there is a cairn upon it. A cairn is a heap of stones thrown upon the grave of one eminent for dignity of birth, or splendour of achievements. It is said, that by digging, an urn is always found under these cairns; they must therefore have been thus piled by a people whose custom was to burn the dead. To pile stones is, I believe, a

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 soft-northern custom, and to burn the body was the ened 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 pro

vided.

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 topic. 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.

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 rea son 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 stayed 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. He that wanders about these wilds, either procures recommendations to those whose habitations lie near his way, or when night and weariness come upon him, takes the chance of general hospitality. If he finds only a cottage, he can expect little more than shelter; for the cottagers have little more for themselves; but if his good fortune brings him to the residence of a gentleman, he will be glad of a storm to prolong his stay. There is, however, one inn by the seaside at Sconsor, in Sky, where the post-office is kept.

At the tables where a stranger is received, neither plenty nor delicacy is wanting. A tract of land so thinly inhabited must have much wild fowl; and I scarcely remember to have seen a dinner without them. The moorgame is every where to be had. That the sea abounds with fish, needs not to be told, for it supplies a great part of Europe. The isle of Sky has stags and roebucks, but no hares. They send very numerous droves of oxen yearly to England, and therefore cannot be supposed to want beef at home. Sheep and goats are in great numbers, and they

have the common domestic fowls.

But there seems to be in all this more alarm But as here is nothing to be bought, every than danger. The Highlander walks carefully family must kill its own meat, and roast part of before, and the horse accustomed to the ground, it somewhat sooner than Apicius would prefollows him with little deviation. Sometimes scribe. Every kind of flesh is undoubtedly exthe hill is too steep for the horseman to keep his celled by the variety and emulation of English seat, and sometimes the moss is too tremulous markets; but that which is not best may be yet to bear the double weight of horse and man. The very far from bad, and he that shall complain of rider then dismounts, and all shift as they can. his fare in the Hebrides, has improved his deliJourneys made in this manner are rather tedi-cacy more than his manhood.

ous than long. A very few miles require several Their fowls are not like those plumped for sale hours. From Armidel we came at night to Coria-by the poulterers of London, but they are as good tachan, a house very pleasantly situated between as other places commonly afford, except that the two brooks, with one of the highest hills of the geese, by feeding in the sea, have universally a island behind it. It is the residence of Mr. Mac- fishy rankness. kinnon, 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

These geese seem to be of a middle race, between the wild and domestic kinds. They are so tame as to own a home, and so wild as sometimes to fly quite away.

Their native bread is made of oats, or barley. Of oatmeal they spread very thin cakes, coarse and hard, to which unaccustomed palates are not

easily reconciled. The barley cakes are thicker | foreigners, but foreign cookery never satisfies a and softer; I began to eat them without unwil- Frenchman. lingness; the blackness of their colour raises some dislike, but the taste is not disagreeable. In most houses there is wheat flour, with which we were sure to be treated if we staid long enough to have it kneaded and baked. As neither yeast nor leaven are used among them, their bread of every kind is unfermented. They make only cakes, and never mould a loaf.

A man of the Hebrides, for of the women's diet I can give no account, as soon as he appears in the morning, swallows a glass of whiskey; yet they are not a drunken race, at least I never was present at much intemperance; but no man is so abstemious as to refuse the morning dram, which they call a shalk.

Their suppers are like their dinners, various and plentiful. The table is always covered with elegant linen. Their plates for common use are often of that kind of manufacture which is called cream-coloured, or queen's ware. They use silver on all occasions where it is common in England, nor did I ever find a spoon of horn

but in one house.

The knives are not often either very bright or very sharp. They are indeed instruments of which the Highlanders have not been long acquainted with the general use. They were not regularly laid on the table, before the prohibition of arms, and the change of dress. Thirty years ago the Highlander wore his knife as a comThe word whiskey signifies water, and is ap- panion to his dirk or dagger, and when the complied by way of eminence to strong water, or dis-pany sat down to meat, the men who had knives tilled liquor. The spirit drunk in the North is cut the flesh into small pieces for the women, drawn from barley. I never tasted it, except who with their fingers conveyed it to their once for experiment at the inn in Inverary, when mouths. I thought it preferable to any English malt brandv. It was strong, but not pungent, and was free from the empyreumatic taste or smell. What was the process I had no opportunity of inquiring, nor do I wish to improve the art of making poison pleasant.

