Highland ferries and coaches. The charms of Iona. How to see
Staffa. The Outer Hebrides. Stones of Callernish. St. Kilda.
Sound of Harris. The Cave-massacre in Eigg. Skeleton from a clan
fight still unburied in Jura. The hermit of Jura. Peculiar charms
of the Western Isles. Influence of the clergy on the cheerfulness
of the Highlanders. Disappearance of Highland customs. Dispersing
of clans from their original districts. Dying out of Gaelic;
advantages of knowing some Gaelic; difficulties of the language.
In continuation of the Highland reminiscences contained in the last
chapter, reference may here be made to some further characteristics
of the Western Isles, and to a few of the more marked changes which,
during the last half century, have affected the Highlands as a whole.
Fifty years ago Highland ferries were much more used than at the
present day, when railways and steamers have so greatly reduced the
number of stage-coaches and post-horses. These little pieces of
navigation across rivers, estuaries, and sea-lochs, afforded ample
scope for certain Celtic idiosyncrasies. The ferryman could, as
occasion served, contract his knowledge of English, and on one pretext
or another contrive to exact more than the legal or reasonable fare,
remaining imperturbably insensible to the complaints and remonstrances
of the passengers. An illustrative story is told by Dr. Norman Macleod
in his charming _Reminiscences of a Highland Parish_. A Highland
friend of his who had been so long absent in India that he had lost
the accent, but not the language of his native region, had reached
one of these ferries on his way home, and asked one of the boatmen in
English what the charge was. The question being repeated in Gaelic by
the man to his elder comrade, the answer came back at once in the same
language, ‘Ask the Sassenach ten shillings.’ ‘He says,’ explained the
interpreter to the supposed Englishmen, ‘he is sorry he cannot do it
under twenty shillings, and that’s cheap.’ No reply was made to this
extortion at the moment, but as the boat sailed across, the gentleman
spoke to the men in good Gaelic. Whereupon, instead of taking shame to
himself for his attempted cheat, the spokesman turned the tables on
the traveller: ‘I am ashamed of you,’ he said, ‘I am, indeed, for I
see you are ashamed of your country; och, och, to pretend to me that
you were an Englishman! You deserve to pay _forty_ shillings--but the
ferry, is only five!’
[Sidenote: HIGHLAND FERRYMEN]
On another occasion, when a sea-loch had to be crossed where strong
currents swung the ferry-boat round and some manoeuvring with the oars
was required, the chief ferryman kept saying, ‘Furich, Donald,’ to the
one assistant, and ‘Furich, Angus,’ to the other. At the other side of
the loch the passenger paid the fare and then said to the ferryman,
‘Now, I’ll give you another shilling if you will tell me what you mean
by “Furich, furich,” which I have heard you say so often in the passage
across. It must surely have many different meanings.’ The coin was duly
pocketed and the Highlander thus deliberately explained: ‘Ah, it’s
ta English of ta Gaelic “furich” ’at you wass wantin’ to know. Well,
I’ll tell you; it’s meanin’ “Wait,” “Stop”; och ay, it means “Howld
on,” “Niver do the day what you can by any possibeelity put off till
to-morrow.”’
I was once crossing in an open rowing boat from Skye to Raasay,
propelled by two men, a younger Highlander, who sat nearest to me,
and an elderly man on the bench beyond. The latter was dressed in a
kilt, and with his unkempt locks and rugged features, made a singularly
picturesque figure. My neighbour caught my eye now and then fixed on
his comrade, and at last he broke silence with a question:
‘You’re looking at Sandy, sir, I see?’
‘Yes, he is well worth looking at. He must be an old man, though he
seems to pull his oar well still.’
‘Ay, I’m sure, he’s an auld man noo. But ye wass hearin’ o’ Sandy
afore?’
‘No, I don’t think I have ever seen or heard of him before. What about
him?’
‘D’ye mean, sir, railly noo, that you never heard tell o’ Sandy o’ the
Braes?’
‘No, really, I never did. What is he famous for?’
‘Ochan! Ochan! wass ye never kennin’ aboot his medal?’
‘Medal! no, so he is an old soldier is he? What battle was he at?’
‘Sodger! He’s never been at ony battles, for he wass never oot o’ Skye
and the islands.’
‘But how did he come to get a medal, then?’
‘Just to think that ye wass never hearin’ o’ that! Weel, ye see,
there’s some Society in Embro, I wass thinkin’ they call it the
“Heeland Society,” and they gied Sandy a medal, for he wass never
wearin’ onythin’ but a kilt all his days.’
