100 BENBECULA. -GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 



montories which open and shut upon him on all hands, 

 loses the recollection of his place, and the clue to his 

 return. Surprising and pleasing as this scenery is, it 

 offers nothing picturesque, from the almost absolute 

 identity of the parts and the lowness of the land ; which 

 consequently possesses no features adapted to land- 

 scape, void as it is of trees and of discriminating objects. 

 Nature may be truly said to have here wasted her capa- 

 bilities on a climate to which she has refused vegetation, 

 nay almost denied a soil. The imagination may paint 

 these watery regions situated in a fine climate with sunny 

 skies, adorned with trees, decked with flowers, and em- 

 bellished with works of art ; and may, with Mirza, in its 

 dreams transport itself to the flowery islands of the 

 blessed. But the spectator soon rouses himself from his 

 trance, and sees grey rocks covered with brown heath, 

 and shores deformed with sea-weeds, among which a 

 rising and falling tide alternately conceals and exposes 

 a bottom of dark ooze. 



The western side of Benbecula is bounded by a flat 

 sandy shore, and, except one large indentation, presents 

 a sea line comparatively even. Lower in level it cannot 

 well be, since the land scarcely rises any where twelve 

 feet above the high water mark ; but it is freer from 

 rocks than the eastern, and presents therefore a more 

 uniform flat. The sand which forms part of this western 

 shore extends to the north and south channels, producing 

 bars called the north and south strands, which the retiring 

 tide leaves nearly dry, so as to present fords of commu- 

 nication between the islands. The interior land, which 

 in a general view is of a flat aspect, is interspersed with 

 low rocks and irregular eminences not exceeding a few 

 feet in height. Its eastern half is almost entirely covered 

 with peat, on which scarcely any vegetables grow but 

 Erica tetralix, starved plants of Erica vulgaris, and a few 

 of the moory grasses ; the greater part exposing the 

 naked brown surface and being intersected with numerous 

 soft bogs. In summer it is difficult to cross it, in winter 



