Travellers' Tales of Scotland

The following is from Travellers' Tales of Scotland by R. H. Coats:

XI - Bishop Pococke

(1760)

"I HAVE often wished that no travels or journeys should be published but those undertaken by persons of integrity and capacity to judge well and describe faithfully and in good language the situation, condition, and manners of the countries passed through." So wrote Sir Alexander Dick on one occasion to Dr. Johnson; and if ever these qualifications of the ideal traveller were fulfilled, it was in the case of the Rev. Richard Pococke, a D.C.L. of Oxford and Bishop of Ossory in Ireland, who made a tour through Scotland in the year 1760. Pococke had already journeyed far in many parts of the world. He had seen France, Germany, Switzerland, Greece, and Italy, as well as the Nile, Jerusalem, Syria, and Mesopotamia. He had also visited Scotland itself on two previous occasions. But this, his third, tour was by far the most leisurely and extensive, embracing the whole country, Highlands and Lowlands both, from Berwick to the Orkneys and from Iona to Aberdeen. The bishop travelled comfortably with two servants, and kept & minute journal of his wanderings in four large quarto MS. volumes, which have now been admirably edited for the Scottish Historical Society by Mr. D. W. Kemp. This work informs us that, from the day he set foot in Wigtonshire in April till the day he arrived in London in October, the indefatigable bishop covered the exact distance of 3,391¼ miles.

There is abundant evidence that Pococke was a hearty, good-humoured man, who made himself popular everywhere he went. Bishop Forbes has narrated an interesting anecdote of what took place in the house of a Mr. Murray, of Thurso, when a strange dish was put before the bishop, "which he thought to be Enammelet, but it happened to be Toasted Ears. 'Toasted ears!' said he, 'what is that?' 'Why,' said Mr. Murray, ' the ears of a calf toasted on bread.' He liked it much. But what surprised him most of all was the fine wheatbread he ate there. When they told him it was baked in & pot he was amazed, insomuch that it behoved them to assure him it was so before he could believe it, and he declared he had never ate better all his life. And so plentifully did he take of it that Mr. Murray joking said, ' Stop, my Lord, else your Lordship will raise a famine in ye country;' which pleased him so well that he called to his own servant, 'John, pray give me t'other cut of that fine loaf!'" The good man, in fact, was quite embarrassed by the honours and hospitalities showered on him from place to place. He received the freedom of the borough from Glasgow, Perth, Lanark, and Aberdeen, as well as from such little townships as Tain, Forres, Nairn, and Dornoch, which were determined not to be outdone by the larger cities. There seems to have been very little ceremony connected with such functions in the eighteenth century, although, of course, there would be the inevitable banquet, sumptuously provided at the public expense. "At Aberdeen the Lord Provost came to see me, and would have engaged me to dine in their townhouse, but as I could not stay, they insisted on my supping with them and presented me with the; freedom of the town." On all such occasions, the distinguished visitor would swear solemnly to be loyal to the king, and to preserve intact the ancient privileges of the borough. Then, in all probability, he would present to the astonished provost, as a memento of the occasion, a copy of his Observations of Palestine or the Holy Land, Syria, Mesopotamia, Cyprus, and Candia, 1745.

