with the result of his experiment. At any rate, he preferred Portree to residence further inland, where he said even the very eggs were uneatable, so strongly did they taste of peat. My lady friend—rather, I should say, “our lady”—is as much affected by the gale that dolorous night as myself, and writes, plaintively begging me to excuse the irregularity of the metre on account of the rolling of the vessel, as follows:—
“Here off Skye,
The tide runs high;
Through hill and glen
Wind howls again.
The Coolan hills
No more we see,
Save through the mists
Of memory.
The sea birds float,
And seem to gloat,
With loud, shrill note,
Above our boat;
For they, like us,
Are forced to stay
For shelter in this friendly bay;
And now I seek, in balmy sleep,
Oblivion of the perils of the deep,
And wishing rocks and hills good night,
Let’s hope to-morrow’s log will be more bright.”
A cottage in the Hebrides is by no means a cottage ornée. Its walls are made of stone and
clay of a tremendous thickness. On this wall, on a framework of old oars or old wood, are laid large turfs and a roof of thatch. In this roof the fowls nestle, and lay an infinite number of eggs; but all things inside and out are tainted with turf in a way to make them disagreeable. There is no chimney, and but one door, and the floor is the bare earth, with a bench for the family formed of earth or peat or stone. Beds and bedding are unknown. If the family keeps a cow, that has the best corner, for it is what the pig is to the Irishman, the gentleman that pays the rent. Small sheep, almost as horned and hardy as goats, may be met with, but never pigs. Pork seems an abomination in the eyes of the natives. Every cotter has a portion of the adjacent moor in which to cut peat sufficient to supply his wants. Out of the homespun wool the women make good warm garments—and they need them. Fish and porridge seem their principal diet, and it agrees with them. The girls are wonderfully fat and healthy; and consumption is utterly unknown. While I was at Stornoway, an old woman had just died in the workhouse considerably over a century old. As to agricultural operations, they are conducted on a most primitive
scale. A few potatoes may here and there be seen struggling for dear life; and as the hay is cut when the sun shines, it is often in August or September that the farmer reaps his scanty harvest. You miss the flowers which hide the deformity of the peasant’s cottage in dear old England. It seems altogether in these distant regions, where the wild waves of the Atlantic dash and roar; where the days are dark with cloud; where you see nothing but rock, and glen, and moorland; where forests are an innovation, that man fights with the opposing powers of nature for existence under very great disadvantage.
CHAPTER VII.
to stornoway.
A fine day came at last, and we steered off from Portree, leaving the grand Cachullin Mountains, rising to a height of 3,220 feet, and the grave of Flora Macdonald, and the cave where Prince Charles hid himself far behind. On the right were the distant mountains of Ross-shire, and on our left Skye, and the other islands which guard the Western Highlands against the awful storms of the ever-restless Atlantic. Here, as elsewhere, was to be noticed the absence of all human life, whether at sea or on land. It was only now and then we saw a sail, but, as if to compensate for their absence, the birds of the air and the fishes of the sea seemed to follow in a never-ending crowd. More than once we saw a couple of whales spouting and blowing from afar, and the gulls, and divers, and solan-geese at times made the surface of the water absolutely
white, like snow-islands floating leisurely along. Just before we got up to Stornoway, at a great distance on our right, Cape Wrath, more than a hundred miles off, lifted up its head into the clear blue sky, the protecting genius, as it were, of the Scottish strand. It was perfectly delightful, this; one felt not only that in Scotland people had at rare intervals fine weather, but that by means of steamers and yachts and sailing vessels of all kinds, the people of Scotland knew how to improve the shining hour. It was beautiful, this floating on a glassy sea, clear as a looking-glass, in which were reflected the clouds, and the skies, and the sun, and the birds of the air, and the rocks, with a wonderful fidelity. It seemed that you had only to plunge into that cool and tempting depth, and to be in heaven at once. At Stornoway we spent a couple of days. The town stands in a bay, perhaps not quite so romantic as some in which we have sheltered, but very picturesque, nevertheless. The first object to be distinctly seen as we entered was the fine castle which Sir James Mathieson has erected for himself, at a cost altogether of half a million, and the grounds of which are in beautiful order; them we
had ample time to inspect that evening, as in Stornoway the daylight lasted till nearly ten o’clock. Happily, Sir James was at home, and we on board the yacht had an acceptable present of vegetables, and cream, and butter, very welcome to us poor toilers of the sea. Stornoway is a very busy place, and has at this time of the year a population of 2,500. In May and June it is busier still, as at that time there will be as many as five hundred fishing boats in the harbour, and a large extra population are employed on shore in curing and packing the fish. In the country behind are lakes well stocked with fish, and mountains and moors where game and wild deer and real eagles yet abound. But a great drawback is the climate. An old sportsman writes:—“The savagery of the weather in the Lewes, the island of which Stornoway is the capital, is not to be described. A gentleman from the county of Clare once shot a season with me, and had very good sport, which he enjoyed much. I asked him to come again. ‘Not for five thousand pounds a year,’ he replied, ‘would I encounter this climate again. I am delighted I came, for now I can go back to my own country with pleasure, since, bad as the
climate is, it is Elysium to this.’” Let me say, however, the weather was superb all the time the Elena was at Stornoway.