A Tour in Scotland, and Voyage to the Hebrides, 1772

The naturalist and traveller Thomas Pennant (several of whose other works are reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection) published this account of a journey through Scotland and its islands in 1774. Pennant (1726-98) had already written one account of Scotland, in 1771. (He later claimed that by ‘shewing that it might be visited with safety’ he had created a tourist boom.) His great enthusiasm was for the Hebrides, and more than half of the book describes his voyage around the islands, though he was frustrated by bad weather in getting to Staffa. He transcribes instead an account by Sir Joseph Banks, who had visited in the same year, and in his preface he acknowledges the researches and notes on particular places which had been provided by friends and correspondents. This is a genial account of the history, environment and people of a region still exotic to many Britons.