A Gaelic-speaker from Skye, where he was factor to MacLeod of MacLeod, Martin Martin wrote a colourful and detailed travelogue, Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, which combined his interest in the people and their customs with a clear-sighted scientific outlook. It’s said that this book was the inspiration for Dr Johnson’s trip to the Highlands and Islands, on the grounds that ‘No man now writes so ill as Martin’s account of the Hebrides is written.’ What he lacks in Johnson’s wit and style, Martin gains in his lack of prejudice. These are a handful of his descriptions, drawn from the islands.
Island of Lewis
Illnesses and cures
They are generally of a sanguine constitution: this place hath not been troubled with epidemical diseases, except the small-pox, which comes but seldom, and then it sweeps away many young people. The chin-cough afflicts children too: the fever, diarrhoea, dysentery, and the falling down of the uvula, fevers, jaundice and stitches, and the ordinary coughs proceeding from cold are the diseases most prevalent here. The common cure used for removing fevers and pleurisies, is to let blood plentifully … When the uvula falls down, they ordinarily cut it, in this manner – They take a long quill, and putting a horsehair double into it, make a noose at the end of the quill, and putting it about the lower end of the uvula, they cut off from the uvula all that is below the hair with a pair of scissors; and then the patient swallows a little bread and cheese, which cures him. This operation is not attended with the least inconvenience, and cures the distemper so that it never returns. They cure green wounds with ointment made of golden-rod, all-heal, and fresh butter. The jaundice they cure two ways – the first is by laying the patient on his face, and pretending to look upon his backbones, they presently pour a pail-full of cold water on his bare back; and this proves successful. The second cure they perform by taking the tongs, and making them red-hot in the fire; then pulling off the clothes from the patient’s back, he who holds the tongs gently touches the patient on the vertebrae upwards of the back, which makes him furiously run out of doors, still supposing the hot iron is on his back, till the pain be abated, which happens very speedily, and the patient recovers soon after.
Whisky
In Lewis their plenty of corn was such as disposed the natives to brew several sorts of liquors, as common usquebaugh [whisky], another called trestarig, id est, acqua vitae [a strong spirit] three times distilled, and this by the natives is called usquebaugh baul, id est, usquebaugh which at first taste affects all the members of the body. Two spoonfuls of this last is a sufficient dose, and if any man exceed this, it would presently stop his breath and endanger his life. The trestarig and usquebaugh baul are both made of oats.
Island of Harris
Rats
I have seen a great many rats in the village Rowdil, which became very troublesome to the natives, and destroyed all their corn, milk, butter, cheese, etc. They could not extirpate these vermin for some time by all their endeavours. A considerable number of cats was employed for this end, but were still worsted, and became perfectly faint, because overpowered by the rats, who were twenty to one. At length one of the natives, of more sagacity than his neighbours, found an expedient to renew his cat’s strength and courage, which was by giving it warm milk after every encounter with the rats; and the like being given to all the other cats after every battle, succeeded so well, that they left not one rat alive, notwithstanding the great number of them in the place.
Island of St Kilda
One of the inhabitants of St Kilda, being some time ago wind-bound in the isle of Harris, was prevailed on by some of them that traded to Glasgow to go thither with them. He was astonished at the length of the voyage, and of the great kingdoms, as he thought them, that is isles, by which they sailed; the largest in his way did not exceed twenty-four miles in length, but he considered how much they exceeded his own little native country.
Upon his arrival at Glasgow, he was like one that had dropped from the clouds into a new world, whose language, habit, &c., were in all respects new to him; he never imagined that such big houses of stone were made with hands; and for the pavements of the streets, he thought it must needs be altogether natural, for he could not believe that men would be at the pains to beat stones into the ground to walk upon. He stood dumb at the door of his lodging with the greatest admiration; and when he saw a coach and two horses, he thought it to be a little house they were drawing at their tail, with men in it; but he condemned the coachman for a fool to sit so uneasy, for he thought it safer to sit on the horse’s back. The mechanism of the coach wheel, and its running about, was the greatest of all his wonders.
When he went through the streets, he desired to have one to lead him by the hand. Thomas Ross, a merchant, and others, that took the diversion to carry him through the town, asked his opinion of the High Church? He answered that it was a large rock, yet there were some in St Kilda much higher, but that these were the best caves he ever saw; for that was the idea which he conceived of the pillars and arches upon which the church stands. When they carried him into the church, he was yet more surprised, and held up his hands with admiration, wondering how it was possible for men to build such a prodigious fabric, which he supposed to be the largest in the universe. He could not imagine what the pews were designed for, and he fancied the people that wore masks (not knowing whether they were men or women) had been guilty of some ill thing, for which they dared not show their faces. He was amazed at women wearing patches, and fancied them to have been blisters. Pendants seemed to him the most ridiculous of all things; he condemned periwigs mightily, and much more the powder used in them; in fine, he condemned all things as superfluous he saw not in his own country.
He looked with amazement on every thing that was new to him. When he heard the church bells ring he was under a mighty consternation, as if the fabric of the world had been in great disorder. He did not think there had been so many people in the world as in the city of Glasgow; and it was a great mystery to him to think what they could all design by living so many in one place. He wondered how they could all be furnished with provision; and when he saw big loaves, he could not tell whether they were, bread stone, or wood. He was amazed to think how they could be provided with ale, for he never saw any there that drank water. He wondered how they made them fine clothes, and to see stockings made without being first cut, and afterwards sewn, was no small wonder to him. He thought it foolish in women to wear thin silks, as being a very improper habit for such as pretended to any sort of employment. When he saw the women’s feet, he judged them to be of another shape than those of the men, because of the different shape of their shoes. He did not approve of the heels of shoes worn by men or women; and when he observed horses with shoes on their feet, and fastened with iron nails, he could not forbear laughing, and thought it the most ridiculous thing that ever fell under his observation. He longed to see his native country again, and passionately wished it were blessed with ale, brandy, tobacco and iron, as Glasgow was.