attend a patient in one of the moorland townships. At that hour, away

over there on the gusty rim of the Atlantic, the natives were all afoot.

People were talking to each other at the doorsteps; lamps were lighted

inside, and tea that had been boiling for hours among the red peats, was

being imbibed with infinite gusto. This, the doctor assured me, was the

normal style of living.[5]

Talking of North Uist, Miss Frere shows indignation at the invasion of

southern ideas, and thinks that everything is being vitiated by the

taint of Lochmaddy. Lochmaddy, characterised in so droll a way, is a

tiny township with a Sheriff Court, a church, a few well-built modern

houses, a school, and an excellent hotel. Cleanliness is a welcome

feature of the place, and I am sorry to say that the same can not be

said of certain crofting villages not far distant. I expect that the

visits of the Government Sanitary Officer, whom I met at Lochmaddy, and

who knows his business well, will ultimately work an enormous amount of

good. That gentleman gave me such unsavoury details regarding the

conditions of life in certain of the townships as made me hope that the

"taint of Lochmaddy," that is to say, the cleanliness and civilised

life of that village, may more and more become evident throughout both

the Uists. Improved sanitation would allow heaven's breath to circulate

through the low-lying cots and prevent them from being hot-beds of

malignant disease.

One feature of Miss Frere's book which does honour to her fine sympathy,

but which is not ethnologically justifiable, is the persistent attempt

to draw a sharp racial distinction between Highlander and Lowlander. The

truth is, that no part of the Highlands is purely Celtic: the population

is a welter of Picts, Gaels, Norsemen, Danes, and Saxons. The Lowland

blood is, in like manner, a bewildering blend, there being no

uncontaminated Anglo-Saxon district in any single county of Scotland.

Mr. J. M. Robertson's clever book, _The Saxon and the Celt_, seems to me

to dispose finally of certain fallacies that Hill Burton and others have

light-heartedly written on the subject of racial characteristics. The

conditions of life, the ungeniality of sea and soil, the wild and grand

aspect of nature, influence thought, feeling, and character at least as

much as blood and heredity.[6]

Another delightful book on the Outer Hebrides is that written by Mr. W.

C. Mackenzie. Proceeding in the order of chronology, the author gives a

vivid series of historic summaries (enlivened by many a piquant episode

and humorous touch) of the Long Island from the earliest times. The

wanderings of Prince Charlie, and the condition of the country after

Culloden, have never been better told than in Mr. Mackenzie's narrative.

[5] The student of eugenics will note that among the tea-bibbing

islanders of the west the teeth of the natives are poor. My

experience tends to show that the best teeth in Scotland are to

be found in Aberdeenshire. When a Buchan audience laughs, there

is a gleam of polished ivory that is very impressive; but rural

Aberdeen has deviated less into slops than any other part of

Britain.

[6] "There are probably now more persons of Highland descent in

the Lowlands than in the Highlands themselves."--_Scotland of

To-Day_, by Henderson and Watt, p. 300. See also note at end of

chapter on Inverness surnames, etc.

MILITARY.

I hinted at the beginning of this chapter that the barracks of the

Highland regiments had been supplied with extensive libraries for the

use of the soldiers during their leisure hours. Fort-George, the

erection of which was directly due to the Highland rebellions, has been

presented with two fine libraries, and I am happy to say that the men

greatly appreciate the gift. I happened to be in the vicinity of

Fort-George when the Duke of Connaught was conducting an official

inspection. The little town of Ardersier, which is some two miles from

the Fort, was gay with bunting for the ducal visit. The books at the

Fort are under the charge of Sergeant-Major Markham, an able

elocutionist and one who, in his own sphere, does an immense amount of

good. He gets the young recruits to band themselves together in social

clubs, organises games and entertainments for them, and encourages them

to read and study. The philanthropic Sergeant-Major was engaged in

typing a catalogue of the books when the genial Duke came upon the

scene. His Royal Highness was astonished to see such a magnificent

selection of reading matter at the disposal of the soldiers, and eagerly

asked for information as to the origin of the boon. His curiosity was

satisfied, and when he heard that the same donor had given appropriate

libraries to the garrisons at Inverness, Dingwall, and Kinbrace, he

exclaimed, "Such a gentleman is indeed the Soldier's Friend."

