Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
Walter Scott, Island Journal, 17-21 August 1814
“Off Stromness, 17th August, 1814.—Went on shore after breakfast, and
found W. Erskine and Marjoribanks had been in this town all last
night, without our hearing of them or they of us. No letters from Abbotsford or
Edinburgh. Stromness is a little dirty straggling town, which cannot be
traversed by a cart, or even by a horse, for there are stairs up and down, even
in the principal streets. We paraded its whole length like turkeys in a string,
I suppose to satisfy ourselves that there was a worse town in the Orkneys than
the metropolis, Kirkwall. We clomb, by steep and dirty lanes, an eminence
rising above the town, and commanding a fine view. An old hag lives in a
wretched cabin on this height, and subsists by selling winds. Each captain of a
merchantman, between jest and earnest, gives the old woman sixpence, and she
boils her kettle to procure a favourable gale. She was a miserable figure;
upwards of ninety, she told us, and dried up like a mummy. A sort of
clay-coloured cloak, folded over her head, corresponded in colour to her
corpselike complexion. Fine light-blue eyes, and nose and chin that almost met,
and a ghastly expression of cunning, gave her quite the effect of Hecate. She told us she remembered Gow the
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pirate, who was born near the House of Clestrom, and
afterwards commenced buccanier. He came to his native country about 1725, with
a snow which he commanded, carried off two women from
one of the islands, and committed other enormities. At length, while he was
dining in a house in the Island of Eda, the islanders, headed by Malcolm Laing’s grandfather, made him
prisoner and sent him to London, where he was hanged. While at Stromness, he
made love to a Miss Gordon, who pledged her faith to him
by shaking hands, an engagement which, in her idea, could not be dissolved
without her going to London to seek back again her ‘faith and
troth,’ by shaking hands with him again after execution. We left our
Pythoness, who assured us there was nothing evil in the intercession she was to
make for us, but that we were only to have a fair wind through the benefit of
her prayers. She repeated a sort of rigmarole which I suppose she had ready for
such occasions, and seemed greatly delighted and surprised with the amount of
our donation, as every body gave her a trifle, our faithful Captain
Wilson making the regular offering on behalf of the ship. So
much for buying a wind. Bessy Millie’s habitation is
airy enough for Æolus himself, but if
she is a special favourite with that divinity, he has a strange choice. In her
house I remarked a quern, or hand-mill. A cairn, a little higher, commands a
beautiful view of the bay, with its various entrances and islets. Here we found
the vestiges of a bonfire, lighted in memory of the battle of Bannockburn,
concerning which every part of Scotland has its peculiar traditions. The
Orcadians say that a Norwegian prince, then their ruler, called by them
Harold, brought 1400 men of Orkney to the assistance
of Bruce, and that the King, at a critical
period of the engagement, touched him with his scabbard, saying, ‘The
day ![]()
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is against
us.’—‘I trust,’ returned the Orcadian,
‘your Grace will venture again;’ which has given rise to
their motto, and passed into a proverb. On board at half-past three, and find
Bessy Millie a woman of her word, for the expected
breeze has sprung up, if it but last us till we double Cape Wrath. Weigh anchor
(I hope) to bid farewell to Orkney.*
“The land in Orkney is, generally speaking,
excellent, and what is not fitted for the plough, is admirably adapted for
pasture. But the cultivation is very bad, and the mode of using these extensive
commons, where they tear up, without remorse, the turf of the finest pasture,
in order to make fuel, is absolutely execrable. The practice has already peeled
and exhausted much fine land, and must in the end ruin the country entirely. In
other respects, their mode of cultivation is to manure for barley and oats, and
then manure again, and this without the least idea of fallow or green crops.
