Lochbuy Has, Like The Other Insular Chieftains, Quitted The Castle
That Sheltered His Ancestors, And Lives Near It, In A Mansion Not
Very Spacious Or Splendid.
I have seen no houses in the Islands
much to be envied for convenience or magnificence, yet they bare
testimony to the progress of arts and civility, as they shew that
rapine and surprise are no longer dreaded, and are much more
commodious than the ancient fortresses.
The castles of the Hebrides, many of which are standing, and many
ruined, were always built upon points of land, on the margin of the
sea. For the choice of this situation there must have been some
general reason, which the change of manners has left in obscurity.
They were of no use in the days of piracy, as defences of the
coast; for it was equally accessible in other places. Had they
been sea-marks or light-houses, they would have been of more use to
the invader than the natives, who could want no such directions of
their own waters: for a watch-tower, a cottage on a hill would
have been better, as it would have commanded a wider view.
If they be considered merely as places of retreat, the situation
seems not well chosen; for the Laird of an Island is safest from
foreign enemies in the center; on the coast he might be more
suddenly surprised than in the inland parts; and the invaders, if
their enterprise miscarried, might more easily retreat. Some
convenience, however, whatever it was, their position on the shore
afforded; for uniformity of practice seldom continues long without
good reason.
A castle in the Islands is only a single tower of three or four
stories, of which the walls are sometimes eight or nine feet thick,
with narrow windows, and close winding stairs of stone. The top
rises in a cone, or pyramid of stone, encompassed by battlements.
The intermediate floors are sometimes frames of timber, as in
common houses, and sometimes arches of stone, or alternately stone
and timber; so that there was very little danger from fire. In the
center of every floor, from top to bottom, is the chief room, of no
great extent, round which there are narrow cavities, or recesses,
formed by small vacuities, or by a double wall. I know not whether
there be ever more than one fire-place. They had not capacity to
contain many people, or much provision; but their enemies could
seldom stay to blockade them; for if they failed in the first
attack, their next care was to escape.
The walls were always too strong to be shaken by such desultory
hostilities; the windows were too narrow to be entered, and the
battlements too high to be scaled. The only danger was at the
gates, over which the wall was built with a square cavity, not
unlike a chimney, continued to the top. Through this hollow the
defendants let fall stones upon those who attempted to break the
gate, and poured down water, perhaps scalding water, if the attack
was made with fire.
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