From Grissipol, Mr. Maclean conducted us to his father's seat; a neat new
house, erected near the old castle, I think, by the last proprietor. Here
we were allowed to take our station, and lived very commodiously, while
we waited for moderate weather and a fair wind, which we did not so soon
obtain, but we had time to get some information of the present state of
Col, partly by inquiry, and partly by occasional excursions.
Col is computed to be thirteen miles in length, and three in breadth.
Both the ends are the property of the Duke of Argyle, but the middle
belongs to Maclean, who is called Col, as the only Laird.
Col is not properly rocky; it is rather one continued rock, of a surface
much diversified with protuberances, and covered with a thin layer of
earth, which is often broken, and discovers the stone. Such a soil is
not for plants that strike deep roots; and perhaps in the whole Island
nothing has ever yet grown to the height of a table. The uncultivated
parts are clothed with heath, among which industry has interspersed spots
of grass and corn; but no attempt has yet been made to raise a tree.
Young Col, who has a very laudable desire of improving his patrimony,
purposes some time to plant an orchard; which, if it be sheltered by a
wall, may perhaps succeed. He has introduced the culture of turnips, of
which he has a field, where the whole work was performed by his own hand.
His intention is to provide food for his cattle in the winter. This
innovation was considered by Mr. Macsweyn as the idle project of a young
head, heated with English fancies; but he has now found that turnips will
really grow, and that hungry sheep and cows will really eat them.
By such acquisitions as these, the Hebrides may in time rise above their
annual distress. Wherever heath will grow, there is reason to think
something better may draw nourishment; and by trying the production of
other places, plants will be found suitable to every soil.
Col has many lochs, some of which have trouts and eels, and others have
never yet been stocked; another proof of the negligence of the Islanders,
who might take fish in the inland waters, when they cannot go to sea.
Their quadrupeds are horses, cows, sheep, and goats. They have neither
deer, hares, nor rabbits. They have no vermin, except rats, which have
been lately brought thither by sea, as to other places; and are free from
serpents, frogs, and toads.
The harvest in Col, and in Lewis, is ripe sooner than in Sky; and the
winter in Col is never cold, but very tempestuous. I know not that I
ever heard the wind so loud in any other place; and Mr. Boswell observed,
that its noise was all its own, for there were no trees to increase it.
Noise is not the worst effect of the tempests; for they have thrown the
sand from the shore over a considerable part of the land; and it is said
still to encroach and destroy more and more pasture; but I am not of
opinion, that by any surveys or landmarks, its limits have been ever
fixed, or its progression ascertained. If one man has confidence enough
to say, that it advances, nobody can bring any proof to support him in
denying it. The reason why it is not spread to a greater extent, seems
to be, that the wind and rain come almost together, and that it is made
close and heavy by the wet before the storms can put it in motion. So
thick is the bed, and so small the particles, that if a traveller should
be caught by a sudden gust in dry weather, he would find it very
difficult to escape with life.
For natural curiosities, I was shown only two great masses of stone,
which lie loose upon the ground; one on the top of a hill, and the other
at a small distance from the bottom. They certainly were never put into
their present places by human strength or skill; and though an earthquake
might have broken off the lower stone, and rolled it into the valley, no
account can be given of the other, which lies on the hill, unless, which
I forgot to examine, there be still near it some higher rock, from which
it might be torn. All nations have a tradition, that their earliest
ancestors were giants, and these stones are said to have been thrown up
and down by a giant and his mistress. There are so many more important
things, of which human knowledge can give no account, that it may be
forgiven us, if we speculate no longer on two stones in Col.
This Island is very populous. About nine-and-twenty years ago, the
fencible men of Col were reckoned one hundred and forty, which is the
sixth of eight hundred and forty; and probably some contrived to be left
out of the list. The Minister told us, that a few years ago the
inhabitants were eight hundred, between the ages of seven and of seventy.
Round numbers are seldom exact. But in this case the authority is good,
and the errour likely to be little. If to the eight hundred be added
what the laws of computation require, they will be increased to at least
a thousand; and if the dimensions of the country have been accurately
related, every mile maintains more than twenty-five.
This proportion of habitation is greater than the appearance of the
country seems to admit; for wherever the eye wanders, it sees much waste
and little cultivation. I am more inclined to extend the land, of which
no measure has ever been taken, than to diminish the people, who have
been really numbered. Let it be supposed, that a computed mile contains
a mile and a half, as was commonly found true in the mensuration of the
English roads, and we shall then allot nearly twelve to a mile, which
agrees much better with ocular observation.