Mr Rae thinks that his example—and he farms very
well—has had no effect upon the natives, except in the article of potatoes,
which they now cultivate a little more, but crops of turnips are unknown. For
this slovenly labour the Orcadians cannot, like the Shetland men, plead the
occupation of fishing, which is wholly neglected by them, excepting that about
this time of the year all the people turn out for the dogfish; the liver of
which affords oil, and the bodies are a food as much valued here by the lower
classes as it is contemned in Zetland. We saw
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nineteen boats out at this work. But cod, tusk, ling,
haddocks, &c., which abound round these isles, are totally neglected. Their
inferiority in husbandry is therefore to be ascribed to the prejudices of the
people, who are all peasants of the lowest order. On Lord Armadale’s estate, the number of
tenantry amounts to 300, and the average of rent is about seven pounds each.
What can be expected from such a distribution; and how is the necessary
restriction to take place, without the greatest immediate distress and hardship
to these poor creatures? It is the hardest chapter in Economicks; and if I were
an Orcadian laird, I feel I should shuffle on with the old useless creatures,
in contradiction to my better judgment. Stock is improved in these islands, and
the horses seem to be better bred than in Shetland; at least, I have seen more
clever animals. The good horses find a ready sale; Mr Rae
gets twenty guineas readily for a colt of his rearing—to be sure, they are very
good.
“Six o’Clock.—Our
breeze has carried us through the Mouth of Hoy, and so into the Atlantic. The
northwestern face of the island forms a ledge of high perpendicular cliffs,
which might have surprised us more, had we not already seen the Ord of Bressay,
the Noup of Noss, and the precipices of the Fair Isle. But these are formidable
enough. One projecting cliff, from the peculiarities of its form, has acquired
the name of the Old Man of Hoy, and is well known to mariners as marking the
entrance to the Mouth. The other jaw of this mouth is formed by a lower range
of crags, called the Burgh of Birsa. The access through this strait would be
easy, were it not for the Island of Græmsay, lying in the very throat of
the passage, and two other islands covering the entrance to the harbour of
Stromness. Græmsay is infamous for shipwrecks, and the chance of these God-sends, as they were impiously called, is said ![]()
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sometimes to have doubled the
value of the land. In Stromness, I saw many of the sad relics of shipwrecked
vessels applied to very odd purposes, and indeed to all sorts of occasions. The
gates, or grinds, as they are here called, are usually
of ship planks and timbers, and so are their bridges, &c. These casualties
are now much less common since the lights on the Skerries and the Start have
been established. Enough of memoranda for the present. We have hitherto kept
our course pretty well; and a King’s ship about eighteen guns or so, two
miles upon our lea-boom, has shortened sail, apparently to take us under her
wing, which may not be altogether unnecessary in the latitude of Cape Wrath,
where several vessels have been taken by Yankee-Doodle. The sloop-of-war looks
as if she could bite hard, and is supposed by our folks to be the Malay. If we
can speak the captain we will invite him to some grouse, or send him some, as
he likes best, for Marchie’s campaign
was very successful.
“18th August,
1814.—Bessy Millie’s charm has failed us. After
a rainy night, the wind has come round to the north-west, and is getting almost
contrary. We have weathered Whitten-head, however, and Cape Wrath, the
north-western extremity of Britain, is now in sight. The weather gets rainy and
squally. Hamilton and Erskine keep their berths. Duff and I sit upon deck, like two great bears, wrapt in
watch-cloaks, the sea flying over us every now and then. At length, after a
sound buffeting with the rain, the doubling Cape Wrath with this wind is
renounced as impracticable, and we stand away for Loch Eribol, a lake running
into the extensive country of Lord Reay. No
sickness; we begin to get hardy sailors in that particular. The ground rises
upon us very bold and mountainous, especially a very high steep mountain,
called Ben-y-Hope, ![]()
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at the head of a lake called Loch
Hope. The weather begins to mitigate as we get under the lea of the land. Loch
Eribol opens, running up into a wild and barren scene of crags and hills. The
proper anchorage is said to be at the head of the lake, but to go eight miles
up so narrow an inlet would expose us to be wind-bound. A pilot boat comes off
from Mr Anderson’s house, a principal tacksman of
Lord Reay’s. After some discussion we anchor
within a reef of sunken rocks, nearly opposite to Mr
Anderson’s house of Rispan; the situation is not, we are
given to understand, altogether without danger if the wind should blow hard,
but it is now calm. In front of our anchorage a few shapeless patches of land,
not exceeding a few yards in diameter, have been prepared for corn by the
spade, and bear wretched crops. All the rest of the view is utter barrenness;
the distant hills, we are told, contain plenty of deer, being part of a forest
belonging to Lord Reay, who is proprietor of all the
extensive range of desolation now under our eye. The water has been kinder than
the land, for we hear of plenty of salmon, and haddocks, and lobsters, and send
our faithful minister of the interior, John Peters, the
steward, to procure some of those good things of this very indifferent land,
and to invite Mr Anderson to dine with us. Four
o’clock, John has just returned, successful in both
commissions, and the evening concludes pleasantly.
