foon lofe that tenderness of look and the benevolence of mind which arofe from the participation of unmingled pleafure, and fucceffive amufement. A woman, we are fure, will not be always fair; we are not fure fhe will always be virtuous; and man cannot retain through life that refpect and affiduity by which he pleases for a day or for a month. I do not, however, pretend to have difcovered that life has any thing more to be defired than a prudent and virtuous marriage; therefore know not what counfel to give I Reynolds ftill continues to increase in reputation and in riches. Mifs Williams, who very much loves you, goes on in the old way. Mifs Cotterel is ftill with Mrs Porter. Mifs Charlotte is married to Dean Lewis, and has three children. Mr Levet has married a ftreet-walker. But the gazette of my narration muft now arrive to tell you, that Bathurst went physician to the army, and died at the Ha vannah. Defcription of the Ifles of Skie and Raarfa. By Dr Johnson. Skie, Sept. 6, 1773. I have been feveral days in the ifland of Raarfa, and am now again in the ifle of Skic, but at the other end of it. tween the two great families of Macdonald and Macleod, other proprietors having only fmall diftricts. The two great lords do not know within twenty fquare miles the contents of their own territories. kept up but ill the reputa tion of Highland hofpitality; we are now with Macleod, quite at the other end of the ifland, where there is a fine young gentleman and fine ladies. The ladies are fludying Earfe. I have a cold, and am miferably deaf, and am troublesome to Lady Macleod; I force her to fpeak loud, but the will feldom fpeak loud enough. Raarfa is an island about fifteen miles long and two broad, under the Skie is almoft equally divided be- dominion of one gentleman, who has Ii 2 three three fons and ten daughters; the eldeit is the beauty of this part of the world, and has been polished at Edinburgh: they fing and dance, and without expence have upon their table most of what fea, air, or earth can afford. Bofwell, with fome of his troublefome kindness, has informed this family and reminded me that the 18th of September is my birth-day. The return of my birth-day, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape. I can now look back upon threefcore and four years, in which little has been done, and little has been enjoyed; a life diverfified by mifery, fpent part in the fluggishnefs of penury, and part under the violence of pain, in gloomy difcontent or importunate diftrefs. But perhaps I am better than I should have been if I had been lefs afflicted. With this I will try to be content. In proportion as there is lefs picafure in retrofpective confiderations, the mind is more difpofed to wander forward into futurity; but at fixty-four what promifes, however liberal, of imaginary good can futurity venture to make? yet fomething will be always promifed, and fome promifes will always be credited. I am hoping and I am praying that I may live better in the time to come, whether long or fhort, than I have yet lived, and in the folace of that hope endeavour to repofe. Dear Queeney's day is next, I hope fhe at fixty-four will have lefs mafs of building ftands upon a protuberance of rock, inacceffible till of late but by a pair of stairs on the fea-fide, and fecure in ancient times against any enemy that was likely to invade the kingdom of Skie. Macleod has offered me an island; if it were not too far off I thould hardly refufe it: my ifland would be pleafanter than Brighthelmftone, if you and my mafter could come to it; but I cannot think it pleasant to live quite alone. Oblitufque meorum, oblivifcendus et illis. You will now expect that I should give you fome acount of the isle of Skie, of which, though I have been twelve days upon it, I have little to fay. It is an island perhaps fifty miles long, fo much indented by inlets of the fea that there is no part of it removed from the water more than fix miles. No part that I have seen is plain; you are always climbing or defcending, and every step is upon rock or mire. A walk upon ploughed ground in England is a dance upon carpets, compared to the toilfome drudgery of wandering in Skie. There is neither town nor village in the inland, nor have I feen any houfe but Macleod's, that is not much below your habitation at Brighthelmftone. In the mountains there are ftags and roebucks, but no hares, and few rabbits; nor have I seen any thing that interefted me as a zoologist, except an otter, bigger than I thought an otter could have been. You are perhaps imagining that I am withdrawn from the gay and the bufy world into regions of peace and paftoral felicity, and am enjoying the reliques of the golden age; that I am furveying nature's magnificence from a mountain, or remarking her minuter beauties on the flowery bank of a winding rivulet; that I am invigora ting myfelf in the funshine, or delighting my imagination with being hidden from the invafion of human evils-and human human paffions in the darkness of a thicket; that I am bufy in gathering fhells and pebbles on the fhore, or contemplative on a rock, from which I look upon the water, and confider how many waves are rolling between me and Streatham. The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and inftead of thinking how things may be, to fee them as they are. Here are mountains which I should