[Sidenote: HIGHLAND STAGE-COACHMEN]
Besides the ferrymen, the drivers of the old Highland coaches included
some quaint characters, who have disappeared with the vehicles which
they drove, and occasionally capsized. Half a century ago the coach
that ran between Lochgoilhead and St. Catherine’s through the pass
known as ‘Hell’s Glen’ was driven by a facetious fellow, one of whose
delights was to make fun at the expense of his English passengers. One
day when he had brought the coach to the top of the pass and halted
the horses, he got down, remarking to an English lady who sat on the
box seat beside him, and on whom the brunt of his sarcasms had fallen,
that if now this place had been in England, he would doubtless have to
search a long time before he could find a bit of old leather to stick
into the drag for the run down hill. Looking under a stone he pulled
out an old shoe, which of course he had placed there on a previous
journey, and which he now held up as a proof of the great superiority
of Scotland. Some weeks afterwards, a barrel arrived addressed to him.
As he was not accustomed to such presents, he opened it with not a
little excitement. Pulling out some straw he saw a large paper parcel
inside, and after removing a succession of coverings, came at last upon
a small packet carefully sealed. He felt sure it must be something of
great value from the pains that had been taken to protect it. So he
opened it with trembling hands and found that it contained--a pair of
old shoes, with the compliments of the lady whom he had made his butt.
Among the Western Isles two of small size have attained a distinguished
celebrity--Staffa and Iona. Three times a week in the summer season,
a large and miscellaneous crowd is disembarked upon each of them from
Macbrayne’s steamboat, which, starting from Oban in the morning, makes
the round of Mull, and returns in the evening. If any one desires that
the spell of these two islets should fall fully upon him, let him avoid
that way of seeing them. They should each be visited in quietude, and
with ample time to enjoy them. There is a ferry from the Mull shore to
Iona, and in the Sound a stout boat or smack may usually be obtained
for the voyage to Staffa.
[Sidenote: IONA]
I once spent a delightful week in Iona, where a comfortable inn serves
as excellent headquarters for the stay. There was a copy there of
Reeve’s edition of Adamnan’s _Life of Saint Columba_. Reading the
volume where it was written, and amidst the very localities which it
describes, and where the saint lived and died, one gets so thoroughly
into the spirit of the place, the present seems to fade so far away,
and the past to shine out again so clearly, that as one traces the
faint lines of the old monastic enclosure, the mill-stream and the
tracks which the monks must have followed in their errands over the
island, one would hardly be surprised to meet the famous white horse
and even the gentle Columba himself. But, apart from its overpowering
historic interest, Iona has the charm of most exquisite beauty and
variety in its topography. Its western coast, rugged and irregular, has
been cut into bays, clefts, and headlands by the full surge of the open
Atlantic. Its eastern side is flanked by the broad, smooth, calm Sound,
which, where it catches the reflection of a cloudless sky, rivals the
Mediterranean in the depth of its blue; while towards the north, where
the water shallows over acres of white shell-sand, it glistens with
the green of an emerald. Then, as if to form a fitting background to
this blaze of colour, the granite of the opposite shores of Mull glows
with a warm pink hue as if it were ever catching the reflection of a
gorgeous sunset. For wealth and variety of tints, I know of no spot of
the same size to equal this isle of the saints.
[Sidenote: STAFFA]
If Iona seems to be profaned by a crowd of gaping tourists (I always
crossed to the west side of the island on steamboat days), Staffa, on
other grounds, no less requires solitude and leisure. The famous cave
is undoubtedly the most striking, but there are other caverns well
worthy of examination. The whole coast of the island indeed is full
of interest, from the point of view both of scenery and of geology.
