page_title: Staffa
section_title: 18th century
hierarchical_section_title: Staffa / History / 18th century
caption_attribution_description: Plate XXVI/b - John Claude Nattes made drawings of suitable scenes on the spot; etchings are by James Fittler.
context_page_description: Staffa is an island of the Inner Hebrides in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. The Vikings gave it this name as its columnar basalt reminded them of their houses, which were built from vertically placed tree-logs.
  Staffa lies about 10 kilometres west of the Isle of Mull; its area is 33 hectares and the highest point is 42 metres above sea level.
  The island came to prominence in the late 18th century after a visit by Sir Joseph Banks. He and his fellow-travellers extolled the natural beauty of the basalt columns in general and of the island's main sea cavern, which Banks renamed 'Fingal's Cave'. Their visit was followed by those of many other prominent personalities throughout the next two centuries, including Queen Victoria and Felix Mendelssohn. The latter's Hebrides Overture brought further fame to the island, which was by then uninhabited. It is now in the care of the National Trust for Scotland.
context_section_description: Little is known of the early history of Staffa, although the Swiss town of Stäfa on Lake Zurich was named after the island by a monk from nearby Iona. Part of the Ulva estate of the MacQuarries from an early date until 1777, it was brought to the English-speaking world's attention after a visit by Sir Joseph Banks in August 1772. En route to Iceland in the company of the painter Johann Zoffany, the Bishop of Linköping, and a Dr. Solander, Banks (later a president of the Royal Society) was entertained by Maclean of Drummen, on the Isle of Mull. Hearing about Staffa he resolved to visit and set out from Tobermory the next day. The winds were light and they did not arrive until darkness had fallen. Banks wrote:
  It was too dark to see anything, so we carried our tent and baggage near the only house on the island, and began to cook our suppers, in order to be prepared for the earliest dawn, and to enjoy that which, from the conversation of the gentlemen we had, now raised the highest expectations of.
  They were not disappointed. Despite becoming infested with lice during his short stay on the island, he provided glowing reports of his visit. He confessed that he was:
  forced to acknowledge that this piece of architecture, formed by nature, far surpasses that of the Louvre, that of St. Peter at Rome, all that remains of Palmyra and Paestum, and all that the genius, the taste and the luxury of the Greeks were capable of inventing.
  Samuel Johnson and his protege James Boswell visited clan MacQuarrie on Ulva in 1773, the year after Banks' visit. Perhaps aware that Banks considered that the columnar basalt cliff formations on Ulva called "The Castles" rivalled Staffa's Johnson wrote:
  When the islanders were reproached with their ignorance or insensibility of the wonders of Staffa, they had not much to reply. They had indeed considered it little, because they had always seen it; and none but philosophers, nor they always, are struck with wonder otherwise than by novelty.
  Amongst the first eminent overseas visitors to Staffa were Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond, a wealthy French zoologist and mineralogist and the American architect and naturalist William Thornton. Visiting in 1784, they were suitably impressed, Faujus writing: "this superb monument of nature, which in regard to its form bears so strong a resemblance to a work of art, though art can certainly claim no share in it."
caption: Engraving of Fingal's Cave by James Fittler in Scotia Depicta, 1804
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