Gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 1

S8
BENBECULA.
weeks on the reek, and a fortnight ashore with
their families. A cutter of fifty tons burden is
kept in constant occupation attending the Bell
Rock, the Isle of May, and Inchkeith light
houses. The construction of the light-house
took place under the direction and by the ar-
rangements of Mr. Robert Stevenson, civil
engineer, Edinburgh, in a way which did him
much honour. In 1824 the same gentleman
published " an account of the Bell-Rock
Light-house," with a view of the institution
and progress of the Northern Light-houses,
in the form of a splendid quarto volume,
which will be of great use in future under-
takings of the kind. The Bell- Rock Light-
house is now one of the most prominent
and serviceable beacons on the Scottish
shores, and has been the means of preventing
innumerable wrecks. In summer it is occa-
sionally visited by parties of pleasure from
Leith and other places, when every attention
is shown by the keepers. Though perched in
a situation the most awful during commotions
of the elements, these men feel no alarm for
their safety. In cases of very heavy gales
blowing from particular directions, they mention
that they feel the fabric yield or tremble a
little ; but nothing to excite any disquietude.
la fine weather at low tides they can walk out
upon the reef, and indulge in the amusement
of fishing for cod, haddocks, and all the other
kinds of white fish of these seas, of which
there is here great abundance. They keep an
album, in which the names and impromptua of
visitors are inscribed. On one occasion Sir
Walter Scott, baronet, honoured this Pharos
of the Scottish seas with a visit, and left the
following beautiful lines :
Pharos loquitur.
Far on the bosom of the deep,
O'er those wild shelves my watch I keep :
A ruddy gem of changeful light,
Bound on the dusky brow of night :
The seaman bids my lustre hail,
And scorns to strike his tim'rous sail.
BELL'S MILLS, a village in the neigh-
bourhood of Edinburgh, on the Water of
Leith, and through which the road passes to
Queensferry. There are some flour mills
here, and a number of the inhabitants are en-
gaged in feeding pigs for the metropolitan
market.
BELLIE, a parish partly in Moray and
partly in Banffshire, situated on the east bank
of the river Spey at its mouth, six miles in
length by four in breadth, bounded by the sea
on the north, and on the south-east by Rath-
ven and Boharm. The county of Moray
comes here east of the Spey to a small extent,
and on this piece of ground, which is in the
parish of Bellie, stands the town of Fochabers.
When William Duke of Cumberland was on
his march to fight Prince Charles at Culloden,
he slept a night in the manse of Bellie. This
is a very fine and fertile district, but it suffered
severely by the inundation of 1829, and will
not soon recover its former appearance.
Fochabers is now the kirk-town of the
parish, and we refer for further particulars to
that head.
BELRINNES, a lofty hill in Banffshire,
on the side of the Spey, partly in the parish
of Aberlour. It gives a name to the battle of
Glenlivet, fought at its base, in 1595, between
the forces of the Catholic lords, Huntly, Errol,
and Angus, and those of the government un-
der the Earl of Argyle.
BENACHALLY, a hill in the eastern
extremity of Perthshire, parish of Clunie,
computed at 1800 feet in height. At the foot
of the hill, on its north side, lies the lake of
Benachally, about a mile in length by half a
mile in breadth, and the surface of which is
supposed to be about 900 feet above the level
of the sea.
BENACHHAN, (Loch) a small lake
near the southern border of Ross-shire.
BENBECULA, one of the islands of the
Hebrides, lying betwixt North and South Uist,
and from eight to nine miles in length and
breadth. This island is mostly fiat and sandy,
with protruding rocks, and has attracted the
curiosity of different tourists. In the interior
it possesses several fresh water lakes, and its
shores, especially on the east, north, and south,
are indented with an endless variety of bays or
salt water lochs, as well as fringed with islands
of a small and large size. " The sea," says
Macculloch, " is all islands, and the land all
lakes. That which is not rock is sand, that
which is not mud is bog, that which is not
bog is lake, and that which is not lake is
sea ; and the whole is a labyrinth of islands,
peninsulas, promontories, bays, and channels."
It is an ancient property of the Chiefs of Clan-
ranald, and the chief value consists in the kelp
which is manufactured on its shores.