NORTH RON A. GENERAL DESCRIPTION* 207 



by uniting fishing to the produce of the soil. In at- 

 tempting to land on a stormy day, all the men were lost 

 by the upsetting of their boat, since which time it has 

 been in the possession of a principal tenant in Lewis. 

 It is now inhabited by one family only, consisting of 

 six individuals, of which the female patriarch has been 

 forty years on the island. The occupant of the farm 

 is a cottar, cultivating it and tending fifty sheep for 

 his employer, to whom he is bound for eight years ; 

 an unnecessary precaution, since the nine chains of the 

 Styx could afford no greater security than the sea that 

 surrounds him, as he is not permitted to keep a boat. 

 During a residence, now of seven years, he had, with 

 the exception of a visit from the boat of the Fortimee,* 

 seen no face but that of his employer and his own 

 family. Twice in the year, that part of the crop which 

 is not consumed on the farm, together with the produce 

 of the sheep and the feathers obtained from the sea 

 fowl which he is bound to procure, are taken away 

 by the boat from Lewis, and thus his communication 

 with the external world is maintained. Fortunately he 

 seemed to care but little for any thing out of the 

 limits of his own narrow kingdom.t In addition to the 

 grain and potatoes required .for the use of his family, 

 he is allowed one cow, and receives for wages the 

 value of two pounds sterling annually in the form of 

 clothes. With this, the family, consisting of six in- 

 dividuals, must contrive to clothe themselves ; how they 



* Then employed in cruising after the President in 1812. 



f On the appearance of our boat the women and children were 

 seen running away to the cliffs to hide themselves, loaded with the 

 very little moveable property they possessed, while the man and his 

 son were employed in driving away the sheep. We might have 

 imagined ourselves landing in an island of the Pacific Ocean. A few- 

 words of Gaelic soon recalled the latter, but it was some time before 

 the females came from their retreat, very unlike in look to the in- 

 habitants of a civilized world. 



