THE ISLE OF SKYE IN 1882. 13 



are willing to pay some rent for Benlee, and it is to be 

 hoped, in all the circumstances, that the factor will meet 

 them in a liberal spirit (as he can, without difficulty, get the 

 lands from the present tenant at Whitsunday next),* and thus 

 avoid further heart-burnings and estrangements between the 

 landlord and his tenants. That they have moral claims of 

 a very substantial character cannot be disputed, and the 

 mere fact that the lands have been taken from them so long 

 back as 1865, can scarcely be pleaded as a reason why this 

 stale of matters should be continued. It has indeed been 

 suggested, with some amount of apparent justice, whether in 

 all the circumstances the people have not a moral claim to 

 a return of the value of Benlee for the period during which 

 it has been out of their possession, seeing that they still have 

 the arable portions and part of the grazings of their original 

 holdings. 



GLENDALE. 



We visited this property, some 30 to 35 miles from 

 Portree, and 7 to 12 miles from Dunvegan, accompanied by 

 the special commissioners for the Aberdeen Daily Free Press, 

 the Dundee Advertiser, and the Glasgow Citizen. The 

 whole surroundings of Glendale at once indicate a more 

 than average comfortable tenantry, indeed, the most 

 prosperous, to outward appearance, that we have seen in the 

 North- West Highlands. The estate is owned by the Trustees 

 of the late Sir John Macpherson Macleod. The people 

 are remarkably intelligent and well informed, and their 

 grievances place those of the Braes men entirely in the 

 shade. The following account of them and their position 

 generally, largely from Mr. William Mackenzie's account in 



* This was written in April, 1882. 



