History Of The Scottish Nation, J. A. Wylie, published 1886

[stoirmeil]

Well!

It's huge, it's in three volumes, and the whole thing is here in Acrobat format for you to download behind this link:

http://www.reformation.org/history1.html

Just keep following links in. It's a hoot to read, the 19th century style of historiography (I'm only just starting to crack it) and purplish prose writing is delightful and cranky. He's very keen on the church history too. The story of Columba finding Iona is that kind of loving description of the natural landscape and beauty that you can never take out of a Scot:

"As the party pursued their way northward a small island was seen to rise out of the waves just opposite that point on the coast where the territory of the Scots bordered with that of the northern Picts. It lay moored like a raft on the west side of the much larger island of Mull, from which it was separated by a sound only a mile in width. No spot better adapted as a basis of a mission which had respect to both the Scots and the Picts could be found in all these western seas. They direct the course of their coracle towards its shore. A creek with deep water opens on the south-western side of the island. They run their boat into the little bay, and their voyage is at an end.[1] It was Whitsuntide, and the little island was just putting on its first green, as if to welcome the venerable strangers whose feet were about to be planted upon it. So quietly opened one of the grandest episodes in the history of Christendom! It was the year 563, and the forty-second of Columba's age.

Stepping on shore, the little party climb the highest eminence, and take a survey of their nest-abode, and note its leading features and capabilities. Their territory lies within narrow limits. The island does not exceed three and a half miles in length, and is barely mile and a half in width. Scenery it has none, in the common acceptation of the term. It is not picturesque, much less is it grand; it has no bosky dell, no shady wood, no mountain rising into the sky; it is simply pleasant, almost tame?an undulating grassy plot in the blue sea. On the east, parted from it by the narrow sound of which we have spoken, stretch the dark masses of Mull. On the West the Atlantic discloses its mighty face? a pleasant enough object when the winds sleep, and the waters laugh to the sun but not to be beheld without terror, when it clothes itself in the awful majesty of storms, and makes war upon the little isle, in thick clouds, and with thundering noise, while the giant rollers, born in the far-off waters of the ocean, grow bigger as they come nearer, and threaten to overflow and drown the land."

Well -- matter of taste perhaps, but it's a viewpoint that won't come again. Hope anyone who opens it enjoys it.

[Nancy-Raven]

It seem very interesting this link,specially for me who are doing research on history .Thanks for it.