Here, as in Sky, and other Islands, are the Laird, the Tacksmen, and the
under tenants.
Mr. Maclean, the Laird, has very extensive possessions, being proprietor,
not only of far the greater part of Col, but of the extensive Island of
Rum, and a very considerable territory in Mull.
Rum is one of the larger Islands, almost square, and therefore of great
capacity in proportion to its sides. By the usual method of estimating
computed extent, it may contain more than a hundred and twenty square
miles.
It originally belonged to Clanronald, and was purchased by Col; who, in
some dispute about the bargain, made Clanronald prisoner, and kept him
nine months in confinement. Its owner represents it as mountainous,
rugged, and barren. In the hills there are red deer. The horses are
very small, but of a breed eminent for beauty. Col, not long ago, bought
one of them from a tenant; who told him, that as he was of a shape
uncommonly elegant, he could not sell him but at a high price; and that
whoever had him should pay a guinea and a half.
There are said to be in Barra a race of horses yet smaller, of which the
highest is not above thirty-six inches.
The rent of Rum is not great. Mr. Maclean declared, that he should be
very rich, if he could set his land at two-pence halfpenny an acre. The
inhabitants are fifty-eight families, who continued Papists for some time
after the Laird became a Protestant. Their adherence to their old
religion was strengthened by the countenance of the Laird's sister, a
zealous Romanist, till one Sunday, as they were going to mass under the
conduct of their patroness, Maclean met them on the way, gave one of them
a blow on the head with a yellow stick, I suppose a cane, for which the
Earse had no name, and drove them to the kirk, from which they have never
since departed. Since the use of this method of conversion, the
inhabitants of Egg and Canna, who continue Papists, call the
Protestantism of Rum, the religion of the Yellow Stick.
The only Popish Islands are Egg and Canna. Egg is the principal Island
of a parish, in which, though he has no congregation, the Protestant
Minister resides. I have heard of nothing curious in it, but the cave in
which a former generation of the Islanders were smothered by Macleod.
If we had travelled with more leisure, it had not been fit to have
neglected the Popish Islands. Popery is favourable to ceremony; and
among ignorant nations, ceremony is the only preservative of tradition.
Since protestantism was extended to the savage parts of Scotland, it has
perhaps been one of the chief labours of the Ministers to abolish stated
observances, because they continued the remembrance of the former
religion. We therefore who came to hear old traditions, and see
antiquated manners, should probably have found them amongst the Papists.
Canna, the other Popish Island, belongs to Clanronald. It is said not to
comprise more than twelve miles of land, and yet maintains as many
inhabitants as Rum.
We were at Col under the protection of the young Laird, without any of
the distresses, which Mr. Pennant, in a fit of simple credulity, seems to
think almost worthy of an elegy by Ossian. Wherever we roved, we were
pleased to see the reverence with which his subjects regarded him. He
did not endeavour to dazzle them by any magnificence of dress: his only
distinction was a feather in his bonnet; but as soon as he appeared, they
forsook their work and clustered about him: he took them by the hand, and
they seemed mutually delighted. He has the proper disposition of a
Chieftain, and seems desirous to continue the customs of his house. The
bagpiper played regularly, when dinner was served, whose person and dress
made a good appearance; and he brought no disgrace upon the family of
Rankin, which has long supplied the Lairds of Col with hereditary musick.
The Tacksmen of Col seem to live with less dignity and convenience than
those of Sky; where they had good houses, and tables not only plentiful,
but delicate. In Col only two houses pay the window tax; for only two
have six windows, which, I suppose, are the Laird's and Mr. Macsweyn's.
The rents have, till within seven years, been paid in kind, but the
tenants finding that cattle and corn varied in their price, desired for
the future to give their landlord money; which, not having yet arrived at
the philosophy of commerce, they consider as being every year of the same
value.
We were told of a particular mode of under-tenure. The Tacksman admits
some of his inferior neighbours to the cultivation of his grounds, on
condition that performing all the work, and giving a third part of the
seed, they shall keep a certain number of cows, sheep, and goats, and
reap a third part of the harvest. Thus by less than the tillage of two
acres they pay the rent of one.
There are tenants below the rank of Tacksmen, that have got smaller
tenants under them; for in every place, where money is not the general
equivalent, there must be some whose labour is immediately paid by daily
food.
