The Immeasurable Wilds: Travellers to the Far North of Scotland

Travellers and their Maps: Complaints for the Cartographers

I am a collector and dealer in old maps. I love their design, perhaps their colouring, the quality of the engraving, even the paper on which they are printed, revealing perhaps a florid watermark that can date them to be three or four hundred years old. My research into the Far North of Scotland has revealed another element that delights me in texts from unfortunate visitors struggling to find their way across the region: complaints about maps and mapmakers.

Take the geologist John MacCulloch, for example, who spent several years travelling across much of Scotland for the sake of his science:

        "It is almost ludicrous to reflect that on a voyage through the western seas, the seas of Britain, maritime Britain, the Queen of the Ocean should so often resemble an expedition of discovery on the coasts of New Holland or northern Asia."

He cannot find North Rona, the small island that lies north of Lewis: " It seemed not a little extraordinary, that within a few miles of the continent of Britain, we had as much difficulty in finding two islands which must have been visible ten miles off, as if we had been exploring the seas of another hemisphere....It was evident that the tables were incorrect: as we had kept an accurate reckoning. We stood therefore further to the north-west, but after running some miles, and no land still appearing, we were obliged to heave to for the night." He suggests that like the Isle of Mann, it is covered in a perpetual mist, "...and that, probably, is the reason why the gentlemen who construct maps and charts to drown confiding sailors, and the parallel gentlemen who calculate latitudes and longitudes, could not find its place."

MacCulloch was particularly critical of Murdoch Mackenzie's charts of the Western Isles. Mackenzie had published a superb survey of the Orkney Islands and their surrounding seas. Indeed, so good were these "excellent charts" of the Pentland Firth that the passage has "become less formidable, and the British mariners are become more adventurous. They boldly attempt the Firth even in the winter season, because of that passage , they save 150 miles in every voyage. It too often happens, however, that thus by shortening the passage they lose both ship and cargo, with their own lives, or the greater part of them" (John Knox, A Tour Through the Highlands of Scotland..., 1787).

Again at Raasay, MacCulloch accuses Mackenzie of omitting "a most dangerous sunk rock, lying exactly in the middle of this much frequented passage, and not more that a mile from the very house in which he resided three weeks." On Rona, "we (Mackenzie's crew) discovered what looked like the Archasig Hirm of the chart; although lying about the middle of the island, whereas he has laid it down at the north end." The geologist believed that Mackenzie had "...taken a very large part of the western coast, and of the islands also, on trust or report" and he suggested that "two or three summers would amend what is erroneous and supply what is wanting."

MacCulloch was not the only person to criticise Mackenzie: the reformer James Anderson conducted an aggressive campaign against the surveyor, both in his book An Account of the State of the Hebrides (1785), and in the Caledonian Mercury newspaper. The problem was that Mackenzie's charts of the Orkneys had been so accurate as to make sailors believe that those of the Western Isles were equally precise, but they were not. The errors noted by critics could prove fatal to a navigator relying on the charts.

MacCulloch fared no better on land, where the traveller sometimes"trusting to the map and expecting a town, he only finds half a dozen black houses, he will [at other times] meet a real village ... where he expected nothing but barren hills and a deserted rocky coast ... so little is known of this remote country."

In 1807, Arrowsmith published a fine, large detailed map of Scotland, which would have been the obvious guide for anyone travelling around the country in the early 19th century. Yet even this much-improved map had its faults. In volume two of his The Highlands and Western Isles of Scotland (1824), MacCulloch describes his efforts to get to Thurso along the north coast, where there is marked on the map an encouraging road. He even accompanies the Thurso Postman "for who was to be trusted for the Thurso road, if not the Thurso post?" He gives a long account of their efforts, which start off well enough, but soon they are climbing "an interminable hill of bare peat, cut into ten thousand black ravines and ditches, without trace or track, or footing for man or beast." At one point they came upon a bridge ("I never saw a bridge without a road before"), but found themselves having to ford on foot rivers like that at Strathy, which were flowing wildly as it was raining hard - and had been for some time. At the Hallowdale, the post refused to continue, so MacCulloch found himself on the opposite bank alone, without his bag of possessions which the postman had to hurl across to him at the river's narrowest point. "The high road to Thurso" writes MacCulloch, "...was very much like the rest of Mr. Arrowsmith's Highland roads, which intersect the country in all directions as if they had been surveyed by Telford and paved by MacAdam, but were never seen or heard of by mortal man except the apprentices who work at his long table in Soho Square." Wonderful stuff!

Arrowsmith was by no means alone in showing roads that did not exist.

But Duncan's Itinerary, for example, seems to agree with MacCulloch's assessment. The edition of 1816 supplies the following information about the road from Duncansby Head to Durness:

    "There is no road further than Reay Kirk, or a mile or so on to the bounds of this shire. Any unfortunate traveller should endeavour to procure a boat from Thurso, which in the summer season he would find pleasant enough; but to attempt riding is madness, as he may chance to get neither food for himself, nor his horse. If a pedestrian, he ought to procure a guide from Reay."

The 1820 edition is even clearer:

    "There is no made road further than two miles beyond Reay Kirk. Travellers going in the direction of Tongue and Durness should endeavour to procure a guide, as without one he may deviate from the path, which is only what the Highlanders call a bridle road, and few houses be met with. The traveller will do well to fill his flask and supply his scrip [a small bag] at Reay Kirk Inn, as he may rest assured he will require their aid before he reaches Tongue."

Both editions end with the encouraging thought that "the natives he will find very hospitable."

Bishop Richard Pococke explored the north coast in 1760, some 50 years before MacCulloch's travels. The map he would have consulted was that issued in 1750 by James Dorret. Pococke believes Strathy Head to be what was called 'Virvebrum Promontoricum'. "The new map," he writes, "makes this point as stretching out due north", and suggests that on this map it is too far from Torridale Head. Certainly, comparing Dorret with a modern map, the outline of Strathy Head is too straight.

Pococke himself is not entirely accurate when referring to maps. He states that Adair was the first cartographer to mark the island 'Sealisker' (Sule Skerry), found on his chart of 1803. But in fact it is shown on Ortelius's map of 1573, and on later maps, albeit in the wrong place. The question of the correct placement of rocky islands like North Rona, Sula Sgeir, and Sule Skerry was a complicated one - please see my page on the website 'A Rocky Problem.'

But John Knox, whose tour was in 1786, much appreciated Dorret:

    "As a guide to the public in the geography of the country I engaged a drawer to give me the outline of Dorret's map of Scotland upon a large sheet. I filled up the names myself, and was very attentive of those of the lakes and bays. The map has been found very useful in giving a general idea of the extent of the country, the number and situation of the lakes, etc."

Maps were essential items for those early tourists. Lockhart, in his Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, 1836, mentions that on his trip to Staffa, the great writer was to be found "examining the map in the morning, so as to make himself master of his bearings." Maps were of interest to everyone. In 1835, the anonymous writer in the Penny Magazine "found the hostess's little boy, a hardy mountaineer, about five or six years of age, diligently studying my map...he already knew the names of every mountain in the neighbourhood." Yet even at this later date, the writer could recommend only two maps, that published by the Anderson Brothers with their guide, and another published by the SDUK, and even then it was with the caveat "There is no map of Scotland, as far as I know sufficiently accurate to serve as a guide." That situation was to improve as the century wore on, with the Ordnance Survey series emerging from the 1850s onwards.