Forefront of the Weavers House near Bomore on the Island of Ila

Eager to capture what he saw as a telling example of the backward conditions endured by the local population of the islands, Banks asked the artists travelling with him to draw the distinctive stone-and-turf blackhouses he encountered on Islay. When engraved and published by Pennant, these views of the exterior and interior of one such house were accompanied by reflections that reinforced the image of “a set of people worn down with poverty: their habitations scenes of misery”.