once have climbed, but to climb steeps is now very laborious, and to defcend them danger ous; and I am now content with knowing, that by fcrambling up a rock, I fhall only fee other rocks, and a wider circuit of barren defolation. Of streams, we have here a fufficient number, but they murmur not upon pebbles, but upon rocks. Of flowers, if Chloris herself were here, I could prefent her only with the bloom of heath. Of lawns and thickets, he must read that would know them, for here is little fun and no fhade. On the fea I look from my window, but am not much tempted to the fhore; for fince I came to this island, almoft every breath of air has been a ftorm, and what is worfe, a storm with all its feverity, but without its magnificence, for the fea is here fo broken into channels that there is not a sufficient volume of water either for lofty furges or a loud roar. On Sept. 6th, we left to vifit Raarfa, the island which I have already mentioned. We were received on the fea-fide, and after clambering with fome difficulty over the rocks, a labour which the traveller, wherever he reposes himself on land, must in these islands be contented to cadure; we were introduced into the houfe, which one of the company called the Court of Raarfa, with politenefs which not the Court of Versailles could have thought defective. The houfe is not large, though we were told in our paffage that it had eleven fine rooms, nor magnificently furnish ed, but our utenfils were most commonly filver. We went up into a dining room, about as large as your blue room, where we had fomething given us to eat, and tea and coffee. Raarfa himself is a man of no inelegant appearance, and of manners uncommonly refined. Lady Raarfa makes no very fublime appearance for a fovereign, but is a good housewife, and a very prudent and diligent conductress of her family. Mifs Flora Macleod is a celebrated beauty; has been admired at Edinburgh; dreffes her head very high; and has manners fo lady-like, that I wish her head-drefs was lower. The rest of the nine girls are all pretty; the youngest is between Queeney and Lucy. The youngest boy, of four years old, runs barefoot, and wandered with us over the rocks to fee a mill. I believe he would walk on that rough ground without fhoes ten miles in a day. Raarfa and its provinces have defcended to its prefent poffeffor through a fucceffion of four hundred years, without any increase or diminution. It was indeed lately in danger of forfeiture, but the old Laird joined fome prudence with, his zeal, and when Prince Charles landed in Scotland, made over his eftate to his fon, the prefent Laird, and led one hundred men of Raarfa into the field, with officers of his own family. Eighty-fix only came back after the laft battle. The Prince was hidden, in his diftrefs, two nights at Raarfa, and the king's troops burnt the whole country, and killed fome of the cattle. You may guess at the opinions that prevail in this country; they are, however, content with fighting for their king; they do not drink for him. We had no foolish healths. At night, unexpectedly to us who were strangers, the carpet was taken up; the fiddler of the family came up, and a very vi gorous and general dance was begun. We were two-and-thirty at fupper'; there were full as many dancers for though though all who fupped did not dance, fome danced of the young people who did not fup. Raarfa himself danced with his children, and old Malcolm, in his filibeg, was as nimble as when he led the Prince over the mountains. When they had danced themselves weary, two tables were fpread, and I fuppofe at least twenty dishes were upon them. In this country fome preparations of milk are always ferved up at fupper, and fometimes in the place of tarts at dinner. The table was not coarfely heaped, but at once plentiful and elegant. They do not pretend to make a loaf; there are only cakes, commonly of oats or barley, but they made me very nice cakes of wheat flour. I always fat at the left hand of Lady Raarfa, and young Macleod of Skie, the chieftain of the clan, fat on the right. After fupper a young lady who was vifiting fung Earfe fongs, in which Lady Raarfa joined prettily enough, but not gracefully; the young ladies fuftained the chorus better. They are very little used to be asked questions, and not well prepared with anfwers. When one of the fongs was over, I afked the princefs that fat next me, What is that about? I queftion if the conceived that I did not understand it. For the entertainment of the company, faid fhe. But, Madam, what is the meaning of it? It is a love fong. This was all the intelligence that I could obtain; nor have I been able to procure the translation of a single line of Earfe. At twelve it was bed time. I had a chamber to myfelf, which, in eleven rooms to forty people, was more than my fhare. How the company and the family were diftributed is not eafy to tell. Macleod the chieftain, and Bofwell, and I, had all fingie chambers on the first floor. There remained eight rooms only for at leaft fevenand-thirty lodgers. I fuppofe they put up temporary beds in the dining-room, where they ftowed all the young la dies. There was a room above stairs with fix beds, in which they put ten men. Sept. 9th, Having paffed the night as is ufual, I rofe, and found the dining-room full of company; we feaft ed and talked, and when the evening