A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland

S >> Samuel Johnson >> A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland


If they be considered merely as places of retreat, the situation seems
not well chosen; for the Laird of an Island is safest from foreign
enemies in the center; on the coast he might be more suddenly surprised
than in the inland parts; and the invaders, if their enterprise
miscarried, might more easily retreat. Some convenience, however,
whatever it was, their position on the shore afforded; for uniformity of
practice seldom continues long without good reason.

A castle in the Islands is only a single tower of three or four stories,
of which the walls are sometimes eight or nine feet thick, with narrow
windows, and close winding stairs of stone. The top rises in a cone, or
pyramid of stone, encompassed by battlements. The intermediate floors
are sometimes frames of timber, as in common houses, and sometimes arches
of stone, or alternately stone and timber; so that there was very little
danger from fire. In the center of every floor, from top to bottom, is
the chief room, of no great extent, round which there are narrow
cavities, or recesses, formed by small vacuities, or by a double wall. I
know not whether there be ever more than one fire-place. They had not
capacity to contain many people, or much provision; but their enemies
could seldom stay to blockade them; for if they failed in the first
attack, their next care was to escape.

The walls were always too strong to be shaken by such desultory
hostilities; the windows were too narrow to be entered, and the
battlements too high to be scaled. The only danger was at the gates,
over which the wall was built with a square cavity, not unlike a chimney,
continued to the top. Through this hollow the defendants let fall stones
upon those who attempted to break the gate, and poured down water,
perhaps scalding water, if the attack was made with fire. The castle of
Lochbuy was secured by double doors, of which the outer was an iron
grate.

In every castle is a well and a dungeon. The use of the well is evident.
The dungeon is a deep subterraneous cavity, walled on the sides, and
arched on the top, into which the descent is through a narrow door, by a
ladder or a rope, so that it seems impossible to escape, when the rope or
ladder is drawn up. The dungeon was, I suppose, in war, a prison for
such captives as were treated with severity, and, in peace, for such
delinquents as had committed crimes within the Laird's jurisdiction; for
the mansions of many Lairds were, till the late privation of their
privileges, the halls of justice to their own tenants.

As these fortifications were the productions of mere necessity, they are
built only for safety, with little regard to convenience, and with none
to elegance or pleasure. It was sufficient for a Laird of the Hebrides,
if he had a strong house, in which he could hide his wife and children
from the next clan. That they are not large nor splendid is no wonder.
It is not easy to find how they were raised, such as they are, by men who
had no money, in countries where the labourers and artificers could
scarcely be fed. The buildings in different parts of the Island shew
their degrees of wealth and power. I believe that for all the castles
which I have seen beyond the Tweed, the ruins yet remaining of some one
of those which the English built in Wales, would supply materials.

These castles afford another evidence that the fictions of romantick
chivalry had for their basis the real manners of the feudal times, when
every Lord of a seignory lived in his hold lawless and unaccountable,
with all the licentiousness and insolence of uncontested superiority and
unprincipled power. The traveller, whoever he might be, coming to the
fortified habitation of a Chieftain, would, probably, have been
interrogated from the battlements, admitted with caution at the gate,
introduced to a petty Monarch, fierce with habitual hostility, and
vigilant with ignorant suspicion; who, according to his general temper,
or accidental humour, would have seated a stranger as his guest at the
table, or as a spy confined him in the dungeon.

Lochbuy means the Yellow Lake, which is the name given to an inlet of the
sea, upon which the castle of Mr. Maclean stands. The reason of the
appellation we did not learn.

We were now to leave the Hebrides, where we had spent some weeks with
sufficient amusement, and where we had amplified our thoughts with new
scenes of nature, and new modes of life. More time would have given us a
more distinct view, but it was necessary that Mr. Boswell should return
before the courts of justice were opened; and it was not proper to live
too long upon hospitality, however liberally imparted.

Of these Islands it must be confessed, that they have not many
allurements, but to the mere lover of naked nature. The inhabitants are
thin, provisions are scarce, and desolation and penury give little
pleasure.

The people collectively considered are not few, though their numbers are
small in proportion to the space which they occupy. Mull is said to
contain six thousand, and Sky fifteen thousand. Of the computation
respecting Mull, I can give no account; but when I doubted the truth of
the numbers attributed to Sky, one of the Ministers exhibited such facts
as conquered my incredulity.