The real reason why the bishop could not tarry for these well-meant courtesies was that he was anxious to hasten on and view the antiquities of Scotland. The burgess ticket appointing him a citizen of Aberdeen might be couched in very good Latin, but it was not half so interesting as the inscription to be seen on some ancient Roman altar a field or two away. And who was the provost of Tain, when all was said and done, when compared with Dervorgilla, daughter of Alexander, Lord of Galloway, wife of John Baliol, Lord of Castle Bernard, who died in 1260, and who founded convents? Pococke was the sort of man to flee thankfully from any banqueting-house in Scotland, if he could but behold the very spot where St. Ninian preached to the Picts in the time of Theodosius, or handle tho mouldy remains of the Urus mentioned in Caesar's Commentaries. And it is of such things as these that the diaries are full. Dumbarton is interesting to our traveller because it is the Alcluith of the Venerable Bede, Stranraer because it is the Perigonium of Ptolemy, New Kilpa trick because St. Patrick was born there, "and it is conjectured his ancestor was a patrician." Camden, Hollinshed, The Chronicle of Melross are quoted as familiarly as if the antiquary had carried them about with him in his knapsack, in lieu of sandwiches. Does the good man pause on the summit at Cairndow to wipe his perspiring brow and "rest-and-be-thankful"? How interesting then to reflect that "he has been passing through the country of the Damnii and Epidii, and that Cantyre was formerly known as Epidium Promontorium! Does he stand on some lofty eminence from which he sees the county of Sutherland spread like a map before him? Then be sure he is not at all thinking of the mists and the heather and the aspect of the hills. He is remembering with a thrill of pleasure that the district was once inhabited "by the Caroni to the, west, by the Mortii to the east, by part of the Conavii to the north and part of the Cantii to the south." Pococke at one point suffered an agony of uncertainty and doubt as to whether the site of Caerlavrock Castle were the Carbantorigium of Ptolemy, or whether it should be identified with Uxellum, a little farther off. But all was changed to delight when, soon after, he was so fortunate as to come upon an ancient monument, and could trace with trembling hands the following inscription:

ROBERT DE BRUS COUNTE DE CARRICK ET SENIOUR DE VAL DE ANNANDALE: 1300.

Especially was the Bishop delighted when he met with anything he could carry off with him and add to his unique collection of coins, ancient jewellery, and other treasures. Forts, barrows, crosses, and Gothic archways, of course, had to be left in situ; but the load on his servant's horse, alas! grew heavier every day, as now a Norwegian bowl-shaped brooch would be added to it, from the Isle of Lingay, and now a pigeon's egg embedded in white stalagmite, from the Cave of Slains. One thing particularly the bishop wished to take away with him, but it was not to be procured, and that was the nuptial bedstead of Queen Anne. Pococke discovered this treasure in a house at Dunfermline, and straightway offered fifty guineas for it. But the owner, a Mrs. Walker, roundly told him that "all the gold and silver in Ireland was not fit to buy it," so the bishop had nothing for it but to remember the tenth commandment and withdraw disconsolate. This bedstead was subsequently presented to the Earl of Elgin, a heritor of the parish, and has since been converted into an ornamental chimney-piece at Broomhall.

But Pococke was not only interested in antiquities. As a man of science he had a quick discerning eye for natural history in all its branches. The reader of the journal is carefully informed that there were excellent fossils in one place and remarkably, fine flounders in another. The mineral wells of Moffat, he is told, are "good in all scorbutick diseases." At Leadhills "no sort of fruit ripens except strawberries, not so much as a gooseberry." Pococke found at St. Catherines, in Loch Fyne, a kind of rock which "is soft when dug, and may be cut with a knife; it hardens in air; if oil is rubbed on the stone it turns black; burning turns it brown; rubbed with spermaceti it looks like a deep coloured serpentine." A stone which he discovered in Mull possessed still more wonderful properties. "A mariner's compass placed on it turned to the contrary point and veered everywhere about and would not settle." Many strange things, too, were told him about eagles as he wandered through the Highlands. It was said that they killed the red deer "by seizing them about the neck, and fluttering their wings in their eyes," and one was known to have carried an infant in its beak for four miles to the mainland of Orkney from the Old Man of Hoy. In Sutherland Pococke was repeatedly told that goats in the heart of Scotland fed upon adders, "which I could not believe until it was confirmed to me here in such a manner that I could not withhold my belief in it; and 'tis added, they make a great noise when they kill them." Another strange animal he heard about was the wild cat "which is three times as big as the common cat, as the polecat is less; yellow-red in colour, their breasts and sides white. They take fowls and lambs and breed two at a time. I was assured that they sometimes bring forth in a large bird's nest, to be out of the reach of dogs."

