ISLES OF SCOTLAND. 299 



of the last century. They had regular colleges and professors, and 

 the students took degrees according to their proficiency. Many of 

 the Celtic rites, some of which were too barbarous to be retained, or 

 even mentioned, are now abolished. The inhabitants, however, still 

 preserve the most profound respect and affection for their several 

 chieftains, notwithstanding all the pains that have been taken by the 

 British legislature to break those connexions, which experience has 

 shown to be so dangerous to government. The common people are 

 but liule better lodged than the Norwegians and Laplanders : though 

 they certainly fare better ; for they have oatmeal, plenty of fish and 

 fowl, cheese, butter, milk and whey ; and also mutton, beef, goat, kid, 

 and venison. They indulge themselves, like their forefathers, in a 

 romantic poetical turn ; and the agility of both sexes in the exercises 

 of the field, and in dancing to their favourite music, is remarkable. 



The inhabitants of the Hebrides, particularly of the isle of Skye, 

 formerly pretended, at least many of them, to the power of foreknow- 

 ing future events by what was termed the second sight. This gift, 

 which in the Erse language is called Taish, is supposed to be a super- 

 natural faculty of seeing visions of events before they happen. Many 

 extraordinary stories in support of this delusion are related in these 

 islands, and some of them have been vouched by persons of sense, 

 character, and learning. The adepts of the second sight pretend 

 that they have certain revelations, or rather presentations either 

 really or typically to their eyes, of certain events that are to happen 

 in the compass of twenty-four or forty-eight hours. We do not, how- 

 ever, from the best information, observe that any two of those adepts 

 agree as to the manner and form of those revelations, or that they 

 have any fixed method for interpreting their typical appearances. 

 The truth seems to be, that those islanders, by indulging themselves 

 in lazy habits, acquire visionary ideas, and overheat their imagina- 

 tions, till they are presented with those phantasms, which they mis- 

 take for fatidical or prophetic manifestations. They instantly begin 

 to prophesy; and it would be absurd to suppose, that, amidst many 

 thousand predictions, some may not happen to be fulfilled ; and these, 

 being well attested, give a sanction to the whole. 



Many learned men have been of opinion, that the Hebrides being 

 the most westerly islands where the Celts settled, their language 

 must remain there in its greatest purity. This opinion, though very 

 plausible, has failed in experience. Many Celtic words, it is true, as 

 well as customs, are there found : but the vast intercourse which the 

 Hebrides had with the Danes, the Norwegians, and other northern 

 people, whose language has no affinity with the Celtic, has rendered 

 their language a compound ; so that it approaches in no degree to 

 the purity of the Celtic, commonly called Erse, which was spoken by 

 their neighbours in Lochaber and the opposite coasts of Scotland, the 

 undoubted descendents of the Celts, among whom their language 

 remains more unmixed. 



The religion professed in the Hebrides is chiefly presbyterian, as 

 established in the church of Scotland : but popery and ignorance are 

 still but too prevalent. 



The ORKNEY ISLANDS, anciently the Orcades, lie to the north 

 of Dungsby-head, between 58° 48' and 59° 2C/ of north latitude ; being 

 separated from the most northern part of Scotland by a tempestuous 

 strait called the Pentland Frith, twenty-four miles long and twelve 

 broad. They are nearly eighty in number, but only twenty-six are 



