Skye, Island of (Scotland) -- Description and travel
When you drive out of Portree you are in Macleod's country, and you
discover that the character of the scenery has changed. Looking
back, the Cuchullins are wild and pale on the horizon, but everything
around is brown, softly-swelling, and monotonous. The hills are
round and low, and except when an occasional boulder crops out on
their sides like a wart, are smooth as a seal's back. They are
gray-green in colour, and may be grazed to the top. Expressing once
to a shepherd my admiration of the Cuchullins, the man replied, while
he swept with his arm the entire range, "There's no feeding there for
twenty wethers!" here, however, there is sufficient feeding to
compensate for any lack of beauty. About three miles out of Portree
you come upon a solitary-looking school-house by the wayside, and a
few yards farther to a division of the roads. A finger-post informs
you that the road to the right leads to Uig, that to the left to
Dunvegan. As I am at present bound for Dunvegan, I skirr along to
the left, and after an hour's drive come in sight of blue Loch
Snizort, with Skeabost sitting whitely on its margin. Far inland
from the broad Minch, like one of those wavering swords which
mediæval painters place in the hands of archangels, has Snizort come
wandering; and it is the curious mixture of brine and pasture-land,
of mariner life and shepherd life, which gives its charm to this
portion of the island. The Lochs are narrow, and you almost fancy a
strong-lunged man could shout across. The sea-gull skims above the
feeding sheep, the shepherd can watch the sail of the sloop, laden
with meal, creeping from point to point. In the spiritual atmosphere
of the country the superstitions of ocean and moorland mingle like
two odours. Above all places which I have seen in Skye, Skeabost has
a lowland look. There are almost no turf-huts to be seen in the
neighbourhood; the houses are built of stone and lime, and are tidily
white-washed. The hills are low and smooth; on the lower slopes corn
and wheat are grown; and from a little distance the greenness of
cultivation looks like a palpable smile--a strange contrast to the
monotonous district through which, for an hour or so, you have
driven. As you pass the inn, and drive across the bridge, you notice
that there is an island in the stony stream, and that this island is
covered with ruins. The Skyeman likes to bury his dead in islands,
and this one in the stream at Skeabost is a crowded cemetery. I
forded the stream, and wandered for an hour amongst the tombs and
broken stones. [Sidenote: The Island of Graves.] There are traces of
an ancient chapel on the island, but tradition does not even make a
guess at its builder's name or the date of its erection. There are
old slabs, lying sideways, with the figures of recumbent men with
swords in their hands, and inscriptions--indecipherable now--carved
on them. There is the grave of a Skye clergyman who, if his epitaph
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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