Of the proportion, which the product of any region bears to the people,
an estimate is commonly made according to the pecuniary price of the
necessaries of life; a principle of judgment which is never certain,
because it supposes what is far from truth, that the value of money is
always the same, and so measures an unknown quantity by an uncertain
standard. It is competent enough when the markets of the same country,
at different times, and those times not too distant, are to be compared;
but of very little use for the purpose of making one nation acquainted
with the state of another. Provisions, though plentiful, are sold in
places of great pecuniary opulence for nominal prices, to which, however
scarce, where gold and silver are yet scarcer, they can never be raised.

In the Western Islands there is so little internal commerce, that hardly
any thing has a known or settled rate. The price of things brought in,
or carried out, is to be considered as that of a foreign market; and even
this there is some difficulty in discovering, because their denominations
of quantity are different from ours; and when there is ignorance on both
sides, no appeal can be made to a common measure.

This, however, is not the only impediment. The Scots, with a vigilance
of jealousy which never goes to sleep, always suspect that an Englishman
despises them for their poverty, and to convince him that they are not
less rich than their neighbours, are sure to tell him a price higher than
the true. When Lesley, two hundred years ago, related so punctiliously,
that a hundred hen eggs, new laid, were sold in the Islands for a peny,
he supposed that no inference could possibly follow, but that eggs were
in great abundance. Posterity has since grown wiser; and having learned,
that nominal and real value may differ, they now tell no such stories,
lest the foreigner should happen to collect, not that eggs are many, but
that pence are few.

Money and wealth have by the use of commercial language been so long
confounded, that they are commonly supposed to be the same; and this
prejudice has spread so widely in Scotland, that I know not whether I
found man or woman, whom I interrogated concerning payments of money,
that could surmount the illiberal desire of deceiving me, by representing
every thing as dearer than it is.

From Lochbuy we rode a very few miles to the side of Mull, which faces
Scotland, where, having taken leave of our kind protector, Sir Allan, we
embarked in a boat, in which the seat provided for our accommodation was
a heap of rough brushwood; and on the twenty-second of October reposed at
a tolerable inn on the main land.

On the next day we began our journey southwards. The weather was
tempestuous. For half the day the ground was rough, and our horses were
still small. Had they required much restraint, we might have been
reduced to difficulties; for I think we had amongst us but one bridle. We
fed the poor animals liberally, and they performed their journey well. In
the latter part of the day, we came to a firm and smooth road, made by
the soldiers, on which we travelled with great security, busied with
contemplating the scene about us. The night came on while we had yet a
great part of the way to go, though not so dark, but that we could
discern the cataracts which poured down the hills, on one side, and fell
into one general channel that ran with great violence on the other. The
wind was loud, the rain was heavy, and the whistling of the blast, the
fall of the shower, the rush of the cataracts, and the roar of the
torrent, made a nobler chorus of the rough musick of nature than it had
ever been my chance to hear before. The streams, which ran cross the way
from the hills to the main current, were so frequent, that after a while
I began to count them; and, in ten miles, reckoned fifty-five, probably
missing some, and having let some pass before they forced themselves upon
my notice. At last we came to Inverary, where we found an inn, not only
commodious, but magnificent.

The difficulties of peregrination were now at an end. Mr. Boswell had
the honour of being known to the Duke of Argyle, by whom we were very
kindly entertained at his splendid seat, and supplied with conveniences
for surveying his spacious park and rising forests.

After two days stay at Inverary we proceeded Southward over Glencroe, a
black and dreary region, now made easily passable by a military road,
which rises from either end of the glen by an acclivity not dangerously
steep, but sufficiently laborious. In the middle, at the top of the
hill, is a seat with this inscription, 'Rest, and be thankful.' Stones
were placed to mark the distances, which the inhabitants have taken away,
resolved, they said, 'to have no new miles.'

In this rainy season the hills streamed with waterfalls, which, crossing
the way, formed currents on the other side, that ran in contrary
directions as they fell to the north or south of the summit. Being, by
the favour of the Duke, well mounted, I went up and down the hill with
great convenience.

