BENBECULA. HIGHLAND POPULATION. 109 



and the question is easily answered. Under the ancient 

 common holdings where no man's lot was defined, no 

 just idea was entertained of the limits of the land or 

 of its value. Thus, a farm let to ten or twenty tenants 

 readily accommodated two or three more, the sur- 

 render requisite for these superfluous hands being such 

 that no one felt his particular share of the sacrifice. In 

 this way every farm was encumbered with two or three 

 idle and gratuitous retainers, who, from the claims of 

 kindred or other causes, were allowed to drag on in this 

 way a miserable existence. At present the lot of an 

 individual admits of no such lax charity, and those who 

 have been ejected are thus driven to a mingled state 

 of insufficient labour and beggary. 



The state of things here described is not limited to 

 the outer islands only. Rum, among others, furnishes 

 an example of a similar evil, where the chief part of 

 the burden has however been hitherto borne by the 

 proprietor. But it is not necessary to go into details 

 of facts sufficiently known to all those who are acquainted 

 with these islands, however they may have been doubted 

 or denied by others whose opinions were formed on a 

 partial knowledge of the country. As far as the pro- 

 prietors are concerned, it is an act of palpable injustice 

 to expect from them the total sacrifice of their properties, 

 independently of the evil which the community in general 

 must suffer from the imperfect state of management to 

 which their lands must under such circumstances be 

 necessarily condemned ; particularly as the remedy is 

 far from adequate, and can at the best but remove the 

 day of change and reckoning to a somewhat greater 

 distance. The change will in fact be the more severe 

 the longer it is protracted, since greater numbers will 

 be added to greater poverty. 



The Englishman, to whom the habits and feelings 

 of this people are unknown, will be surprised that such 

 a state of things can exist at all, and not less so to find 