“19th August, 1814.—Loch Eribol, near Cape Wrath. Went off before eight a.m. to breakfast with our friend Mr
Anderson. His house, invisible from the vessel at her moorings,
and, indeed, from any part of the entrance into Loch Eribol, is a very
comfortable one, lying obscured behind a craggy eminence. A little creek,
winding up behind the crag, and in front of the house, forms a small harbour,
and gives a romantic air of concealment ![]()
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and snugness. There we found a ship upon the
stocks, built from the keel by a Highland carpenter, who had magnanimously
declined receiving assistance from any of the ship-carpenters who happened to
be here occasionally, lest it should be said he could not have finished his
task without their aid. An ample Highland breakfast of excellent new-taken
herring, equal to those of Lochfine. fresh haddocks, fresh eggs, and fresh
butter, not forgetting the bottle of whisky, and bannocks of barley and
oat-cakes, with the Lowland luxuries of tea and coffee. After breakfast, took
the long-boat, and under Mr Anderson’s pilotage, row
to see a remarkable natural curiosity, called Uamh Smowe, or the Largest Cave.
Stevenson, Marchie, and Duff go by
land. Take the fowling-piece and shoot some sea-fowl, and a large hawk of an
uncommon appearance. Fire four shots, and kill three times. After rowing about
three miles to the westward of the entrance from the sea to Loch Eribol, we
enter a creek, between two ledges of very high rocks, and landing, find
ourselves in front of the wonder we came to see. The exterior apartment of the
cavern opens under a tremendous rock, facing the creek, and occupies the full
space of the ravine where we landed. From the top of the rock to the base of
the cavern, as we afterwards discovered by plumb, is eighty feet, of which the
height of the arch is fifty-three feet; the rest, being twenty-seven feet, is
occupied by the precipitous rock under which it opens; the width is fully in
proportion to this great height, being 110 feet. The depth of this exterior
cavern is 200 feet, and it is apparently supported by an intermediate column of
natural rock. Being open to daylight and the sea air, the cavern is perfectly
clean and dry, and the sides are incrusted with stalactites. This immense
cavern is so well-proportioned, that I was ![]()
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not aware of
its extraordinary height and extent, till I saw our two friends, who had
somewhat preceded us, having made the journey by land, appearing like pigmies
among its recesses. Afterwards, on entering the cave, I climbed up a sloping
rock at its extremity, and was much struck with the prospect, looking outward
from this magnificent arched cavern upon our boat and its crew, the view being
otherwise bounded by the ledge of rocks which formed each side of the creek. We
now propose to investigate the farther wonders of the cave of Smowe. In the
right or west side of the cave opens an interior cavern of a different aspect.
