Appendix A. 463 



Mr Macgrigor was warmly loved and welcomed wherever he went, and now- XCIX 



here more warmly than by the excellent family of the then minister of the 



parish, the Eev. Roderick Maclean. Mr Maclean, being an excellent classic, as Carmichael 

 well as an excellent man, read from the Greek and Hebrew Texts to the last. 

 He and Mr Macgrigor were warm friends, and perhaps no more graceful act 

 was ever done by the minister of one denomination to that of another, than was 

 done by the parish minister to the priest. The then factor was deprivincr Mr 

 Macgrigor of his croft and confiscating his improvements. The minister of the 

 parish, the only man who could do so with safety, used his good offices with the 

 absentee proprietor, and Mr Macgrigor, to the relief of every person, was let alone. 



A subsequent factor nearly took the place from Mr Macgrigor's successor, 

 not because this lamb himself was accused of disturbing the water, but because, 

 as the ftictor alleged, erroneously, however, that another lamb of the same kind, in 

 a distant fold, was. Better counsel prevailed, however. 



These and similar cases show the need of security against arbitrary evictions, 

 at the hands of men whose own despotic will is their law. When men so 

 ofi'enceless, so respected and beloved by the whole community, so narrowly 

 escaped, what chance had obscure crofters who had no one to speak for them ? 



What improvements on lands or on houses can be expected under such condi- 

 tions, and in the absence of proprietors or proprietrixes if misled, however well 

 meaning \ 



Dr Alexander Macleod, commonly called An Dotair Ban, from his fair hair, 

 was factor over the South Uist estates for a few years. During his altogether too 

 brief factorship, Dr Macleod conceived and executed many schemes of great 

 originality and utility for the improvement of the estates. Among other things 

 he placed stones along the strand for growing sea- weed ; he planted bent, 

 Gaelic, Muran, over hundreds of acres of sterile sands that are now smiling 

 machairs ; and he cut canals — Gaelic, Ligeadh — from lakes to the sea, whereby 

 he drained vast tracts of land hitherto under water. On these canals he 

 placed ingeniously constructed self-acting flood-gates, to let out the fresh and 

 to keep out the salt water. 



Instead of draining the estates of their money, like others, Dr Macleod 

 endeavoured to drain them of their water, while the many wonderful im- 

 provements he efl"ected over these estates testify to his success, and indicate 

 what the estates would have become under his management. 



When Colonel Gordon of Cluny heard of his death, he wept, though not 

 much given to weeping, and said : — ' I have had many halflins, but never a 

 whole factor except Dr Macleod.' 



The people of the Western Isles still speak with admiration of Dr Macleod's 

 head and heart, and of his medical skill. 



The people of the Gordon estates had great faith in the ability and integrity 

 of Mr James Drever, now of Orkney, for the improvemeat of the impoverished 

 estates and people, and they stiU regret his resignation of the factorship. 



North Uist. 



All the crofter land in North Uist, except that of three farms, is held and 

 worked on tlie Intermediate System of Run-Rig. This system has been described 

 in South Uist. The three farms in question are those of Hosta, Caolas Paipil, and 

 Heisgeir. These three are still used and worked entirely on the Run- Rig System, 

 and probably they are the only examples now remaining in Scotland, if not in the 

 British Isles, of this once prevalent System of holding the land and tilling the 



