"Western Islands" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... uselessly to wild places in the Hebrides by false reports. Twice we wandered away inland, following gentlemen who answered generally to the description of Mr. James Smith, but who turned out to be the wrong men as soon as we set eyes on them. These vain excursions—especially the three to the western islands—consumed time terribly. It was more than two months from the day when we had left Darrock Hall before we found ourselves up at the very top of Scotland at last, driving into a considerable sea-side town, with a harbor attached to it. Thus far our journey ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... of Skie (as is recorded by Martin, in his 'Description of the Western Islands of Scotland,') are exposed to the rigour of the coldest seasons, and become mere skeletons in the spring, many of them not being able to rise from the ground without help; but they recover as the season becomes ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey
... seat empty at the time of one's sitting in it, is a presage of that person's death soon after' (Martin's Description of the Western Islands, 1716, ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... upon this Circumstance; if the Country Madog discovered was Madeira, or any of the Western Islands, he must have found them uninhabited, and entirely uncultivated, covered with Wood, and without any Traces of Human Beings; for as the Doctor himself says, this was the state of the Madeiras when discovered by the Portuguese in 1519. The ...
— An Enquiry into the Truth of the Tradition, Concerning the - Discovery of America, by Prince Madog ab Owen Gwynedd, about the Year, 1170 • John Williams
... have contributed to suspend the pursuits of the English in America. Previous to its discovery, the Portuguese had explored the Azores, or Western Islands; in consequence of which they claimed this continent, and contended for the exclusion of the Spaniards from the Western Ocean. The controversy was decided by the Pope, who, on the 7th of May 1493, of his own "mere liberality and certain knowledge, and the plenitude of apostolic ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... Author sets forth for the Western Islands, in the service of the West India Company of France—They meet with an English frigate, and arrive at the Island of ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin
... gentleman led us to talk of the Western Islands of Scotland, to visit which he expressed a wish that then appeared to me a very romantick fancy, which I little thought would be afterwards realised[1324]. He told me, that his father had put Martin's account of those islands into his hands when he was very young, and that he was highly pleased ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... mystery. Our fabled shores none ever reach, No mariner has found our beach, Scarcely our mirage now is seen, And neighboring waves with floating green, Yet still the oldest charts contain Some dotted outline of our main; In ancient times midsummer days Unto the western islands' gaze, To Teneriffe and the Azores, Have shown ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... great a revolution in nature must have left some historical vestiges, or traditions, I examined the matter over again, and found that the countries described, bore a strong resemblance to the Orkneys, Shetland, Faro, and Western Islands, &c. The Zenos having represented Porland as composed of a cluster of small islands, I suspected the other names might likewise refer to collective groups. Thus Estland appeared to resemble in name the Shetland, Zetland, or Hitland Islands; and on comparing the names of Tolas, Broas, Iscant, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... request can certainly be granted. The places of the two knights who were killed, and of four others whose wounds are reported to me as being too severe for them to be fit for service for some time, shall be filled up at once from the langues to which each belonged. You will cruise among the Western islands, whence complaints have reached us of a corsair who has been plundering and burning. Sometimes he is heard of as far north as Negropont, at others he is off the south of the Morea; then, again, we hear ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... condition of the people, men of speculative or imaginative genius have sought in the contemplation of an ideal society a remedy, or at least a consolation, for evils which they were practically unable to remove. Poetry has always preserved the idea, that at some distant time or place, in the Western islands or the Arcadian region, an innocent and contented people, free from the corruption and restraint of civilised life, have realised the legends of the golden age. The office of the poets is always nearly the same, and there is little variation in the features of their ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... now to the remaining portion of the Archipelago, we shall find that all the islands from Celebes and Lombock eastward exhibit almost as close a resemblance to Australia and New Guinea as the Western Islands do to Asia. It is well known that the natural productions of Australia differ from those of Asia more than those of any of the four ancient quarters of the world differ from each other. Australia, in fact, stands alone: it possesses no apes or monkeys, ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... this good time of peace. The topmost branches were white because Harald will live to be an old man. Just as that tree spread out until all of Norway was in its shade, and even more lands, so Harald is king of all this country and of the western islands. The many branches of that tree are the many sons of Harald, who shall be earls and kings in Norway, and their sons after them, ...
— Viking Tales • Jennie Hall
... have I travelled in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and Kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... na-n Ean, the Lake of the Birds. And they used to go out to feed every day to the far parts of the country, to Inis Geadh and to Accuill, the place Donn, son of Miled, and his people that were drowned were buried, and to all the western islands of Connacht, and they used to go back to ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... signal that he is ready than up they spring and fly together on to the flock. No one witnessing this action can doubt for a moment that these two are mates, and that wherever they paired and bred originally—in Lincoln or York or Thurso or perhaps in one of the western islands—they paired for life and will stick together, summer and winter and in all their wanderings, as long as ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... the defenders of Troy even with all her allies included. It comprised heroes with their followers from the extreme points of Greece—from the northwestern portions of Thessaly under Mount Olympus, as well as the western islands of Dulichium and Ithaca, and the eastern islands of Crete and Rhodes. Agamemnon himself contributed 100 ships manned with the subjects of his kingdom Mycenae, besides furnishing 60 ships to the Arcadians, who possessed none of their own. Menelaus brought with him 60 ships, Nestor from ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various |
