WAYS AND MEANS.
The principal sources of livelihood of the Gairloch people are their
crofts and stock and their fisheries, both treated of in separate
chapters. Of course a number of men have regular engagements, as farm or
other servants and gamekeepers; whilst a few carry on trades, as
tailors, shoemakers, weavers, boatbuilders, thatchers, dykers, sawyers,
carpenters, and masons.
Some young men of the parish go south, and obtain situations either for
the winter season or all the year round, and they often contribute
towards home expenses.
The women of Gairloch, like all other Highland women, are noticeable for
their industry. It is they who carry home heavy creels of peats for the
household fire,--peats in the treatment of which they had taken an
active share the previous summer; they herd the cow, and manage the
house. But, more than all, it is the women who are mainly instrumental
in producing the only manufactures of the parish, and very excellent
manufactures too they are. They card and dye and spin the wool, they
knit the Gairloch hose, and they prepare the various coloured worsteds
which the weaver converts into tweeds of different patterns. Large
numbers of the stockings are sent to Inverness, Edinburgh, and London
(see last chapter). Some of the tweeds are worn in the parish, and some
are sold to strangers.
It will be remembered that the early Pictish inhabitants of Gairloch
dwelt in the brochs or round houses of what may almost be called the
pre-historic period. These were succeeded by turf-built huts, the roofs
of which, rudely framed with boughs, were covered with divots or turfs.
The last turf house in the parish is said to have been at Moss Bank,
Poolewe, and was occupied by an uncle of John Mackenzie (Iain Glas),
whose improved dwelling stands on the same site. There are, however, two
modern turf-built dwellings still to be seen at South Erradale. The turf
house was gradually replaced by the style of dwelling which now prevails
in the parish. The present cottages have their walls of stone, the
better ones cemented with lime; the roofs of timber, thatched with
heather, rushes, or straw; divots are also still frequently used in
roofing. Some few superior crofters' houses have slated roofs, and
modern grates with flues and regular chimneys. But many of the crofters
still have their byres under the same roof; still have no chimney in the
living room, whence the smoke from the peat fire escapes only by a hole
in the roof; and still have the heap of ashes, slops, manure, and refuse
just outside the door. Sir Francis Mackenzie, in his "Hints" (1838), has
some suggestive remarks on the subject of these dwellings. He
writes:--"I must at once protest against human beings and cattle
entering together in your present fashion at the same doorway.... I will
not raise a laugh at your expense by describing your present smoky dens,
and the hole in the roof with sometimes an old creel stuck on it in
imitation of a chimney. The smoke you now live in not only dirties and
destroys your clothes and furniture, but soon reduces the prettiest rosy
faces in the world to premature wrinkles and deformities.... Let there
be no apology for want of time for carrying away ashes, sweepings, or
dirty water, and adding them to your dunghill, instead of sweeping all
into a corner till you have more time, and emptying the dirty water at
your door because you are too lazy to go a few yards farther."
The houses of the crofters are certainly undergoing gradual improvement,
but the majority cling tenaciously to the type of dwelling their fathers
occupied before them. Perhaps the villages of Strath, Poolewe, and
Port-Henderson contain the most improved houses in the parish. Very few
of the crofters have gardens worthy of the name, so that, of course,
they lose the advantage of green vegetables and fresh fruits. Still more
rare is it to see trees planted about their dwellings, though pleasant
shade and shelter might thus be had, and though, it is understood,
saplings might be obtained for the asking from the proprietors.
As a natural consequence of the proximity of middens to dwelling-houses,
and other unhealthy arrangements, cases of fever occasionally occur. In
the Old Statistical Account, 1792 (Appendix C), the writer, speaking of
Gairloch, says that fevers were frequent, and an infectious putrid fever
early in the preceding winter had proved fatal to many. Pennant had
previously noticed how spring fever used to decimate the west coast.
Such outbreaks have happily become rare since the potato famine of 1847
led the people to depend more on imported meal for their sustenance in
spring.
Few of the crofters' houses are floored, so that the inmates stand on
the natural ground, or put their feet on a loose plank. In wet weather
the ground often becomes damp. From this and other local causes
pulmonary consumption is common among the crofter class. It is only
right to add that this fatal disease often appears among some of the
young people who go to work in southern towns, and come home to die.
Smallpox is said to have been fatal in Gairloch in the eighteenth
century, at the time when it ravaged the adjoining parish of Applecross.
The _soubriquet_ "breac" (_i.e._ pock-pitted), so often met with in the
history of Gairloch, is an evidence of the former frequency of this
epidemic. Thanks to vaccination, it is now almost unknown.
