In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

78 11 R The Outer Hebrides I was now separating myself from Boswell and Johnson for several weeks. I was going where they and hardly anyone else in the eighteenth-century could have imagined going: to the Outer Hebrides, known as the Western Isles, the farthest western reaches of Scotland. Actually not that many people in the twenty-first century go there, either. It’s remote even from the places I’ve been that are remote. It was there Bonnie Prince Charlie first thought himself safe, and with good reason, although the English were so passionate about revenge that they followed him even there. Skye native Martin Martin (his father so loved his name that he named him twice) traveled to the Hebrides, and his 1703 book—A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, which so impressed the young Johnson, you may recall—is one of the first published accounts of what was there. (A Scottish clergyman named Donald Munro had visited some of the islands in 1549, but his published account lacks the clarity , thoroughness, and fame of Martin’s.) Martin noted how little others knew about the islands: “Foreigners, sailing thro the Western Isles, have been tempted . . . to imagine the Inhabitants, as well as the Places of their residences, are barbarous.” London’s Royal Society in 1690 knew virtually nothing of life in the Hebrides. In fact, as related by Martin, the people were civilized—with some quirks—and lived relatively harmoniously, at least once the Vikings finally stopped invading and left them alone. It’s difficult for anyone to know much about a place that doesn’t exist on maps. And the Outer Hebrides didn’t appear on maps—at least on any kind of map that got them in approximately the right order and the right place— until John Elder’s, which was published about 1543. One of the reasons it The Outer Hebrides 79 was so hard to map these islands was the necessity of mapmakers having to do their task in two ways, not just by land but also by sea. It was almost impossible to get a sense of the Hebrides, and except for the Vikings, there were few geographers with enough maritime experience and willingness to accomplish that formidable task. These “outer isles” form a 130-mile-long archipelago stretching from Lewis and Harris (they share one island but seem as if they are separate) in the far north to the Uists and Barra in the south. There are some two hundred islands and islets that comprise this area, though most of them consist of only a few rocks and remain uninhabited, reachable only by boat, and lacking much reason to visit them under any circumstances. The population of these islands now is about twenty-seven thousand; the capital , Stornoway, has about eight thousand people. There is a lot of empty space here. To get to the Outer Isles requires a boat in most cases; there is limited air service from the mainland, because it is always subject to the weather (as is everything in Scotland). There are surprisingly good roads for travelers, a few single tracks, and markings are good if you can read Gaelic. There are bilingual maps available since few visitors have a clue what the Gaelic words mean (Steornabhagh is Stornoway, for example). The Outer Hebrides remains the heart of Gaelic culture, not just because of the road signs, but also on account of the way of life. A majority of the islanders can speak Gaelic, though its usage is threatened by the dominance of English and incursions of everyone from travelers like me to businessmen from the mainland. The government here is determined to preserve the language, and it survives in the schools (where it is taught as part of nursery school, play school, and primary education) and in the church, where it is the means of communication in the services. Gaelic is lovely to the ear, less so to the eye, I’m sorry to say. Here’s why: This sentence in English— “In Scotland, there are some 66,000 Gaelic speakers and at least as many again in other parts of the world”—in Gaelic becomes, “A’ Ghaidhlig an SgoileAnn an Alba, tha mu 66,000 a’ bruidhinn na Ghaidhlig agus uimhir eile co-dhiu air feadh ant-saoghail.” The survival of language seems clearly worth much more than anyone’s inconvenience, however. Tourism isn’t nearly as important on the Outer Hebrides...

Share