There was, perhaps, never any change of national manners so quick, so great, and so general, as that which has operated in the Highlands by the last conquest, and the subsequent laws. We came thither too late to see what we expect ed, a people of peculiar appearance, and a system of antiquated life. The clans retain little now of their original character; their ferocity of temper is softened, their military ardour is extin

Not long after the dram, may be expected the breakfast, a meal in which the Scots, whether of the lowlands or mountains, must be confessed to excel us. The tea and coffee are accompa-guished, their dignity of independence is denied not only with butter, but with honey, conserves, and marmalades. If an epicure could remove by a wish, in quest of sensual gratifications, wherever he had supped he would breakfast in Scotland.

In the islands, however, they do what I found it not very easy to endure. They pollute the tea-table by plates piled with large slices of Cheshire cheese, which mingles its less grateful odours with the fragrance of the tea.

pressed, their contempt of government is subdued, and their reverence for their chiefs abated. Of what they had before the late conquest of their country, there remain only their language and their poverty. Their language is attacked on every side. Schools are erected, in which English only is taught, and there were lately some who thought it reasonable to refuse them a version of the holy scriptures, that they might have no monument of their mother-tongue.

Where many questions are to be asked, some That their poverty is gradually abated, cannot will be omitted. I forgot to inquire how they be mentioned among the unpleasing consequenwere supplied with so much exotic luxury. Per-ces of subjection. They are now acquainted naps the French may bring them wine for wool, and the Dutch give them tea and coffee at the fishing season, in exchange for fresh provision. Their trade is unconstrained; they pay no customs, for there is no officer to demand them; whatever, therefore, is made dear only by impost, is obtained here at an easy rate.

A dinner in the Western Islands differs very little from a dinner in England, except that, in the place of tarts, there are always set different preparations of milk. This part of their diet will admit some improvement. Though they have milk, and eggs, and sugar, few of them know how to compound them in a custard. Their gardens afford them no great variety, but they have always some vegetables on the table. Potatoes at least are never wanting, which, though they have not known them long, are now one of the principal parts of their food. They are not of the mealy, but the viscous kind.

Their more elaborate cookery, or made dishes, an Englishman, at the first taste, is not likely to approve, but the culinary compositions of every country are often such as become grateful to other nations only by degrees: though I have read a French author, who, in the elation of his heart, says, that French cookery pleases all

with money, and the possibility of gain will by degrees make them industrious. Such is the effect of the late regulations, that a longer journey than to the Highlands must be taken by him whose curiosity pants for savage virtues and barbarous grandeur.

RAASAY.

At the first intermission of the stormy weather we were informed, that the boat, which was to convey us to Raasay, attended us on the coast. We had from this time our intelligence facilitated, and our conversation enlarged, by the company of Mr. Macqueen, minister of a parish in Sky, whose knowledge and politeness give him a title equally to kindness and respect, and who from this time, never forsook us till we were pre paring to leave Sky, and the adjacent places.

The boat was under the direction of Mr. Mal colm Macleod, a gentleman of Raasay. The water was calm, and the rowers were vigorous; so that our passage was quick and pleasant.When we came near the island, we saw the laird's house, a neat modern fabric, and found Mr. Macloed, the proprietor of the island, with many gentlemen, expecting us on the beach.

Raasay has wild fowl in abundance, but neither deer, hares, nor rabbits. Why it has them not, might be asked, but that of such questions there is no end. Why does any nation want what it might have? Why are not Mr. Macleod is the proprietor of the islands spices transplanted to America? Why does tea of Raasay, Rona, and Fladda, and possesses an continue to be brought from China? Life imextensive district in Sky. The estate has not, proves but by slow degrees, and much in every during four hundred years, gained or lost a sin-place is yet to do. Attempts have been made gle acre. to raise roebucks in Raasay, but without effect. One of the old Highland alliances has conti-The young ones it is extremely difficult to rear, nued for two hundred years, and is still subsisting between Macleod of Raasay, and Macdonald of Sky, in consequence of which, the survivor always inherits the arms of the deceased; a natural memorial of military friendship. At the death of the late Sir James Macdonald, his sword was delivered to the present laird of Raasay.

them ever to attain; and Mr. Maclean, the heir of Col, a man of middle stature, informed me that he once shot an otter, of which the tail reached the ground, when he held up the head to a level with his own. I expected the otter to have a foot particularly formed for the art of swimming; but upon examination, I did not find it differing much from that of a spaniel. As he preys in the sea, he does little visible mischief, and is killed only for his fur. White otters are sometimes seen.

