192 Professor Low on the 



The Haebudes of the Roman geographers, by an early erroj^ 

 of transcription, changed into Hebrides, consist of two groups 

 of Islands ; the first, the Outer Hebrides, consisting of Lewis, 

 Harris, and others, lying out in the western ocean, and ex- 

 tending in a long chain of about 140 miles ; the second, the 

 Inner Hebrides, lying nearer the coast, and stretching from 

 Bute, in the Firth of Clyde, to Skye on the coast of Ross, 

 These numerous and gloomy islands were, beyond a doubt, pos- 

 sessed by the same Celtic race which peopled the other parts 

 of Britain, as is attested by the existing names of places and 

 natural objects, which have survived many bloody changes, 

 and by the like rude monuments as extend from Cornwall to 

 the ancient Ore, — from Wilts to the mountains of Kerry. 

 But the same ferocious seamen who ravaged the northern 

 islands, formed settlements in these. In the Outer Hebrides, 

 Scandinavian names have genera;lly supplanted the Gaelic, 

 and the languajge of the people is mixed with the Frisian and 

 Norse, The Inner Hebrides were not so long and wholly 

 subject to these strangers, and the Gaelic? pames accordingly 

 prevail over the Scandinavian. The conquerors of these 

 islands cared for the sea, and made little use of horses, 

 Nevertheless, all the islands of any magnitude produce 

 horses in considerable numbers. Those of the Outer He- 

 brides are small, round- shouldered, muscular, and thickly 

 clad with long hair. Those of the Inner Hebrides are usu- 

 ally of somewhat larger stature. The best of them used to 

 be produced in Mull, Barra, and Islay ; and here, too, tradi^ 

 tion refers to changes produced by the horses of the wrecked 

 Armada, a part of which having rounded the North Cape, 

 found its way to these dangerous coasts. \i is abundantly pro-, 

 bable that here, as elsewhere, some of the stranger horses 

 were left behind ; but po such traces exist in the present 

 horses of the country as can enable us to refer them to 

 Spanish lineage. They are mostly of a brownish-black 

 colour, some brown, bay, or dun, some of a dull cream colour, 

 and some gray. They have the common characters of rouni 

 shoulders, stout limbs, and short upright pasterns. They are 

 hardy in a high degree, but they have little speed. They have 

 lost much of the reputation which they once possessed. Be-* 