Since the Duke's visit, a small library of books has been sent to the

children's school at the Fort. The population of this military

community, containing as it does a great many married men with their

wives and families, is fully equal to that of Ardersier, and

necessitates a separate school. I was struck with the pronunciation of

the children in this part of the country. Many of the Fort children,

having mothers from the other side of the Border, speak with an

unmistakable English accent and are rather unscrupulous with respect to

the aspirate. The town of Inverness, which is at no great distance from

Fort-George, has long been famous for its clear and unprovincial English

speech, a fact which Johnson (oddly enough) thought due to some of

Cromwell's soldiers having settled there.

Dr. Johnson devotes two pleasant little paragraphs to describe his visit

to Fort-George and his entertainment there by Sir Eyre Coote. I have

always admired the Doctor's sly way of avoiding a description of the

Fort: "I cannot," he says, "delineate it scientifically, and a loose and

popular description is of use only when the imagination is to be

amused."

In spite of the menace of Fort-George, the Highlanders fondly cherished

the memory of Charlie for many a year. To no subject even now do their

descendants listen with such rapt attention as to his tragic story. I

have heard indeed of a Highland minister who was so displeased at the

homage paid to the Prince's memory by some of his flock, that he threw

at them the unanswerable question, "What will Prince Charlie do for you

at the day of judgment?"

I have had the curiosity to ask some of the Session Clerks of country

parishes that were in the line of the insurgents' advance or retreat, if

any references to the rebellion appear in the minutes of the year 1745.

No references appear, as a rule, for that year; but, under 1746, there

are brief accounts of church discipline being exercised in the case of a

few illegitimate births,--the paternity being ascribed usually to _ane

sodger_.[7]

At Inverness and Dingwall there exist similar libraries of great range

and excellence. The men show an interest in Miss Marie Corelli's works

that is rather astonishing. Their hard and strenuous drill does not

deprive them of a curiosity to know something about _Barabbas_ and _The

Sorrows of Satan_. Sir Conan Doyle and Dr. Neil Munro are also great

favourites, and deserve to be.

A large number of the Inverness recruits come from the Long Island. They

almost invariably require to be taken to the hospital a week or two

after their arrival. Change of diet and new modes of life seem to upset

them at first. For those who have a mind to improve themselves, there

are abundant opportunities. The reading and recreation rooms are well

appointed and comfortable. Altogether, the regular life, physical drill,

and healthy tone of the barracks must have a most beneficial effect on

the men.

I am bound to say that I do not greatly admire the English style of the

gentleman who composes the War Office placards that one sees at railway

stations in the north. These are meant to allure country labourers to

join the army, but the following piece of fatuous rhetoric must surely

act rather as a deterrent than otherwise:--"Are you, the descendants of

those who conquered India and carried the colours of the Gordon

Highlanders through the Peninsula and at Waterloo, _content to sit at

home, or be satisfied with dull labours in the fields or at the mills_,

whilst the ranks of your own regiment are filled by strangers from the

South?" I heard two freckled rustics, with difficulty and labour hard,

spelling out the phrases of the foregoing sentence at the little station

of Fyvie. They did not seem at all impressed by the fervent

interrogation nor by this picture of prospective delights: "_Many of

your countrymen have seen the wonders of the Indian Empire and enjoyed

the soft calm of Malta, and of Ceylon, the Paradise of the Ancients._"

It does not evince much knowledge of a ploughman's mind to seek to

awaken his martial ardour by old myths about the Garden of Eden; nor is

it specially alluring to him to mention, as the acme of glory, that he

may distinguish himself so much as to gain "_thanks from both Houses of

Parliament_." Such weak and watery declamation won't do for a country

that has had thirty-eight years of compulsory education. If our War

Office wishes to rouse patriotic feeling, it should cease to contrast

"the dull labour of the fields" with "the soft calm of Malta": the

veriest clown would not be caught by such chaff. It would be more to the

point to send gratuitous copies of _The Barrack Room Ballads_ to all the

village libraries.