It combines on a small scale the general type of the cliffs of Mull
and Skye, with this advantage that, as the rocks shelve down into deep
water, they can be approached quite closely. My first visit was made in
a smack, which I found anchored at Bunessan, in Mull, and from which I
got a boat and a couple of men, who pulled me slowly round the whole of
the shore, stopping at every point which interested either myself or
my crew. My eyes were intent on the forms and structure of the cliffs;
theirs were directed to the ledges where they saw any young cormorants
crowded. They scrambled up the slippery faces of rock, and seizing the
birds, which were not yet able to fly, pitched them into the bottom of
the boat. These captures, however, were not made without some loss of
blood to the huntsmen, for the birds, though they had not gained the
use of their wings, knew how to wield their beaks with good effect. I
was told that young cormorants make excellent hare-soup, and for this
use the men took them. A less legitimate cause of stoppage was found
in the desire to pull up the lobster creels, of which we saw the corks
floating on the surface of the water. Several pots were examined, and
I am sorry to say that, in spite of a mild protest on my part against
this act of piracy on the open sea, some of the best of their contents
were abstracted. The boatmen could not understand why I should decline
to share in the spoil. Two or three years ago I landed on Staffa
with the captain and officers and a few of the crew of the Admiralty
surveying vessel, ‘Research.’ Some forty years had intervened between
the two landings. I found the place to be no longer in its primitive
state of wild nature. Ropes and railings and steps had been placed for
the comfort and convenience of the summer crowd--a laudable object, no
doubt, but I prefer to remember these cliffs when they showed no trace
of the presence of the nineteenth century tourist.
From the west side of Skye the chain of the Outer Hebrides can be seen
in one long line of blue hills rising out of the sea at a distance of
some five and twenty miles. The outlines of these hills had long been
familiar to me before I had an opportunity of actually visiting them.
In later years, thanks to the hospitality of my friend Mr. Henry Evans,
of Ascog, I have made many delightful cruises among them in his steam
yacht ‘Aster,’ of 250 tons, and have been enabled to sail
Round the moist marge of each cold Hebrid isle.
[Sidenote: STANDING STONES OF CALLERNISH]
One of his favourite anchorages has been Loch Roag, on the west side of
Lewis, where the typical scenery of these islands is well displayed--a
hummocky surface of rounded rocky knolls, separated by innumerable
lakelets and boggy or peaty hollows, or green crofter-holdings, the
land projecting seawards in many little promontories, and the sea
sprinkled with islets. On one of the cruises, we landed and examined
with some care the famous stones of Callernish--the most numerous
group of standing stones in the British Islands. Seen from the sea on
a grey misty day, they look like a company of stoled carlines met in
council. On a near view, they are found to be disposed in the figure of
a cross and circle, the longer limb of the cross being directed about
ten degrees east of north. The monoliths consist of between 40 and 50
slabs of flaggy gneiss, the largest being 17 to 18 feet in height.
It was interesting to observe that after the purpose for which they
were erected had perhaps been forgotten, boggy vegetation began to
spread over the ground and form a layer of peat, which, in the course
of centuries, increased to a depth of six feet or more; the lower
portions of the upright monoliths were thus buried in the peat. The
late proprietor had this vegetable growth removed, so as to lay bare
the original surface of the ground; but the upper limit of the turbary
could still be traced in the bleached aspect of that lower part of the
stones which had been covered by the peat, the organic acids of the
decaying vegetation having removed much of the colouring material of
the gneiss. How long this accumulation of peat took to form must be
matter for conjecture.
Loch Roag makes a convenient starting point for St. Kilda, to which I
have several times crossed in the ‘Aster.’ From the higher eminences
around this loch the top of St. Kilda may be seen in clear weather,
the distance being not more than about 50 miles. But it is the open
Atlantic which lies between, and the anchorage of St. Kilda is not
good, there being only one available bay, from which, however, a vessel
had better at once depart if the wind should shift into the south-east.
On one of our visits we were fortunate in finding the weather calm
and sunny, so that it was possible to pull in an open boat round the
base of the cliffs. And such cliffs and crests! It is as if a part of
the mountain group of Skye had been set down in mid-ocean--the same
purple-black rocks as in the Cuillin Hills, split into similar clefts,
and shooting up into the same type of buttresses, recesses, obelisks,
and pinnacles, and in the lofty hill of Conacher, the conical forms
and pale tints of the Red Hills. But it is the bird life which most
fascinates a visitor. In the nesting season, the air is alive with
wings and with all the varied cries of northern sea-fowl, while every
ledge and cornice of the precipices has its feathered occupants. Each
species keeps to its own part of the cliff. The puffins swarm in the
crannies below, while higher up come the guillemots, razor-bills,
and kittiwakes. The gannets breed on the smaller islets of the group.
We could watch the sure-footed natives making their way along ledges
which, seen from below, seemed impracticable even to goats. These men,
however, from early boyhood
Along th’ Atlantic rock, undreading, climb,
And of its eggs despoil the solan’s nest.
