Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

SIORNOWAY. 279
very graceful foriu. Tlie general rock of this shore,
whicli is gneiss, being frequently bent in the strata, it is
easy to see that this is one from which the surrounding
parts have fallen away. Finding nothing* else to interest
us, we stretched across to the Aird, leaving behind the
wide but dangerous bay Loch Tua, and anchored in
Loch Stornoway.
Stornoway is a large town, and, in this remote coun-
try, it forms an agreeable surprise. It is one of the three
burghs (Campbelltown and Inverlochy being the others)
erected by James VI, as elsewhere mentioned, with the
design of introducing civilization into the Highlands. Of
its scandal and politics, I heard, and might have re-
corded a great deal ; but it is only to change the names,
and these are nearly the same every where ;
at Penzance
and Stornoway, in your own gude town, and in Gros-
venor square. I had the happiness of being at a coterie,
and of playing at whist; nor did 1 find but that coteries
of tea and whist at Stornoway, are species of a genus that
exists every where. A cockney is apt to wonder how
people live, and how they look, and what they do, and
what they talk of, in such places ; and if it be a lady, she
will wonder how they are dressed. Scandal and politics,
cards and tea, idleness and grumbling, silk and muslins,
newspapers, affectation, novels, births, marriages, court-
ships, and bankruptcies, the world is pretty much the
same, mutatis mutandis, in London and in Stornoway.
As to fashions, (I must say a word for the ladies, or Lady
Scott would not read my letters,) it is said that they are
propagated in England by mail coaches ; but they find
their way to the Highlands full fast, without that aid.
Here the bonnets were of the Oldenburgh capacity, and
the colour of the pelisse was that of Blucher's mustachios.
Bond street could not have displayed more orthodoxy.
The morning half-boots were of the Wellington grey.