A LIST OF TRAVELS, TOUES, ETC., RELATING TO SCOTLAND. 431 A LIST OF TRAVELS, TOURS, JOURNEYS, VOYAGES, CRUISES, EXCUR- SIONS, WANDERINGS, RAMBLES, VISITS, ETC., RELATING TO- SCOTLAND. BY Sin ARTHUR MTTCHELL, K.C.B., M.D., LL.D., F.S.A.ScoT. (Read 8t!i April 1901.) Books of travel in Scotland, or in any other country, yield what constitutes a part of the history of that country. Such hooks supply a kind of material of which ordinary histories make a meagre use. Yet it is important material. Perhaps Hume Brown saw this when he- wrote his admirable book of Early Travellers in Scotland, before writing his History of the Country. Many historians seem to me to he wanting in the knowledge which narratives of travel ought to supply, and which they only do supply. Unfortunately, the supply is poor. Many of the- travellers who have left accounts of their journeys appear either to have had eyes which did not see, or not to have known what they should look for and what ought to he described or recorded in view of its- ultimate value. If we possessed records made by observers of the stamp of Martin, wandering all over Scotland more or less continuously through the last three or four centuries, we should be in possession of material of the highest value for the history of the Scottish land and the Scottish people, in one at least of its aspects. Such full information, however, can never come into our possession. The opportunities have been lost. The proper men have not arisen. But though hundreds of the narratives- in this list are written by poor observers and poor recorders when com- pared with Martin, the narratives, as a whole, contain a large amount of accurate and well-recorded observation, which is of value to the historian, and of value also to the student of pre-history. Considerations, of this character seemed to me to justify the taking of some trouble in the preparation of this List. Such considerations at least moved me to undertake a piece of work the outcome of which appears small, but which in reality was not light. 432 PROCEEDINGS OT THE SOCIETY. I do not think it necessary to preface the list with any remarks other than those which show its character or give desirable explanations. 1. The Arrangement Chronological.—I have chosen a chronological arrangement as being that which seemed most suitable. It has often been difficult to fix the date of a travel, but I have done my best to get at least into the neighbourhood of accuracy. Sometimes I have been •obliged to accept the date of the publication of a narrative as the date of the actual travel, though the two dates are seldom precisely the same. They may, indeed, differ widely, and in such cases I have done what I could to find the true date of the travel. In short, I have endeavoured, in assigning dates, to reach such a closeness to accuracy as • would be sufficient for practical purposes. 2. Alphabetical Index of Authors.—The different narratives or ac- counts are also distinguished by a running number, and this is used as the reference in the alphabetical index, which follows the list. The index in question contains the names of authors given either in the titles of the books and documents in the list, or in the notes which occasionally follow the titles. 3. Notes following the Titles.—The notes to which I have just alluded have no special character. They contain anything which occurred to me as likely to prove useful. Sometimes, but not often, they may be regarded as bibliographical; at other times they give extracts, or make mention of something that seemed to be curious or interesting in the narratives or accounts; as, for instance, that Don Pedro de Ayala states that James IV. spoke Gaelic; that Latockney says he saw the Crosier of St Fillan in its Dewar home ; that Grose first published the Tam o' Shanter of Burns; that Stebbing Shaw first printed the " How oft hath he at day's decline " of Burns; and that Otto .notices the use of the rotating chair in the treatment of lunacy in Glasgow. I have made no effort to show the character or scope, in any full manner, of each book in the list, though I have occasionally indicated the course which the traveller took. With regard to nearly all of those items of the list, which are items also of Mr Hume Brown's Early Travellers in A LIST OF TRAVELS, TOUES, ETC., EELATING TO SCOTLAND. 433 Scotland, or of Mr William Douglas's Our Journey into Scotland, I have not thought it necessary to give copious notes, because I assume that these books will be widely possessed by those who take an interest in travellers in Scotland. 4. Title-pages given in Full.—I have given the title-pages in full when- ever I had the power to do so, that is, there is no abridgment of them, and this seems to me a valuable feature of the list. 5. Cfianges in Late Editions.—In books which have gone through two or more editions I have indicated the character of the changes made in the later editions, when these were known to me, and seemed to be of importance. Changes in the titles sometimes cause difficulty. 6. List not Complete.—The list has 110 pretence to be complete. Indeed, if I had waited for years, I do not think that I should have been able to furnish a list which I could have ventured to call complete. No list, however, exists, of such fulness as the one now presented. It contains 856 items in all—of which 45 relate to the period before the year 1600, 57 to the period from 1600 to 1700, 42 to the period from 1700 to 1750, 108 to the period from 1750 to 1800, 282 to the period from 1800 to 1850, and.320 to the period from 1850 to 1900. 7. Most of the Items in the list Seen.—A considerable proportion of the books and documents in the list are in my own library. Of those which I do not possess, some are in libraries to which I have had access, and these I have seen. I have inserted several, however, which I have not seen, but which I have found in catalogues or referred to in books, on which I thought that I could place reliance. 8. Difficulty as to Including or Excluding.—My greatest difficulty in preparing the list has been the determination of what I should include and what I should exclude. It is often far from easy to say whether a book should or should not be regarded as an account of travel. Descriptions which are mere compilations from other books I have excluded. But there are descriptions which seem to be in part the result of observations made during short or long visits to or travel in locali- VOTj. XXXV. 2 E • 434 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. ' ; ties, either for the purpose of writing such descriptions, or. for some other purpose that yielded the opportunity of acquiring the needed knowledge. Some such books I have entered on my list. Indeed, I have consciously chosen to err on the side of over-including, rather • than of- excluding too freely. It will-, not do much harm to have •.a book too many in the list,-but it would be a defect to omit a book which ought to have been there. 9. Boolcs of Little Value not Excluded.—I have not rejected any ,book because it appeared to me to have little value. If I had done this, the rejections would have been numerous. Indeed, I am often puzzled to understand why a man has chosen to write an account of a tour, during which he appears to have seen nothing. Occasionally it looks as if he had been led to do so in order to find the opportunity of indulging in what he regards as fine writing—not infrequently in poor verse. Now and then, however, it happens that in a book of this kind there occurs an isolated observation of value, and this of itself constitutes a sufficient reason for including "all sorts and conditions." The largeness of the number. of anonymous and pseudonymous narratives may be taken as indicating that many are without much value. I had it in contemplation to prepare a subsidiary list, containing only the books which were in my opinion of decided value. But I gave up the idea, as I could not easily work it out in a manner that was satisfactory. 10. Narratives still in Manuscript.—I only .know a few narratives of travel in Scotland which remain still in manuscript—not more, I think, than thirty. Some of these have come into my possession either as originals or transcripts. No one of them is of outstanding merit, but several of them are superior to many which have been printed. For instance, the two tours of Riddell of Friars Carse in the company of Captain Grose in 1789-90, the tour of James Eobertson in the Hebrides in 1768, the tour of Dr Clapperton- in Galloway in 1787, the tour of John Bayne, the engineer, in the Hebrides, in 1792, the tour of Sir George Frederick in 1766, and Low's tour in Shetland in 1778, may be A LIST OF TRAVELS, TOUES, ETC., RELATING TO SCOTLAND. 435 regarded as a"bove the common, and the same perhaps may be said of some of the other accounts of travel still in manuscript.