A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland

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


In Sky there are two grammar schools, where boarders are taken to be
regularly educated. The price of board is from three pounds, to four
pounds ten shillings a year, and that of instruction is half a crown a
quarter. But the scholars are birds of passage, who live at school only
in the summer; for in winter provisions cannot be made for any
considerable number in one place. This periodical dispersion impresses
strongly the scarcity of these countries.

Having heard of no boarding-school for ladies nearer than Inverness, I
suppose their education is generally domestick. The elder daughters of
the higher families are sent into the world, and may contribute by their
acquisitions to the improvement of the rest.

Women must here study to be either pleasing or useful. Their
deficiencies are seldom supplied by very liberal fortunes. A hundred
pounds is a portion beyond the hope of any but the Laird's daughter. They
do not indeed often give money with their daughters; the question is, How
many cows a young lady will bring her husband. A rich maiden has from
ten to forty; but two cows are a decent fortune for one who pretends to
no distinction.

The religion of the Islands is that of the Kirk of Scotland. The
gentlemen with whom I conversed are all inclined to the English liturgy;
but they are obliged to maintain the established Minister, and the
country is too poor to afford payment to another, who must live wholly on
the contribution of his audience.

They therefore all attend the worship of the Kirk, as often as a visit
from their Minister, or the practicability of travelling gives them
opportunity; nor have they any reason to complain of insufficient
pastors; for I saw not one in the Islands, whom I had reason to think
either deficient in learning, or irregular in life: but found several
with whom I could not converse without wishing, as my respect increased,
that they had not been Presbyterians.

The ancient rigour of puritanism is now very much relaxed, though all are
not yet equally enlightened. I sometimes met with prejudices
sufficiently malignant, but they were prejudices of ignorance. The
Ministers in the Islands had attained such knowledge as may justly be
admired in men, who have no motive to study, but generous curiosity, or,
what is still better, desire of usefulness; with such politeness as so
narrow a circle of converse could not have supplied, but to minds
naturally disposed to elegance.

Reason and truth will prevail at last. The most learned of the Scottish
Doctors would now gladly admit a form of prayer, if the people would
endure it. The zeal or rage of congregations has its different degrees.
In some parishes the Lord's Prayer is suffered: in others it is still
rejected as a form; and he that should make it part of his supplication
would be suspected of heretical pravity.

The principle upon which extemporary prayer was originally introduced, is
no longer admitted. The Minister formerly, in the effusion of his
prayer, expected immediate, and perhaps perceptible inspiration, and
therefore thought it his duty not to think before what he should say. It
is now universally confessed, that men pray as they speak on other
occasions, according to the general measure of their abilities and
attainments. Whatever each may think of a form prescribed by another, he
cannot but believe that he can himself compose by study and meditation a
better prayer than will rise in his mind at a sudden call; and if he has
any hope of supernatural help, why may he not as well receive it when he
writes as when he speaks?

In the variety of mental powers, some must perform extemporary prayer
with much imperfection; and in the eagerness and rashness of
contradictory opinions, if publick liturgy be left to the private
judgment of every Minister, the congregation may often be offended or
misled.

There is in Scotland, as among ourselves, a restless suspicion of popish
machinations, and a clamour of numerous converts to the Romish religion.
The report is, I believe, in both parts of the Island equally false. The
Romish religion is professed only in Egg and Canna, two small islands,
into which the Reformation never made its way. If any missionaries are
busy in the Highlands, their zeal entitles them to respect, even from
those who cannot think favourably of their doctrine.

The political tenets of the Islanders I was not curious to investigate,
and they were not eager to obtrude. Their conversation is decent and
inoffensive. They disdain to drink for their principles, and there is no
disaffection at their tables. I never heard a health offered by a
Highlander that might not have circulated with propriety within the
precincts of the King's palace.

Legal government has yet something of novelty to which they cannot
perfectly conform. The ancient spirit, that appealed only to the sword,
is yet among them. The tenant of Scalpa, an island belonging to
Macdonald, took no care to bring his rent; when the landlord talked of
exacting payment, he declared his resolution to keep his ground, and
drive all intruders from the Island, and continued to feed his cattle as
on his own land, till it became necessary for the Sheriff to dislodge him
by violence.