[7] I have heard it maintained by some zealots, whom I greatly

esteem, that Gaelic is a highly _moral_ language, that the use of

it conduces to purity of life and thought, and that everyone

would be improved in tone by contact with its roots. Those

ministers who have charge of Session Records, chronicling events

that happened before English was known in the West, cannot

unreservedly corroborate these views.

MORAY FIRTH.

My various visits to the shores of the Moray Firth have convinced me

that a man may enjoy the majesty and terror of the sea without embarking

on a boat at all. All he need do is to take a ticket to Portsoy in the

month of March, when the wind is snell and the clouds low. I have never

seen a more grim or cruel-looking coast than that which stretches for

miles east and west of Portsoy. One shudders even at the thought of

those detestable, razor-edged rocks, tilted up at all angles, with the

tide for ever boiling and hissing about them. Neither by land nor sea,

at many parts of the coast, can you get to what might be reasonably

called a beach. The so-called shore-road is high up on the hills, and

gives a good view far out over the billows, but does not take the

traveller's feet near the water at all. Ill-advised would he be who

should strive to guide his skiff from the outer firth to any chance cove

on the shore, for the uncouth crags, huge and sombre, would have no

mercy on any timber jointed by the hand of man. Perhaps the summer sun

would give a gentler appearance to the rocky and wave-beaten shore, but

I am certain Mr. Swinburne would prefer to see it in March.

The town of Portsoy in itself cannot be said to have much comeliness;

the streets are irregular, the houses dismal, and the shops few. God

has, as is meet, the best of the architecture, most of the churches

being graceful and well-spired.

About twenty minutes by rail from Portsoy is the trim and typical

fishing village of Portknockie, high-raised on a hill, and with little

protection from any wind that Aeolus may send out of his cavern. The

population comes near 1,600 souls, and it is rare to find a native who

is not called by one of the following surnames: _Mair_, _Wood_, _Munro_,

_Pirrie_. I believe such a dearth of appellatives is the invariable rule

in the fishing villages of the North Sea. To counteract the confusion

that would inevitably arise, an agnomen or "tee-name" is usually

appended. The Portknockie tee-names are _Mash_, _Deer_, _Doodoo_,

_Bobbin_, and _Shavie_. Examples of postal addresses are--

John Wood (Bobbin), Portknockie.

Duncan Munro (Doodoo), "

Samuel Pirrie (Shavie), "

Daniel Mair (Mash), "

I don't envy the young minister who, fresh from Lucian, has to read with

solemnity a roll of such communicants.

Between Portknockie and the sea-town of Cullen is a charming stretch of

links and sea-sands. Over the broad Firth, as one looks north-west, may

be faintly seen the hills of Sutherland and Caithness.

It is pleasant to read books amid the scenery in which they were

conceived, and among the people they portray. Those who spend their

holidays at Cullen would act wisely in reading George Macdonald's novels

there. No one has drawn the character of the Moray Firth fisherman so

lovingly, beautifully, and sympathetically as he. After reading such a

tale as the _Marquis of Lossie_ one looks upon places like Portknockie

and the sea-town of Cullen with different eyes. The toilers of the deep

that go forth on the waters from these seaboard shires are serious and

moral men. Contact with the sea and the presence of danger at all hours,

have made them alert, keen, and dexterous. Most of the crews carry a box

of choice books with them for their odd hours of leisure when they go to

the Yarmouth fishing. Let a stranger get into conversation with one or

two of these hardy heroes, and he will be surprised at their

intelligence and wide interests. He will certainly conclude that the

young fisherman, Malcolm Macphail, whom Macdonald introduces in the

novel mentioned, is no exaggeration, but true to the life.

