BENBECULA. HIGHLAND POPULATION. 107 



fishery, as I have already shown. Could this fishery 

 be indefinitely increased there would of course be no 

 limit to the increase of population. But this cannnot be 

 done precisely as it is required to meet the additional 

 demand for employment and food; perhaps it cannot 

 be done at all. In the mean time the people of Barra 

 have exceeded the demand for this and every other em- 

 ployment, and have entirely occupied all the land capable 

 of cultivation. They are therefore redundant, and as a 

 sufficient practical proof of such redundancy, it is only 

 necessary to state that there is a considerable village at 

 Kilbar for which no land is to be found; land, which 

 in a country without markets, forms so indispensable a 

 requisite in the economy of a Highland family. A single 

 acre has by the humanity of the proprietor been given 

 to this community for the cultivation of their potatoes, 

 and a wretched existence is thus worn out by them, 

 partly by this resource, partly by the fishery in which 

 the men are engaged ; both of which being insufficient, 

 the women and children are constantly employed in 

 digging cockles on the sandy shores, offering a spectacle 

 of poverty which is painful even in this country where 

 it is daily seen in all its modifications. 



The case of North Uist, which I shall introduce here 

 for the purpose of bringing the whole evidence under 

 one collective point of view, is of a different nature, but 

 equally instructive. 



I need not describe at large the beneficial change 

 which has taken place in many parts of the Highlands 

 by the alteration in the mode of letting farms, since 

 it is now generally known. It is sufficient to say that 

 but few instances remain of the ancient mode of tenure 

 iii common, or by run-rig ; the separation of each common 

 farm into separate crofts or holdings having been adopted 

 by most proprietors, and with evident advantages to all 

 parties. In consequence of this system in some measure, 

 but partly also from the assignment of new lands to 



