XX11 INTRODUCTION. 



to be 1 6 families in Crickernish; there is nobody there now 

 but a shepherd. From other townships about 47 families 

 were removed. Hugh MacCaskill was barely settled when 

 he began the same operation as MacLean. The big town- 

 ship of Ferrinlea which was occupied by 30 families was 

 cleared 50 years ago. A township in Minginish, with 12 

 families, was cleared, and the people in a place called 

 Lec-a-chlerich were evicted and the people scattered 

 throughout the world. The MacLeod family began the 

 Clearances and MacCaskill finished them. There was 

 another township near Carbost Beg, in which there were 

 four families who were very well off. The daughter of a 

 widow told me that her father had given Hugh MacCaskill 

 ;i8o to help him when he came to Talisker, but when the 

 place was cleared, he removed her mother along with the 

 others. This woman saw her father's corn shoved into the 

 river when the place was cleared to make a distillery." 



The Chairman " Is that the whole list of Clearances you 

 have to mention?" "No; I may say that what the Assyrians 

 left undone the Babylonians finished. I refer to the present 

 tacksman as the Babylonian. Those whom I named before 

 are dead. I want now to speak of the living. I begin with 

 Mr. Cameron, the present tacksman of Talisker. He got 

 the tack 33 years ago, and when he came he made up his 

 mind that there should be nobody else on the place at all. 

 MacCaskill had left a remnant of the people for his own 

 convenience, but when Mr. Cameron came to Talisker he 

 would have nothing to do with any of the people, and, as I 

 have understood, he began to litigate with the landlord, 

 holding out that their being allowed on the tack was not 

 mentioned in his lease. He would give us nothing, and 

 would have nothing to do with us. It then came about 

 that he would have to take the tack as he got it or leave it. 