From Glencroe we passed through a pleasant country to the banks of Loch
Lomond, and were received at the house of Sir James Colquhoun, who is
owner of almost all the thirty islands of the Loch, which we went in a
boat next morning to survey. The heaviness of the rain shortened our
voyage, but we landed on one island planted with yew, and stocked with
deer, and on another containing perhaps not more than half an acre,
remarkable for the ruins of an old castle, on which the osprey builds her
annual nest. Had Loch Lomond been in a happier climate, it would have
been the boast of wealth and vanity to own one of the little spots which
it incloses, and to have employed upon it all the arts of embellishment.
But as it is, the islets, which court the gazer at a distance, disgust
him at his approach, when he finds, instead of soft lawns; and shady
thickets, nothing more than uncultivated ruggedness.

Where the Loch discharges itself into a river, called the Leven, we
passed a night with Mr. Smollet, a relation of Doctor Smollet, to whose
memory he has raised an obelisk on the bank near the house in which he
was born. The civility and respect which we found at every place, it is
ungrateful to omit, and tedious to repeat. Here we were met by a post-
chaise, that conveyed us to Glasgow.

To describe a city so much frequented as Glasgow, is unnecessary. The
prosperity of its commerce appears by the greatness of many private
houses, and a general appearance of wealth. It is the only episcopal
city whose cathedral was left standing in the rage of Reformation. It is
now divided into many separate places of worship, which, taken all
together, compose a great pile, that had been some centuries in building,
but was never finished; for the change of religion intercepted its
progress, before the cross isle was added, which seems essential to a
Gothick cathedral.

The college has not had a sufficient share of the increasing magnificence
of the place. The session was begun; for it commences on the tenth of
October and continues to the tenth of June, but the students appeared not
numerous, being, I suppose, not yet returned from their several homes.
The division of the academical year into one session, and one recess,
seems to me better accommodated to the present state of life, than that
variegation of time by terms and vacations derived from distant
centuries, in which it was probably convenient, and still continued in
the English universities. So many solid months as the Scotch scheme of
education joins together, allow and encourage a plan for each part of the
year; but with us, he that has settled himself to study in the college is
soon tempted into the country, and he that has adjusted his life in the
country, is summoned back to his college.

Yet when I have allowed to the universities of Scotland a more rational
distribution of time, I have given them, so far as my inquiries have
informed me, all that they can claim. The students, for the most part,
go thither boys, and depart before they are men; they carry with them
little fundamental knowledge, and therefore the superstructure cannot be
lofty. The grammar schools are not generally well supplied; for the
character of a school-master being there less honourable than in England,
is seldom accepted by men who are capable to adorn it, and where the
school has been deficient, the college can effect little.

Men bred in the universities of Scotland cannot be expected to be often
decorated with the splendours of ornamental erudition, but they obtain a
mediocrity of knowledge, between learning and ignorance, not inadequate
to the purposes of common life, which is, I believe, very widely diffused
among them, and which countenanced in general by a national combination
so invidious, that their friends cannot defend it, and actuated in
particulars by a spirit of enterprise, so vigorous, that their enemies
are constrained to praise it, enables them to find, or to make their way
to employment, riches, and distinction.

From Glasgow we directed our course to Auchinleck, an estate devolved,
through a long series of ancestors, to Mr. Boswell's father, the present
possessor. In our way we found several places remarkable enough in
themselves, but already described by those who viewed them at more
leisure, or with much more skill; and stopped two days at Mr. Campbell's,
a gentleman married to Mr. Boswell's sister.

Auchinleck, which signifies a stony field, seems not now to have any
particular claim to its denomination. It is a district generally level,
and sufficiently fertile, but like all the Western side of Scotland,
incommoded by very frequent rain. It was, with the rest of the country,
generally naked, till the present possessor finding, by the growth of
some stately trees near his old castle, that the ground was favourable
enough to timber, adorned it very diligently with annual plantations.

Lord Auchinleck, who is one of the Judges of Scotland, and therefore not
wholly at leisure for domestick business or pleasure, has yet found time
to make improvements in his patrimony. He has built a house of hewn
stone, very stately, and durable, and has advanced the value of his lands
with great tenderness to his tenants.

