The habitations of men in the Hebrides may be diftinguifhed into huts and houfes. By a houfe, I mean a building with one story over another; by a but, a dwelling with only one floor. The laird, who formerly lived in a castle, now lives in a houfe; fometimes fufficiently neat, but feldom very spa. cious or fplendid,' Of the houfes little can be faid. They are fmall, and by the neceffity of accumulating ftores, where there are fo few opportunities of purchase, the rooms are very heterogeneously filled. With want of cleanlinefs it were ingra titude to reproach them. The fervants having been bred upon the naked earth, think every floor clean, and the quick fucceffion of guests, perhaps not always over-elegant, does not allow much time for adjufting their apartments.

Huts are of many gradations; from murky dens, to commodious dwellings.

The wall of a common hut is always built without mortar, by a skilful adaptation of loofe ftones. Sometimes perhaps a double wall of tones is raifed, and the intermediate space filled with earth. The air is thus completely excluded. Some walls are, I think, formed of turfs, held together by a wattle, or texture of twigs. Of the meaneft huts, the firft room is lighted by the entrance, and the fecond by the fmoke-hole. The fire is usually made in the middle. But there are huts, or dwell ings, of only one ftory, inhabited by gentlemen, which have walls cemented with mortar, glafs windows, and boarded floors, Of these all have chimneys, and fome chimneys have grates.

The house and the furniture are not always nicely fuited. We were driven once, by miffing a paffage, to the hut of a gentleman, where, after a very liberal fupper, when I was conducted to my chamber, I found an elegant bed of Indian cotton, spread with fine fheets. The accommodation was flattering; I undreffed myfelf, and felt my feet in the mire. The bed flood upon the bare earth, which a long course of rain had foftened into a puddle.'

From Fort-Auguftus they had to cross the Highlands, toward the western coaft, and to content themselves with fuch accommodations as a way fo little frequented could afford. The journey, however, did not appear formidable, as they faw it but of two days' continuance. On they paffed, through the dreariness of folitude;' they were now in the bosom of the Highlands, with full leifure to contemplate the appearance and properties of mountainous regions, fuch as have been, in many countries, the laft fhelters of national diftrefs, and are every where the scenes of adventures, ftratagems, furprizes, and escapes.'-The latter part of this obfervation is illuftrated by a variety of anecdotes fcattered through the work, relating to the feuds and contefts, the rapine and devaftations, which fubfifted

among the chiefs of the clans, in former times, before the abo lition of the heretable jurifdictions, which took place foon after the rebellion in 1745.

Our Author flightly sketches out the landscape of the defart; but, though the subject is barren, the touches of the pencil are mafterly.

Of the hills, he fays, many may be called with Homer's Ida abundant in fprings, but few can deferve the epithet which he bestows upon Pelion by waving their leaves. They exhibit very little variety; being almoft wholly covered with dark heath, and even that feems to be checked in its growth. What is not heath is nakedness, a little diverfified by now and then a ftream rufhing down the fteep. An eye accuftomed to flowery pastures and waving harvests is aftonished and repelled by this wide extent of hopeless fterility. The appearance is that of matter incapable of form or usefulness, difmiffed by nature from her care and difinherited of her favours, left in its original ele mental state, or quickened only with one fullen power of useless vegetation.

It will very readily occur, that this uniformity of barrenness can afford very little amusement to the traveller; that it is easy to fit at home and conceive rocks and heath, and waterfalls; and that these journeys are useless labours, which neither impregnate the imagination, nor enlarge the understanding. It is true that of far the greater part of things, we must content ourselves with fuch knowledge as description may exhibit, or analogy supply; but it is true likewife, that these ideas are always incomplete, and that at least, till we have compared them with realities. we do not know them to be just. As we fee more, we become poffeffed of more certainties, and confequently gain more principles of reasoning, and found a wider bafis of analogy.

Regions mountainous and wild, thinly inhabited, and little cultivated, make a great part of the earth, and he that has never feen them, muft live unacquainted with much of the face of nature, and with one of the great scenes of human existence.

As the day advanced towards noon, we entered a narrow valley not very flowery, but fufficiently verdant. Our guides told us, that the horses could not travel all day without reft or meat, and intreated us to ftop here, because no grafs would be. found in any other place. The request was reasonable and the argument cogent. We therefore willingly difmounted and diverted ourselves as the place gave us opportunity.

I fat down on a bank, fuch as a writer of Romance might have delighted to feign. I had indeed no trees to whisper over my head, but a clear rivulet ftreamed at my feet. The day was calm, the air foft, and all was rudeness, filence, and folitude. Before me, and on either fide, were high hills, which by hindering

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dering the eye from ranging, forced the mind to find entertainment for itself. Whether I spent the hour well I know not; for here I first conceived the thought of this narration.

We were in this place at ease and by choice, and had no evils to suffer or to fear; yet the imaginations excited by the view of an unknown and untravelled wilderness are not fuch as arife in the artificial folitude of parks and gardens, a flattering notion of self-sufficiency, a placid indulgence of voluntary deJufions, a fecure expanfion of the fancy, or a cool concentra tion of the mental powers. The phantoms which haunt a defart are want, and misery, and danger; the evils of dereliction rush upon the thoughts; man is made unwillingly acquainted with his own weakness, and meditation fhews him only how little he can fuftain, and how little he can perform. There were no traces of inhabitants, except perhaps a rude pile of clods called a fummer hut, in which a herdsman had rested in the favourable feasons. Whoever had been in the place where I then fat, unprovided with provifions and ignorant of the country, might, at least before the roads were made, have wandered among the rocks, till he had perished with hardship, before he could have found either food or fhelter. Yet what are thefe hillocks to the ridges of Taurus, or these spots of wildnefs to the defarts of America?'

