As The Inhabitants Of The Hebrides Lived, For Many Ages, In
Continual Expectation Of Hostilities, The Chief Of Every Clan
Resided In A Fortress.
This house was accessible only from the
water, till the last possessor opened an entrance by stairs upon
the land.
They had formerly reason to be afraid, not only of declared wars
and authorized invaders, or of roving pirates, which, in the
northern seas, must have been very common; but of inroads and
insults from rival clans, who, in the plenitude of feudal
independence, asked no leave of their Sovereign to make war on one
another. Sky has been ravaged by a feud between the two mighty
powers of Macdonald and Macleod. Macdonald having married a
Macleod upon some discontent dismissed her, perhaps because she had
brought him no children. Before the reign of James the Fifth, a
Highland Laird made a trial of his wife for a certain time, and if
she did not please him, he was then at liberty to send her away.
This however must always have offended, and Macleod resenting the
injury, whatever were its circumstances, declared, that the wedding
had been solemnized without a bonfire, but that the separation
should be better illuminated; and raising a little army, set fire
to the territories of Macdonald, who returned the visit, and
prevailed.
Another story may show the disorderly state of insular
neighbourhood. The inhabitants of the Isle of Egg, meeting a boat
manned by Macleods, tied the crew hand and foot, and set them a-
drift. Macleod landed upon Egg, and demanded the offenders; but
the inhabitants refusing to surrender them, retreated to a cavern,
into which they thought their enemies unlikely to follow them.
Macleod choked them with smoke, and left them lying dead by
families as they stood.
Here the violence of the weather confined us for some time, not at
all to our discontent or inconvenience. We would indeed very
willingly have visited the Islands, which might be seen from the
house scattered in the sea, and I was particularly desirous to have
viewed Isay; but the storms did not permit us to launch a boat, and
we were condemned to listen in idleness to the wind, except when we
were better engaged by listening to the ladies.
We had here more wind than waves, and suffered the severity of a
tempest, without enjoying its magnificence. The sea being broken
by the multitude of islands, does not roar with so much noise, nor
beat the shore with such foamy violence, as I have remarked on the
coast of Sussex. Though, while I was in the Hebrides, the wind was
extremely turbulent, I never saw very high billows.
The country about Dunvegan is rough and barren. There are no
trees, except in the orchard, which is a low sheltered spot
surrounded with a wall.
When this house was intended to sustain a siege, a well was made in
the court, by boring the rock downwards, till water was found,
which though so near to the sea, I have not heard mentioned as
brackish, though it has some hardness, or other qualities, which
make it less fit for use; and the family is now better supplied
from a stream, which runs by the rock, from two pleasing water-
falls.
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