The various kinds of superstition which prevailed here, as in all other
regions of ignorance, are by the diligence of the Ministers almost
extirpated.

Of Browny, mentioned by Martin, nothing has been heard for many years.
Browny was a sturdy Fairy; who, if he was fed, and kindly treated, would,
as they said, do a great deal of work. They now pay him no wages, and
are content to labour for themselves.

In Troda, within these three-and-thirty years, milk was put every
Saturday for Greogach, or 'the Old Man with the Long Beard.' Whether
Greogach was courted as kind, or dreaded as terrible, whether they meant,
by giving him the milk, to obtain good, or avert evil, I was not
informed. The Minister is now living by whom the practice was abolished.

They have still among them a great number of charms for the cure of
different diseases; they are all invocations, perhaps transmitted to them
from the times of popery, which increasing knowledge will bring into
disuse.

They have opinions, which cannot be ranked with superstition, because
they regard only natural effects. They expect better crops of grain, by
sowing their seed in the moon's increase. The moon has great influence
in vulgar philosophy. In my memory it was a precept annually given in
one of the English Almanacks, 'to kill hogs when the moon was increasing,
and the bacon would prove the better in boiling.'

We should have had little claim to the praise of curiosity, if we had not
endeavoured with particular attention to examine the question of the
Second Sight. Of an opinion received for centuries by a whole nation,
and supposed to be confirmed through its whole descent, by a series of
successive facts, it is desirable that the truth should be established,
or the fallacy detected.

The Second Sight is an impression made either by the mind upon the eye,
or by the eye upon the mind, by which things distant or future are
perceived, and seen as if they were present. A man on a journey far from
home falls from his horse, another, who is perhaps at work about the
house, sees him bleeding on the ground, commonly with a landscape of the
place where the accident befalls him. Another seer, driving home his
cattle, or wandering in idleness, or musing in the sunshine, is suddenly
surprised by the appearance of a bridal ceremony, or funeral procession,
and counts the mourners or attendants, of whom, if he knows them, he
relates the names, if he knows them not, he can describe the dresses.
Things distant are seen at the instant when they happen. Of things
future I know not that there is any rule for determining the time between
the Sight and the event.

This receptive faculty, for power it cannot be called, is neither
voluntary nor constant. The appearances have no dependence upon choice:
they cannot be summoned, detained, or recalled. The impression is
sudden, and the effect often painful.

By the term Second Sight, seems to be meant a mode of seeing, superadded
to that which Nature generally bestows. In the Earse it is called
Taisch; which signifies likewise a spectre, or a vision. I know not, nor
is it likely that the Highlanders ever examined, whether by Taisch, used
for Second Sight, they mean the power of seeing, or the thing seen.

I do not find it to be true, as it is reported, that to the Second Sight
nothing is presented but phantoms of evil. Good seems to have the same
proportions in those visionary scenes, as it obtains in real life: almost
all remarkable events have evil for their basis; and are either miseries
incurred, or miseries escaped. Our sense is so much stronger of what we
suffer, than of what we enjoy, that the ideas of pain predominate in
almost every mind. What is recollection but a revival of vexations, or
history but a record of wars, treasons, and calamities? Death, which is
considered as the greatest evil, happens to all. The greatest good, be
it what it will, is the lot but of a part.

That they should often see death is to be expected; because death is an
event frequent and important. But they see likewise more pleasing
incidents. A gentleman told me, that when he had once gone far from his
own Island, one of his labouring servants predicted his return, and
described the livery of his attendant, which he had never worn at home;
and which had been, without any previous design, occasionally given him.

Our desire of information was keen, and our inquiry frequent. Mr.
Boswell's frankness and gaiety made every body communicative; and we
heard many tales of these airy shows, with more or less evidence and
distinctness.