In defcribing the manners of the mountaineers, our Author entertains us with an ample investigation of those peculiarities by which the rugged regions before him are distinguished. He makes a variety of ftriking remarks on the causes and effects of the former rude and favage state of the Highlanders and, on these topics, he reasons not only with the liberality of a philofopher, but with the depth of a politician. By the way, we muft obferve, that under the denomi nation of Highlander, he comprehends, throughout his whole book, all Scots who ftill fpeak the Erfe language, or retain the primitive manners, whether they live among the mountains, or in the islands.

After relating many notable instances of the former barbarity of the Highlanders, during that ftate of vaffalage from which they are now fo happily freed, Dr. Johnfon remarks (as Mr. Pennant had done before) that perhaps there was never any change of national manners fo quick, fo great, and fo general, as that which has operated in the Highlands by the last conqueft, and the fubfequent laws. We came thither, he continues, too late to fee what we expected, a people of peculiar appearance, and a fyftem of antiquated life. The clans retain little now of their original character, their ferocity of temper is foftened, their military ardour is extinguished, their dignity of

independence

independence is depreffed, their contempt of government fubdued, and their reverence for their chiefs abated. Of what they had before the late conqueft of their country, there remain only their language and their poverty. Their language is attacked on every fide. Schools are erected, in which English only is taught, and there were lately fome who thought it reafonable to refuse them a verfion of the Holy Scriptures, that they might have no monument of their mother-tongue.

That their poverty is gradually abated, cannot be mentioned among the unpleafing confequences of fubjection. They are now acquainted with money, and the poffibility of gain will by degrees make them induftrious.'

Proceeding in their journey, by the way of Auknafheals and Glenelg, our Travellers, on the 20th of September, found themselves at the fea fide, and were ferried over to the Isle of Sky. They landed at Armidel, the feat of Sir Alexander Macdonald; who received them with that hofpitality, and kindness, which, indeed, they every where experienced. Dr. Johnson's defcription of this island, with the neighbouring one of Raafay, is not the leaft entertaining part of his journal. The laftnamed island is, the property of a Mr. Macleod, at whofe house the Doctor and his company, met with the fame welcome reception as at Sky. Part of his account of the manner in which they were here entertained will, we are perfuaded, prove no disagreeable entertainment to our Readers:

Our reception, fays Dr. Johnson, exceeded our expectations. We found nothing, but civility, elegance, and plenty. After the ufual refreshments,, and the ufual converfation, the evening came upon us. The carpet was then rolled off the floor ; the mufician was called, and the whole company was invited to dance, nor did ever fairies trip with greater alacrity. The general air of festivity, which predominated in this place, fo far remote from all thofe regions which the mind has been used to contemplate as the manfions of pleasure, ftruck the imagination with a delightful surprise, analogous to that which is felt at an unexpected emerfion from darknefs into light.

• When it was time to fup, the dance ceafed, and fix and thirty persons fat down to two tables in the fame room. After fupper the ladies fung Erfe fongs, to which I liftened as an English audience to an Italian opera, delighted with the found of words which I did not understand.'

To pass from merriment to a more ferious topic, our Author frequently laments the decay of religion in the Hebrides, fince the reformation from Popery. The churches are every where in ruins, so that, in most of the ifles, public worship is rarely performed; and that only in houses, capable of containing

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but a very small congregation. Through the few islands which we visited, fays our Author, we neither faw nor heard of any house of prayer, except in Sky, that was not in ruins. The malignant influence of Calvinifm has blafted ceremony and decency together; and if the remembrance of papal fuperfti tion is obliterated, the monuments of papal piety are likewife effaced.

It has been, for many years, popular to talk of the lazy. devotion of the Romish clergy; over the fleepy lazinefs of men that erected churches, we may indulge our fuperiority with a new triumph, by comparing it with the fervid activity of those who fuffer them to fall.

• Of the deftruction of churches, the decay of religion must in time be the confequence; for while the public acts of the 'miniftry are now performed in houses, a very small number can be prefent; and as the greater part of the Iflanders make no ufe of books, all muft neceffarily live in total ignorance who want the opportunity of vocal inftruction.'

Although not a friend to the kirk of Scotland, our Author expreffes great regard for their minifters, bearing honourable teftimony of their learning, piety, and decent deportment, in every part of his book, in which he has occafion to introduce them, which is not feldom. Speaking, in particular, of Mr. Maclean, minifter of the Ifle of Col, he mentions his great reputation for learning, and his extraordinary venerable appearance, excelling, fays he, in dignity, what I remember in any other man. His converfation,' the Doctor adds, was not unfuitable to his appearance. I loft fome of his good-will, by treating a heretical writer with more regard than, in his opinion, a heretic could deferve. I honoured his orthodoxy, and did not much cenfure his afperity. A man who has fettled his opinions, does not love to have the tranquillity of his conviction disturbed; and at feventy-feven it is time to be in earneft.'

In another place he says, speaking of the minifters in the islands, I saw not one whom I had reason to think either deficient in learning, or irregular in life; but found several with whom I could not converfe without wishing, as my respect increafed, that they had not been Prefbyterians.'-Surely, dear Doctor, at an age lefs than feventy-feven, it is time to be in earnest'-to get rid of fuch little prejudices! What would our reflecting Author think, and what would he not have said, of Mr. Maclean, had that reverend divine manifested a fimilar concern at finding Dr. Johnson a rigid epifcopalian?

[To be concluded in our next.]

G.

ART.