The Highlands and Western Isles of Scotland: Containing Descriptions of Their Scenery and Antiquities, with an Account of the Political History ... Present Condition of the People, &c. ... Founded on a Series of Annual Journeys Between the Years 1811 and 1821 ... in Letters to Sir Walter Scott, Bart, Volume 2Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1824 - Hebrides (Scotland) |
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admit ancient antiquaries antiquity appear Arran bagpipe beauty boat breeze Brodick Bute Cantyre castle Celtic Celts character cliffs Clyde coast colour cultivation dark effect equally existence feeling Fingal fish fishery Gaelic green ground harp Highland hills inlet instrument Iona Ireland Irish islands Isles Kerrera King known lake Lamlash land landscape least less Loch Aline Loch Carron Loch Etive Loch Fyne Loch Hourn Loch Long Loch Maree manner matter melody miles modern mountain Mull musicians nature never object ornament Ossian picturesque poems poetry possessed present probably produced prove racter Ransa remarkable render road rocks rocky rude sails scarcely scene scenery Scotland Scots Scottish seems seen shore side Staffa stone summit supposed thing Thurso tide tion towers trace trees Ullapool valley variety vessel Welsh western whole wild wind wood
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Page 373 - Heralds of this tempestuous College, John Macdonald had blown before the Emperor of China, the great Kien Long, brother to the Sun and Moon. He had accompanied Lord Macartney's embassy. Both had gained prizes, and, as pipers, were natural rivals ; like wits, " game cocks to one another." The drone of Donald's pipe streamed with "bonny flags" of red and blue, while " he made his cheeks as red as crimson, and bobbed when he blew the bags." Meantime the banner of defiance hoisted on his antagonist's...
Page 344 - Round about, there are four mountains, which seem as if they had tumbled down from the clouds ; having nothing to do with the country or each other, either in shape, materials, position or character, and which look very much as if they were wondering how they got there.
Page 463 - In the old village of Stornaway, the inside of the house is the natural and hereditary place of the midden; but were I to tell you how it is accumulated and managed, I should tell a tale little fitting for delicate ears, or noses.
Page 250 - The masonry is remarkably well laid and the lines of the curvature are beautifully preserved, the form being that of a truncated cone.
Page 35 - ... rendered sensible by the suddenness with which we lose sight of our companions, and by the sight of unheard torrents. Perpetual twilight appears to reign here, even at mid-day : a gloomy and grey atmosphere uniting, into one visible sort of obscurity, the only lights which the objects ever receive, reflected from rock to rock, and from the clouds which so often involve the lofty boundaries of this valley.
Page 152 - ETIVE. panions, and the scene still was unchanged : I thought that I had proceeded but a few yards ; yet the boat was a cockleshell on the shore, and the men were invisible. There is something in the colouring of this spot which is equally singular, and which adds much to the general sublime simplicity of the whole. Rocks of grey granite mixed with pastures of a subdued brown, rise all around, from the water's edge to the lofty and misty summits of Cruachan and Buachaillc Etivc, which last, like...
Page 23 - ... from the sea and so involved in all that class of ornament and scenery which we are accustomed to associate with fresh water, that it is scarcely possible to divest ourselves of the idea of being in an inland lake. At the same time it is no less beautiful than extraordinary; the land rising suddenly and high from the water, often into lofty cliffs interspersed and varied with wood, the trees growing from the fissures of the rocks even at the very margin of the sea, and aiding, with the narrowness...
Page 272 - II, 455-6. they had been suffered by a neighbouring farmer to build their hut from his woods and to graze their only cow upon his waste; and thus, with the assistance of the shell fish which they caught at low water, and some casual labour, they had contrived to live through that portion of the summer which was past. How the winter was to be surmounted, it was both too easy and too painful to imagine."1 Yet he did not feel that the human loss ought to be weighed against the material gain.
Page 151 - Nor is there one. The rocks and bays on the shore, which might elsewhere attract attention, are here swallowed up in the enormous dimensions of the surrounding mountains, and the wide and ample expanse of the lake. A solitary house, here fearfully solitary, situated far up in Glen Etive, is only visible when at the upper extremity ; and if there be a tree, as there are in a few places on the shore, it is unseen ; extinguished as if it were a humble mountain flower, by the universal magnitude around.
Page 54 - ... with the subdued tints of green, and with the colours of the sea and the sky, but setting off* to advantage all the intricacies of the columnar structure...