PRE-NORSE RECORDS. 3 



We have no evidence, direct or indirect, that the Romans 

 visited the Long Island. We know, however, that in the 

 first century, a Roman fleet, by the direction of Agricola, 

 sailed northwards on a voyage of discovery, stopped at the 

 Orkneys, and proceeded by the Hebrides round the west 

 coast of Britain, arriving at the point on the east coast 

 probably the Firthi of Forth or Firth of Tay from 

 which it started. This is the first recorded voyage that 

 proved Britain to be an island. It is not improbable that 

 the Long Island was visited during this voyage, but with 

 that probability we must rest content. We learn from 

 Bede that the Orkneys were added to the Roman Empire 

 by Claudius during his expedition to Britain, but there is 

 nothing said about the Hebrides. 



Solinus, who wrote in the third century, gives an interest- 

 ing account of five Ebudae, which Camden thought were 

 Lewis, the two Uists, Benbecula, and Barra the Long 

 Island in fact. Skene, however, is not of that opinion, but 

 there appears to be cumulative evidence to bear out the 

 hypothesis that the name Ebuda may have been applied 

 to Lewis. According to Solinus, the government of the 

 Ebudae was a curious mixture of monarchy and com- 

 munism. " The King," he says, " has no property ; all 

 things belong to the community ; and there are certain 

 laws to oblige him to do justice. And that avarice may 

 not depart from truth, he is taught justice by poverty, 

 having nothing of his own but living on the public." 

 It is curious and significant to notice that the King, 

 according to this historian, practised a degraded form 

 of polygamy, and was not succeeded by his son, thus 

 affording an illustration of the peculiarities of the 

 Pictish form of succession to the throne. Solinus fur- 

 ther states that the inhabitants of those islands lived 

 entirely on fish and milk, the use of corn being unknown 

 to them. From the latter circumstance, Camden derived 

 his meaning of the word " Hebrides," which has already 

 been noticed. It is not unlikely that the account given by 

 Solinus is, in the main, correct, although, as Dr. John 