I was, however, less delighted with the elegance of the modern mansion,
than with the sullen dignity of the old castle. I clambered with Mr.
Boswell among the ruins, which afford striking images of ancient life. It
is, like other castles, built upon a point of rock, and was, I believe,
anciently surrounded with a moat. There is another rock near it, to
which the drawbridge, when it was let down, is said to have reached.
Here, in the ages of tumult and rapine, the Laird was surprised and
killed by the neighbouring Chief, who perhaps might have extinguished the
family, had he not in a few days been seized and hanged, together with
his sons, by Douglas, who came with his forces to the relief of
Auchinleck.

At no great distance from the house runs a pleasing brook, by a red rock,
out of which has been hewn a very agreeable and commodious summer-house,
at less expence, as Lord Auchinleck told me, than would have been
required to build a room of the same dimensions. The rock seems to have
no more dampness than any other wall. Such opportunities of variety it
is judicious not to neglect.

We now returned to Edinburgh, where I passed some days with men of
learning, whose names want no advancement from my commemoration, or with
women of elegance, which perhaps disclaims a pedant's praise.

The conversation of the Scots grows every day less unpleasing to the
English; their peculiarities wear fast away; their dialect is likely to
become in half a century provincial and rustick, even to themselves. The
great, the learned, the ambitious, and the vain, all cultivate the
English phrase, and the English pronunciation, and in splendid companies
Scotch is not much heard, except now and then from an old Lady.

There is one subject of philosophical curiosity to be found in Edinburgh,
which no other city has to shew; a college of the deaf and dumb, who are
taught to speak, to read, to write, and to practice arithmetick, by a
gentleman, whose name is Braidwood. The number which attends him is, I
think, about twelve, which he brings together into a little school, and
instructs according to their several degrees of proficiency.

I do not mean to mention the instruction of the deaf as new. Having been
first practised upon the son of a constable of Spain, it was afterwards
cultivated with much emulation in England, by Wallis and Holder, and was
lately professed by Mr. Baker, who once flattered me with hopes of seeing
his method published. How far any former teachers have succeeded, it is
not easy to know; the improvement of Mr. Braidwood's pupils is wonderful.
They not only speak, write, and understand what is written, but if he
that speaks looks towards them, and modifies his organs by distinct and
full utterance, they know so well what is spoken, that it is an
expression scarcely figurative to say, they hear with the eye. That any
have attained to the power mentioned by Burnet, of feeling sounds, by
laying a hand on the speaker's mouth, I know not; but I have seen so
much, that I can believe more; a single word, or a short sentence, I
think, may possibly be so distinguished.

It will readily be supposed by those that consider this subject, that Mr.
Braidwood's scholars spell accurately. Orthography is vitiated among
such as learn first to speak, and then to write, by imperfect notions of
the relation between letters and vocal utterance; but to those students
every character is of equal importance; for letters are to them not
symbols of names, but of things; when they write they do not represent a
sound, but delineate a form.

This school I visited, and found some of the scholars waiting for their
master, whom they are said to receive at his entrance with smiling
countenances and sparkling eyes, delighted with the hope of new ideas.
One of the young Ladies had her slate before her, on which I wrote a
question consisting of three figures, to be multiplied by two figures.
She looked upon it, and quivering her fingers in a manner which I thought
very pretty, but of which I know not whether it was art or play,
multiplied the sum regularly in two lines, observing the decimal place;
but did not add the two lines together, probably disdaining so easy an
operation. I pointed at the place where the sum total should stand, and
she noted it with such expedition as seemed to shew that she had it only
to write.

It was pleasing to see one of the most desperate of human calamities
capable of so much help; whatever enlarges hope, will exalt courage;
after having seen the deaf taught arithmetick, who would be afraid to
cultivate the Hebrides?

Such are the things which this journey has given me an opportunity of
seeing, and such are the reflections which that sight has raised. Having
passed my time almost wholly in cities, I may have been surprised by
modes of life and appearances of nature, that are familiar to men of
wider survey and more varied conversation. Novelty and ignorance must
always be reciprocal, and I cannot but be conscious that my thoughts on
national manners, are the thoughts of one who has seen but little.