The sea-town of Cullen consists of some hundreds of houses closely

huddled together just at the edge of the sea. The rank odour of wreck,

tar, fishing-gear, and bait, pervades the air, and is effectually kept

from corruption by the searching sea-breezes that are ever blowing. When

not engaged on the water, the men are busy mending their nets, stitching

their sails, making fast the seams of their craft and tarring the big

inflated floaters that support the lines. They are quite ready to chat

with a stranger and discuss their methods of working, their gains,

mishaps, and partnerships.

When the fishing season is over and the crews are known to be on the way

home, the excitement among the women is intense. No Bourse ever tingled

more feverishly with rumours and sinister fears than Sandhaven or

Rosehearty or Seatown at such a crucial time. Costly nets may be riven,

boats may be stove in by untoward accidents, or worse than all, fathers,

husbands and brothers may be drowned on the road home to their loved

ones. Rarely does a season pass without bringing sorrow to the heart of

some waiting wife or sister.

The joys, hopes, and fears of these maritime townships have been

worthily made vocal by Dr. George Macdonald. He has done this with a

grace and an artistic conception that raise his stories to a very high

rank in pure literature. I am afraid Macdonald is not much read by the

present generation: his stories are too long, too philosophical, perhaps

too poetical, for the taste of to-day. Every book of his is saturated

from beginning to end with the religion of the Gospels--a religion of

love, beauty, tolerance, and sympathy.

I am happy to say that I saw Dr. Macdonald once and heard him speak. His

venerable aspect and chaste elocution made a powerful impression on all

who heard him. His discourse could not be reported in cold print, for

the flash of the mystic's eye, the human kindness that emanated from his

whole being, and the felt emotion of his every tone could not be

reproduced by any artifice known to the printer.

The Forfarshire fishwives have quite a Dutch mania for cleanliness. On

Saturdays they give their homes a complete overhaul, and the men are

driven out of doors during the ceremony. What man could stay at home

when his wife, supplied with a mop and a big pail of soapy water, is

sousing the floor and the walls? Furniture is scrubbed and dusted, glass

ornaments, porcelain hens, and shell-boxes have to be carefully wiped,

grates and fire-irons must be rubbed to a glittering polish. These

industrious women, panting with the enthusiasm of work, enjoy Saturday

more than any other day of the week. The enjoyment springs from various

causes. There is first the delight that comes from a vigorous exercise

of the muscles. This pleasure is heightened by the knowledge that the

work is for a good end, and that on Sunday the house will be

resplendent, immaculate, and peaceful. It is not to be denied that the

feeling of satisfaction at having evicted the husband is also an

important item. When he comes home from discussing politics with his

co-mates and brothers in exile, she will not fail to jibe him on the

general worthlessness of his existence, and accuse him of intemperance.

AMONG THE MINERS.

A fishing village has a picturesqueness and a kinship with Nature and

the hills, utterly lacking in a mining locality. The squalid rows of the

latter, arranged in wretched, heart-breaking symmetry, are an offence to

the landscape. Mud and filth cumber the door-steps, runnels of

malodorous water ooze along the rows, ragged and ill-kempt bairns tumble

about like little savages. A pitiful sight it is to see the black squads

of colliers returning to their homes after a day in the damp bowels of

the earth: greasy caps with little oil-lamps attached, wet, miry

clothing and grimy faces, all make up a most saddening spectacle. The

wages given to these poor fellows are miserably meagre, considering that

after the age of forty-five, their limbs are stiffened with rheumatism

and their lungs the seat of chronic asthma. It is not surprising that

miners should be intemperate, and that their recreations should rise no

higher than dog-racing and cock-fighting.

It is very unpleasant to think that so much good bone and muscle is

being ground and destroyed by work so brutalising and unnatural. Coal

must be brought to the surface for the wants of civilisation, and in the

process the collier is destroyed, body and soul. Society needs

constantly to be reminded of its duties towards those who, in Helot

fashion, clean the drains and work the mines. Those duties involve more

than the distribution of tracts.