It is the common talk of the Lowland Scots, that the notion of the Second
Sight is wearing away with other superstitions; and that its reality is
no longer supposed, but by the grossest people. How far its prevalence
ever extended, or what ground it has lost, I know not. The Islanders of
all degrees, whether of rank or understanding, universally admit it,
except the Ministers, who universally deny it, and are suspected to deny
it, in consequence of a system, against conviction. One of them honestly
told me, that he came to Sky with a resolution not to believe it.

Strong reasons for incredulity will readily occur. This faculty of
seeing things out of sight is local, and commonly useless. It is a
breach of the common order of things, without any visible reason or
perceptible benefit. It is ascribed only to a people very little
enlightened; and among them, for the most part, to the mean and the
ignorant.

To the confidence of these objections it may be replied, that by
presuming to determine what is fit, and what is beneficial, they
presuppose more knowledge of the universal system than man has attained;
and therefore depend upon principles too complicated and extensive for
our comprehension; and that there can be no security in the consequence,
when the premises are not understood; that the Second Sight is only
wonderful because it is rare, for, considered in itself, it involves no
more difficulty than dreams, or perhaps than the regular exercise of the
cogitative faculty; that a general opinion of communicative impulses, or
visionary representations, has prevailed in all ages and all nations;
that particular instances have been given, with such evidence, as neither
Bacon nor Bayle has been able to resist; that sudden impressions, which
the event has verified, have been felt by more than own or publish them;
that the Second Sight of the Hebrides implies only the local frequency of
a power, which is nowhere totally unknown; and that where we are unable
to decide by antecedent reason, we must be content to yield to the force
of testimony.

By pretension to Second Sight, no profit was ever sought or gained. It
is an involuntary affection, in which neither hope nor fear are known to
have any part. Those who profess to feel it, do not boast of it as a
privilege, nor are considered by others as advantageously distinguished.
They have no temptation to feign; and their hearers have no motive to
encourage the imposture.

To talk with any of these seers is not easy. There is one living in Sky,
with whom we would have gladly conversed; but he was very gross and
ignorant, and knew no English. The proportion in these countries of the
poor to the rich is such, that if we suppose the quality to be
accidental, it can very rarely happen to a man of education; and yet on
such men it has sometimes fallen. There is now a Second Sighted
gentleman in the Highlands, who complains of the terrors to which he is
exposed.

The foresight of the Seers is not always prescience; they are impressed
with images, of which the event only shews them the meaning. They tell
what they have seen to others, who are at that time not more knowing than
themselves, but may become at last very adequate witnesses, by comparing
the narrative with its verification.

To collect sufficient testimonies for the satisfaction of the publick, or
of ourselves, would have required more time than we could bestow. There
is, against it, the seeming analogy of things confusedly seen, and little
understood, and for it, the indistinct cry of national persuasion, which
may be perhaps resolved at last into prejudice and tradition. I never
could advance my curiosity to conviction; but came away at last only
willing to believe.

As there subsists no longer in the Islands much of that peculiar and
discriminative form of life, of which the idea had delighted our
imagination, we were willing to listen to such accounts of past times as
would be given us. But we soon found what memorials were to be expected
from an illiterate people, whose whole time is a series of distress;
where every morning is labouring with expedients for the evening; and
where all mental pains or pleasure arose from the dread of winter, the
expectation of spring, the caprices of their Chiefs, and the motions of
the neighbouring clans; where there was neither shame from ignorance, nor
pride in knowledge; neither curiosity to inquire, nor vanity to
communicate.

The Chiefs indeed were exempt from urgent penury, and daily difficulties;
and in their houses were preserved what accounts remained of past ages.
But the Chiefs were sometimes ignorant and careless, and sometimes kept
busy by turbulence and contention; and one generation of ignorance
effaces the whole series of unwritten history. Books are faithful
repositories, which may be a while neglected or forgotten; but when they
are opened again, will again impart their instruction: memory, once
interrupted, is not to be recalled. Written learning is a fixed
luminary, which, after the cloud that had hidden it has past away, is
again bright in its proper station. Tradition is but a meteor, which, if
once it falls, cannot be rekindled.

