The Glenelg is the seventeenth chapter of Samuel Johnson's book Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, about a trip he took in 1773. The previous chapter was Highlands and the next is Sky and Armidel.
We left
Auknasheals and the
Macraes its the afternoon, and in the
evening came to
Ratiken, a high hill on which a road is cut, but so
steep and
narrow, that it is very difficult. There is now a
design
of making another way round the bottom. Upon one of the
precipices, my
horse, weary with the steepness of the rise,
staggered a little, and I called in
haste to the
Highlander to hold
him. This was the only moment of my
journey, in which I thought
myself endangered.
Having surmounted the hill at last, we were told that at Glenelg,
on the sea-side, we should come to a house of lime and slate and
glass. This image of magnificence raised our expectation. At last
we came to our inn weary and peevish, and began to inquire for meat
and beds.
Of the provisions the negative catalogue was very copious. Here
was no meat, no milk, no bread, no eggs, no wine. We did not
express much satisfaction. Here however we were to stay. Whisky
we might have, and I believe at last they caught a fowl and killed
it. We had some bread, and with that we prepared ourselves to be
contented, when we had a very eminent proof of Highland
hospitality. Along some miles of the way, in the evening, a
gentleman's servant had kept us company on foot with very little
notice on our part. He left us near Glenelg, and we thought on him
no more till he came to us again, in about two hours, with a
present from his master of rum and sugar. The man had mentioned
his company, and the gentleman, whose name, I think, is Gordon,
well knowing the penury of the place, had this attention to two
men, whose names perhaps he had not heard, by whom his kindness was
not likely to be ever repaid, and who could be recommended to him
only by their necessities.
We were now to examine our lodging. Out of one of the beds, on
which we were to repose, started up, at our entrance, a man black
as a Cyclops from the forge. Other circumstances of no elegant
recital concurred to disgust us. We had been frighted by a lady at
Edinburgh, with discouraging representations of Highland lodgings.
Sleep, however, was necessary. Our Highlanders had at last found
some hay, with which the inn could not supply them. I directed
them to bring a bundle into the room, and slept upon it in my
riding coat. Mr. Boswell being more delicate, laid himself sheets
with hay over and under him, and lay in linen like a gentleman.