Nor are the strange inhabitants of these regions altogether overlooked, although in the journals they occupy quite a subordinate position. The people of Shetland, we are told, differ considerably from those of Orkney in their dress, "in which they affect to be fine and have much of the German manners. They are very decent, and observers of form, extremely hospitable and civil to strangers." In Mull Pococke found the natives much addicted to the chewing of a certain root called Charmele, "because it enabled them to drink whisky without being intoxicated." The inhabitants of Tiree, however, were more noble than those of Mull, in that "they were esteemed great natural geniuses, especially for poetry, chiefly of the lyric kind."

But Pococke, as became a church dignitary, reserved his warmest encomiums for those places in which the ordinances of religion were most observed. In this respect the honours seem to have been divided between Paisley and Kilmarnock. When the bishop arrived at the latter town "all the shops were shut, nor would they sell anything, and almost all the people were at church, it being the Fast Day before the Sacrament." Paisley he found to be no less seriously-minded. "The people here keep Sunday with great strictness. They all attend divine service and are not allowed to walk out on a Sunday in company. They have no holy days, and this preserves them perfectly sober and industrious, and if it could be kept to, it is certainly a very good regulation, even in a political point of view. They shut up their shops early in the evening and open, late in the morning, and take proper refreshment."

Of the manners and customs of the people a few details are here and there inserted. "They spend commonly three days at funerals, one before and one after, and often more, especially those who are related and have any business to do, and those who come from far; and this time is spent in eating and drinking very plentifully. The widow and children danced with others round the corpse till very lately." Pococke had a curious experience as he wended his way through Sutherlandshire. "Coming along the coast near a mile to Dunrobin, we were surprised at seeing half a dozen families, forming so many groups viz., the man, his wife and children, each under a coverlet and reposing on the shore, in order to wait for the tide to go a-fishing." It appears that the good bishop was hospitably entertained everywhere, and could join in the general chorus in praise of a Highland breakfast. "There is always, besides butter and toasted bread, honey and jelly of currants and preserved orange peel."

Pococke was pleased with the country as a whole. He found it greatly prospering as a result of the Union, and, unlike Dr. Johnson and Captain Burt, he was impressed with the fine trees he saw frequently and the abundance of growing corn. Some places in particular pleased him exceedingly. Dumfries was "one of the neatest towns in Great Britain." The highway between Perth and Edinburgh he regarded as "the finest turnpike road in the whole Kingdom." "The most beautiful kitchen-garden, I believe, in the world" was at Blair Castle. Like all travellers, Pococke much admired the view of Inveraray Castle from the hills above Loch Fyne. He thought highly of Edinburgh, too, and praised the clean flagstones of the streets "which are paved like St. James's Square." The only hint of a dislike is for the mists that chilled him in Aberdeenshire. "The easterly winds here bring rains, and in the summer fogs, which often come on early in the evening, continue all night and sometimes for whole days, and are very disagreeable though no way unwholesome, except that by their moisture they are apt to make people catch cold if they do not take care."

Pococke returned to Ireland after his tour in Scotland, and spent the remaining five years of his life in restoring the cathedral of Kilkenny and erecting there a college which still bears his name. But perhaps the most interesting monument to his memory is a huge granite boulder which is to be seen in the district of Chamounix. The brief inscription which it bears,

R. P. 1741

is intended as a record of the fact that it was Pococke who first guided a party of English tourists into that lonely valley. The visit to the Highlands in 1760 was almost as venturesome, and was undertaken into a region hardly less unknown. To-day the ever-increasing company of travellers who throng the remotest valleys of both Switzerland and Scotland may well look back with some interest and gratitude to the worthy bishop who entered them long ago as a pioneer.

XII - Thomas Pennant (1769, 1772)