第65章 INCH KENNETH(5)

The intermediate floors are sometimes frames of timber,as in common houses,and sometimes arches of stone,or alternately stone and timber;so that there was very little danger from fire.In the center of every floor,from top to bottom,is the chief room,of no great extent,round which there are narrow cavities,or recesses,formed by small vacuities,or by a double wall.I know not whether there be ever more than one fire-place.They had not capacity to contain many people,or much provision;but their enemies could seldom stay to blockade them;for if they failed in the first attack,their next care was to escape.

The walls were always too strong to be shaken by such desultory hostilities;the windows were too narrow to be entered,and the battlements too high to be scaled.The only danger was at the gates,over which the wall was built with a square cavity,not unlike a chimney,continued to the top.Through this hollow the defendants let fall stones upon those who attempted to break the gate,and poured down water,perhaps scalding water,if the attack was made with fire.The castle of Lochbuy was secured by double doors,of which the outer was an iron grate.

In every castle is a well and a dungeon.The use of the well is evident.The dungeon is a deep subterraneous cavity,walled on the sides,and arched on the top,into which the descent is through a narrow door,by a ladder or a rope,so that it seems impossible to escape,when the rope or ladder is drawn up.The dungeon was,Isuppose,in war,a prison for such captives as were treated with severity,and,in peace,for such delinquents as had committed crimes within the Laird's jurisdiction;for the mansions of many Lairds were,till the late privation of their privileges,the halls of justice to their own tenants.

As these fortifications were the productions of mere necessity,they are built only for safety,with little regard to convenience,and with none to elegance or pleasure.It was sufficient for a Laird of the Hebrides,if he had a strong house,in which he could hide his wife and children from the next clan.That they are not large nor splendid is no wonder.It is not easy to find how they were raised,such as they are,by men who had no money,in countries where the labourers and artificers could scarcely be fed.

The buildings in different parts of the Island shew their degrees of wealth and power.I believe that for all the castles which Ihave seen beyond the Tweed,the ruins yet remaining of some one of those which the English built in Wales,would supply materials.

These castles afford another evidence that the fictions of romantick chivalry had for their basis the real manners of the feudal times,when every Lord of a seignory lived in his hold lawless and unaccountable,with all the licentiousness and insolence of uncontested superiority and unprincipled power.The traveller,whoever he might be,coming to the fortified habitation of a Chieftain,would,probably,have been interrogated from the battlements,admitted with caution at the gate,introduced to a petty Monarch,fierce with habitual hostility,and vigilant with ignorant suspicion;who,according to his general temper,or accidental humour,would have seated a stranger as his guest at the table,or as a spy confined him in the dungeon.

Lochbuy means the Yellow Lake,which is the name given to an inlet of the sea,upon which the castle of Mr.Maclean stands.The reason of the appellation we did not learn.

We were now to leave the Hebrides,where we had spent some weeks with sufficient amusement,and where we had amplified our thoughts with new scenes of nature,and new modes of life.More time would have given us a more distinct view,but it was necessary that Mr.

Boswell should return before the courts of justice were opened;and it was not proper to live too long upon hospitality,however liberally imparted.

Of these Islands it must be confessed,that they have not many allurements,but to the mere lover of naked nature.The inhabitants are thin,provisions are scarce,and desolation and penury give little pleasure.

The people collectively considered are not few,though their numbers are small in proportion to the space which they occupy.

Mull is said to contain six thousand,and Sky fifteen thousand.Of the computation respecting Mull,I can give no account;but when Idoubted the truth of the numbers attributed to Sky,one of the Ministers exhibited such facts as conquered my incredulity.

Of the proportion,which the product of any region bears to the people,an estimate is commonly made according to the pecuniary price of the necessaries of life;a principle of judgment which is never certain,because it supposes what is far from truth,that the value of money is always the same,and so measures an unknown quantity by an uncertain standard.It is competent enough when the markets of the same country,at different times,and those times not too distant,are to be compared;but of very little use for the purpose of making one nation acquainted with the state of another.

Provisions,though plentiful,are sold in places of great pecuniary opulence for nominal prices,to which,however scarce,where gold and silver are yet scarcer,they can never be raised.

In the Western Islands there is so little internal commerce,that hardly any thing has a known or settled rate.The price of things brought in,or carried out,is to be considered as that of a foreign market;and even this there is some difficulty in discovering,because their denominations of quantity are different from ours;and when there is ignorance on both sides,no appeal can be made to a common measure.