[Sidenote: ST. KILDA]
In ascending one of the crags on the west side of St. Kilda I was
fortunate enough to come, unperceived, within a few yards of some
fulmars, and had a good look at these most characteristic birds of
this island. They yield a strongly odoriferous musky oil, of which
the natives make much use, and of which every one of them smells. In
passing between the main island and Boreray, we sailed under a vast
circle of those majestic birds, the gannets, wheeling and diving into
the sea all around us. After swallowing their catch they bent their
wings upward to rejoin the circle, and make a fresh swoop into the
deep. While watching this magnificent meteor-like bird-play, we were
surprised by the appearance of three whales, parents and son, which
slowly made their way underneath the swarm of gannets. It seemed as if
the backs of these huge animals could hardly escape being transfixed
by some of the crowd of descending bills, but we could trace their
leisurely and unmolested course by the columns of spray which they blew
out into the air every time they came up to breathe.
One of the most curious sea-inlets in the Outer Hebrides is the passage
known as the Sound of Harris--a tortuous channel between the Long
Island and North Uist, strewn with islets and rocks, and giving a
passage to powerful tides. The navigation of this Sound is extremely
intricate, and needs good weather and daylight. On one of my cruises
to St. Kilda the open sea had been rather rough, but once inside the
archipelago, the water became rapidly smooth, showing only the swirl
and foam of the tidal currents that sweep to and fro between the
Minch and the Atlantic. At the eastern end of the Sound stands the
nearly perfect ancient church of Rodil--an interesting relic of the
ecclesiastical architecture which followed that of the Celtic church.
[Sidenote: WEST HIGHLAND CASTLES]
As one moves about among the Western Highlands and Isles, now so
peaceful, and in many places so sparsely peopled, it is difficult to
realise the conditions of life there two or three centuries ago, when
the population was not only more numerous, but was subdivided into
clans, often at feud with each other. Of these unhappy times many
strikingly picturesque memorials remain in the castles perched on crags
and knolls all along the shores. Most of these buildings were obviously
meant mainly for defence, but some suggest that the chiefs who erected
them sought convenient places from which to attack their neighbours,
or to sally forth against passing vessels. Each of them, strongly
constructed of local stone, and of lime which must often have been
brought from a distance, might have seemed designed to be
A forted residence ’gainst the tooth of time
And razure of oblivion.
But almost without exception they are now in ruins. The tourist who
would try to picture to himself what these fortalices meant, should
sail through the Sound of Mull and note the succession of them on
either side, from Duart at the one end to Mingarry at the other.
Dunvegan, in Skye, the ancient stronghold of the Macleods, which still
remains in good preservation and inhabited, affords an idea of the
aspect of the more important of these strengths in old times. But many
of them were little more than square keeps, strong enough, however,
to withstand sudden assault, and even to endure a siege, as long as
provisions held out.
Other memorials of ancient strife and bloodshed, less conspicuous than
the castles, but even more impressive, may here and there be found,
which bring the brutal realities of savagedom vividly before the eyes.
Within my own recollection, Professor Macpherson, then proprietor of
Eigg, gathered together the skulls and scattered bones in the cave on
that island where some 200 Macdonalds, men, women, and children, were
smothered alive by an invading band of Macleods, who kindled brushwood
against the cave-mouth. For nearly three hundred years these ghastly
relics of humanity had lain unburied where the victims fell, and might
be kicked and crushed by the careless feet of any inquisitive visitor.
Even now, although every care has been taken to remove them, stray
vestiges of the massacre may perchance still be found on the rough dank
floor of the dark cavern. From the mouldering straw and heath I picked
up, many years ago, the finger-bone of a child.
[Sidenote: AN UNBURIED SKELETON]
The tragic fate of the Macdonalds of Eigg is a well-known event. But
here and there one comes upon relics of unchronicled slaughters.
The most impressive of these which I have ever met with is to be
found on the west side of Jura. In a cruise round this island in the
‘Aster’ with Mr. Evans, we were accompanied by Miss Campbell of Jura,
who, in the course of a talk about clan-battles in the Highlands,
referred to the last raid that had been made on Jura, where, according
to tradition, a party of Macleans had landed and were opposed by
Campbells. She added that the skeleton of one of the Macleans who
was slain lies on the moor still. On my expressing some incredulity
as to this last statement, she assured me that it was true, and that
I might verify it with my own eyes. So the yacht was turned into
a little indentation of the coast, at the head of which stood a
shepherd’s cottage. We landed from the long boat, and the shepherd,
recognising the party, came down to meet us. Miss Campbell asked him
where the skeleton was, and he pointed to an overhanging piece of rock
about a hundred yards from where we were standing. On reaching this
spot, we found a few rough stones lying at the foot of the low crag.
