Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

llARRiS, 107
thought our fat Captain would have fainted with the
fright; and had not Rory threatened to throw him over-
board, he would have lost the vessel and ended in fat-
tening lobsters. West Loch Tarbet is a very deep in-
dentation, separated from the East Loch of the same
name, only by a very narrow neck, and both of them
being rendered very intricate by rocks and islands.
This neck forms a natural boundary between Harris and
Lewis, which however constitute but one island, al-
though that has no name. But it does not mark the
political division between the two estates; these being
separated by an imaginary line further to the north.
Lang, and Clisseval, which I ascended, are about 2600
feet or more in height : and it is not easy to imagine a
more savage and melancholy view than that obtained
from them. Barren and black as the analogous parts of
North Uist, the flatter parts of this view possess none of
its singularity, nor any of that brilliancy which is there
the result of the minute intermixture of the land and the
water. A more joyless desert could not well be ima-
gined; while the mountainous part displays a greater
extent of bare rock and black bog than I have seen in
any part of Scotland.
On the west coast, Scarpa and Taransa are two con-
spicuous islands, the former being a single mountain
about 1000 feet high. On the east side, Roneval presents
a striking example of the force of the winds in these re-
gions. From the north-west, straight and deep trenches
are drawn for many hundred yards in length ; two, or
even three feet deep, and four, five, or more, in breadth ;
as if made by a gigantic plough. These are determined
by some interval among the rocks, guiding the wind on
one point ; whence, after having first made a lodgment,
it proceeds, as if by sap, till it has produced effects
that seem almost incredible.