Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

BENBKCULA. 79
8ENBECULA. PASTURAGE OF HIGHLANDS.
There is something' in the very word Island, which,
without any previous acquaintance with the merits or de-
merits of the individual, or any knowledge of its extrin-
sic or intrinsic qualities, renders it an interesting object
of contemplation to the human faculties : causing- it to
play in and about the imagination, with visionary charms,
derived from—no one knows what. Is it that we are
thinking of our own " Little island," or of Fortunate
islands, or, like Sancho, of being king of an island, or of
having an island, all our own, "cum uno messuagio,
quatuor cottagiis, quatuor toftis, uno columbar. tribus
gardinis, centum et quatuor acristerrae, quadraginta acris
prati, &c. &c. &c. cum pertinentibus," and no enclosures
to keep up, no neighbour's cattle to pound, and so forth.
If that is not the solution, send me a better. Whatever it
be, mankind has always shown a hankering after islands.
It is not Sancho alone who has had a desire to conquer an
island, to possess an island, and to govern an island ; as
many personages of no less notoriety are very ambitious
of governing the Ionian islands, the East Indian islands,
and the West Indian islands, to say nothing of the two
Parliamentary islands of Berbice and Demerara, and of
St. Helena's island, and of the government of Ascension
island. Then we take possession of islands, by raising
a pocket-handkerchief on a broomstick, and burying a
halfpenny : even though it should be of three day's
standing, like Sabrina. Hence also we envy King