These the man, stooping down, gently removed, and below them lay the
bleached bones. We took up the skull, which was well formed and must
have belonged to a full-grown man. A piece of bone about the size of
half-a-crown had, evidently by the sweep of a claymore, been sliced off
the top of the skull, leaving a clean, smooth cut. This wound, however,
had not been considered enough, for the head had been cleft by a
subsequent stroke of the weapon, and there was the gash in the bone, as
sharply defined as on the day the deed was done. We gently replaced the
bones, with the stones above them, and there they remain as a memorial
of ‘battles long ago.’[24]
[Sidenote: LEGENDS IN JURA]
The west side of Jura is pierced by many caves, which were worn by the
sea at a remote period when the land stood somewhat lower than it does
now. At the far end of one of these caves a human skull is said to lie.
This grim relic has more than once been removed and buried, but always
in some mysterious manner finds its way back again. Nothing appears to
be known of its history, and nobody likes to say much about it. If it
exists at all, its return to its cavern may be due to a superstitious
feeling on the part of the natives, some one of whom secretly transfers
it back to what is regarded as its rightful resting-place. These Jura
caves are the scenes of certain weird legends where a black dog, a
phantom hand, and a company of ghostly women perform some wonderful
feats.[25]
When I first visited the island in 1860, the proprietor of Jura was
a keen deer-stalker, and used to live for a day or two at a time in
one of these caves, when his sport took him over to that side of the
island. On one occasion a party of ladies from an English yacht, then
at anchor in the inlet, had landed, and in passing the mouth of the
cave had noticed the laird inside, whom they took to be a hermit,
retired from the vanities of this world. Pitying his forlorn condition
and the necessarily scanty supply of food which he could scrape
together in so wild a place, they, on their return to the yacht, very
kindly made up a basket of provisions and sent it ashore for his
sustenance. Next morning, before the anchor was weighed, a boat came
alongside with a gamekeeper, who had brought a haunch of venison for
the owners of the yacht, with the thanks and compliments of Campbell,
of Jura.
[Sidenote: CHARM OF THE WEST HIGHLANDS]
I cannot pass from the subject of these Western Isles and the adjacent
part of the mainland without a reference to their indescribable charm,
and an expression of my own profound indebtedness to them for many
of the happiest hours of my life. To appreciate that charm one must
live for a while amidst the scenery, and learn to know its infinite
diversity of aspect under the changing moods of the sky. The tourist
who is conveyed through this scenery in the swift steamer on a grey,
rainy day, naturally inveighs against the climate, and carries away
with him only a recollection of dank fog through which the blurred
bases of the nearer hills could now and then be seen. Nor, even if he
is favoured with the finest weather when, under a cloudless heaven,
every island may stand out sharply in the clear air, and every
mountain, corrie, and glen on the mainland may be traced from the edge
of the crisp blue sea up to the far crests and peaks, can he realise on
such a day how different these same scenes appear when the atmospheric
vapour begins to show its kaleidoscopic transformations. Having sailed
along a good part of the coast of Europe, including Norway and the
Aegean Sea, I am convinced, that for variety of form, the west coast of
Scotland is unsurpassed on the Continent, while for manifold range and
brilliance of colour it has no equal. One who has passed a long enough
time amidst this scenery, more especially if he has made his home upon
the water, sailing across firth and sound, threading the narrows of
the kyles, and passing from island to island, can watch how the very
forms of the hills seem to vary from hour to hour as the atmospheric
conditions change. Features that were unobserved in the full blaze
of sunlight come out one by one, pencilled into prominence by the
radiant glow of their colour, as the cloud-shadows fall behind them.
In the early morning, when the sun climbs above the Invernessshire and
Argyleshire mountains and the mists ascend in white wreaths from the
valleys, there is presented to the eye a vast and varied panorama,
comprising the highest and most broken ground in the British Isles,
rising straight out of the Atlantic. In the evening, when the sun sets
behind the islands, and the hills, transfigured by the mingled magic
of sunlight, vapour, rain and cloud, glow with such luminous hues as
almost to be lost in the glories of the heaven, one feels that surely
‘earth has not anything to show more fair.’
Wandering through these scenes, one’s mind comes to be filled with a
succession of vivid pictures printed so indelibly on the memory that,
even after long years,
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude.
Among these mental impressions some stand out with especial prominence
in my own memory. Such is a sunset seen from the top of the lighthouse
on Cape Wrath when, above the far ocean-horizon, there rose a mass
of cloud, piled up into the semblance of mountains and valleys, with
sleeping lakes and bosky woods, castle-crowned crags and one fair
city with its streets and stately buildings, its steeples and spires.