It seems to be universally supposed, that much of the local history was
preserved by the Bards, of whom one is said to have been retained by
every great family. After these Bards were some of my first inquiries;
and I received such answers as, for a while, made me please myself with
my increase of knowledge; for I had not then learned how to estimate the
narration of a Highlander.

They said that a great family had a Bard and a Senachi, who were the poet
and historian of the house; and an old gentleman told me that he
remembered one of each. Here was a dawn of intelligence. Of men that
had lived within memory, some certain knowledge might be attained. Though
the office had ceased, its effects might continue; the poems might be
found, though there was no poet.

Another conversation indeed informed me, that the same man was both Bard
and Senachi. This variation discouraged me; but as the practice might be
different in different times, or at the same time in different families,
there was yet no reason for supposing that I must necessarily sit down in
total ignorance.

Soon after I was told by a gentleman, who is generally acknowledged the
greatest master of Hebridian antiquities, that there had indeed once been
both Bards and Senachies; and that Senachi signified 'the man of talk,'
or of conversation; but that neither Bard nor Senachi had existed for
some centuries. I have no reason to suppose it exactly known at what
time the custom ceased, nor did it probably cease in all houses at once.
But whenever the practice of recitation was disused, the works, whether
poetical or historical, perished with the authors; for in those times
nothing had been written in the Earse language.

Whether the 'Man of talk' was a historian, whose office was to tell
truth, or a story-teller, like those which were in the last century, and
perhaps are now among the Irish, whose trade was only to amuse, it now
would be vain to inquire.

Most of the domestick offices were, I believe, hereditary; and probably
the laureat of a clan was always the son of the last laureat. The
history of the race could no otherwise be communicated, or retained; but
what genius could be expected in a poet by inheritance?

The nation was wholly illiterate. Neither bards nor Senachies could
write or read; but if they were ignorant, there was no danger of
detection; they were believed by those whose vanity they flattered.

The recital of genealogies, which has been considered as very efficacious
to the preservation of a true series of ancestry, was anciently made,
when the heir of the family came to manly age. This practice has never
subsisted within time of memory, nor was much credit due to such
rehearsers, who might obtrude fictitious pedigrees, either to please
their masters, or to hide the deficiency of their own memories.

Where the Chiefs of the Highlands have found the histories of their
descent is difficult to tell; for no Earse genealogy was ever written. In
general this only is evident, that the principal house of a clan must be
very ancient, and that those must have lived long in a place, of whom it
is not known when they came thither.

Thus hopeless are all attempts to find any traces of Highland learning.
Nor are their primitive customs and ancient manner of life otherwise than
very faintly and uncertainly remembered by the present race.

The peculiarities which strike the native of a commercial country,
proceeded in a great measure from the want of money. To the servants and
dependents that were not domesticks, and if an estimate be made from the
capacity of any of their old houses which I have seen, their domesticks
could have been but few, were appropriated certain portions of land for
their support. Macdonald has a piece of ground yet, called the Bards or
Senachies field. When a beef was killed for the house, particular parts
were claimed as fees by the several officers, or workmen. What was the
right of each I have not learned. The head belonged to the smith, and
the udder of a cow to the piper: the weaver had likewise his particular
part; and so many pieces followed these prescriptive claims, that the
Laird's was at last but little.

The payment of rent in kind has been so long disused in England, that it
is totally forgotten. It was practised very lately in the Hebrides, and
probably still continues, not only in St. Kilda, where money is not yet
known, but in others of the smaller and remoter Islands. It were perhaps
to be desired, that no change in this particular should have been made.
When the Laird could only eat the produce of his lands, he was under the
necessity of residing upon them; and when the tenant could not convert
his stock into more portable riches, he could never be tempted away from
his farm, from the only place where he could be wealthy. Money confounds
subordination, by overpowering the distinctions of rank and birth, and
weakens authority by supplying power of resistance, or expedients for
escape. The feudal system is formed for a nation employed in
agriculture, and has never long kept its hold where gold and silver have
become common.