I had the opportunity of speaking to a crowded meeting of miners in the

county of Stirling quite recently, and was immensely pleased with the

behaviour and close attention of the audience. Before the speaking

began, the proceedings resembled a University Graduation Ceremony, that

is, there was a great deal of whistling, cat-calling, and rowdy

merriment. The audience kept on their caps, and many of them, disdaining

the use of chairs and benches, squatted against the walls in the

position so dear to subterranean workers. Once the lecture began, the

resemblance to a University gathering ceased, for the colliers behaved

like gentlemen. What subject, it may be asked, could possibly interest

an assembly of illiterate miners? It so happens that, in Scotland, we

have a great number of working-men poets, who have, in a homely but very

graphic way, voiced the feelings of the labouring classes, and given fit

expression to every joy and sorrow that men experience in this mortal

round. These hodden-gray bards furnish abundance of material for giving

even the humblest and most untrained mind a few glimpses of what is

meant by literature. Burns has a broad and brawny humanity that appeals

to all men, and, besides Burns, there are scores of major and minor

warblers that are interesting, quotable, and full of grace.

The wild and unruly manners of some mining districts, even at the

present day, may partly be explained by remembering that up to the end

of the eighteenth century, colliers were serfs and, as such, were not

allowed to leave the mines and seek work elsewhere. When a pit was sold,

the workers passed as a matter of course into the hands of the new

proprietor. The son of a miner was compelled to follow the father's

occupation.[8] Slavery fixed a brutalising mark on generation after

generation that is not yet entirely erased. In the first half of the

nineteenth century the knights of the shuttle--intellectual,

disputatious, and lyrical--looked down with infinite contempt on the

ignorant and boorish slaves of the pick. Poetry has, in consequence,

little to say about the digger for coal. The song of "The Collier

Laddie," attributed to Burns, is one of the very few pleasant pieces of

verse associated with the miner.

The Scotch mining villages of to-day contain a queer juxtaposition of

nationalities, and the proportion of native colliers is becoming less

and less. Thousands of Irish families from Ulster and Connaught are now

settled permanently in the counties of Lanark, Stirling, and Ayr. The

alien Pole, too, is to be found in the same regions uttering melodious

oaths learned on the banks of the Vistula. To complete the welter,

huckstering Orientals may be seen gliding about among the rows of

houses, fulfilling prophecy and selling highly-coloured pictures of the

Virgin Mary.

[8] In his book, _Edinburgh and its Neighbourhood_, Hugh Miller

tells the following story, on the authority of Robert

Chambers:--"Though legally only transferable with the works and

the minerals to which they were attached, cases occasionally

occurred in which miners were actually transferred _by sale_ from

one part of the country to another. During the early part of the

XIXth century, the son of an extensive coal-proprietor was

examining with a friend the pits of another proprietor, and

finding a collier whose speech resembled that of the colliers of

his own district, he inquired where he came from. 'Oh!' exclaimed

the man with surprise, 'd'ye no' ken me? _Do ye no' ken that your

faither sell't me for a powny?_'"

HAND-LOOM WEAVING.

The miner is still with us, but the weaver is almost obsolete in the

Lowlands. You must search diligently for him. In Laurencekirk (a quaint

village of one long street, in the shire of Forfar), and in similar

out-of-the-way nooks, can still be faintly heard the music of the

hand-loom. I went recently into a weaver's shop in Laurencekirk, and

found three old men and one aged woman plying their shuttles. The oldest

of the men was born four years after the battle of Waterloo, and there

he sat, like a vision of the vanished years, striving to weave a few

more yards of drugget before going to rejoin his contemporaries of the

reign of George III. He told me there were once seven hundred hand-loom

weavers in the place, and "_that young fellow_" said he, pointing to a

wrinkled carle of eighty on the loom behind, "remembers it as well as I

do."

