40 Transactions. 



Creation." The rocky ridges, with morasses intervening, 

 separate the different straths or valleys, of which the parish is 

 made up, the one from the other, and render intercourse between 

 them impracticable except for pedestrians. Anyone wishing to 

 ride or drive from one strath to the next, must needs go down 

 to the sea level and turn the flank of the intervening barrier. 

 But as bearing upon the insulated or semi-insulated condition of 

 the parish as it existed fifty years ago, what I would especially 

 draw attention to is that Colvend on its landward side is 

 surrounded by hills, particularly the Criffel range, which for 

 miles form a barrier separating the parish from other parishes 

 adjacent, and rendering intercourse between them impracticable. 

 This, concurring with the previous cause referred to — their sea 

 surroundings — made the people live a sort of isolated life, having 

 Utile communication with the outside world. At that time the 

 saying was common — " Out of the world and into Colvend." 

 The effect was to beget selfishness and exclusiveness — to make 

 the native population intolerant and jealous of strangers. I 

 heard a farmer, an incomer, whose descendants are now recognised 

 as natives, say that when he came into the parish a stranger, 

 some sixty years ago, he was the object of general suspicion and 

 dislike, but that, when in the course of time another farmer, a 

 stranger also, came to occupy a farm near him, " he was glad, 

 for Mr So-and-So would take the people off his back." 



Another and a less ohjectionable peculiarity common to com- 

 munities circumstanced like the people of Colvend, who live isolated 

 and removed to a distance from the bustle and turmoil of the 

 outside world, is that they retain long a simplicity of character 

 and a naivety of expression, which others, mingling much in the 

 civilised world, have lost, or do not care to retain. To be so 

 regarded by outsiders is naturally resented as matter of offence. 

 An old lady whom I knew well, aiid who was very properly 

 proud of lier native parish of Colvend and its people, was in no 

 little degree displeased with a neighbouring clergyman because, in 

 speaking to her of the people of Colvend, he called them a 

 primitive people. This, of course, he did to teaze her, for he 

 knew her susceptibility. 



Colvend differs from the majority of parishes, which, as a 

 rule, are divided, and belong to a few individuals. In many 

 cases a single individual owns the whole. In Colvend it is 

 different. At the beginning of the time with which my paper is 



