In Mull we were confined two days by the weather; on the third we got on horseback, and, after a journey, difficult and tedious, over rocks naked, and valleys untracked, through a country of barrenness and solitude, we came, almost in the dark, to the seaside, weary and dejected, having met with nothing but water falling from the mountains that could raise any image of delight. Our company was the young laird of Col, and his servant. Col made every Maclean open his house, where he came, and supply us with horses, when we departed; but the horses of this country are small, and I was not mounted to my wish.
At the seaside we found the ferryboat departed; if it had been where it was expected, the wind was against us, and the hour was late, nor was it very desirable to cross the sea, in darkness, with a small boat. The captain of a sloop, that had been driven thither by the storms, saw our distress, and, as we were hesitating and deliberating, sent his boat, which, by Col's order, transported us to the isle of Ulva. We were introduced to Mr. Macquarry, the head of a small clan, whose ancestors have reigned in Ulva beyond memory, but who has reduced himself, by his negligence and folly, to the necessity of selling this venerable patrimony.
On the next morning we passed the strait to Inch Kenneth, an island about a mile in length, and less than half a mile broad; in which Kenneth, a Scottish saint, established a small clerical college, of which the chapel walls are still standing. At this place I beheld a scene, which I wish you, and my master, and Queeney had partaken.
The only family on the island is that of sir Allan, the chief of the ancient and numerous clan of Maclean; the clan which claims the second place, yielding only to Macdonald in the line of battle. Sir Allan, a chieftain, a baronet, and a soldier, inhabits, in this insulated desert, a thatched hut, with no chambers. Young Col, who owns him as his chief, and whose cousin was his lady, had, I believe, given him some notice of our visit; he received us with the soldier's frankness, and the gentleman's elegance, and introduced us to his daughters, two young ladies, who have not wanted education suitable to their birth, and who, in their cottage, neither forgot their dignity, nor affected to remember it. Do not you wish to have been with us?
Sir Allan's affairs are in disorder, by the fault of his ancestors: and, while he forms some scheme for retrieving them, he has retreated hither.
When our salutations were over, he showed us the island. We walked, uncovered, into the chapel, and saw, in the reverend ruin, the effects of precipitate reformation. The floor is covered with ancient grave-stones, of which the inscriptions are not now legible; and without, some of the chief families still continue the right of sepulture. The altar is not yet quite demolished; beside it, on the right side, is a bass-relief of the virgin with her child, and an angel hovering over her. On the other side still stands a hand-bell, which, though it has no clapper, neither presbyterian bigotry, nor barbarian wantonness, has yet taken away. The chapel is thirty-eight feet long, and eighteen broad. Boswell, who is very pious, went into it at night, to perform his devotions, but came back, in haste, for fear of spectres. Near the chapel is a fountain, to which the water, remarkably pure, is conveyed from a distant hill, through pipes laid by the Romish clergy, which still perform the office of conveyance, though they have never been repaired, since popery was suppressed.
We soon after went in to dinner, and wanted neither the comforts nor the elegancies of life. There were several dishes, and variety of liquors. The servants live in another cottage; in which, I suppose, the meat is dressed.
Towards evening, sir Allan told us, that Sunday never passed over him, like another day. One of the ladies read, and read very well, the evening service;—and paradise was opened in the wild.
Next day, 18th, we went and wandered among the rocks on the shore, while the boat was busy in catching oysters, of which there is a great bed. Oysters lie upon the sand, one, I think, sticking to another, and cockles are found a few inches under the sand.
We then went in the boat to Sondiland, a little island very near. We found it a wild rock, of about ten acres; part naked, part covered with sand, out of which we picked shells; and part clothed with a thin layer of mould, on the grass of which a few sheep are sometimes fed. We then came back and dined. I passed part of the afternoon in reading, and in the evening one of the ladies played on her harpsichord, and Boswell and Col danced a reel with the other.