THE ISLE OF SKYE IN 1882. I? 



reduced to two, the land taken from or given up by the 

 other twenty families having been put under sheep by the 

 factor. The people, who presumably were less valuable 

 than the sheep, in some cases left the country altogether, 

 while those that remained were provided with half crofts on 

 another part of the estate. 



For instance, a crofter who perhaps had a ten pound 

 croft, say, at Milivaig was requested to give up the one-half 

 of it to a crofter removed from Ramasaig, a corresponding 

 reduction being made in the rent. In this way, while the 

 sheep stocks under the charge of the factor were increasing, 

 the status of the crofters was gradually diminishing, and the 

 necessity for their depending more and more on other indus- 

 tries than the cultivation of their croft was increasing. To 

 illustrate this all the more forcibly, we may state that the 

 crofters at Ramasaig had eight milk cows and their fol- 

 lowers, and about forty sheep on each whole croft altoge- 

 ther over a hundred head of cattle and from 300 to 400 

 sheep. Lowerkell was similarly cleared. At the meeting 

 of the crofters, to which I have alluded, it was resolved 

 that, as a body, they should adopt a united course of action. 

 They were all similarly situated. Each man and each 

 township had a grievance, and no individual was to be 

 called upon to make a separate claim. Each township or 

 combination of townships was to make one demand, and if 

 any punishment should follow on such an act of temerity, it 

 should not be allowed to fall on any one person, but on the 

 united body as a whole. To guard against any backsliding, 

 and to prevent any weakling or chicken-hearted leaguer (if 

 any should exist) from falling out of the ranks, they, one 

 and all, subscribed their names in a book, pledging them- 

 selves as a matter of honour to adhere in a body to the 

 resolution thus arrived at. The scheme having thus been 