Their arms were anciently the Glaymore, or great two-handed sword, and
afterwards the two-edged sword and target, or buckler, which was
sustained on the left arm. In the midst of the target, which was made of
wood, covered with leather, and studded with nails, a slender lance,
about two feet long, was sometimes fixed; it was heavy and cumberous, and
accordingly has for some time past been gradually laid aside. Very few
targets were at Culloden. The dirk, or broad dagger, I am afraid, was of
more use in private quarrels than in battles. The Lochaber-ax is only a
slight alteration of the old English bill.

After all that has been said of the force and terrour of the Highland
sword, I could not find that the art of defence was any part of common
education. The gentlemen were perhaps sometimes skilful gladiators, but
the common men had no other powers than those of violence and courage.
Yet it is well known, that the onset of the Highlanders was very
formidable. As an army cannot consist of philosophers, a panick is
easily excited by any unwonted mode of annoyance. New dangers are
naturally magnified; and men accustomed only to exchange bullets at a
distance, and rather to hear their enemies than see them, are discouraged
and amazed when they find themselves encountered hand to hand, and catch
the gleam of steel flashing in their faces.

The Highland weapons gave opportunity for many exertions of personal
courage, and sometimes for single combats in the field; like those which
occur so frequently in fabulous wars. At Falkirk, a gentleman now
living, was, I suppose after the retreat of the King's troops, engaged at
a distance from the rest with an Irish dragoon. They were both skilful
swordsmen, and the contest was not easily decided: the dragoon at last
had the advantage, and the Highlander called for quarter; but quarter was
refused him, and the fight continued till he was reduced to defend
himself upon his knee. At that instant one of the Macleods came to his
rescue; who, as it is said, offered quarter to the dragoon, but he
thought himself obliged to reject what he had before refused, and, as
battle gives little time to deliberate, was immediately killed.

Funerals were formerly solemnized by calling multitudes together, and
entertaining them at great expence. This emulation of useless cost has
been for some time discouraged, and at last in the Isle of Sky is almost
suppressed.

Of the Earse language, as I understand nothing, I cannot say more than I
have been told. It is the rude speech of a barbarous people, who had few
thoughts to express, and were content, as they conceived grossly, to be
grossly understood. After what has been lately talked of Highland Bards,
and Highland genius, many will startle when they are told, that the Earse
never was a written language; that there is not in the world an Earse
manuscript a hundred years old; and that the sounds of the Highlanders
were never expressed by letters, till some little books of piety were
translated, and a metrical version of the Psalms was made by the Synod of
Argyle. Whoever therefore now writes in this language, spells according
to his own perception of the sound, and his own idea of the power of the
letters. The Welsh and the Irish are cultivated tongues. The Welsh, two
hundred years ago, insulted their English neighbours for the instability
of their Orthography; while the Earse merely floated in the breath of the
people, and could therefore receive little improvement.

When a language begins to teem with books, it is tending to refinement;
as those who undertake to teach others must have undergone some labour in
improving themselves, they set a proportionate value on their own
thoughts, and wish to enforce them by efficacious expressions; speech
becomes embodied and permanent; different modes and phrases are compared,
and the best obtains an establishment. By degrees one age improves upon
another. Exactness is first obtained, and afterwards elegance. But
diction, merely vocal, is always in its childhood. As no man leaves his
eloquence behind him, the new generations have all to learn. There may
possibly be books without a polished language, but there can be no
polished language without books.

That the Bards could not read more than the rest of their countrymen, it
is reasonable to suppose; because, if they had read, they could probably
have written; and how high their compositions may reasonably be rated, an
inquirer may best judge by considering what stores of imagery, what
principles of ratiocination, what comprehension of knowledge, and what
delicacy of elocution he has known any man attain who cannot read. The
state of the Bards was yet more hopeless. He that cannot read, may now
converse with those that can; but the Bard was a barbarian among
barbarians, who, knowing nothing himself, lived with others that knew no
more.