The height of this second passage may be about twelve or fourteen feet, and its
breadth about six or eight, neatly formed into a Gothic portal by the hand of
nature. The lower part of this porch is closed by a ledge of rock, rising to
the height of between five and six feet, and which I can compare to nothing but
the hatch-door of a shop. Beneath this hatch a brook finds its way out, forms a
black deep pool before the Gothic archway, and then escapes to the sea, and
forms the creek in which we landed. It is somewhat difficult to approach this
strange pass, so as to gain a view into the interior of the cavern. By
clambering along a broken and dangerous cliff, you can, however, look into it;
but only so far as to see a twilight space filled with dark-coloured water in
great agitation, and representing a subterranean lake, moved by some fearful
convulsion of nature. How this pond is supplied with water you cannot see from
even this point of vantage, but you are made partly sensible of the truth by a
sound like the dashing of a sullen cataract within the bowels of the earth.
Here the adventure has usually been abandoned, and Mr
Anderson only mentioned two travellers whose curiosity had led
them farther. We were resolved, however, to see the ad-![]()
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ventures of this new cave of Montesinos to an end.
Duff had already secured the use of a fisher’s
boat and its hands, our own log-boat being too heavy and far too valuable to be
ventured upon this Cocytus. Accordingly the skiff was dragged up the brook to
the rocky ledge or hatch which barred up the interior cavern, and there, by
force of hands, our boat’s crew and two or three fishers first raised the
boat’s bow upon the ledge of rock, then brought her to a level, being
poised upon that narrow hatch, and lastly launched her down into the dark and
deep subterranean lake within. The entrance was so narrow, and the boat so
clumsy, that we, who were all this while clinging to the rock like sea-fowl,
and with scarce more secure footing, were greatly alarmed for the safety of our
trusty sailors. At the instant when the boat sloped inward to the cave, a
Highlander threw himself into it with great boldness and dexterity, and, at the
expense of some bruises, shared its precipitate fall into the waters under the
earth. This dangerous exploit was to prevent the boat drifting away from us,
but a cord at its stern would have been a safer and surer expedient.
“When our enfant
perdu had recovered breath and legs, he brought the boat
back to the entrance, and took us in. We now found ourselves embarked on a deep
black pond of an irregular form, the rocks rising like a dome all around us,
and high over our heads. The light, a sort of dubious twilight, was derived
from two chasms in the roof of the vault, for that offered by the entrance was
but trifling. Down one of those rents there poured from the height of eighty
feet, in a sheet of foam, the brook, which, after supplying the subterranean
pond with water, finds its way out beneath the ledge of rock that blocks its
entrance. The other skylight, if I may so term it, looks out at the clear blue
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sky. It is impossible for description to explain the
impression made by so strange a place, to which we had been conveyed with so
much difficulty. The cave itself, the pool, the cataract, would have been each
separate objects of wonder, but all united together, and affecting at once the
ear, the eye, and the imagination, their effect is indescribable. The length of
this pond, or loch, as the people here call it, is seventy feet over, the
breadth about thirty at the narrowest point, and it is of great depth.
“As we resolved to proceed, we directed the boat to
a natural arch on the right hand, or west side of the cataract. This archway
was double, a high arch being placed above a very low one, as in a Roman
aqueduct. The ledge of rock which forms this lower arch is not above two feet
and a half high above the water, and under this we were to pass in the boat; so
that we were fain to pile ourselves flat upon each other like a layer of
herrings. By this judicious disposition we were pushed in safety beneath this
low-browed rock into a region of utter darkness. For this, however, we were
provided, for we had a tinder-box and lights. The view back upon the twilight
lake we had crossed, its sullen eddies wheeling round and round, and its echoes
resounding to the ceaseless thunder of the waterfall, seemed dismal enough, and
was aggravated by temporary darkness, and in some degree by a sense of danger.