The late Professor Renard of Ghent, had accompanied me to that far
north-western headland, and we amused ourselves naming the various
parts of the topography of this gorgeous aerial Atlantis. Another
memorable sunset was seen from the Observatory on the top of Ben
Nevis, when the chain of the Outer Hebrides, at a distance of a hundred
miles, stretched like a strip of sapphire against a pale golden sky.
Next morning a white mist spread all over the lower hills like a wide
sea, with the higher peaks rising like islets above its level surface.
Through all these memories of landscape there runs, as a tender
undertone, the recollection of the human interest of the scenes. One’s
mind recalls the fading relics of ancient paganism, the devoted labours
of the Celtic saints who first brought the rudiments of civilisation
to these shores, the coming of the vikings from the northern seas, the
feuds and massacres of the clans. The landscapes seem to be vocal with
the pathos of Celtic legend and song, and with the romance of later
literature,
In each low wind methinks a spirit calls,
And more than echoes talk along the walls.
[Sidenote: ORIGIN OF HIGHLAND DEMURENESS]
The demureness of the Scottish Highlander appears to have been in
large measure developed during last century, and especially since the
Disruption of the National Church and the domination of the Free Kirk.
At the time of the Reformation and for many generations afterwards,
he was wont on Sunday to play games--throwing the stone, tossing the
caber, shinty, foot-races, horse-races, together with music and dance.
It was formerly usual for him to be able to play on some musical
instrument; in older times on the harp and in later days on the pipes,
the fiddle, or at least the Jew’s harp. Writing in 1773 Mrs. Grant of
Laggan averred that in the Great Glen ‘there is a musician in every
house, and a poet in every hamlet.’ In 1811 she could still say, ‘there
are few houses in the Highlands where there is not a violin.’[26]
Whereever there was a good story-teller, or one who could recite the
old poems, songs, tales, legends, and histories of former times, the
neighbours would gather round him in the evenings and listen for hours
to his narratives. These customs continued in practice until the early
part of last century, and some of them still sparingly survive among
the Catholic islands of the Hebrides. But the Presbyterian clergy in
later times have waged ceaseless war against them. ‘The good ministers
and the good elders preached against them and went among the people and
besought them to forsake their follies and to return to wisdom. They
made the people break and burn their pipes and fiddles. If there was
a foolish man here and there who demurred, the good ministers and the
good elders themselves broke and burnt their instruments, saying
Better is the small fire that warms on the little day of peace
Than the big fire that burns on the great day of wrath.
The people have forsaken their follies and their Sabbath-breaking, and
there is no pipe and no fiddle here now.’[27]
[Sidenote: CLERICAL RAIDS AGAINST FIDDLES]
The same sympathetic observer from whose pages these words are taken
has given the following illustrative example of the clerical methods:
‘A famous violin-player died in the island of Eigg a few years ago.
He was known for his old-style playing and his old-world airs, which
died with him. A preacher denounced him, saying, “Thou art down there
behind the door, thou miserable man with thy grey hair, playing thine
old fiddle, with the cold hand without, and the devil’s fire within.”
His family pressed the man to burn his fiddle and never to play again.
A pedlar came round and offered ten shillings for the violin. The
instrument had been made by a pupil of Stradivarius, and was famed for
its tone. “It was not at all the thing that was got for it,” said the
old man, “that grieved my heart so sorely, but the parting with it! the
parting with it! and that I myself gave the best cow in my father’s
fold for it when I was young.” The voice of the old man faltered, and
the tear fell. He was never seen to smile again.’[28] Taught to think
their ancient tales foolish and their music and dancing sinful, the
people have gradually lost much of the gaiety which with other branches
of the Celtic race they once possessed.
