Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

BARRA.
ness to North Rona and Barra Head ; when the greasy
thumbs that have just been contesting for cold fowl and
Yorkshire ham, shall be leaving- their marks on these
pages, and when mates and cabin boys, weavers and
tobacconists, shall be trying to spell those little grey
Greek words, and wishing that Sir Walter Scott's letters
were in gude broad Scotch. In time, the fire-teaser, or
some other learned Sawney, shall condense us into a
neat little pocket abridgment for the ladies and gentlemen
who have taken their places on board the St. Kilda,
Alister Mac Kettle, master, bound on a tour of pleasure
to the Western Islands. Why should not all these events
happen. Greenock can now circumnavigate Loch Lomond
after breakfasting on its own herrings, and return
at night to its own lime-punch. Ten years ago, it might
as well have attempted to go to Gibraltar to breakfast. Our
friend Staffahas even been obliged to put a lock and key
on his island, lest it should be stolen ; and its very exist-
ence was not known fifty years ago. I do not despair
of seeing an Opera and a Royal Institution in Sky before
long, and a Gaelic newspaper at Stornaway. Such is
the apology for two volumes of seas and islands: and if
indeed " non omnis moriar," if all the copies are not worn
out before this prophecy is fulfilled, our joint fame shall
be beginning to bud when I am food for fishes, and you
for worms. It is the fate of him who goes first, to bear
all: first through the ford. All the risk is his; the
risk of not being cared for, the risk of not being read, the
risk of not being understood, the risk of being abused.
But he who braves must bear. The path of a book, like
the way to StafFa, is smooth enough when it has been well
trodden : and if the Serjeant who leads the forlorn hope
comes off with his head, why then he is three chevrons less
and an epaulette more. To cut matters short, imagine a