The industry of hand-loom weaving, which, a century ago, made every town

in Scotland resonant with the din of shuttles, is thus almost a thing of

the past, and the men who engaged in it have gone the way of their

shoe-buckles, knee-breeches, and seventeen-hundred linen. Yet weavers

were typical of all that was intellectual in Scottish life: every shop

was in its way a miniature university, and every weaver a man who

believed himself capable of giving Pitt a lesson or two on the

management of the war, and Dundas a few hints on political economy. They

had, indeed, far clearer views on politics than most of their

legislators; from their ranks at a subsequent period the Chartist

agitators--regrettably extreme as they were--were largely recruited; and

it is not too much to say that the minds of many of our leading

accredited reformers took the ply from these politicians of the loom.

These men who, in a way so characteristic of Scotland, managed to make

high-thinking subsist on homely fare, can never quite fade from memory

while their tuneful poetical exponent, Tannahill, is read and enjoyed.

In his works we have a page out of the past; and as we read his life and

poems, we behold the Scotch village as it was a century ago; we see the

old houses with their outside stairs, the antique boulder-paved cross,

and the assemblies of aproned craftsmen discussing news much older than

their ale.

In Broadford, Skye, there is an old crofter who, in his early years,

worked at the loom with Alexander Bain, late Professor in the University

of Aberdeen. Half a century ago, John Stuart Mill said that Bain's

erudition was encyclopædic. From long residence in France, I know that

few British philosophers are better known than Bain (whose name the

French amusingly pronounce to rhyme with _vin_). This old crofter tells

how he used to chaff the future professor for invariably having a book

in front of him as the shuttle was plied. Bain, by slow and careful

work, overcame prejudice, and secured a high position among the leaders

of thought. Long ago, those who had to sit for the London degrees used

to regard him as the greatest thinker in Europe. When he retired from

the examinership at London, students lost some of their old veneration

for him, and when he married a second time, a Miss Barbara Something,

they even ventured to make a logical joke on him, and say that he had

been fascinated by _Barbara's perfect figure_. I know that many pupils

of our public schools, in love with football more than syntax, often

regretted that Bain ever composed his _English Grammar_. No book (unless

perhaps Morell's _Analysis_) has ever been more cordially execrated, and

no book ever more richly deserved it, for though, like Aberdeen granite,

it is stately and impressive, it is also ruthless, cold, and implacable.

The draught may be wholesome and medicinal, but there is no honey on the

rim of the cup.

PROFESSOR BLACKIE IN THE HIGHLANDS.

One hears a great deal of Professor Blackie in the North and West, and

no wonder. He was a laughing, jocular, impressionable man, who hobnobbed

with landlords and amiably slapped drivers and policemen on the back,

throwing a Gaelic greeting at them as he did so. His faculty for writing

poetry is seen in many a guidebook; Oban, Inverness, Pitlochry, and

numberless other places, have had their beauties celebrated by this

animated writer. He was a good friend to the Highlands--studied Gaelic

most arduously, translated some of the finest of the Celtic bards,

worked assiduously for the establishment of a Celtic Chair in Edinburgh,

spoke many a good word for the crofters--in fact, did everything well

except what he was paid to do, viz., teach Greek to his students. Grave

D.D.'s could not understand or condone his cantrips. I have been assured

that on one occasion, when Professor in the College of Aberdeen, he

actually _stood on his head_ before a class of students. Mr. Barrie has

given a very amusing and quite unexaggerated account of the Professor's

normal demeanour in Edinburgh. Blackie's text books of _Greek Dialogues_

are full of the most waggish remarks.

The landlady of Kinlochewe Hotel gave some lessons in Gaelic to this

convulsive old scholar. He would come in with a Celtic Bible below his

arm, and, opening the sacred volume, read a chapter or two at a terrific

rate of speed, and whistle triumphantly when he had finished. Highland

folk did not care to converse with Blackie for three reasons: (1) he

spoke too quickly for the leisurely and composed conversation of the

Gael; (2) his pronunciation was bad, and people did not like to tell him

so or correct him--(no one ever pronounced Gaelic to perfection who did

not get the language with his mother's milk); (3) he was fond of using

literary words, taken from the older bards, in his ordinary

conversation; now, such words are obsolete in every-day talk and quite

unfamiliar to crofters and cottars. In the Highlands, Blackie's English

was better understood than his Gaelic.