A country that has no money, is by no means convenient for beggars, both
because such countries are commonly poor, and because charity requires
some trouble and some thought. A penny is easily given upon the first
impulse of compassion, or impatience of importunity; but few will
deliberately search their cupboards or their granaries to find out
something to give. A penny is likewise easily spent, but victuals, if
they are unprepared, require houseroom, and fire, and utensils, which the
beggar knows not where to find.
Yet beggars there sometimes are, who wander from Island to Island. We
had, in our passage to Mull, the company of a woman and her child, who
had exhausted the charity of Col. The arrival of a beggar on an Island
is accounted a sinistrous event. Every body considers that he shall have
the less for what he gives away. Their alms, I believe, is generally
oatmeal.
Near to Col is another Island called Tireye, eminent for its fertility.
Though it has but half the extent of Rum, it is so well peopled, that
there have appeared, not long ago, nine hundred and fourteen at a
funeral. The plenty of this Island enticed beggars to it, who seemed so
burdensome to the inhabitants, that a formal compact was drawn up, by
which they obliged themselves to grant no more relief to casual
wanderers, because they had among them an indigent woman of high birth,
whom they considered as entitled to all that they could spare. I have
read the stipulation, which was indited with juridical formality, but was
never made valid by regular subscription.
If the inhabitants of Col have nothing to give, it is not that they are
oppressed by their landlord: their leases seem to be very profitable. One
farmer, who pays only seven pounds a year, has maintained seven daughters
and three sons, of whom the eldest is educated at Aberdeen for the
ministry; and now, at every vacation, opens a school in Col.
Life is here, in some respects, improved beyond the condition of some
other Islands. In Sky what is wanted can only be bought, as the arrival
of some wandering pedlar may afford an opportunity; but in Col there is a
standing shop, and in Mull there are two. A shop in the Islands, as in
other places of little frequentation, is a repository of every thing
requisite for common use. Mr. Boswell's journal was filled, and he
bought some paper in Col. To a man that ranges the streets of London,
where he is tempted to contrive wants, for the pleasure of supplying
them, a shop affords no image worthy of attention; but in an Island, it
turns the balance of existence between good and evil. To live in
perpetual want of little things, is a state not indeed of torture, but of
constant vexation. I have in Sky had some difficulty to find ink for a
letter; and if a woman breaks her needle, the work is at a stop.
As it is, the Islanders are obliged to content themselves with
succedaneous means for many common purposes. I have seen the chief man
of a very wide district riding with a halter for a bridle, and governing
his hobby with a wooden curb.
The people of Col, however, do not want dexterity to supply some of their
necessities. Several arts which make trades, and demand apprenticeships
in great cities, are here the practices of daily economy. In every house
candles are made, both moulded and dipped. Their wicks are small shreds
of linen cloth. They all know how to extract from the Cuddy, oil for
their lamps. They all tan skins, and make brogues.
As we travelled through Sky, we saw many cottages, but they very
frequently stood single on the naked ground. In Col, where the hills
opened a place convenient for habitation, we found a petty village, of
which every hut had a little garden adjoining; thus they made an
appearance of social commerce and mutual offices, and of some attention
to convenience and future supply. There is not in the Western Islands
any collection of buildings that can make pretensions to be called a
town, except in the Isle of Lewis, which I have not seen.
If Lewis is distinguished by a town, Col has also something peculiar. The
young Laird has attempted what no Islander perhaps ever thought on. He
has begun a road capable of a wheel-carriage. He has carried it about a
mile, and will continue it by annual elongation from his house to the
harbour.
Of taxes here is no reason for complaining; they are paid by a very easy
composition. The malt-tax for Col is twenty shillings. Whisky is very
plentiful: there are several stills in the Island, and more is made than
the inhabitants consume.
The great business of insular policy is now to keep the people in their
own country. As the world has been let in upon them, they have heard of
happier climates, and less arbitrary government; and if they are
disgusted, have emissaries among them ready to offer them land and
houses, as a reward for deserting their Chief and clan. Many have
departed both from the main of Scotland, and from the Islands; and all
that go may be considered as subjects lost to the British crown; for a
nation scattered in the boundless regions of America resembles rays
diverging from a focus. All the rays remain, but the heat is gone. Their
power consisted in their concentration: when they are dispersed, they
have no effect.
It may be thought that they are happier by the change; but they are not
happy as a nation, for they are a nation no longer. As they contribute
not to the prosperity of any community, they must want that security,
that dignity, that happiness, whatever it be, which a prosperous
community throws back upon individuals.
