All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own; and if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.
Mr. Boswell's curiosity strongly impelled him to survey Iona, or Icolmkill, which was, to the early ages, the great school of theology, and is supposed to have been the place of sepulture for the ancient kings. I, though less eager, did not oppose him.
That we might perform this expedition, it was necessary to traverse a great part of Mull. We passed a day at Dr. Maclean's, and could have been well contented to stay longer. But Col provided us horses, and we pursued our journey. This was a day of inconvenience, for the country is very rough, and my horse was but little. We travelled many hours through a tract, black and barren, in which, however, there were the relicks of humanity; for we found a ruined chapel in our way.
It is natural, in traversing this gloom of desolation, to inquire, whether something may not be done to give nature a more cheerful face; and whether those hills and moors that afford heath, cannot, with a little care and labour, bear something better? The first thought that occurs is to cover them with trees, for that in many of these naked regions trees will grow, is evident, because stumps and roots are yet remaining; and the speculatist hastily proceeds to censure that negligence and laziness that has omitted, for so long a time, so easy an improvement.
To drop seeds into the ground, and attend their growth, requires little labour and no skill. He who remembers that all the woods, by which the wants of man have been supplied from the deluge till now, were self-sown, will not easily be persuaded to think all the art and preparation necessary, which the georgick writers prescribe to planters. Trees certainly have covered the earth with very little culture. They wave their tops among the rocks of Norway, and might thrive as well in the Highlands and Hebrides.
But there is a frightful interval between the seed and