Blackie was undoubtedly a very able scholar--not, indeed, of that minute

burrowing kind famous in Germany, but rather of the class that delights

in the literature and vivid force of a language. He _spoke_ Latin and

Greek, and held views on the teaching of these tongues that seemed more

eccentric in his time than they do now. He declared that the linguistic

achievement of which he was proudest was his mastery, such as it was, of

the language of the Gael.

It affords me pleasure in the retrospect to think of old Blackie at a

distribution of prizes to school-children in a town of the West some

years before his death. During the chairman's opening remarks the merry

old man continued to whistle like a mavis. When the chairman sat down,

Blackie embraced him and called him fellow-sinner. Some recitations

followed from the children, one of which was Burns's "Address to a

Haggis." When the young elocutionist came to the lines--

"Till a' their weel-swall'd kites belyve

Are bent like drums."

Blackie rolled in his chair, held his sides and uproariously expressed

his approbation. Then came the distribution of prizes, during which the

Grand Old Boy made some pun or quaint remark on each of the children's

names, as he presented the books: _"Miss Minnie Morrow_: never put off

till to-morrow what you can do to-day; _James Glen_: be a real genuine

_Glen_ all through life, not a _valet_ or flunkey; _William Lindsay_:

Willie, my lad, imitate your ancestors at Otterburn: 'The Lindsays flew

like fire about till a' the fray was done'; _Mary Black_: black but

comely like the daughters of Jerusalem," and so on, in a bird-witted,

half-daft way that the audience contemplated with benevolent wonder.

NOTE ON INVERNESS SURNAMES, ETC.

Let me mention here a very useful and interesting piece of philology

that was done by Dr. Macbain in 1895. That eminent scholar, working on

the _Inverness Directory_, analysed the names occurring there, explained

them on sound principles of etymology, and gave percentages of Celtic

and Saxon surnames in the Highland capital.

Roughly speaking, the _Directory_ of 1894-1895 had 5,000 single entries,

and _750 distinct surnames_. Of these surnames, only 110 are pure

Gaelic. About 70 per cent. of the natives are, however, supposed to be

of Highland descent.

Dr. Macbain points out that certain Highland clans have names that are

not Celtic: _Grant_ is from the French "grand"; _Fraser_ from the French

"fraise," a strawberry (the Frasers have a strawberry in their

coat-of-arms); _Chisholm_ is English and means "gravel-holm,"--the

Anglo-Saxon _ceosol_ (pebble) is preserved in _Chesil Beach_ and

_Chiselhurst_; _MacLeod_ signifies "son of Ljot"; and _ljotr_ is the

Norse word for "ugly." _Campbell_ is probably Norman-French, though Dr.

Macbain suggests _cam-beul_, Gaelic for "crooked mouth." In olden times

an external conqueror would sometimes subdue a district, and call the

natives after his noble self.

The commonest names in the town are Fraser, Macdonald, Mackenzie,

Macintosh, Ross, Cameron, and Munro. About 1,200 of the population have

one or other of the first three names. The Frasers are an easy first,

and form more than 9 per cent. of the population.

_John_, _Alexander_, and _William_, are the commonest Christian names in

Inverness. "It is remarkable and indeed regrettable," says Dr. Macbain,

"that the Gaelic Christian names (Donald, Duncan, Kenneth, Murdoch, and

Angus), are not higher in the list."

The name of the first recorded inhabitant of Inverness (A.D. 1200) is

Geoffrey Blount, a feudal warrior no doubt (French _blond_). In the

thirteenth century we have the names _Noreys_, _Grant_, and _Hay_. In

the fourteenth century the leading name is Pilch, derived from

_peluche_, the French for "plush." In the fifteenth century, _Reid_,

_Vaus_, and _Cuthbert_ are prominent citizens. _Vaus_ is said to mean

"of the vales," _i.e._, _de Vallibus_; _Reid_ is Scotch for "red"; and

_Cuthbert_ is pure Lowland. Evidently the leading men were aliens and

interlopers.