第25章 SKY.ARMIDEL(2)

Many of my subsequent inquiries upon more interesting topicks ended in the like uncertainty.He that travels in the Highlands may easily saturate his soul with intelligence,if he will acquiesce in the first account.The Highlander gives to every question an answer so prompt and peremptory,that skepticism itself is dared into silence,and the mind sinks before the bold reporter in unresisting credulity;but,if a second question be ventured,it breaks the enchantment;for it is immediately discovered,that what was told so confidently was told at hazard,and that such fearlessness of assertion was either the sport of negligence,or the refuge of ignorance.

If individuals are thus at variance with themselves,it can be no wonder that the accounts of different men are contradictory.The traditions of an ignorant and savage people have been for ages negligently heard,and unskilfully related.Distant events must have been mingled together,and the actions of one man given to another.These,however,are deficiencies in story,for which no man is now to be censured.It were enough,if what there is yet opportunity of examining were accurately inspected,and justly represented;but such is the laxity of Highland conversation,that the inquirer is kept in continual suspense,and by a kind of intellectual retrogradation,knows less as he hears more.

In the islands the plaid is rarely worn.The law by which the Highlanders have been obliged to change the form of their dress,has,in all the places that we have visited,been universally obeyed.I have seen only one gentleman completely clothed in the ancient habit,and by him it was worn only occasionally and wantonly.The common people do not think themselves under any legal necessity of having coats;for they say that the law against plaids was made by Lord Hardwicke,and was in force only for his life:but the same poverty that made it then difficult for them to change their clothing,hinders them now from changing it again.

The fillibeg,or lower garment,is still very common,and the bonnet almost universal;but their attire is such as produces,in a sufficient degree,the effect intended by the law,of abolishing the dissimilitude of appearance between the Highlanders and the other inhabitants of Britain;and,if dress be supposed to have much influence,facilitates their coalition with their fellow-subjects.

What we have long used we naturally like,and therefore the Highlanders were unwilling to lay aside their plaid,which yet to an unprejudiced spectator must appear an incommodious and cumbersome dress;for hanging loose upon the body,it must flutter in a quick motion,or require one of the hands to keep it close.

The Romans always laid aside the gown when they had anything to do.

It was a dress so unsuitable to war,that the same word which signified a gown signified peace.The chief use of a plaid seems to be this,that they could commodiously wrap themselves in it,when they were obliged to sleep without a better cover.

In our passage from Scotland to Sky,we were wet for the first time with a shower.This was the beginning of the Highland winter,after which we were told that a succession of three dry days was not to be expected for many months.The winter of the Hebrides consists of little more than rain and wind.As they are surrounded by an ocean never frozen,the blasts that come to them over the water are too much softened to have the power of congelation.The salt loughs,or inlets of the sea,which shoot very far into the island,never have any ice upon them,and the pools of fresh water will never bear the walker.The snow that sometimes falls,is soon dissolved by the air,or the rain.

This is not the description of a cruel climate,yet the dark months are here a time of great distress;because the summer can do little more than feed itself,and winter comes with its cold and its scarcity upon families very slenderly provided.