Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

4 BARRA.
Tolaiid has g"iven an absurd etymology for the name
of Barra. It is evidently named after St. Bar, to whom
the principal church is dedicated, and St. Bar was a
bishop of Caithness; but it is imagined by the people,
that some of the ecclesiastical buildings which remain
here, if not all, were dedicated to St. Columba. It is
impossible for >ne to decide a question of this nature
between rival saints ; but if you are anxious on the sub-
ject you may read the fifty-five folios of the BoUandists;
where you will not find it. It is difficult to cornprehend
the nature of this establishment ; as there are four inde-
pendent buildings, collected, or rather huddled together,
within one enclosure bearing the traces of a ditch outside;
all of which appear to have been chapels. None of them
are large ;
and one is not much bigger than a good sized
chest; being only six feet by ten. They are utterly
deficient in style or ornament; and therefore, in an
architectural view, quite uninteresting; unless it may
be thought otherwise, that the windows have inclined
straight stones above, instead of the Gothic arch. It is
probable that some of them have been votive buildings;
as this was not an uncommon practice in the Islands, in
the Roman Catholic ages. The burying ground con-
tained some ancient tombs and a heap of unburied sculls;
proving that the superstitions of the elder times are not
fashionable in Barra.
This place, Kilbar, and its village, are built on a part
of the island which is separated from the principal por-
tion by a low sandy isthmus, over which the eastern and
western seas nearly meet at high water. The larger
southern division contains one rocky mountain of about
2000 feet high ; which descends somewhat abruptly into
Chisamil Bay, and declines to the north and east by a
succession of lower hills terminatinsr on the shores in