The knives are not often either very bright, or very sharp.  They are indeed instruments of which the Highlanders have not been long acquainted with the general use.  They were not regularly laid on the table, before the prohibition of arms, and the change of dress.  Thirty years ago the Highlander wore his knife as a companion to his dirk or dagger, and when the company sat down to meat, the men who had knives, cut the flesh into small pieces for the women, who with their fingers conveyed it to their mouths.

There was perhaps never any change of national manners so quick, so great, and so general, as that which has operated in the Highlands, by the last conquest, and the subsequent laws.  We came thither too late to see what we expected, a people of peculiar appearance, and a system of antiquated life.  The clans retain little now of their original character, their ferocity of temper is softened, their military ardour is extinguished, their dignity of independence is depressed, their contempt of government subdued, and the reverence for their chiefs abated.  Of what they had before the late conquest of their country, there remain only their language and their poverty.  Their language is attacked on every side.  Schools are erected, in which English only is taught, and there were lately some who thought it reasonable to refuse them a version of the holy scriptures, that they might have no monument of their mother-tongue.

That their poverty is gradually abated, cannot be mentioned among the unpleasing consequences of subjection.  They are now acquainted with money, and the possibility of gain will by degrees make them industrious.  Such is the effect of the late regulations, that a longer journey than to the Highlands must be taken by him whose curiosity pants for savage virtues and barbarous grandeur.

RAASAY

At the first intermission of the stormy weather we were informed, that the boat, which was to convey us to Raasay, attended us on the coast.  We had from this time our intelligence facilitated, and our conversation enlarged, by the company of Mr. Macqueen, minister of a parish in Sky, whose knowledge and politeness give him a title equally to kindness and respect, and who, from this time, never forsook us till we were preparing to leave Sky, and the adjacent places.

The boat was under the direction of Mr. Malcolm Macleod, a gentleman of Raasay.  The water was calm, and the rowers were vigorous; so that our passage was quick and pleasant.  When we came near the island, we saw the laird’s house, a neat modern fabrick, and found Mr. Macleod, the proprietor of the Island, with many gentlemen, expecting us on the beach.  We had, as at all other places, some difficulty in landing.  The craggs were irregularly broken, and a false step would have been very mischievous.