IN THE HIGHLANDS 191 



weather in March and April to cut tangle on the coast 

 of the Eudha Reidh promontory, ten miles out to 

 sea from their homes, for manure for their potatoes. 

 They then carried this fearfully heavy wet mass on their 

 backs in creels for a good two miles up a steep hill from 

 the sea-pool of the Ewe, to some cultivable spots on the 

 moor above the present ToUie farm, which stiU glisten 

 like emeralds among the surrounding heather. I am 

 glad to say they were sometimes well rewarded by 

 Providence, as I have heard that they not infrequently 

 brought home a creel full of potatoes in autumn for 

 every creel of sea-ware they had carried up in the spring, 

 so effective is sea -ware on new land ! And the women 

 of those days — how they slaved carrying the peats or 

 kneeling do\vn to cut short grass for hay with small sickles. 

 When collecting shell-fish for food and bait for the 

 lines, they had to stand out in the sea above their knees, 

 and they were continually rounding up the goats bare- 

 footed among the most dangerous precipices, in order 

 to get them in at night and thus be able to milk them 

 and make cheese for winter consumption ! How 

 different, alas ! are the men and the women of the 

 present day, when it is thought a hardship if the women 

 have to make porridge for breakfast or oat-cakes for 

 dinner, because the baker failed to call at the door with 

 his van, of often very bad loaf bread ! 