came it brought mufic and dancing. Young Macleod, the great proprietor of Skie, was very diftinguishable; a young man of nineteen; bred a while at St Andrews, and afterwards at Oxford; a pupil of G. Strahan. He is a young man of a mind as much advanced as I have ever known; very elegant of manners, and very graceful in his petfon. He has the full fpirit of a feudal chief; and I was very rea dy to accept his invitation to Dunve gan. All Raarfa's children are beau. tiful. The ladies all, except the eldeft, are in the morning dreffed in their hair. The true Highlander never wears more than a ribband on her head till fhe is married. On the third day Bofwell went out with old Malcolm to fee a ruined caftle, which he found more entire than was promised, but he faw the country. I did not go, for the caftle was per haps ten miles off, and there is no riding at Raarfa, the whole island being rock or mountain, from which the cattle often fall and are destroyed. It is very barren, and maintains, as near as I could collect, about feven hundred inhabitants, perhaps ten to a square mile. In these countries you are not to fuppofe that you fhall find villages or inclofures. The traveller wanders through a naked defart, gratified fometimes, but rarely, with the fight of cows, and now and then finds a heap of loofe ftones and turf in a cavity between rocks, where a being, born with all thofe powers which educa tion expands, and all thofe fenfations which culture refines, is condemned to fhelter itfelf from the wind and rain. Philofophers there are who try to make themfelves believe that this life is happy, but they believe it only while they are faying it, and never yet burying-place of the family, and I fupproduced conviction in a fingle mind: pofe of the whole island. he, whom want of words or images funk into filence, ftill thought, as he thought before, that privation of pleafure can never pleafe, and that content is not to be much envied, when it has no other principle than ignorance of good. This gloomy tranquillity, which fome may call fortitude, and others wifdom, was, I believe, for a long time to be very frequently found in thefe dens of poverty: every man was content to live like his neighbours, and never wandering from home, faw no mode of life preferable to his own, except at the houfe of the laird, or the Jaird's nearest relations, whom he confidered as a fuperior order of beings, to whofe luxuries or honours he had Do pretenfions. But the end of this reverence and fubmiffion feems now approaching; the Highlanders have learned that there are countries lefs bleak and barren than their own, where, instead of working for the laird, every man may till his own ground, and eat the produce of his own labour. Great numbers have been induced by this discovery to go every year for fome time paft to America. Macdonald and Macleod of Skie have loft many tenants and many labourers, but Raarfa has not yet been forfaken by a fingle inhabitant. Rona is yet more rocky and barren than Raarfa, and though it contains perhaps four thoufand acres, is poffeffed only by a herd of cattle and the keepers. I find myself not very able to walk upon the mountains, but one day I went out to fee the walls yet ftanding of an ancient chapel. In almoft every ifland the fuperftitious votaries of the Romish church erected places of worfhip, in which the drones of convents or cathedrals performed the holy offices, but by the active zeal of Proteftant devotion, almost all of them have funk into ruin. The chapel at . Raarfa is now only confidered as the We would now have gone away and left room for others to enjoy the pleasures of this little court, but the wind detained us till the 12th, when, though it was Sunday, we thought it proper to fnatch the opportunity of a calm day. Raarfa accompanied us in his fix-oared boat, which he faid was his coach and fix. It is indeed the vehicle in which the ladies take the air and pay their vifits, but they have taken very little care for accommodations. There is no way in or out of the boat for a woman, but by being carried; and in the boat thus dignified with a pompous name, there is no feat but an occafional bundle of straw. Thus we left Raarfa; the feat of plen ty, civility, and chearfulness. We dined at a public houfe at Port Re; fo called becaufe one of the Scot tifh kings landed there, in a progress through the western ifles. Raarfa paid the reckoning privately. We then got on horfeback, and by a fhort but very tedious journey came to Kingfburgh, at which the fame king lodged after he landed. Here I had the honour of faluting the far-famed Mifs Flora Macdonald, who conducted the Prince, dreffed as her maid, through the English forces from the island of Lewes; and, when he came to Skie, dined with the English officers, and left her maid below. She must then have been a very young lady; fhe is now not old; of a pleafing perfon, and elegant behaviour. She told me that the thought herfelf honoured by my vifit; and I am fure that whatever regard the bestowed on me was liberally repaid. "If thou likeft her opi"nions, thou wilt praise her virtue." She was carried to London, but dif miffed without a trial, and came down with Malcolm Macleod, against whom fufficient evidence could not be procured. She and her husband are poor, and are going to try their fortune in America. Sic rerum volvitur orbis. |
