Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

i:nbecula. 83
the crowd of islets that skirt the shores, assist in forming
that labyrinth of land and water which gives so singular
an appearance to this portion of the Long Island. Both
the channels are dry sands at low water ; so that there
is a passage from South Uist to North Uist through Benbecula,
by means of the north and south strands. The
western side is flat, dry, and sandy ; while, towards the
middle, it becomes uneven, interspersed with lakes, low
eminences, and protruding rocks ; that which ought to
be dry land being a brown bog scantily sprinkled with
rushes and moory grasses, soft and impassable in winter.
Thus, in this strange island, the elements of land and
water seem as if they were yet waiting to be separated ;
that which should have been terra firma being half water,
and what should have been sea being half land. In such
an amphibious position, the Benbeculites, with a little of
the spirit of their forefathers, might defy both fleets and
armies ; unless indeed it were a corps of cavalry mounted
upon Hippopotami.
In this flat country, Benbecula hill seemed, like those
two tremendous hills in Cambridgeshire, Gog and Magog,
quite a mountain. I here saw the solution of all the
mysteries in which our boat had been involved ;
and, in-
stead of being surprised at the difiiculties, was much
more astonished to find that we had reached the island
at all. The whole eastern coast looked very much like
those ingenious labyrinths which you find upon a water
tabby: it is a vile comparison, but I can find no better
at this moment. But the land was worse still ; and then
I wondered no longer that the inhabitants of this side of
the island should have built their houses in the water,
like the Venetians ; for if it was difficult to get at them
by sea, it was impossible by land. As the sea was all
islands, the land was all lakes ; Nature seeming to have
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