[Sidenote: HIGHLAND SONGS]
One who was familiar with the Highlands in the middle of last century
will be struck with the further decay or disappearance of various
customs which even then were evidently fading out of use. Of these
vanished characteristics, one of the most distinctive, whose loss is
most regrettable, was the practice, once universal, of singing Gaelic
songs during operations that required a number of men or women, working
together, to keep time in their movements. This picturesque usage
appears to have died out on the mainland, though it still survives
among the Catholic islands of the Outer Hebrides. There were many such
songs, each having a marked rhythm, to which it was easy to adjust the
motions of the limbs. I have already referred to the boat-songs that
kept the rowers in time. Besides these, there were songs for reaping
and other labour in the field. Indoors, too, each kind of work, wherein
two or more persons had to move in unison, had its music. Thus when two
women grind corn with the quern or handmill, as they still do in some
of the Outer Isles, they move to the rhythm of a monotonous chant. When
they thicken (wauk) homespun cloth, they keep themselves in time by
singing--a practice which may also still be heard among the Catholic
parts of the Hebrides. I have only once seen the quern in use, but when
I first visited Skye, the songs still continued to be sung, though not
as accompaniments to concerted movement. In some of the Outer Hebrides
milking-songs are still in use, and the cows are said to be so fond of
them that in places they will not give their milk without them, nor
occasionally without their favourite airs being sung to them.[29] There
are likewise herding-songs sung when the flocks are sent out to the
pasture, which, unlike most of the Gaelic music, are joyous ditties
appropriate to what was once, over all the Highlands, one of the
happiest times of the year.
A notable change among the cottages and houses in the Highlands during
the last fifty years is to be seen in the disappearance of some of the
old forms of illumination, consequent on the introduction of mineral
oil. Candles of course remain, but in former days a common source of
light was obtained from the trunks of pine-trees dug out of the peat
mosses. The wood of these trunks, being highly resinous, burnt with a
bright though smoky flame. Split into long rods it made good torches,
or if broken up into laths and splinters, it furnished a ready light
when kindled among the embers of a peat-fire. If a bright light was
wanted, the piece of wood was held upright with the lighted end at the
bottom, when the flame rapidly spread upward. If, on the other hand, it
was desired to make a less vivid light last as long as possible, the
position of the wood was reversed. Metal stands were made to hold these
pine-splinters, the simplest form consisting merely of a slim upright
rod of iron fastened below into a block of stone, and furnished with a
movable arm which slid up and down, and was furnished at the end with
a clip that would hold the wood at any angle desired. In Morayshire,
these stands were known as ‘puir men.’ A few years ago, Mr. James
Linn, of the Geological Survey, secured from the farms and cots of
that district an interesting collection of these objects which had
been thrown aside and neglected, after they were superseded by cheap
oil-lamps. This collection has since found a place in the Museum of
National Antiquities at Edinburgh.
[Sidenote: DISPERSION OF THE CLANS]
Another old Highland characteristic which has been constantly waning
since 1745 has had its rate of diminution greatly accelerated since
railways and steamboats were multiplied,--the localisation of clansmen
in their own original territories. It is true that the clan name may
still be found predominant there. In Strathspey, for instance, most
families in the Grantown district are Grants; Mackays prevail in the
Rae country, Campbells in Argyleshire, Mackinnons in Strath, and
Macleods in the north of Skye. But in all these old clan districts
there is a yearly increasing intermixture of other Highland names,
together with many from the lowlands.
The application of the clan name Macintosh to a waterproof, has
sometimes given rise to odd mistakes, real or invented, as where an
Englishman, who had got out at one of the stations on the Callander and
Oban railway, is reported to have come back to the carriage from which
he had descended, and into which four or five stalwart natives had
meanwhile mounted, whom he asked, ‘Did you see a black Macintosh here?’
‘Na,’ was the answer, ‘we’re a’ red Macgregors.’
But unquestionably the most momentous of all the changes which have
come upon the people of the Highlands is the gradual, but inevitable
dwindling of their native spoken language. Ever since the barriers
against the free intercourse of Celt and Saxon were broken down, Gaelic
has been undergoing a slow process of corruption, more especially in
those districts where that intercourse is most active. English words,
phrases, and idioms are gradually supplanting their Gaelic equivalents,
until the spoken tongue has become in some districts a mongrel compound
of the two languages. One may still meet with natives who know, or
at least say that they know, no English. ‘Cha n-eil Beurla acom, I
have no English,’ is sometimes a convenient cover for escaping from
troublesome questions. But, unless among the more remote parishes and
outer islands, the younger generation can generally speak English, at
least sufficiently well for cursory conversation.
[Sidenote: GAELIC TOPOGRAPHICAL NAMES]
It is much to be regretted that the Sassenach hardly ever takes the
trouble to learn even a smattering of Gaelic. Apart from the pleasure
and usefulness of obtaining a firmer hold on the good will of the
natives, some little knowledge of the language provides the traveller
with an endless source of interest in the meaning and origin of the
place-names of the Highlands, which are eminently descriptive, and
often point to conditions of landscape, of human occupation, of
vegetation and of animal life very different from those that appear
to-day. The old Gaels were singularly felicitous and poetical, as well
as wonderfully profuse, in their application of topographical names.
