Page images
PDF
EPUB

The cattle often perish by falling from the precipices. It is like the other islands, I think, generally naked of shade, but it is naked by neglect; for the laird has an orchard, and very large forest trees grow about his house. Like other hilly countries it has many rivulets. One of the brooks turns a corn-mill, and at least one produces trouts.

In the ftreams or fresh lakes of the islands, I have never heard of any other fish than trouts and eels. The trouts which I have seen, are not large; the co lour of their flesh is tinged as in England. Of their eels I can give no account, having never tafted them; for I believe they are not confidered as wholefome food.

It is not very easy to fix the principles upon which mankind have agreed to eat fome animals, and reject others; and as the principle is not evident, it is not uniform. That which is felected as delicate in one country, is by its neighbours abhorred as loathfome. The Neapolitans lately refused to: eat potatoes in a famine. An Englishman is not eafily perfuaded to dine on fnails with an Italian, on frogs with a Frenchman, or on horfe-flesh with a Tartar. The vulgar inhabitants of Sky, I know not whether of the other iflands, have not only eels, but: pork and bacon in abhorrence, and accordingly I never faw a hog in the Hebrides, except one at Dunvegan.

Raafay has wild fowl in abundance, but neither deer, hares, nor rabbits. Why it has them not, might be afked, but that of fuch queftions there is no end.

Why

Why does any nation want what it might have? Why are not fpices transplanted to America? Why does tea continue to be brought from China? Life improves but by flow degrees, and much in every place is yet to do. Attempts have been made to raise roebucks in Raafay, but without effect. The young ones it is extremely difficult to rear, and the old can very feldom be taken alive.

Hares and rabbits might be more cafily obtained. That they have few or none of either in Sky, they impute to the ravage of the foxes, and have there-fore fet, for fome years paft, a price upon their heads, which, as the number was diminished, has been gradually raised, from three fhillings and fixpence to a guinea, a fum fo great in this part of the world, that in a fhort time Sky may be as free from foxes, as England from wolves. The fund for these rewards. is a tax of fixpence in the pound, impofed by the farmers on themselves, and faid to be paid with great willingness.

The beafts of prey in the islands are foxes, otters, and weafels. The foxes are bigger than thofe of England; but the otters exceed ours in a far greater proportion.. I faw one at Armidel, of a fize much beyond that which I fuppofed them ever to attain; and Mr. Maclean, the heir of Col, a man of middle ftature, informed me that he once fhot an otter, of which the tail reached the ground, when he held up the head to a level with his own. I expected the otter to have a foot particularly formed for the art of fwimming; but upon examination, I did not. find it differing much from that of a fpaniel. As

he

.

he preys in the fea, he does little vifible mifchief, and is killed only for his fur. White otters are fometimes feen.

In Raafay they might have hares and rabbits, for they have no foxes. Some depredations, such as were never made before, have caufed a fufpicion that a fox has been lately landed in the island by fpite or wantonnefs. This imaginary ftranger has never yet been feen, and therefore, perhaps, the mischief was done by fome other animal. It is not likely that a creature fo ungentle, whofe head could have been fold in Sky for a guinea, should be kept alive only to gratify the malice of fending him to prey upon a neighbour and the paffage from Sky is wider than a fox would venture to fwim, unless he were chafed by dogs into the fea, and perhaps than his ftrength would enable him to crofs. How beafts of prey came into any islands is not eafy to guess. In cold countries they take advantage of hard winters, and travel over the ice; but this is a very scanty solution; for they are found where they have no discoverable means of coming.

The corn of this ifland is but little. I faw the harvest of a small field. The women reaped the corn, and the men bound up the fheaves. The ftrokes of the fickle were timed by the modulation of the harvest fong, in which all their voices were united. They accompany in the Highlands every action, which can be done in equal time, with an appropriated ftrain, which has, they fay, not much meaning; but its effects are regularity and cheerfulness. The ancient proceleufmatick fong, by which the rowers of gallies were ani

mated,

mated, may be fuppofed to have been of this kind. There is now an oar-fong used by the Hebridians.

The ground of Raafay feems fitter for cattle than for corn, and of black cattle I fuppofe the number is very great. The laird himfelf keeps a herd of four hundred, one hundred of which are annually fold. Of an extensive domain, which he holds in his own hands, he confiders the fale of cattle as repaying him the rent, and supports the plenty of a very liberal table with the remaining product.

Raafay is fuppofed to have been very long inhabited. On one fide of it they fhow caves into which the rude nations of the first ages retreated from the weather. These dreary vaults might have had other ufes. There is ftill a cavity near the houfe called the oar-cave, in which the feamen, after one of those piratical expeditions, which in rougher times was very frequent, ufed, as tradition tells, to hide their oars. This hollow was near the fea, that nothing fo neceffary might be far to be fetched; and it was fecret, that enemies, if they landed, could find nothing. Yet it is not very evident of what use it was to hide their oars from those, who, if they were mafters of the coaft, could take away their boats.

A proof much ftronger of the distance at which the firit poffeffors of this ifland lived from the present time, is afforded by the ftone heads of arrows which are very frequently picked up. The people call them clf-bolts, and believe that the fairies fhoot them at the cattle. They nearly refemble thofe which Mr. Banks has lately brought from the favage countries in the Pacifick Ocean, and must have been made by a nation to which the ufe of metals was unknown.

The

The number of this little community has never been counted by its ruler, nor have I obtained any pofitive account, confiftent with the refult of political computation. Not many years ago, the late laird led out one hundred men upon a military expedition. The fixth part of a people is fuppofed capable of bearing arms: Raafay had therefore fix hundred inhabitants. But because it is not likely, that every man able to ferve in the field would follow the fummons, or that the chief would leave his lands totally defenceless, or take away all the hands qualified for labour, let it be supposed, that half as many might be permitted to ftay at home. The whole number will then be nine hundred, or nine to a fquare mile; a degree of populoufnefs greater than those tracts of defolation can often show. They are content with their country, and faithful to their chiefs, and yet uninfected with the fever of migra

tion.

Near the house at Raafay is a chapel unroofed and ruinous, which has long been used only as a place of burial. About the churches in the iflands are small fquares enclosed with ftone, which belong to particular families, as repofitories for the dead. At Raafay there is one, I think for the proprietor, and one for fome collateral house.

It is told by Martin, that at the death of the lady of the ifland, it has been here the cuftom to erect a cross. This we found not to be true. The ftones that ftand about the chapel at a fmall diftance, fome of which perhaps have croffes cut upon them, are believed to have been not funeral monuments, but

the

« PreviousContinue »