But there is a frightful interval between the seed and timber. He
that calculates the growth of trees, has the unwelcome remembrance
of the shortness of life driven hard upon him. He knows that he is
doing what will never benefit himself; and when he rejoices to see
the stem rise, is disposed to repine that another shall cut it
down.
Plantation is naturally the employment of a mind unburdened with
care, and vacant to futurity, saturated with present good, and at
leisure to derive gratification from the prospect of posterity. He
that pines with hunger, is in little care how others shall be fed.
The poor man is seldom studious to make his grandson rich. It may
be soon discovered, why in a place, which hardly supplies the
cravings of necessity, there has been little attention to the
delights of fancy, and why distant convenience is unregarded, where
the thoughts are turned with incessant solicitude upon every
possibility of immediate advantage.
Neither is it quite so easy to raise large woods, as may be
conceived. Trees intended to produce timber must be sown where
they are to grow; and ground sown with trees must be kept useless
for a long time, inclosed at an expence from which many will be
discouraged by the remoteness of the profit, and watched with that
attention, which, in places where it is most needed, will neither
be given nor bought. That it cannot be plowed is evident; and if
cattle be suffered to graze upon it, they will devour the plants as
fast as they rise. Even in coarser countries, where herds and
flocks are not fed, not only the deer and the wild goats will
browse upon them, but the hare and rabbit will nibble them. It is
therefore reasonable to believe, what I do not remember any
naturalist to have remarked, that there was a time when the world
was very thinly inhabited by beasts, as well as men, and that the
woods had leisure to rise high before animals had bred numbers
sufficient to intercept them.
Sir James Macdonald, in part of the wastes of his territory, set or
sowed trees, to the number, as I have been told, of several
millions, expecting, doubtless, that they would grow up into future
navies and cities; but for want of inclosure, and of that care
which is always necessary, and will hardly ever be taken, all his
cost and labour have been lost, and the ground is likely to
continue an useless heath.
Having not any experience of a journey in Mull, we had no doubt of
reaching the sea by day-light, and therefore had not left Dr.
Maclean's very early. We travelled diligently enough, but found
the country, for road there was none, very difficult to pass. We
were always struggling with some obstruction or other, and our
vexation was not balanced by any gratification of the eye or mind.
We were now long enough acquainted with hills and heath to have
lost the emotion that they once raised, whether pleasing or
painful, and had our mind employed only on our own fatigue. We
were however sure, under Col's protection, of escaping all real
evils. There was no house in Mull to which he could not introduce
us. He had intended to lodge us, for that night, with a gentleman
that lived upon the coast, but discovered on the way, that he then
lay in bed without hope of life.
We resolved not to embarrass a family, in a time of so much sorrow,
if any other expedient could he found; and as the Island of Ulva
was over-against us, it was determined that we should pass the
strait and have recourse to the Laird, who, like the other
gentlemen of the Islands, was known to Col. We expected to find a
ferry-boat, but when at last we came to the water, the boat was
gone.
We were now again at a stop. It was the sixteenth of October, a
time when it is not convenient to sleep in the Hebrides without a
cover, and there was no house within our reach, but that which we
had already declined.
ULVA
While we stood deliberating, we were happily espied from an Irish
ship, that lay at anchor in the strait. The master saw that we
wanted a passage, and with great civility sent us his boat, which
quickly conveyed us to Ulva, where we were very liberally
entertained by Mr. Macquarry.
To Ulva we came in the dark, and left it before noon the next day.
A very exact description therefore will not be expected. We were
told, that it is an Island of no great extent, rough and barren,
inhabited by the Macquarrys; a clan not powerful nor numerous, but
of antiquity, which most other families are content to reverence.
The name is supposed to be a depravation of some other; for the
Earse language does not afford it any etymology. Macquarry is
proprietor both of Ulva and some adjacent Islands, among which is
Staffa, so lately raised to renown by Mr. Banks.
When the Islanders were reproached with their ignorance, or
insensibility of the wonders of Staffa, they had not much to reply.
They had indeed considered it little, because they had always seen
it; and none but philosophers, nor they always, are struck with
wonder, otherwise than by novelty. How would it surprise an
unenlightened ploughman, to hear a company of sober men, inquiring
by what power the hand tosses a stone, or why the stone, when it is
tossed, falls to the ground!
Of the ancestors of Macquarry, who thus lies hid in his
unfrequented Island, I have found memorials in all places where
they could be expected.
Inquiring after the reliques of former manners, I found that in
Ulva, and, I think, no where else, is continued the payment of the
Mercheta Mulierum; a fine in old times due to the Laird at the
marriage of a virgin.