The lights, however, dispelled the latter sensation, if it prevailed to any
extent, and we now found ourselves in a narrow cavern, sloping somewhat upward
from the water. We got out of the boat, proceeded along some slippery places
upon shelves of the rock, and gained the dry land. I cannot say dry, excepting comparatively. We were then in an arched
cave, twelve feet high in the roof, and about eight feet in breadth, which went
wind-![]()
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ing into the bowels of the
earth for about an hundred feet. The sides, being (like those of the whole
cavern) of limestone rock, were covered with stalactites, and with small drops
of water like dew, glancing like ten thousand thousand sets of birth-day
diamonds under the glare of our lights. In some places these stalactites branch
out into broad and curious ramifications, resembling coral and the foliage of
submarine plants.
“When we reached the extremity of this passage, we
found it declined suddenly to a horrible ugly gulf, or well, filled with dark
water, and of great depth, over which the rock closed. We threw in stones,
which indicated great profundity by their sound; and growing more familiar with
the horrors of this den, we sounded with an oar, and found about ten feet depth
at the entrance, but discovered, in the same manner, that the gulf extended
under the rock, deepening as it went, God knows how far. Imagination can figure
few deaths more horrible than to be sucked under these rocks into some
unfathomable abyss, where your corpse could never be found to give intimation
of your fate. A water kelpy, or an evil spirit of any aquatic propensities,
could not choose a fitter abode; and, to say the truth, I believe at our first
entrance, and when all our feelings were afloat at the novelty of the scene,
the unexpected plashing of a seal would have routed the whole dozen of us. The
mouth of this ugly gulf was all covered with slimy alluvious substances, which
led Mr Stevenson to observe, that it
could have no separate source, but must be fed from the waters of the outer
lake and brook, as it lay upon the same level, and seemed to rise and fall with
them, without having any thing to indicate a separate current of its own.
Rounding this perilous hole, or gulf, upon the aforesaid: alluvious sub-![]()
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stances, which, formed its shores, we reached the
extremity of the cavern, which there ascends like a vent, or funnel, directly
up a sloping precipice, but hideously black, and slippery from wet and
sea-weeds. One of our sailors, a Zetlander, climbed up a good way, and by
holding up a light, we could plainly perceive that this vent closed after
ascending to a considerable height; and here, therefore, closed the adventure
of the cave of Smowe, for it appeared utterly impossible to proceed further in
any direction whatever. There is a tradition, that the first Lord
Reay went through various subterranean abysses, and at length
returned, after ineffectually endeavouring to penetrate to the extremity of the
Smowe cave; but this must be either fabulous, or an exaggerated account of such
a journey as we performed. And under the latter supposition, it is a curious
instance how little the people in the neighbourhood of this curiosity have
cared to examine it.
“In returning, we endeavoured to familiarize
ourselves with the objects in detail, which, viewed together, had struck us
with so much wonder. The stalactites, or limy incrustations, upon the walls of
the cavern, are chiefly of a dark-brown colour, and in this respect, Smowe is
inferior, according to Mr Stevenson, to
the celebrated cave of Macallister in the Isle of Skye. In returning, the men
with the lights, and the various groups and attitudes of the party, gave a good
deal of amusement. We now ventured to clamber along the side of the rock above
the subterranean water, and thus gained the upper arch, and had the
satisfaction to see our admirable and good-humoured commodore, Hamilton, floated beneath the lower arch into
the second cavern. His goodly countenance being illumined by a single candle,
his recumbent posture, and the appear-![]()
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ance of a hard-favoured fellow guiding the boat,
made him the very picture of Bibo, in the
catch, when he wakes in Charon’s
boat,
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‘When Bibo thought fit from
this world to retreat,
As full of Champagne as an egg’s full of meat,
He waked in the boat, and to Charon
he said,
That he would be row’d back, for he was not yet dead.
