aia a voyage to thd Hebrides. April \\. 



• ■' a turf or peat hill, so dry that it would have 

 burnt. By means of this, a salt work may be erec- 

 ted with advantage. Reached Clanranald's to dinner, 

 — a large company. Conversed Clanranald as to 

 towns.. — He offered any. quantity of his land round-- 

 Loeh Skipford, from one hundred to five hundred acres,- 

 and to co-operate with the society. By the way, 

 overtook an old man, riding on a small horse, with 

 a young person of each sex attending him. He ac- 

 costed the company with great courteousnefs. Found 

 he was Macm-uirifh Clanranald's blind bard. 

 Of steal's poems. 

 13 th July. Before breakfast attended Macmuirifli ; 

 He said Clanranald's red book contained the ge- 

 nealogy of most of the families of Scotland. That 

 the poems^ it contained related to the genealogies of 

 O'neal. and other Irifh families, " Do you know the 

 poems of Ofsian ?" " St Patrick son of Alpin, request- 

 ed Ofsian to give him some account of Fingal and his 

 wars." The poems he repeated were that account. 

 He repeated at great length, and v/ith great energy 

 and fluency. The gentlemen who understood the lan- 

 guage, bestowed the highest encomiums on the poems. 

 They said they were natural, elegant, and^affecting. 

 One of those gentleman being desired to explain to 

 the strangers the scope of the poem, would have 

 willingly declined the tafk ; he said the explanation 

 would convey a very inadequate idea of the composi- 

 tion. He observed it was more on the Irifli than 

 Scotch Gaelic dialect. Being urged to tell us the sub- 

 ject of the poem he went on thus : " It is a story of 

 a wild boar being killed by Dermid, Ofsian was th^ 