In my early wanderings over Skye, I used to be astonished to find that
every little hummock and hollow had a recognised name, not to be found
on any map, yet well known to the inhabitants, who by means of these
names could indicate precisely the route to be followed across a
trackless moorland or a rough mountain range. Even if no attempt may be
made to speak the language, enough acquaintance with it may easily be
acquired for the purpose of interpreting a large number of place-names.
The same descriptive term will be found continually recurring, with
endless varying suffixes and affixes of local significance.
To speak Gaelic, however, without making slips in the pronunciation is
difficult. Some of the sounds are hard for Saxon tongues to accomplish,
and unless they are accurately given, the uneducated peasant has often
too little imagination to divine the word that is intended. Thus, a
lady whom I knew on the west side of Cantyre, told me that when she
first came to live there, being a stranger to Highland manners and
customs, she was desirous at every turn, to increase her knowledge
of them. One day she asked her cook, a thorough Highlander, ‘Kate,
what is a philabeg?’ ‘A what, mam!’ ‘A philabeg; I know it’s a part
of a man’s Highland dress.’ ‘Och, mam, I wass never hearin’ of it at
all.’ Some time afterwards, having meanwhile ascertained what the word
signifies, she happened to come into the kitchen when a Highlander in
full costume was standing there. ‘Oh Kate, I asked you not long ago to
tell me what is a philabeg, and you said you had never heard of it.
There’s a philabeg,’ said she, pointing to the man’s kilt. ‘That, mam!
of course, I know that very well, I’m sure. If you’ll said pheelabeg, I
would be knowin’ at once what you wass askin’ about. I’ve knew what is
a pheelabeg ever since I wass born.’
[Sidenote: DIFFICULTIES OF GAELIC]
It seems hardly possible for a lowlander, unless he begins early in
life and has abundant practice, to lose all ‘taste of the English’ in
his Gaelic talk. Thus a pre-Disruption minister with whom I was well
acquainted in Argyleshire, and who was not a native Celt, but had
learnt Gaelic in his youth, made mistakes in the language up to the
end of his long life. One of his co-presbyters so highly appreciated
humour that some of the stories he told of my old friend were suspected
to be more or less touched up by the narrator. And many were the
stories thus circulated through the Synod of Argyle. One of them, I
remember, referred to a Gaelic sermon of the minister’s in which he
meant to tell his hearers that they were all _peacach caillte_, that
is, lost sinners; but as pronounced by him the words sounded like
_pucach saillte_, which means ‘salted cuddies’ or coal-fish. On another
occasion, being in a hurry to start from a distant inn, he called
the waiting-maid, wishing to desire her to have the saddle put to
his horse. The Gaelic word for a saddle is _Diollaidich_, and he got
the first half of it only, which makes a word with a very different
meaning, so that what he did say was, ‘put the devil (_diabhol_) on the
horse.’
Professor Blackie, who threw himself with all the ardour of his
enthusiastic nature into the study of Gaelic, laid the Highlands and
all Highlanders under a debt of gratitude to him for his untiring
labours on their behalf. He gained an accurate grammatical knowledge
of the language, and a considerable acquaintance with its literature,
but he never properly acquired the pronunciation. During a visit I
once paid to him at his picturesque home on the hillside near Oban,
we crossed over to Kerrera. After rambling along the western and
southern shores of that island, the Professor said he would like to
call on a farmer’s wife who was a friend of his. Accordingly we made
our way to the house, where he saluted her in Gaelic. The conversation
proceeded for a little while in that tongue, but at last the good
lady exclaimed, ‘Oh, Professor, if you would speak English I would
understand you.’
[Sidenote: EXPERIENCES IN GAELIC]
In my early rambles over Skye, I found that ‘a little Gaelic is a
dangerous thing.’ I had sufficient acquaintance with the language to
be able to ask my way, but had made no attempt to ‘drink deep’ at the
Celtic spring. On one occasion when passing a night in a crofter’s
cottage, I could make out that the conversation which the inmates were
carrying on, related to myself and my doings. In a thoughtless moment
I made a remark in Gaelic. It had no reference to the subject of their
talk, but it had the effect of putting an end to that talk, and of
turning a battery of Gaelic questions on me. In vain I protested that I
had no Gaelic. This they good humouredly refused to believe, repeating
again and again, ‘Cha Gaelig gu leor, you have Gaelic enough, but you
don’t like to speak it.’