第32章 DUNVEGAN(2)

Another story may show the disorderly state of insular neighbourhood.The inhabitants of the Isle of Egg,meeting a boat manned by Macleods,tied the crew hand and foot,and set them a-drift.Macleod landed upon Egg,and demanded the offenders;but the inhabitants refusing to surrender them,retreated to a cavern,into which they thought their enemies unlikely to follow them.

Macleod choked them with smoke,and left them lying dead by families as they stood.

Here the violence of the weather confined us for some time,not at all to our discontent or inconvenience.We would indeed very willingly have visited the Islands,which might be seen from the house scattered in the sea,and I was particularly desirous to have viewed Isay;but the storms did not permit us to launch a boat,and we were condemned to listen in idleness to the wind,except when we were better engaged by listening to the ladies.

We had here more wind than waves,and suffered the severity of a tempest,without enjoying its magnificence.The sea being broken by the multitude of islands,does not roar with so much noise,nor beat the shore with such foamy violence,as I have remarked on the coast of Sussex.Though,while I was in the Hebrides,the wind was extremely turbulent,I never saw very high billows.

The country about Dunvegan is rough and barren.There are no trees,except in the orchard,which is a low sheltered spot surrounded with a wall.

When this house was intended to sustain a siege,a well was made in the court,by boring the rock downwards,till water was found,which though so near to the sea,I have not heard mentioned as brackish,though it has some hardness,or other qualities,which make it less fit for use;and the family is now better supplied from a stream,which runs by the rock,from two pleasing water-falls.

Here we saw some traces of former manners,and heard some standing traditions.In the house is kept an ox's horn,hollowed so as to hold perhaps two quarts,which the heir of Macleod was expected to swallow at one draught,as a test of his manhood,before he was permitted to bear arms,or could claim a seat among the men.It is held that the return of the Laird to Dunvegan,after any considerable absence,produces a plentiful capture of herrings;and that,if any woman crosses the water to the opposite Island,the herrings will desert the coast.Boetius tells the same of some other place.This tradition is not uniform.Some hold that no woman may pass,and others that none may pass but a Macleod.

Among other guests,which the hospitality of Dunvegan brought to the table,a visit was paid by the Laird and Lady of a small island south of Sky,of which the proper name is Muack,which signifies swine.It is commonly called Muck,which the proprietor not liking,has endeavoured,without effect,to change to Monk.It is usual to call gentlemen in Scotland by the name of their possessions,as Raasay,Bernera,Loch Buy,a practice necessary in countries inhabited by clans,where all that live in the same territory have one name,and must be therefore discriminated by some addition.This gentleman,whose name,I think,is Maclean,should be regularly called Muck;but the appellation,which he thinks too coarse for his Island,he would like still less for himself,and he is therefore addressed by the title of,Isle of Muck.

This little Island,however it be named,is of considerable value.

It is two English miles long,and three quarters of a mile broad,and consequently contains only nine hundred and sixty English acres.It is chiefly arable.Half of this little dominion the Laird retains in his own hand,and on the other half,live one hundred and sixty persons,who pay their rent by exported corn.

What rent they pay,we were not told,and could not decently inquire.The proportion of the people to the land is such,as the most fertile countries do not commonly maintain.

The Laird having all his people under his immediate view,seems to be very attentive to their happiness.The devastation of the small-pox,when it visits places where it comes seldom,is well known.He has disarmed it of its terrour at Muack,by inoculating eighty of his people.The expence was two shillings and sixpence a head.Many trades they cannot have among them,but upon occasion,he fetches a smith from the Isle of Egg,and has a tailor from the main land,six times a year.This island well deserved to be seen,but the Laird's absence left us no opportunity.

Every inhabited island has its appendant and subordinate islets.

Muck,however small,has yet others smaller about it,one of which has only ground sufficient to afford pasture for three wethers.

At Dunvegan I had tasted lotus,and was in danger of forgetting that I was ever to depart,till Mr.Boswell sagely reproached me with my sluggishness and softness.I had no very forcible defence to make;and we agreed to pursue our journey.Macleod accompanied us to Ulinish,where we were entertained by the sheriff of the Island.