By the recruiting districts, in the ordinary way of recruiting. From the 1st January to 31st December, 1806 to 31st December, 1807 306 887 1326 2519 I was inforined in the Highlands that that degrading and impolitic system of cotters and servitudes, something like the duty work in Ireland, is daily decreasing, and day-labourers are every where multiplying. Notwithstanding the failure of a vast and highly patriotic manufactory for spinning and weaving cotton, which was established a few years since in the Firth of Dornoch, for the laudable purpose of endeavouring to ascertain how far the genius of the people and the nature of the place were propitious to such an establishment, many persons well informed upon Highland matters are still disposed to think, that in time that country may become the seat of manufactures to a considerable extent. It has, by those who are unfavourable to this opinion, been thought that Highland manufacture must be confined to the preparing and spinning of wool for the clothing countries. On the other hand, it has been ascertained that the soil and climate are well adapted for the growing of flax, and several linen-manufactures are now in a tolerably flourishing condition in some of the Grampian districts; it is thought too that hemp might be raised, and rope-manufactures established, equal to the supplying the fisheries with all their cordage. It has also been properly inferred, that, if spinning were established, weaving, dying, and dressing the cloth,' would soon follow. The turf in the Highlands, is generally good, and, on account of the numerous arms of the sea which every where penetrate their shores, coal may be carried coastways, or conveyed into the interior by the roads which have been already formed and are now constructing. Wonderful discoveries have been within a few years made in the power and application of steam, by which the consumption of fuel in manufactories is so amazingly reduced, as to be now, in large manufacturing houses, of very little consideration. All these circumstances unite to make us hope that the day is not far distant, when, instead of the Highlands being chiefly inhabited by the shepherd and his flocks, as some have predicted-whilst the sides of mountains are covered with cattle in the summer, and improved agriculture provides green food for them in the winter and the spring-the vallies shall contain enterprising agriculturists and successful manufac turers. 1 CHAPTER XXV. Sail from Oban-Itinerant merchantssa Mull equipagestammering ponies-Morven-Mull roads-arrival at Ulva-gates-Ulva-housea piper-anecdote-musical boatmen island of Staffa-bishop of Dexryand herdsman-Iona. AT Oban I engaged a large boat, with two men and sails to carry me to Aros, in the Sound of Mull, a little voyage of about thirty-five miles, for a guinea and a half. As Oban is the great disembarking port for Mull, Staffa, and Icomkill, let me recommend the Hebridean tourist to carry with him changes of clothes, linen, and boots. I mention this, because it is generally thought that nothing is more easy than to accomplish the survey of these islands in two or three days, whereas it is frequently an undertaking, and a very arduous one, of ten days or a fortnight, if the wind and weather prove unfavourable, and they are rarely propitious. I permitted two itinerant dealers in merchandise for the islands to go over with me. As it occurred in Scotland, I was not surprised to overhear them beguiling the voyage by literary discussions, and by seeing one of them take out a pocket Virgil, which he appeared to relish very highly. The chapmen who thus visit these insulated and remote countries find ample return for their merchandise, and, in a national view, are of no little consequence in accelerating the progress of civilization. The Romans considered the travelling merchants, who frequented the barbarous countries which had submitted to their arms, as of considerable importance in gradually familiarizing those countries to the conveniences, and, in consequence, to the improved manners, of cultivated life. These erratic merchants are also, from their intercourse with the people of different districts, naturally well informed, and versed in the ways of the world, and consequently cannot fail of imparting some portion of their intellectual superiority, in the course of their dealings, to those who have not had similar advantages of travel and expanded communication. As we withdrew from Oban, and got fairly out to sea, the bay, the town, the ruins of Dunolly-castle, the mountains behind, the verdant island of Lismore, and other islands, and the ship 1 ping, formed a picturesque view altogether enchanting: the wind soon failed, and afterwards freshened against us; the evening was far advanced; and as the prospect of being all night at sea in an undecked boat, without provisions, was not very agreeable, it was deemed most prudent to put into Achnacraig, in the south-east side of the island of Mull, and nearly opposite to Oban: here, in a small bay, were several ships riding at anchor, bound for the Baltic; and I could not help thinking what an immense tract of ocean they would save were the Caledonian Canal open to receive them. About a mile up the island I was conducted to a very comfortable inn, kept by a very civil and respectable woman, who spoke Gaelic and good English; she informed me that the visit of the Duke of Argyle had diffused uncommon joy all over the island. I was fortunate in the following day, which was very fair; and I shall long reflect upon the delight which I felt in contemplating from an adjoining eminence the beautiful Archipelago of this western region, through which I had sailed the evening before. My hostess procured me two ponies, after a long search for them on the neighbouring hills, from which they descended as rough and as wild as if they had never seen the face of man before. The Mull ponies, however, are thought valuable. The date of my saddle would have puzzled an antiquary to have