Appendix A. 473 



In various localities and on various occasions I made minute inquiries of old XCIX 



people as to the detailed farm stock and domestic substance of their fathers. 



The people then had more land and of better quality ; they had more horses, cLlm^"had. 

 sheep, and cattle ; they had more crop, and of better quality ; they had better 

 nourishing food, and they had better bed and body clothing. They had also 

 more constructive ingenuity in arts and manufactures, and they had more 

 mental and physical stamina, and more refinement of manners. 



Therefore, go back to the old order of things under improved conditions. 

 Unloosen their cords, and allow the people to expand by filling up the central 

 rungs in the land ladder, all of which are at present absent, rendering it 

 impossible for a crofter, however industrious, to rise higher than he is. To 

 my thinking it is impolitic, as well as unjust, to hem the people into a corner, 

 thereby impoverishing the many to enrich the few. The people of the Outer 

 Hebrides are admirable workers by sea and land, and if they are less per- 

 severing than they might be, it is the fault of circumstances. 



Old Hymns. 



The oral lore of the old Highland people is rapidly dying out with the old 

 people themselves. There is an essential difference between the old and the 

 young people. The young people are acquiring a smattering of school educa- 

 tion in which they are taught to ignore the oral literature which tended to 

 elevate and ennoble their fathers. In his anxiety to rescue what he could of 

 this unwritten literature of various kinds, the wi-iter has sacrificed promotion 

 several times offered to him. A few hymns from this mass of old lore are given 

 in this paper at the desire of the noble Chairman of this Commission, Lord 

 Napier and Ettrick. 



