5i2 HISTORY OF THE OUTER HEBRIDES. 



have left few records of their visits behind them. John 

 Adair published in 1703, an unimportant description of the 

 Outer Isles; and in 1738, Matthew Symson wrote The 

 Present State of Scotland, in which interesting particulars 

 are given of Lewis. He states that coral and coraline 

 were employed as blood-purifiers, as well as being worn 

 as ornaments. The author of The Highlands of Scotland 

 in 1750 (the instructive MS. published by Mr. Andrew 

 Lang) visited the Long Island, of which his impressions 

 were by no means unfavourable. The inhabitants, he 

 asserts, were more industrious than the mainlanders, and 

 " more tractable and honest than one would expect ! " In 

 A Voyage to Shetland, the Orkney Islands and the Western 

 Isles of Scotland, published in 1751 by an unknown 

 traveller, the industry of the natives of Lewis is praised, 

 particularly in their agricultural pursuits. The light 

 harrow described by Martin was still in use. The fisheries 

 were good, although much interrupted by the presence of 

 whales. The inhabitants were assiduous in killing the 

 whales, which were still used as food by the poorer classes. 

 An important account of the Long Island is given by one 

 Captain Barlow in 1753 (see Appendix I.), which is, on 

 the whole, entertaining reading. In the year 1764, Dr. 

 John Walker was commissioned by the General Assembly 

 of the Church of Scotland to visit the islands, and the 

 result is given in his well-known Economical History of the 

 Hebrides. This work is of great scientific interest, but the 

 introduction to the book a lengthy description of the 

 Isles in manuscript, which, curiously enough, is only now 

 about to be published is more useful from the historian's 

 point of view. 



In the latter part of the eighteenth century, there was 

 no lack of travellers in the Outer Hebrides. A report 

 dated 1774, by the Society in Scotland for the Propagation 

 of Christian Knowledge, gives some useful statistics of the 

 state of education in the Long Island. We find Dr. James 

 Anderson, in his Account of the Hebrides (published 1785) 

 criticising alike absentee landlordism, the rapacity of tacks- 