ascertained, and its hardness and asperity seemed to have increased with its age; however, I was fortunate in procuring this much-valued rarity, as I found that a large fresh sod is generally used as an ingenious substitute: the rest of my tackling was composed of fragments of cord, hay, and leather. My guide, who spoke a little English, was a good-humoured peasant, and appeared to be considered as a man of distinguished genius by the group which had collected at the door of the inn to witness this grand set-out, on account of his having, after several ineffectual devices, succeeded in fixing my portmanteau on the beast destined to carry it, which he did by tying two great stones together at one end of the cord, which was fastened to my baggage at the other, the middle resting upon the pony's back, who had thus the pleasure of carrying a double burden. Having accomplished this difficult arrangement, he himself mounted, to "keep the balance true." Thus equipped, we set off for Aros, and to my cost I found that the good Mullites have about as correct a notion of distance as they have of making bits, bridles, and saddles. My hostess assured me that Aros was only nine miles off; and what induced me to conceive that she meant English miles was, that she accompanied it by another assurance, that I should reach it in two hours. and a half; whereas the distance proved to be, at least, twenty English miles, and I did not reach it in less than six hours. The appearance of the island for the first two or three miles was rendered picturesque and romantic by rocks, and groups of weeping birch, young oak, alder, and mountain ash, happily and not penuriously scattered along the road, which is tolerably good all the way to Aros, so much so, that carts pass from Achnacraig to that place, and to Tobermorry, and once, for a wager, a carriage was transported from the main land, and run upon this road, which I think might have been accomplished without much difficulty. After passing a few corn-fields, and a neat farm, the grounds about which are well wooded, my guide's pony began to stammer under his burden, that is, in vulgar Scotch, to stumble, which threw all my baggage in disorder. It would have taken an hour to replace it, had not the accident fortunately happened opposite to a cottage, out of the window of which a handsome healthy girl was looking, who, seeing the accident, accommodated my La Fleur with a pair of creels, or panniers, in one of which the portmanteau was deposited, whilst a great part of his weight was sustained in the other. This hut, like almost every other which I saw on the island, was very wretched: it was built of round stones, or large pebbles, without cement, and the door was composed of rude wicker-work. The thatch was fern, and kept together by ropes of heath, at the ends of which stones were fastened, which hung down the sides of the cottage. Upon turning the eastern point, I bade adieu to every vestige of foliage; but, as some compensation, the Sound of Mull opened in great majesty, resembling a vast lake, enlivened with vessels; on the opposite side arose the gloomy hills of Morven; and upon a point of rock projecting into the Sound stood the remains of an ancient castle. I was now in the neighbourhood of the heroes of Ossian, the solemn, but simple, scenery of which, afforded his melancholy imagination a sublime, but undiversified, imagery. In the authenticity of the poems of this Bard a strong belief has been expressed by some able writers on the subject. The face of Morven must have been much changed since the time that Ossian wrote. In his poem of Carthon he thus de scribes it: How stately art thou, Son of the Sea! said the King of the woody And again, in the same poem, a similar epithet occurs : "Bard of the woody Morven :" whereas its sides, all the way along the shores of the Sound of Muil, appeared to be completely denuded. Near Ardtorinish, on this side of Moryen, are the original" Hall of Shells, and the woody streamy Vale of Sel ma. The road continued nearly parallel with the Sound. After passing two or three miserable hamlets, the habitations of which resembled the description of the Balagans of Kamtschatka, I halted at the ruins of an ancient church, upon a commanding eminence, about fourteen miles from the inn. As I stood ruminating amongst the tombs, and turning my eye occasionally from them to a hoary sightless islander, who sat upon one of them, and from him to the expanded scenery around, lighted up by a brilliant sun, Ossian's address to that great luminary, one of the most sublime passages in all his poems, forcibly recurred to my mind. At last I approached the ruins of the Castle of Aros, standing upon a steep rock towards the sea, and said to have been erected by Macdonald, Lord of the Isles. Aros, in Erse, signifies the mansion or habitation, and is applicable to the residence, of any family of distinction. Mr. Maxwell, who is the Duke of Argyle's man of business in this island, has a comfortable house here, where I was afterwards hospitably entertained. Wishing to reach Ulva that night, I immediately proceeded to the inn, which, small and commodious, was crowded with visiters to the isles. There I dismissed my Achnacraig guide and ponies, and, with difficulty, procured a little refreshment, a jaded half-starved horse, and a little boy for a conductor; with these I set off to cross the island of Mull for that of Ulva, again assured that it was only three miles off, although it proved to be between eight and nine. I now bade adieu to every vestige of tolerable road, and entered upon a track, which only the horses of the country could traverse without a fracture. Occasional bogs, shelving rocks, full of large deep holes, and vast stones, characterised its course; but these apparently perilous impediments, from the great experience and care of my beast in dragging one leg most cautiously after the other, proved only to be vexatious obstructions. A crowded churchyard could not have presented more hillocks |