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“Descending from our superior station on the upper
arch we now again embarked, and spent some time in rowing about and examining
this second cave. We could see our dusky entrance, into which daylight streamed
faint, and at a considerable distance; and under the arch of the outer cavern
stood a sailor, with an oar in his hand, looking, in the perspective, like a
fairy with his wand. We at length emerged unwillingly from this extraordinary
basin, and again enjoyed ourselves in the large exterior cave. Our boat was
hoisted with some difficulty over the ledge, which appears the natural barrier
of the interior apartments, and restored in safety to the fishers, who were
properly gratified for the hazard which their skiff, as well as one of
themselves, had endured. After this we resolved to ascend the rocks, and
discover the opening by which the cascade was discharged from above into the
second cave. Erskine and I, by some
chance, took the wrong side of the rocks, and, after some scrambling, got into
the face of a dangerous precipice, where Erskine, to my
great alarm, turned giddy, and declared he could not go farther. I clambered up
without much difficulty, and shouting to the people below, got two of them to
assist the Counsellor, who was brought into, by the means which have sent many
a good fellow out of, the world—I mean a rope. We easily found the brook, and
traced its descent till it precipitates itself down a chasm of the rock into
the subter-![]()
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ranean apartment, where we first made its
acquaintance. Divided by a natural arch of stone from the chasm down which the
cascade falls, there is another rent, which serves as a skylight to the cavern,
as I already noticed. Standing on a natural foot-bridge, formed by the arch
which divides these two gulfs, you have a grand prospect into both. The one is
deep, black, and silent, only affording at the bottom a glimpse of the dark and
sullen pool which occupies the interior of the cavern. The right-hand rent,
down which the stream discharges itself, seems to ring and reel with the
unceasing roar of the cataract which envelopes its side in mist and foam. This
part of the scene alone is worth a day’s journey. After heavy rains, the
torrent is discharged into this cavern with astonishing violence; and the size
of the chasm being inadequate to the reception of such a volume of water, it is
thrown up in spouts like the blowing of a whale. But at such times the entrance
of the cavern is inaccessible.
“Taking leave of this scene with regret, we rowed
back to Loch Eribol. Having yet an hour to spare before dinner, we rowed across
the mouth of the lake to its shore on the east side. This rises into a steep
and shattered stack of mouldering calcareous rock and stone, called Whiten
Head. It is pierced with several caverns, the abode of seals and cormorants. We
entered one, where our guide promised to us a grand sight, and so it certainly
would have been to any who had not just come from Smowe. In this last cave the
sea enters through a lofty arch, and penetrates to a great depth; but the
weight of the tide made it dangerous to venture very far, so we did not see the
extremity of Friskin’s Cavern, as it is called. We shot several
cormorants in the cave, the echoes roaring like thunder at every discharge. We
received, however, a proper ![]()
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rebuke
from Hamilton, our commodore, for
killing any thing which was not fit for eating. It was
in vain I assured him that the Zetlanders make excellent hare-soup out of these
sea-fowl. He will listen to no subordinate authority, and rules us by the
Almanach des Gourmands. Mr Anderson
showed me the spot where the Norwegian monarch, Haco, moored his fleet, after the discomfiture he received at
Largs. He caused all the cattle to be driven from the hills; and houghed and
slain upon a broad flat rock, for the refreshment of his dispirited army.
Mr Anderson dines with us, and very handsomely
presents us with a stock of salmon, haddocks, and so forth, which we requite by
a small present of wine from our sea stores. This has been a fine day; the
first fair day here for these eight weeks.
“20th August 1814.—Sail by
four in the morning, and by half-past six, are off Cape Wrath. All hands ashore
by seven, and no time allowed to breakfast, except on beef and biscuit. On this
dread Cape, so fatal to mariners, it is proposed to build a lighthouse, and
Mr Stevenson has fixed on an
advantageous situation. It is a high promontory, with steep sides that go sheer
down to the breakers, which lash its feet. There is no landing, except in a
small creek about a mile and a half to the eastward. There the foam of the sea
plays at long bowls with a huge collection of large stones, some of them a ton
in weight, but which these fearful billows chuck up and down as a child tosses
a ball. The walk from thence to the Cape was over rough boggy ground, but good
sheep pasture. Mr —— Dunlop, brother to the laird of
Dunlop, took from Lord Reay, some years
since, a large track of sheep-land, including the territories of Cape Wrath,
for about L.300 a-year, for the period of two-nineteen years and a life-rent.
