“I heard my own mountain goats bleating aloft, And knew the sweet strain that the corn reapers sung.” “They accompany in the Highlands every action, which can be done in equal time, with an appropriate strain, which has, they say, not much meaning, but the effects are regularity and cheerfulness,” writes the historian of Scottish music. The ancient song, by which the rowers of galleys were animated, may be supposed to have been of this metrical kind and synchronous. There is an oar song still used by the Hebridians, and we all recall the boat song in “The Lady of the Lake,” which begins:-- “Hail to the chief who in triumph advances.” Finely, in “Marmion,” is the story of rhythmic motion joined to song to lighten labor, told by Fitz-Eustace, the squire, concerning the lost battle, on which Scott comments, with an American reference:-- “Such have I heard, in Scottish land, Rise from the busy harvest band, When falls before the mountaineer, On lowland plains, the ripened ear. Now one shrill voice the notes prolong, Now a wild chorus swells the song; Oft have I listened, and stood still, As it came softened up the hill, And deemed it the lament of men Who languished for their native glen; And thought, how sad would be such sound, On Susquehanna’s swampy ground, Kentucky’s wood-encumbered brake, Or wild Ontario’s boundless lake; Where heart-sick exiles, in the strain, Recalled fair Scotland’s hills again!” Yet it is not in secular music only that the Scots excel. They have also a rich treasury of devotion and praise, though for centuries the superabundance of song which had only worldly associations and was linked with the lower pleasures made them put superfine value on the Hebrew Psalms as being most fit for the soul’s utterance before the Infinite. CHAPTER XII SCOTLAND’S ISLAND WORLD: IONA AND STAFFA While Scotland is, by its definition, a “pene-insula,” or “peninsula,” that is, “almost an island,” it has, out in the Atlantic Ocean, an archipelago of five hundred islands. Of these about one fifth are inhabited, and of these one third have each a population of only ten or even fewer souls. This great group lies wholly to the westward, for the east coast of Scotland is singularly free from islands, the number on this side being very much like that of angels’ visits, which are spoken of as few and far between. These islands are all situated within three degrees of latitude. Another name for them is the “Hebrides,” which term was formerly held to embrace all the Scottish western islands, including also the peninsula of Kintyre and islets in the Firth of Clyde, as well as the Isle of Man and the Isle of Rathlin.