As produces, in a
sufficient degree, the effect intended by the law, of abolishing
the dissimilitude of appearance between the Highlanders and the
other inhabitants of Britain; and, if dress be supposed to have
much influence, facilitates their coalition with their fellow-
subjects.
What we have long used we naturally like, and therefore the
Highlanders were unwilling to lay aside their plaid, which yet to
an unprejudiced spectator must appear an incommodious and
cumbersome dress; for hanging loose upon the body, it must flutter
in a quick motion, or require one of the hands to keep it close.
The Romans always laid aside the gown when they had anything to do.
It was a dress so unsuitable to war, that the same word which
signified a gown signified peace. The chief use of a plaid seems
to be this, that they could commodiously wrap themselves in it,
when they were obliged to sleep without a better cover.
In our passage from Scotland to Sky, we were wet for the first time
with a shower. This was the beginning of the Highland winter,
after which we were told that a succession of three dry days was
not to be expected for many months. The winter of the Hebrides
consists of little more than rain and wind. As they are surrounded
by an ocean never frozen, the blasts that come to them over the
water are too much softened to have the power of congelation. The
salt loughs, or inlets of the sea, which shoot very far into the
island, never have any ice upon them, and the pools of fresh water
will never bear the walker. The snow that sometimes falls, is soon
dissolved by the air, or the rain.
This is not the description of a cruel climate, yet the dark months
are here a time of great distress; because the summer can do little
more than feed itself, and winter comes with its cold and its
scarcity upon families very slenderly provided.
CORIATACHAN IN SKY
The third or fourth day after our arrival at Armidel, brought us an
invitation to the isle of Raasay, which lies east of Sky. It is
incredible how soon the account of any event is propagated in these
narrow countries by the love of talk, which much leisure produces,
and the relief given to the mind in the penury of insular
conversation by a new topick. The arrival of strangers at a place
so rarely visited, excites rumour, and quickens curiosity. I know
not whether we touched at any corner, where Fame had not already
prepared us a reception.
To gain a commodious passage to Raasay, it was necessary to pass
over a large part of Sky. We were furnished therefore with horses
and a guide. In the Islands there are no roads, nor any marks by
which a stranger may find his way. The horseman has always at his
side a native of the place, who, by pursuing game, or tending
cattle, or being often employed in messages or conduct, has learned
where the ridge of the hill has breadth sufficient to allow a horse
and his rider a passage, and where the moss or bog is hard enough
to bear them. The bogs are avoided as toilsome at least, if not
unsafe, and therefore the journey is made generally from precipice
to precipice; from which if the eye ventures to look down, it sees
below a gloomy cavity, whence the rush of water is sometimes heard.
But there seems to be in all this more alarm than danger. The
Highlander walks carefully before, and the horse, accustomed to the
ground, follows him with little deviation. Sometimes the hill is
too steep for the horseman to keep his seat, and sometimes the moss
is too tremulous to bear the double weight of horse and man. The
rider then dismounts, and all shift as they can.
Journies made in this manner are rather tedious than long. A very
few miles require several hours. From Armidel we came at night to
Coriatachan, a house very pleasantly situated between two brooks,
with one of the highest hills of the island behind it. It is the
residence of Mr. Mackinnon, by whom we were treated with very
liberal hospitality, among a more numerous and elegant company than
it could have been supposed easy to collect.
The hill behind the house we did not climb. The weather was rough,
and the height and steepness discouraged us. We were told that
there is a cairne upon it. A cairne is a heap of stones thrown
upon the grave of one eminent for dignity of birth, or splendour of
atchievements. It is said that by digging, an urn is always found
under these cairnes: they must therefore have been thus piled by a
people whose custom was to burn the dead. To pile stones is, I
believe, a northern custom, and to burn the body was the Roman
practice; nor do I know when it was that these two acts of
sepulture were united.
The weather was next day too violent for the continuation of our
journey; but we had no reason to complain of the interruption. We
saw in every place, what we chiefly desired to know, the manners of
the people. We had company, and, if we had chosen retirement, we
might have had books.
I never was in any house of the Islands, where I did not find books
in more languages than one, if I staid long enough to want them,
except one from which the family was removed. Literature is not
neglected by the higher rank of the Hebridians.
It need not, I suppose, be mentioned, that in countries so little
frequented as the Islands, there are no houses where travellers are
entertained for money.