It is needless to say, that the tenant has an immense profit, ![]()
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for the value of pasture is now understood here.
Lord Reay’s estate, containing 150,000 square
acres, and measuring eighty miles by sixty, was, before commencement of the
last leases, rented at L.1200 a-year. It is now worth L.5,000, and Mr
Anderson says he may let it this ensuing year (when the leases
expire) for about L.15,000. But then he must resolve to part with his people,
for these rents can only be given upon the supposition that sheep are generally
to be introduced on the property. In an economical, and perhaps in a political
point of view, it might be best that every part of a country were dedicated to
that sort of occupation for which nature has best fitted it. But to effect this
reform in the present instance, Lord Reay must turn out
several hundred families who have lived under him and his fathers for many
generations, and the swords of whose fathers probably won the lands from which
he is now expelling them. He is a good-natured man, I suppose, for Mr
A. says he is hesitating whether he shall not take a more
moderate rise (L.7000 or L.8000), and keep his Highland tenantry. This last war
(before the short peace), he levied a fine fencible corps (the
Reay fencibles), and might have doubled their number.
Wealth is no doubt strength in a country, while all is quiet and governed by
law, but on any altercation or internal commotion, it ceases to be strength,
and is only the means of tempting the strong to plunder the possessors. Much
may be said on both sides.*
“Cape Wrath is a striking point, both from the
dignity of its own appearance, and from the mental associa-
* The whole of the immense district called Lord Reay’s
country—the habitation as far back as history reaches of the clan
Mackay—has passed, since Sir W. Scott’s journal was written,
into the hands of the noble family of Sutherland.
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tion of its being the extreme
cape of Scotland, with reference to the north-west. There is no land in the
direct line between this point and America. I saw a pair of large eagles, and
if I had had the rifle-gun might have had a shot, for the birds, when I first
saw them, were perched on a rock within about sixty or seventy yards. They are,
I suppose, little disturbed here, for they showed no great alarm. After the
Commissioners and Mr Stevenson had
examined the headland, with reference to the site of a lighthouse, we strolled
to our boat, and came on board between ten and eleven. Get the boat up upon
deck, and set sail for the Lewis with light winds and a great swell of tide.
Pass a rocky islet called Gousla. Here a fine vessel was lately wrecked; all
her crew perished but one, who got upon the rocks from the boltsprit, and was
afterwards brought off. In front of Cape Wrath are some angry breakers, called
the Staggs; the rocks which occasion them are visible at
low water. The country behind Cape Wrath swells in high sweeping elevations,
but without any picturesque or dignified mountainous scenery. But on sailing
westward a few miles, particularly after doubling a headland called the Stour
of Assint, the coast assumes the true Highland character, being skirted with a
succession of picturesque mountains of every variety of height and outline.
These are the hills of Ross-shire—a waste and thinly-peopled district at this
extremity of the island. We would willingly have learned the names of the most
remarkable, but they are only laid down in the charts by the cant names given
them by mariners, from their appearance, as the Sugar-loaf, and so forth. Our
breeze now increases, and seems steadily favourable, carrying us on with
exhilarating rapidity, at the rate of eight knots an hour, with the romantic
outline of the mainland under our lee-beam, and the dusky shores of the Long
Island ![]()
| 220 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. | |
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beginning to appear ahead. We remain on deck long
after it is dark, watching the phosphoric effects occasioned, or made visible,
by the rapid motion of the vessel, and enlightening her course with a continued
succession of sparks and even flashes of broad light, mingled with the foam
which she flings from her bows and head. A rizard haddock and to bed. Charming
weather all day.