[Illustration: TOR-SGIAN, OR PEAT KNIFE.
SCALE--ONE INCH TO A FOOT.]
The chief articles of diet of the crofter population are fish, either
fresh or cured, oatmeal, potatoes, and milk, with a little butcher meat
occasionally. Eggs are not much eaten, but are exported to Glasgow in
considerable quantities. None of the crofters keep pigs, which they
consider to be unclean beasts; it is singular they should entirely
neglect a source of food and profit so universal among their Irish
congeners. Captain Burt, in his day, noticed the absence of swine among
the mountains; he said, "those people have no offal wherewith to feed
them; and were they to give them other food, one single sow would devour
all the provisions of a family."
The principal intoxicating beverage in Gairloch is whisky. Very little
beer is consumed by the natives. Whisky became known in the Highlands
during the sixteenth century, and soon found its way to Gairloch; but it
is said that the mania for illicit distillation did not reach the parish
until the year 1800. The first whisky was distilled in Gairloch by the
grandfather of Alexander Cameron, the Tournaig bard, in Bruachaig, on
the way up to the heights of Kenlochewe. The mother of George Maclennan,
of Londubh, was at that time servant at the Kenlochewe inn, and long
afterwards told her son how the innkeeper bought the whisky and the
plant as well.
James Mackenzie says that it was in his father's house at Mellon
Charles, in the same year (1800), that the first Gairloch whisky was
made by a stranger, who had craved and obtained his father's
hospitality. Probably both accounts are correct, but it is impossible at
this distance of time to determine to whom the questionable honour of
having commenced the illicit distillation of whisky ought to be
assigned. The mania for smuggled whisky spread very rapidly throughout
the parish, and is not yet extinct. The larger islands of Loch Maree
were the scenes of illicit distillation in the early part of the
nineteenth century. They say a regular periodical market for the sale of
whisky made on the islands, used to be held at the large square stone on
the shore of Loch Maree between Ardlair and Rudha Cailleach, called
Clach a Mhail (_see illustration_).
Peats are the only fuel used by the crofter population; they are cut
from the peat-mosses by means of an instrument admirably adapted for the
purpose, called the "torasgian," or peat knife (_see illustration_).
Before the cutting is commenced, a spit of turf is removed from the
surface of the ground by another implement called the "cabar lar," or
turf-parer (_see illustration_). Each tenant has a portion of a
convenient peat-moss allotted to him. The peats are cut when the spring
work is over,--in April, May, or June,--if the weather permit. After
being cut the peats are reared on end to dry, and when thoroughly dried
are stacked for use. The stacks are ingeniously constructed, with the
outside peats sloping downwards, so as to throw off rain-water. Some
twenty years ago there was a season of such continuous wet weather that
the peats never dried, and the people were put to great straits to keep
themselves warm during the succeeding winter.
[Illustration: CLIABH MOINE, OR PEAT CREEL.
SCALE--ONE SIXTEENTH TRUE SIZE.]
The peat creel (_see illustration_), called in Gaelic "cliabh moine," is
used for bringing home supplies of peat as needed. Creels are made by
the people of willow and birch twigs.
There are very few carts among the crofters, and they have no other
vehicles.
Dr Mackenzie gives the following account of the curious sledges which
were used in Gairloch instead of wheeled carts in the beginning of the
nineteenth century:--"There being no need of wheels in a roadless
country, although we had a six-mile road to the big loch [Loch Maree]
and another six miles to its exit at the sea [at Poolewe], we had only
sledges (in place of wheeled carts), all made by our farm-bailiff or
grieve. He took two birch trees of the most suitable bends, and of them
made the two shafts, with ironwork to suit the harness of back belts and
collar-straps. The ends of the shafts were sliced away with an adze at
the proper angle to slide easily and smoothly on the ground. Two planks,
one behind the horse and the other about a foot from the shaft-ends,
were securely nailed to the shaft, and bored with many augur-holes to
receive many four-feet long hazel rungs to form front and back of the
cart to keep in the goods, a similar plank atop of the rungs, making the
front and rear of the cart surprisingly stiff and upright. The floor was
made of planks, and these sledge-carts did all that was needed in moving
crop of most kinds. I think moveable boxes, planted on the sledge-floor
between the front and rear hazel rod palings, served to carry up fish
from the shore, lime, and manure, &c. And it was long ere my father [Sir
Hector Mackenzie of Gairloch] paid a penny a year to a cartwright."
[ILLUSTRATION: HIGHLAND HAND-PLOUGH, CALLED CAS-CHROM, OR CROOKED FOOT.
SCALE--ONE FOURTEENTH TRUE SIZE.]