Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 4

HEBRIDES
the SW is Baleshare Island, with 8 miles to the W the
group of small islands known as the Monach Islands.
There are a number of islets about Benbecula, but the
only one of any size is Wiay at the NE corner. Con-
nected with South Uist the only islands of importance
are Eriskay and Lingay at the S end. Of the Barra
Isles the principal is Barra, with the isles of Fioray,
Fuda, Gighay, and Hellisay, at the N end ; and
A r atersay, Muldoanich, Flodday, Sanderay, Lingay, and
Pabbay ; while farther S still are Mingalay and Bernera,
the latter being the most southerly of all the Outer
Hebrides. About 20 miles off the centre of the W coast
of Lewis is the small group of the Flannan Isles or the
Seven Hunters. Sixty miles W of Harris in N latitude
57° 49' 20", 'set far amid the melancholy main,' is the
small group consisting of St Kilda and the adjacent
islets of Levenish, Soa, and Boreray. Lewis is separated
from the W coast of Ross and Sutherland by the arm of
the Atlantic called the Minch, which is from 24 to 40
miles wide ; while Harris, North Uist, and Benbecula
are separated from Skye by tbe Little Minch, which is
from 15 to 18 miles wide. A line following the course
of the stream flowing into the head of Loch Resort, and
then turning round the S end of the high ground
between Loch Langabhat and Loch Seaforth, and
reaching the latter about the centre of the W side,
opposite the centre of Eilean Seaforth, is the boundary
between Lewis and Harris. The former, with the
Shiant Isles, belongs to the county of Koss ; Harris and
all the other islands to the S are in Inveruess-shire.
' The disposition,' says Hugh Miller in his Cruise of the
Betsey, ' of land and water on this coast suggests the
idea that the Western Highlands, from the line in the
interior whence the rivers descend to the Atlantic with
the islands beyond to the Outer Hebrides, are all parts
of one great mountainous plain, inclined slantways into
the sea. First the long withdrawing valleys of the
mainland, with their brown mossy streams, change
their character as they dip beneath the sea-level and
become salt-water lochs. The lines of hills that rise
over them jut out as promontories, till cut off by some
transverse valley, lowered still more deeply into the
brine, and that exists as a kyle, minch, or sound, swept
twice every tide by powerful currents. The sea deepens
as the plain slopes downward ; mountain-chains stand
up out of the water as larger islands, single mouutains
as smaller ones, lower eminences as mere groups of
pointed rocks ; till at length, as we pass outwards, all
trace of the submerged land disappears, and the wide
ocean stretches out and away its unfathomable depths.
. . . But an examination of the geology of the coast,
with its promontories and islands, communicates a
different idea. These islands and promontories prove
to be of very various ages and origin. The Outer
Hebrides may have existed as the inner skeleton of
some ancient country contemporary with the mainland,
and that bore on its upper soils the productions of
perished creations at a time when by much the larger
portion of the Inner Hebrides — Skye and Mull and the
Small Isles — existed as part of the bottom of a wide
sound inhabited by the Cephalopoda and Enaliosaurians
of the Lias and the Oolite.' The rock of the Outer
Hebrides is gneiss, as is also that of Iona, Tyree, and
Coll, and it is to the hard tough nature of this that
their continued existence is still due, for, acting as a
screen to protect the western coast of the mainland from
the wild waves of the Atlantic, they have to withstand
the fury of a surge that would probably have long since
destroyed anything less durable. Even as it is, the
broken character of the groups, the winding character
of the coast-lines, and the number and the twisting
shores of the bays and lochs attest the severity of the
struggle. The currents and waves in the narrow straits
and passages are everywhere powerful and dangerous,
and require the greatest skill and care in their naviga-
tion, while in stormy weather they are often for days,
and sometimes even for weeks, quite impassable. 'The
steamship ploughs her way through the passage, though
sometimes with difficulty, and those who stand on her
HEBRIDES
deck look down on the boiling gulf in safety, but it is
different with those who sit in a tiny craft with the
water lapping around and over them, and the bubbling
roar painfully audible. These tideways are ugly indeed
to the seaman's eye.' One of the most dreaded passages
is the Gulf of Corrievrechan between Scarba and Jura.
It 'is the Hebridean Mahlstrom, ever regarded with
fearful eyes by the most daring sailors of the inland
deep. Poets may be allowed to sing like Campbell of
"the distant isles that hear the loud Corbrechtan
roar ; " or, like Scott, of
' " Scarba's isle, whose tortured shore
Still rings to Corryvreckan's roar," '
but the dread in the heart of the seaman is far from
poetical, for, much as the accounts have been exag-
gerated, the danger is very real here as elsewhere, ' con-
sisting, not in the whirlpools, but in the terrific sea,
raised by the wind when contending with the tidal
wave and the long Atlantic swell in the narrow passage
of the sound. . . . Caught in the numberless cur-
rents, a ship becomes at once unmanageable, and must
drive whither Fate directs, either to strike ou some
corner of the coast, or to spring her planks and sink to
the bottom ; or perhaps, as happened on one traditional
occasion, to be swept in safety out of the tide along the
Jura shore. In the most dangerous part of the gulf,
where it is a hundred fathoms deep, there is a sub-
merged pyramidal rock, rising precipitously to within
fifteen feet of the surface, and the result is a sub-
aqueous overfall, causing in its turn infinite gyrations,
eddies, and counter-currents. There is most danger at
the flood tide, which sets from the eastward through
the gulf at the rate of ten or twelve miles an hour, and
encounters the whole swell of the Western Atlantic
rolling into the narrow sound. At the turn of the tide
there is a brief lull, during which in calm weather boats
have passed through ; but the attempt is at all times to
be avoided, as the slightest miscalculation as to the
tides, or the sudden rising of the wind, would render
escape impossible. ' The roar of Corrievrechan is heard
at all times at a considerable distance. In all the
narrower passages the tidal currents run so strong, that
it is quite impossible for a sailing vessel to attempt to
oppose them. The water whirls and seethes and boils,
tossing boat or vessel about, now in one direction, now
in another, and carrying either helplessly forward, for
unless the wind be very fresh, it is left behind, and the
helm is useless. The squalls, too, are very dangerous
and fickle, and the Minch is particularly noted for its
stormy seas. ' Go in December,' says Robert Buchanan,
in speaking of the wildness of the Hebridean straits, ' to
the Sound of Harris, and on some stormy day gaze on
the wild scene around you ; the whirling waters, sown
everywhere with isles and rocks — here the tide foaming
round and round in an eddy powerful enough to drag
along the largest ship — there a huge patch of sea-weed
staining the waves, and betraying the lurking reef
below. . . . Watch the terrors of the great Sound,
the countless reefs and rocks, the eddies, the furious
wind-swept waters, and pray for the strange seamen
whose fate it may be to drive helplessly thither. Better
the great ocean in all its terror and might. '
The scenery of the Inner Hebrides does not differ
very much from that of the barer and wilder parts of
the Highlands. There are the same rugged mountains,
with stretches of moorland or peat moss alternating with
rough pasture or stony waste, the same hill crofts, and the
same cultivated districts in the low grounds and along
the courses of the streams or the shores of some of the
bays. In the Outer Hebrides, however, the difference is
considerable. There the islands are destitute of wood ;
and though they are all more or less hilly, the hills are
low, except in Harris, where they reach an extreme
height of 2662 feet, and they are, besides, everywhere
so smooth and heavy in their outlines as to possess but
little grandeur. To the S of the Sound of Harris,
between that island and North Uist, the hilly ground is
chiefly confined to the E coast, while the western shore
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