In Raasay they might have hares and rabbits, for they have no foxes. Some depredations, such as were never made before, have caused a suspicion that a fox has been lately landed in the island by spite or wantonness. This imaginary stranger has never yet been seen, and therefore, perhaps, the mischief was done by some other animal. It is not likely that a creature so ungentle, whose head could have been sold in Sky for a guinea, should be kept alive only to gratify the malice of sending him to prey upon a neighbour: and the passage from Sky is wider than a fox would venture to swim, unless he were chased by dogs into the sea, and perhaps then his strength would enable him to cross. How beasts of prey came into any islands, is not easy to guess. In cold countries they take advantage of hard winters, and travel over the ice: but this is a very scanty solution; for they are found where they have no discoverable means of coming.

The corn of this island is but little. I saw the harvest of a small field. The women reaped the corn, and the men bound up the sheaves, The strokes of the sickle were timed by the modulation of the harvest-song, in which all their voices were united. They accompany in the Highlands every action which can be done in equal time, with an appropriated strain, which has, they say, not much meaning; but its effects are regularity and cheerfulness. The ancient proceleusmatic song, by which the rowers of galleys were animated, may be supposed to have been of this kind. There is now an oarsong used by the Hebridians.

The ground of Raasay seems fitter for cattle than for corn, and of black cattle I suppose the number is very great. The laird himself keeps a herd of four hundred, one hundred of which are annually sold. Of an extensive domain, which he holds in his own hands, he considers the sale of cattle as repaying him the rent, and supports the plenty of a very liberal table with the remaining product.

which the first possessors of this island lived from the present time, is afforded by the stone heads of arrows, which are very frequently picked up. The people call them elf-bolts, and believe that the fairies shoot them at the cattle. They nearly resemble those which Mr. Banks has lately brought from the savage countries in the Pacific Ocean, and must have been made by a nation to. which the use of metals was unknown.

The number of this little community has never been counted by its ruler, nor have I obtained any positive account, consistent with the result of political computation. Not many years ago, the late laird led out one hundred men upon a military expedition. The sixth part of a people is supposed capable of bearing arms: Raasay had therefore six hundred inhabitants. But because it is not likely that every man able to serve in the field would follow the summons, or that the chief would leave his lands totally defenceless, or take away all the hands qualified for labour, let it be supposed, that half as many might be permitted to stay at home. The whole number then will be nine hundred; or nine to a square mile; a degree of populousness greater than those tracts of desolation can often show. They are content with their country, and faithful to their chiefs, and yet uninfected with the fever of migration.

Near the house at Raasay is a chapel unroofed and ruinous, which has long been used only as a place of burial. About the churches in the islands are small squares enclosed with stone, which belong to particular families, as reposito ries for the dead. At Raasay there is one, I think, for the proprietor, and one for some collateral house.

It is told by Martin, that at the death of the lady of the island, it has been here the custom to erect a cross. This we found not to be true. The stones that stand about the chapel at a small distance, some of which, perhaps, have crosses cut upon them, are believed to have been not funeral monuments, but the ancient boundaries of the sanctuary or consecrated ground.

Martin was a man not illiterate: he was an inhabitant of Sky, and therefore was within reach of intelligence, and with no great difficulty might have visited the places which he undertakes to describe; yet with all his opportunities, he has often suffered himself to be deceived. He lived in the last century, when the chiefs of the clans had lost little of their original influence. The mountains were yet unpenetrated, Raasay is supposed to have been very long no inlet was opened to foreign novelties, and inhabited. On one side of it they show caves the feudal institutions operated upon life with into which the rude nations of the first ages re- their full force. He might therefore have distreated from the weather. These dreary vaults played a series of subordination and a form of might have had other uses. There is still a government, which in more luminous and imcavity near the house called the oar-cave, in proven regions have been long forgotten, and which the seamen, after one of those piratical have delighted his readers with many uncouth expeditions which in rougher times were very customs that are now disused, and wild opinions frequent, used, as tradition tells, to hide their that prevail no longer. But he probably had not oars. This hollow was near the sea, that no-knowledge of the world sufficient to qualify him thing so necessary might be far to be fetched; and it was secret, that enemies, if they landed, could find nothing. Yet it is not very evident of what use it was to hide their oars from those, who if they were masters of the coast, could take away their boats.

A proof much stronger of the distance at

for judging what would deserve or gain the attention of mankind. The mode of life which was familiar to himself, he did not suppose unknown to others, nor imagine that he could give pleasure by telling that, of which it was, in his little country, impossible to be ignorant.

