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CROFTERS' COTTAGES NEAR UIG, SKYE.
OUR JOURNEY TO THEHEBRIDES.
By JOSEPHPENNELL and ELIZABETHROBINS PENNELL.
LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
MDCCCXC
PREFACE.
The greater part of "Our Journey to the Hebrides"was published originally in Harper's Magazine.When it appeared it was severely criticised,and we were taken to task for not discovering inScotland and the Scotch what has been made thefashion to find there—for not giving second-handdescriptions, which are the stock in trade of Scotchguide-books, whether romantic or real; in a word,for not staying at home and manufacturing ourjourney in the British Museum.
It is gradually dawning upon us that this is whatis wanted by the majority of critics. To go to acountry and tell what really happened to you—todare to say, for the information of future cyclers ortravellers, that one small piece of road is bad, thaton one day out of ten or fifteen it rained, that atone small hotel you were uncomfortable or turnedaway, is enough to make the critic declare thatyou have found everything in that country to beawry. This was our fate when we attempted to[vi]describe the most enjoyable trip we ever made—ourride across France. We have no hesitation in sayingthat our trip to Scotland was the most miserable.We undertook to walk, owing to the misrepresentationsof people who we do not believe everin their lives walked half as far as we did a yearago. As we have shown, when tramping becameunendurable we went by coach or train, by steameror sail-boat; but we walked far enough to seethe country as, we venture to think, it has seldombeen seen by other travellers. For, with all its drawbacks,walking has this one advantage: not only doyou stop at the correct show-places on your route,but you go slowly over the unknown country whichlies between them. That the weather in the WesternHighlands and Islands is vile is a fact whichcannot be denied, though to mention it is held to bea crime. But, for the benefit of those who, becausewe speak of the rain and of the fatigue of walking,think we shut our eyes to everything else on ourjourney, let us say here, once and for all, that wefound the whole country BEAUTIFUL and full of themost WONDERFUL EFFECTS; but we must also addthat it is the most abominable to travel through,and its people are the most down-trodden on God'searth.
This is the be