The inhabitants of Col have not yet learned to be weary of their heath
and rocks, but attend their agriculture and their dairies, without
listening to American seducements.
There are some however who think that this emigration has raised terrour
disproportionate to its real evil; and that it is only a new mode of
doing what was always done. The Highlands, they say, never maintained
their natural inhabitants; but the people, when they found themselves too
numerous, instead of extending cultivation, provided for themselves by a
more compendious method, and sought better fortune in other countries.
They did not indeed go away in collective bodies, but withdrew invisibly,
a few at a time; but the whole number of fugitives was not less, and the
difference between other times and this, is only the same as between
evaporation and effusion.
This is plausible, but I am afraid it is not true. Those who went
before, if they were not sensibly missed, as the argument supposes, must
have gone either in less number, or in a manner less detrimental, than at
present; because formerly there was no complaint. Those who then left
the country were generally the idle dependants on overburdened families,
or men who had no property; and therefore carried away only themselves.
In the present eagerness of emigration, families, and almost communities,
go away together. Those who were considered as prosperous and wealthy
sell their stock and carry away the money. Once none went away but the
useless and poor; in some parts there is now reason to fear, that none
will stay but those who are too poor to remove themselves, and too
useless to be removed at the cost of others.
Of antiquity there is not more knowledge in Col than in other places; but
every where something may be gleaned.
How ladies were portioned, when there was no money, it would be difficult
for an Englishman to guess. In 1649, Maclean of Dronart in Mull married
his sister Fingala to Maclean of Coll, with a hundred and eighty kine;
and stipulated, that if she became a widow, her jointure should be three
hundred and sixty. I suppose some proportionate tract of land was
appropriated to their pasturage.
The disposition to pompous and expensive funerals, which has at one time
or other prevailed in most parts of the civilized world, is not yet
suppressed in the Islands, though some of the ancient solemnities are
worn away, and singers are no longer hired to attend the procession.
Nineteen years ago, at the burial of the Laird of Col, were killed thirty
cows, and about fifty sheep. The number of the cows is positively told,
and we must suppose other victuals in like proportion.
Mr. Maclean informed us of an odd game, of which he did not tell the
original, but which may perhaps be used in other places, where the reason
of it is not yet forgot. At New-year's eve, in the hall or castle of the
Laird, where, at festal seasons, there may be supposed a very numerous
company, one man dresses himself in a cow's hide, upon which other men
beat with sticks. He runs with all this noise round the house, which all
the company quits in a counterfeited fright: the door is then shut. At
New-year's eve there is no great pleasure to be had out of doors in the
Hebrides. They are sure soon to recover from their terrour enough to
solicit for re-admission; which, for the honour of poetry, is not to be
obtained but by repeating a verse, with which those that are knowing and
provident take care to be furnished.
Very near the house of Maclean stands the castle of Col, which was the
mansion of the Laird, till the house was built. It is built upon a rock,
as Mr. Boswell remarked, that it might not be mined. It is very strong,
and having been not long uninhabited, is yet in repair. On the wall was,
not long ago, a stone with an inscription, importing, that 'if any man of
the clan of Maclonich shall appear before this castle, though he come at
midnight, with a man's head in his hand, he shall there find safety and
protection against all but the King.'
This is an old Highland treaty made upon a very memorable occasion.
Maclean, the son of John Gerves, who recovered Col, and conquered Barra,
had obtained, it is said, from James the Second, a grant of the lands of
Lochiel, forfeited, I suppose, by some offence against the state.
Forfeited estates were not in those days quietly resigned; Maclean,
therefore, went with an armed force to seize his new possessions, and, I
know not for what reason, took his wife with him. The Camerons rose in
defence of their Chief, and a battle was fought at the head of Loch Ness,
near the place where Fort Augustus now stands, in which Lochiel obtained
the victory, and Maclean, with his followers, was defeated and destroyed.
The lady fell into the hands of the conquerours, and being found pregnant
was placed in the custody of Maclonich, one of a tribe or family branched
from Cameron, with orders, if she brought a boy, to destroy him, if a
girl, to spare her.
Maclonich's wife, who was with child likewise, had a girl about the same
time at which lady Maclean brought a boy, and Maclonich with more
generosity to his captive, than fidelity to his trust, contrived that the
children should be changed.
Maclean being thus preserved from death, in time recovered his original
patrimony; and in gratitude to his friend, made his castle a place of
refuge to any of the clan that should think himself in danger; and, as a
proof of reciprocal confidence, Maclean took upon himself and his
posterity the care of educating the heir of Maclonich.
