Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

144 ETYMOLOGIES OF THE ISLANDS.
known, with the present, that they have been either
changed from misapprehension, or corrupted in the pro-
nunciation, till they have become unintelligible; an
event much facilitated by the outrageous discrepancy
which exists between the Gaelic orthography and the
pronunciation.
To be convinced of this, it is sufficient to examine the
names as given by Monro, Martin, Pont, Blaeu, and
others, and to compare them with the present orthogra-
phy, which is far more steady, and is also more correct,
as is proved by the much greater facility with which they
are referred to their roots. Yet some have plainly re-
mained in a hopelessly corrupted state, such as Harris,
Harmetray, Gometra, and others. How careless the older
writers have been about these names, and how they have
been altered in the transmission, will be very evident in
looking into Monro's book, in which it is scarcely possible
to recognize one in ten of them. 1 have remarked else-
where on the inaccuracy of this Dean, whom Buchanan
so much lauds, and from whom he has copied his account
of the Western Islands, just as he has, without the
slightest compunctious visitiugs, given us the lives and
actions of his fictitious kings. It would puzzle any mortal
to follow this writer ; who might almost as well have re-
mained dormant in his own dormitory, for any information
that he has given us ; no less than from the names of his
islands, which we can seldom now apply, by any ingenuity
of contorsion. How indeed should they be applied,
when, very often, the islands do not exist. For example ;
he tells us that on the south side of Isla there are the fol-
lowing islands, Chourna, Maalmori, Osrira, Bridi, Cor-
shera, Ishol, Immersi, Bethick, Texa, Gearach, Naosg,
Rinard, Cana, Tarskeir, Achnar, More, an island resem-
bling a man, unnamed, Jean, and Stackahadda. Thus