THE ISLE OF SKYE IN 1882. II 



that they are, from a legal standpoint, in a far worse position 

 to assert their claims than the tenants of Glendale, Dr. 

 Nicol Martin's, and other proprietors on the Island. We 

 are now satisfied, however, that they have very considerable 

 grievances from a moral standpoint, and no one will dispute 

 that grievances of that kind are generally as important, and 

 often more substantial and exasperating than those which 

 can be enforced in a court of law. 



The Braes tenants maintain that in two instances con- 

 siderable portions of their lands have been taken from them 

 without any reduction of rent, and their contentions are 

 capable of legal proof. 



I. There is no doubt at all that they had the grazings of 

 Benlee the original cause of the present dispute down to 

 1865, when it was taken from them and let to a sheep 

 farmer as a separate holding. It can be proved that Lord 

 Macdonald paid them rent for a small portion of it, which 

 he took into his own hands for the site of a forester's house 

 and garden. It can also be proved that it was not a 

 "common" in the ordinary acceptation of that term, though 

 it is called so in a map made by a surveyor, named Black- 

 adder, who, in 1810, divided the crofts from the run-rig 

 system into ordinary lots, while the grazings of Benlee con- 

 tinued to be held in common as before. The Uist people, 

 and others from the West, paid a rent for the use of it to 

 the Braes tenants when resting their droves on their way to 

 the Southern markets. 



II. The townships are, or were, divided into seven crofts, 

 occupied by as many tenants, and an eighth, called the 

 shepherd's croft, which that necessary adjunct to a common 

 or club farm received in return for his services. The 

 shepherd's croft has been since withdrawn, and let direct by 

 the factor to an eighth tenant, and that without any reduc- 



