A Summer in Skye, Volume 1 (of 2)
A Summer in Skye, Volume 1, by Alexander Smith, is a mid-Victorian travel narrative recounting the author's journey from Edinburgh through the Trosachs, Loch Lomond, Inverary, and Oban to the Isle of Skye, blending picturesque description with essayistic digressions on Scottish history, character, and folklore. The volume opens not in the Highlands but in sweltering summer Edinburgh, which Smith uses as a springboard for an extended meditation on the virtues of vacation and idleness after a year of urban toil. He surveys the city's literary and historical associations—Scott, Burns, Jeffrey, De Quincey, Boswell—contrasting the beauty and intellectual reputation of the New Town with the squalor of the Cowgate and Canongate. He reflects on Edinburgh's diminished status since the loss of its royal court, on university reform, on Scottish national sentiment (illustrated by the half-built Wallace Monument), and on the city's seasonal rhythms, culminating in a satirical account of the General Assembly's ceremonial pomp. The narrative proper begins at Stirling, comparing it to Edinburgh as a "spinster sister," then traces the classic coaching route north: Doune, Callander, the Trosachs, Loch Katrine, Loch Lomond, the "Cobbler" mountain (personified in a comic domestic-quarrel conceit), Glencroe, and Inverary, with a memorable sketch of the loquacious coachman John Campbell. Loch Awe, Kilchurn Castle, and Ben Cruachan receive lyrical set-pieces before the account reaches Oban, described as a frenzied tourist bazaar, and continues via Fort William (with a visit to the whisky distiller "Long John") and Culloden Moor, evoked in solemnly Jacobite tones. The book's centerpiece is the misadventure-laden journey to Skye itself: a nightmarish overnight coach-and-boat ordeal involving a balky horse, drunken boatmen who abandon the travelers at Plockton, a chance rescue by an old college friend turned minister, and a leaking ferry crossing to Kyleakin. Once installed at Mr M'Ian's remote farmhouse, the narrative settles into an ethnographic register, portraying the old soldier M'Ian and the melancholy priest Father M'Crimmon, the farm's social hierarchy (porch, dining-room, and "black kitchen"), and characters like the shepherd John Kelly, the jovial cattleman Lachlan Roy, and the versatile huntsman Angus-with-the-dogs, culminating in a vivid otter hunt and a boisterous reel danced to Peter's fiddle. Subsequent chapters describe an expedition to the desolate, echo-haunted Loch Coruisk beneath the Cuchullin mountains, the raucous commerce and drunken revelry of Broadford Fair (interwoven with reflections on Johnson and Boswell's earlier Hebridean tour and a pilgrimage to the ruined house of Corachatachin), and the self-sufficient rhythms of island pastoral life—milking, lamb-weaning, and shepherding—rendered with almost anthropological attention to instinct and affection among the flocks. The volume closes with a discursive "Basket of Fragments" surveying Highland history and character: the Norse origins of the islands and their place-names, the Macdonald–Macleod rivalry, a fireside legend of Ossian and the extinction of the Fingalians told by old M'Ian, the Lords of the Isles' quasi-independent rule, King Haco's invasion, and the shifting allegiance of the clans through Montrose, Killiecrankie, Glencoe, and the Jacobite risings—ending mid-episode with Flora Macdonald's rescue of the fugitive Prince Charles Edward Stuart after Culloden, a cliffhanger that carries into the second volume.
By Alexander Smith · First published 1865 · Genre: Travel Literature, Nature Writing, Essay · 75,220 words
First lines
Summer has leaped suddenly on Edinburgh like a tiger. The air is still and hot above the houses; but every now and then a breath of east wind startles you through the warm sunshine -- like a sudden sarcasm felt through a strain of flattery -- and passes on detested of every organism. But, with this exception, the atmosphere is so close, so laden with a body of heat, that a thunderstorm would be almost welcomed as a relief. Edinburgh, on her crags, held high towards the sun -- too distant the sea to send cool breezes to street and square -- is at this moment an uncomfortable dwelling-place. Beautiful as ever, of course -- for nothing can be finer than the of the Old Town etched on hot summer azure -- but close, breathless, suffocating. Great volumes of white smoke surge out of the railway station; great choking puffs of dust issue from the houses and shops that are being gutted in Princes Street. The Castle rock is gray; the trees are of a dingy olive; languid "swells," arm-in-arm, promenade uneasily the heated pavement; water-carts everywhere dispense their treasures; and the only human being really to be envied in the city is the small boy who, with trousers tucked up, and unheeding of maternal vengeance, marches coolly in the fringe of the ambulating shower-bath. Oh for one hour of heavy rain! Thereafter would the heavens wear a clear and tender, instead of a dim and sultry hue. Then would the Castle rock brighten in colour, and the trees and grassy slopes doff their dingy olives for the emeralds of April. Then would the streets be cooled, and the dust be allayed. Then would the belts of city verdure, refreshed, pour forth gratitude in balmy smells; and Fife -- low-lying across the Forth -- break from its hot neutral tint into the greens, purples, and yellows that of right belong to it. But rain won't come; and for weeks, perhaps, there will be nothing but hot sun above, and hot street beneath; and for the respiration of poor human lungs an atmosphere of heated dust, tempered with east wind.
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A Summer in Skye, Volume 1 (of 2) is listed on Textopian as a novella by Alexander Smith, dated 1865 CE.
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- Work type: Novella
- Author: Alexander Smith
- Date: 1865 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Travel Literature, Nature Writing, Essay, Memoir, Cultural Commentary
- Length: 75,220 words
- Structure: 1 section, 322 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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- Work identity for A Summer in Skye, Volume 1 (of 2) by Alexander Smith
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
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Genres
- Travel Literature — The entire work is structured as a first-person account of a journey through Scotland, documenting the author's travels from Edinburgh through the Highlands to the Isle of Skye, with detailed itineraries and route descriptions.
- Nature Writing — Extensive, lyrical descriptions of Scottish landscapes dominate the narrative—mountains, lochs, weather patterns, flora and fauna are rendered with vivid, poetic language throughout.
- Essay — The work contains numerous digressive, essay-like passages exploring Edinburgh's character, Highland history, Ossian's authenticity, the second sight, and Scottish cultural identity.
- Memoir — Presented as a first-person narrative of the author's personal summer travels, with reflections on his own experiences, emotions, and encounters during his Scottish sojourn.
Tags
travel · memoir · Scotland · Skye · landscape · nature · 19th century · travel narrative · observation · cultural commentary · descriptive · mountains