“2lst August, 1814.—Last
night went out like a lamb, but this morning came in like a lion, all roar and
tumult. The wind shifted and became squally; the mingled and confused tides
that run among the Hebrides got us among their eddies, and gave the cutter such
concussions, that, besides reeling at every wave, she trembled from head to
stern, with a sort of very uncomfortable and ominous vibration. Turned out
about three, and went on deck; the prospect dreary enough, as we are beating up
a narrow channel between two dark and disconsolate-looking islands, in a gale
of wind and rain, guided only by the twinkling glimmer of the light on an
island called Ellan Glas.—Go to bed and sleep soundly, notwithstanding the
rough rocking. Great bustle about four; the light-keeper having seen our flag,
comes off to be our pilot, as in duty bound. Asleep again till eight. When I
went on deck, I found we had anchored in the little harbour of Scalpa, upon the
coast of Harris, a place dignified by the residence of Charles Edward in his hazardous attempt to
escape in 1746. An old man, lately alive here, called Donald
Macleod, was his host and temporary protector, and could not,
until his dying hour, mention the distresses of the Adventurer without tears.
From this place, Charles attempted to go to Stornoway; but
the people of the Lewis had taken arms to secure him, under an idea that he was
coming to plunder the country. And although his faithful attendant,
Donald Macleod, induced them by fair words, to lay
aside ![]()
| DIARY—SCALPA—AUG. 21, 1814. | 221 |
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their purpose, yet
they insisted upon his leaving the island. So the unfortunate Prince was
obliged to return back to Scalpa. He afterwards escaped to South Uist, but was
chased in the passage by Captain
Fergusson’s sloop of war. The harbour seems a little neat
secure place of anchorage. Within a small island, there seems more shelter than
where we are lying; but it is crowded with vessels, part of those whom we saw
in the Long-Hope—so Mr Wilson chose to remain outside. The
ground looks hilly and barren in the extreme; but I can say little for it, as
an incessant rain prevents my keeping the deck. Stevenson and Duff,
accompanied by Marchie, go to examine the
lighthouse on Ellan Glas. Hamilton and
Erskine keep their beds, having
scarce slept last night—and I bring up my journal. The day continues bad, with
little intermission of rain. Our party return with little advantage from their
expedition, excepting some fresh butter from the lighthouse. The harbour of
Scalpa is composed of a great number of little uninhabited islets. The masts of
the vessels at anchor behind them have a good effect. To bed early, to make
amends for last night, with the purpose of sailing for Dunvegan in the Isle of
Skye with daylight.”
Adam Duff of Findon (d. 1840)
Son of Admiral Robert Duff of Logie; he was a Scottish Advocate (1799), a political Tory.
and Sheriff of Forfar (1807-19) and Midlothian (1819-40).
William Erskine, Lord Kinneder (1768-1822)
The son of an episcopal clergyman of the same name, he was a Scottish advocate and a
close friend and literary advisor to Sir Walter Scott.
John Fergusson (d. 1767)
Naval captain who as commander of the Furnace nearly captured Charles Edward during his
flight to France.
John Gow (1698-1725)
Orcadian pirate whose life was written by Daniel Defoe and was afterwards the subject of
Walter Scott's novel,
The Pirate (1822).
Robert Hamilton (1763-1831)
Scottish advocate (1788) and regius professor of public law at Edinburgh (1796); he was a
friend of Walter Scott.
Malcolm Laing (1762-1818)
Scottish advocate and historian, educated at Edinburgh University; he was Whig MP for
Orkney and Shetland (1807-12). In 1805 he published
The Poems of Ossian,
containing the Poetical Works of James Macpherson in Prose and Verse.
Eric Mackay, seventh baron Reay (1773-1847)
The second son of George Mackay; he succeeded his cousin in 1797 and was a Scottish
representative peer who voted with the Conservatives.
Robert Stevenson (1772-1850)
Civil engineer and chief executive to the Northern Lighthouse Board (1808-43); he
designed bridges and railways.
