By Such Acquisitions As These, The Hebrides May In Time Rise Above
Their Annual Distress.
Wherever heath will grow, there is reason
to think something better may draw nourishment; and by trying the
production of other places, plants will be found suitable to every
soil.
Col has many lochs, some of which have trouts and eels, and others
have never yet been stocked; another proof of the negligence of the
Islanders, who might take fish in the inland waters, when they
cannot go to sea.
Their quadrupeds are horses, cows, sheep, and goats. They have
neither deer, hares, nor rabbits. They have no vermin, except
rats, which have been lately brought thither by sea, as to other
places; and are free from serpents, frogs, and toads.
The harvest in Col, and in Lewis, is ripe sooner than in Sky; and
the winter in Col is never cold, but very tempestuous. I know not
that I ever heard the wind so loud in any other place; and Mr.
Boswell observed, that its noise was all its own, for there were no
trees to increase it.
Noise is not the worst effect of the tempests; for they have thrown
the sand from the shore over a considerable part of the land; and
it is said still to encroach and destroy more and more pasture; but
I am not of opinion, that by any surveys or landmarks, its limits
have been ever fixed, or its progression ascertained. If one man
has confidence enough to say, that it advances, nobody can bring
any proof to support him in denying it. The reason why it is not
spread to a greater extent, seems to be, that the wind and rain
come almost together, and that it is made close and heavy by the
wet before the storms can put it in motion. So thick is the bed,
and so small the particles, that if a traveller should be caught by
a sudden gust in dry weather, he would find it very difficult to
escape with life.
For natural curiosities, I was shown only two great masses of
stone, which lie loose upon the ground; one on the top of a hill,
and the other at a small distance from the bottom. They certainly
were never put into their present places by human strength or
skill; and though an earthquake might have broken off the lower
stone, and rolled it into the valley, no account can be given of
the other, which lies on the hill, unless, which I forgot to
examine, there be still near it some higher rock, from which it
might be torn. All nations have a tradition, that their earliest
ancestors were giants, and these stones are said to have been
thrown up and down by a giant and his mistress. There are so many
more important things, of which human knowledge can give no
account, that it may be forgiven us, if we speculate no longer on
two stones in Col.
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