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the ancient boundaries of the fanctuary or confecrated ground.

Martin was a man not illiterate: he was an inhabitant of Sky, and therefore was within reach of intelligence, and with no great difficulty might have vifited the places which he undertakes to describe; yet with all his opportunities, he has often fuffered himself to be deceived. He lived in the laft century, when the chiefs of the clans had loft little of their original influence. The mountains were yet unpenetrated, no inlet was opened to foreign novelties, and the feudal inftitutions operated upon life with their full force. He might therefore have displayed a feries of fubordination and a form of government, which in more luminous and improved regions, have been long forgotten, and have delighted his readers with many uncouth customs that are now difufed, and wild opinions that prevail no longer. But he probably had not knowledge of the world fufficient to qualify him for judging what would deserve or gain the attention of mankind. The mode of life which was familiar to himself, he did not fuppofe unknown to others, nor imagined that he could give pleasure by telling that of which it was, in his little country, impoffible to be gnorant.

What he has neglected cannot now be performed. In nations, where there is hardly the ufe of letters, what is once out of fight is loft for ever. They think but little, and of their few thoughts, none are wafted on the paft, in which they are neither interested by fear nor hope. Their only regifters are ftated

ftated obfervances and practical reprefentations. For this reafon an age of ignorance is an age of ceremony. Pageants, and proceffions, and commemorations, gradually fhrink away, as better methods come into ufe of recording events, and preferving rights.

It is not only in Raasay that the chapel is unroofed and useless; through the few iflands which we vifited we neither faw nor heard of any houfe of prayer, except in Sky, that was not in ruins. The malignant influence of Calvinism has blafted ceremony and decency together; and if the remembrance of papal superstition is obliterated, the monuments of papal piety are likewife effaced.

It has been, for many years, popular to talk of the lazy devotion of the Romish clergy; over the fleepy laziness of men that erected churches, we may indulge our fuperiority with a new triumph, by comparing it with the fervid activity of those who fuffer them to fall.

Of the deftruction of churches, the decay of religion must in time be the confequence; for while the publick acts of the ministry are now performed in houses, a very small number can be prefent; and as the greater part of the islanders make no ufe of books, all must neceffarily live in total ignorance who want the opportunity of vocal instruction.

From these remains of ancient fanctity, which are every where to be found, it has been conjectured that, for the last two centuries, the inhabitants of the islands have decreased in number. This argument, which fuppofes that the churches have been fuffered to fall, only because they were no longer ne

ceffary,

ceffary, would have fome force, if the houfes of worship still remaining were fufficient for the people. But fince they have now no churches at all, these venerable fragments do not prove the people of former times. to have been more numerous, but to have been more devout. If the inhabitants were doubled, with their present principles, it appears not that any provifion for publick worship would be made. Where the religion of a country enforces confecrated buildings, the number of those buildings may be fuppofed to afford fome indication, however uncertain, of the populoufness of the place; but where by a change of manners a nation is contented to live without them, their decay implies no diminution of inhabitants.

Some of thefe dilapidations are said to be found in iflands now uninhabited; but I doubt whether we can thence infer that they were ever peopled. The religion of the middle age is well known to have placed too much hope in lonely aufterities. Voluntary folitude was the great art of propitiation, by which crimes were effaced, and confcience was appealed; it is therefore not unlikely, that oratories were often built in places where retirement was fure to have no difturbance.

Raafay has little that can detain a traveller, except the laird and his family; but their power wants no auxiliaries. Such a feat of hospitality, amidst the winds and waters, fills the imagination with à delightful contrariety of images. Without is the rough ocean and the rocky land, the beating billows and the howling ftorm: within is plenty and elegance, beauty and gaiety, the fong and the

dance.

dance. In Raafay, if I could have found an Ulysses, I had fancied a Phæacia.

DUN VEGAN.

At Raafay, by good fortune, Macleod, fo the chief of the clan is called, was paying a vifit, and by him we were invited to his feat at Dunvegan. Raafay has a ftout boat, built in Norway, in which, with fix oars, he conveyed us back to Sky. We landed at Port Re, fo called, because James the Fifth of Scotland, who had curiosity to visit the islands, came into it. The port is made by an inlet of the fea, deep and narrow, where a ship lay waiting to difpeople Sky, by carrying the natives away to America.

In coafting Sky, we paffed by the cavern in which it was the custom, as Martin relates, to catch birds in the night, by making a fire at the entrance. This practice is difufed; for the birds, as is known often to happen, have changed their haunts.

Here we dined at a publick house, I believe the only inn of the island, and having mounted our horfes, travelled in the manner already defcribed, till we came to Kingsborough, a place diftinguished by that name, becaufe the king lodged here when he landed at Port Re. We were entertained with the usual hospitality by Mr. Macdonald and his lady Flora Macdonald, a name that will be mentioned in history, and if courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honour. She is a woman of middle ftature, foft features, gentle manners, and elegant prefence.

VOL. VIII.

U

In

JOURNEY

In the morning we fent our horfes round a promontory to meet us, and fpared ourselves part of the day's fatigue, by croffing an arm of the fea. We had at laft fome difficulty in coming to Dunvegan for our way led over an extenfive moor, where every step was to be taken with caution, and we were often obliged to alight, becaufe the ground could not be trusted. In travelling this watery flat, I perceived that it had a vifible declivity, and might without much expence or difficulty be drained. But difficulty and expence are relative terms, which have different meanings in different places.

To Dunvegan we came, very willing to be at rest, and found our fatigue amply recompenfed by our reception. Lady Macleod, who had lived many years in England, was newly come hither with her fon and four daughters, who knew all the arts of fouthern elegance, and all the modes of Englifh ceconomy. Here therefore we fettled, and did not spoil the present hour with thoughts of departure.

Dunvegan is a rocky prominence, that juts out into a bay, on the weft fide of Sky. The house, which is the principal feat of Macleod, is partly old and partly modern; it is built upon the rock, and looks upon the water. It forms two fides of a small fquare on the third fide is the fkeleton of a castle of unknown antiquity, fuppofed to have been a Norwegian fortrefs, when the Danes were mafters of the islands. It is fo nearly entire, that it might have easily been made habitable, were there not an ominous tradition in the family, that the owner fhall not long oulive the reparation. The grand

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