CHANGES IN THE PROPRIETARY. 4 87 



In the opening years of the nineteenth century, a law 

 case was fought between Lord Seaforth and Alexander 

 Hume concerning the northern boundaries of Harris. 

 The land in question comprised a tract of 6,000 acres, 

 together with the Island of Mulaag or Seaforth. As far 

 back as the seventeenth century, the delimitation of the 

 bounds of Harris had formed a fruitful source of conten- 

 tion between the Lewismen and the Harrismen, unti 

 towards the end of that century, an agreement on the 

 subject was entered into between Kenneth Og, fourth 

 Earl of Seaforth, and Macleod of Harris. Notwithstand- 

 ing this agreement, the controversy continued, the tenants 

 on each side of the border stoutly maintaining the claims 

 of their proprietors, and forcibly resisting the encroach- 

 ments of their neighbours. When the dispute reached 

 the Court of Session, the evidence of a number of the 

 oldest inhabitants was taken on both sides to determine 

 the marches. Lord Stair remarked that a custom once 

 existed of whipping boys severely when boundaries were 

 fixed, in order that the circumstances might leave a deep 

 impression on their minds when they were old men.* 

 A witness was found on Seaforth's side in the Harris 

 dispute, whose testimony bore out the efficacy of this 

 curious custom. He deponed that his father, who died 

 twenty years previously at the age of eighty, told him 

 that when he was a boy herding cattle, Donald Macaulay 

 of Brenish a descendant of Donald Cam and Donald 

 Campbell of Scalpa met for the purpose of fixing and 

 renewing the march which he (the witness) had described. 

 They whipped his father soundly, "in order that he 

 I might remember the circumstances and recite it to 

 j posterity"; and each gave him a 53. piece to salve his 

 wounded feelings and his sore body. The father of the 

 witness also told him that at a former adjustment of the 

 line of march, there were present, Coinneach Mor (? Og), 

 Earl of Seaforth, and the lairds of Macleod, Raasay, and 

 Macdonald. The evidence of the other witnesses afforded 



* This custom is mentioned in Goethe's Wilhelm Meister. 