What he has neglected, cannot now be per

DUNVEGAN.

formed. In nations, where there is hardly the | tion with a delightful contrariety of images. use of letters, what is once out of sight is lost Without is the rough ocean and the rocky land, for ever. They think but little, and of their few the beating billows and the howling storm: thoughts, none are wasted on the past, in which within is plenty and elegance, beauty and gayety, they are neither interested by fear nor hope. the song and the dance. In Raasay, if I could Their only registers are stated observances and have found an Ulysses, I had fancied a Phæacia. practical representations. For this reason an age of ignorance is an age of ceremony. Pageants, and processions, and commemorations, At Raasay, by good fortune, Macleod, so the gradually shrink away, as better methods come chief of the clan is called, was paying a visit, into use of recording events, and preserving and by him we were invited to his seat at Dunrights. vegan. Raasay has a stout boat built in NorIt is not only in Raasay that the chapel is un-way, in which, with six oars, he conveyed us roofed and useless; through the few islands back to Sky. We landed at Port Re, so called which we visited we neither saw nor heard of because James the Fifth of Scotland, who had any house of prayer, except in Sky, that was curiosity to visit the Islands, came into it. The not in ruins. The malignant influence of Cal-port is made by an inlet of the sea, deep and vinism has blasted ceremony and decency to-narrow, where a ship lay waiting to dispeople gether; and if the remembrance of papal superstition is obliterated, the monuments of papal piety are likewise effaced.

It has been, for many years, popular to talk of the lazy devotion of the Romish Clergy; over the sleepy laziness of men that erected churches, we may indulge our superiority with a new triumph, by comparing it with the fervid activity of those who suffer them to fall.

Of the destruction of churches, the decay of religion must in time be the consequence; for while the public acts of the ministry are now performed in houses, a very small number can be present; and as the greater part of the islanders make no use of books, all must necessarily live in total ignorance who want the opportunity of vocal instruction.

From these remains of ancient sanctity, which are every where to be found, it has been conjectured that, for the last two centuries, the inhabitants of the islands have decreased in number. This argument, which supposes that the churches have been suffered to fall, only because they were no longer necessary, would have some force, if the houses of worship still remaining were sufficient for the people. But since they have now no churches at all, these venerable fragments do not prove the people of former times to have been more numerous, but to have been more devout. If the inhabitants were doubled, with their present principles, it appears not that any provision for public worship would be made. Where the religion of a country enforces consecrated buildings, the number of those buildings may be supposed to afford some indication, however uncertain, of the populousness of the place; but where by a change of manners a nation is contented to live without them, their decay implies no diminution of inhabitants.

Some of these dilapidations are said to be found in islands now uninhabited, but I doubt whether we can thence infer that they were ever peopled. The religion of the middle age well known to have placed too much hope in lonely austerities. Voluntary solitude was the great art of propitiation, by which crimes were effaced, and conscience was appeased: it is therefore not unlikely, that oratories were often built in places where retirement was sure to have no disturbance.

Sky, by carrying the natives away to America.

In coasting Sky, we passed by the cavern in which it was the custom, as Martin relates, to catch birds in the night, by making a fire at the entrance. This practise is disused; for the birds, as is known often to happen, have changed their haunts.

Here we dined at a public-house, I believe the only inn of the island, and having mounted our horses, travelled in the manner already described, till we came to Kingsborough, a place distinguished by that name, because the king lodged here when he landed at Port Re. We were entertained with the usual hospitality by Mr. Macdonald, and his lady Flora Macdonald, a name that will be mentioned in history, and if honour. She is a woman of middle stature, soft courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with features, gentle manners, and elegant presence.

In the morning we sent our horses round a promontory to meet us, and spared ourselves part of the day's fatigue, by crossing an arm of the sea. We had at last some difficulty in coming to Dunvegan: for our way led over an extensive moor, where every step was to be taken with caution, and we were often obliged to alight because the ground could not be trusted. In travelling this watery flat, I perceived that it had a visible declivity, and might without much expense or difficulty be drained. But difficulty and expense are relative terms, which have different meanings in different places.

To Dunvegan we came, very willing to be at rest, and found our fatigue amply recompensed by our reception. Lady Macleod, who had lived many years in England, was newly come hither with her son and four daughters, who knew all the arts of southern elegance, and all the modes of English economy. Here therefore we settled, and did not spoil the present hour with thoughts of departure.

Dunvegan is a rocky prominence, that juts out into a bay, on the west side of Sky. The house, which is the principal seat of Macleod, is partly old and partly modern; it is built upon the rock, and looks upon the water. It forms two sides of a small square: on the third side is the skeleton of a castle of unknown antiquity, supposed to have been a Norwegian fortress, when the Danes were masters of the islands. It is so nearly entire, that it might have easily been made habitable, were there not an ominous tradition in the family, that the owner shall not long outlive the The grandfather of the present

Raasay has little that can detain a traveller, except the laird and his family; but their power wants no auxiliaries. Such a seat of hospitality, amidst the winds and waters, fills the imagina-reparation.