This story, like all other traditions of the Highlands, is variously
related, but though some circumstances are uncertain, the principal fact
is true. Maclean undoubtedly owed his preservation to Maclonich; for the
treaty between the two families has been strictly observed: it did not
sink into disuse and oblivion, but continued in its full force while the
chieftains retained their power. I have read a demand of protection,
made not more than thirty-seven years ago, for one of the Maclonichs,
named Ewen Cameron, who had been accessory to the death of Macmartin, and
had been banished by Lochiel, his lord, for a certain term; at the
expiration of which he returned married from France, but the Macmartins,
not satisfied with the punishment, when he attempted to settle, still
threatened him with vengeance. He therefore asked, and obtained shelter
in the Isle of Col.
The power of protection subsists no longer, but what the law permits is
yet continued, and Maclean of Col now educates the heir of Maclonich.
There still remains in the Islands, though it is passing fast away, the
custom of fosterage. A Laird, a man of wealth and eminence, sends his
child, either male or female, to a tacksman, or tenant, to be fostered.
It is not always his own tenant, but some distant friend that obtains
this honour; for an honour such a trust is very reasonably thought. The
terms of fosterage seem to vary in different islands. In Mull, the
father sends with his child a certain number of cows, to which the same
number is added by the fosterer. The father appropriates a
proportionable extent of ground, without rent, for their pasturage. If
every cow brings a calf, half belongs to the fosterer, and half to the
child; but if there be only one calf between two cows, it is the child's,
and when the child returns to the parent, it is accompanied by all the
cows given, both by the father and by the fosterer, with half of the
increase of the stock by propagation. These beasts are considered as a
portion, and called Macalive cattle, of which the father has the produce,
but is supposed not to have the full property, but to owe the same number
to the child, as a portion to the daughter, or a stock for the son.
Children continue with the fosterer perhaps six years, and cannot, where
this is the practice, be considered as burdensome. The fosterer, if he
gives four cows, receives likewise four, and has, while the child
continues with him, grass for eight without rent, with half the calves,
and all the milk, for which he pays only four cows when he dismisses his
Dalt, for that is the name for a foster child.
Fosterage is, I believe, sometimes performed upon more liberal terms. Our
friend, the young Laird of Col, was fostered by Macsweyn of Grissipol.
Macsweyn then lived a tenant to Sir James Macdonald in the Isle of Sky;
and therefore Col, whether he sent him cattle or not, could grant him no
land. The Dalt, however, at his return, brought back a considerable
number of Macalive cattle, and of the friendship so formed there have
been good effects. When Macdonald raised his rents, Macsweyn was, like
other tenants, discontented, and, resigning his farm, removed from Sky to
Col, and was established at Grissipol.
These observations we made by favour of the contrary wind that drove us
to Col, an Island not often visited; for there is not much to amuse
curiosity, or to attract avarice.
The ground has been hitherto, I believe, used chiefly for pasturage. In
a district, such as the eye can command, there is a general herdsman, who
knows all the cattle of the neighbourhood, and whose station is upon a
hill, from which he surveys the lower grounds; and if one man's cattle
invade another's grass, drives them back to their own borders. But other
means of profit begin to be found; kelp is gathered and burnt, and sloops
are loaded with the concreted ashes. Cultivation is likely to be
improved by the skill and encouragement of the present heir, and the
inhabitants of those obscure vallies will partake of the general progress
of life.
The rents of the parts which belong to the Duke of Argyle, have been
raised from fifty-five to one hundred and five pounds, whether from the
land or the sea I cannot tell. The bounties of the sea have lately been
so great, that a farm in Southuist has risen in ten years from a rent of
thirty pounds to one hundred and eighty.
He who lives in Col, and finds himself condemned to solitary meals, and
incommunicable reflection, will find the usefulness of that middle order
of Tacksmen, which some who applaud their own wisdom are wishing to
destroy. Without intelligence man is not social, he is only gregarious;
and little intelligence will there be, where all are constrained to daily
labour, and every mind must wait upon the hand.
After having listened for some days to the tempest, and wandered about
the Island till our curiosity was satisfied, we began to think about our
departure. To leave Col in October was not very easy. We however found
a sloop which lay on the coast to carry kelp; and for a price which we
thought levied upon our necessities, the master agreed to carry us to
Mull, whence we might readily pass back to Scotland.