TRAVELLERS' ACCOUNTS. 515 



seemingly unsympathetic, his reasoning is, from his point 

 of view, sound and scientific. He recognised the cold 

 logic of facts, and sought to apply the remedies suggested 

 by political economy ; overlooking, as so many of like views 

 at the present day overlook, that the academic formulae 

 and shibboleths of the old school of economists are, in 

 certain cases, incompatible with their practical application. 

 His geological survey of the islands is the most complete 

 yet undertaken. His general criticisms are acute, and on 

 the whole, not unfair. 



Lord Teignmouth's account of his visit to the Long 

 Island in 1827, is alike entertaining and instructive. 



Professor William Macgillivray's description of the 

 Outer Hebrides, published in the Edinburgh Journal of 

 Natural and Geographical Science for 1830, contains an 

 eloquent tribute to the wild beauty of their rocky shores. 



The New Statistical Account | (1834-6) embodies re- 

 ports from each parish, on the same lines as the Account 

 of 1796, and a useful comparison may be made between 

 the two. In 1851, Sir John Macneill, Chairman of the 

 Board of Supervision for the Relief of the Poor, submitted 

 his well-known report, which throws many side-lights upon 

 the underlying causes of the destitution which prevailed in 

 the Long Island. And in 1866, Sheriff Nicolson prepared 

 his report on the state of education in the Hebrides, con- 

 taining a wealth of statistics, eloquent of the pressing 

 needs of the community. Besides these, there are on 

 record various impressions of casual visitors to the Long 

 Island during the nineteenth century; but as they are of no 

 historical importance, it is not necessary to mention them 

 more specifically.* The reports of the Crofters Commis- 

 sion are the most reliable sources of information, in respect 

 of the prevailing conditions in the Outer Hebrides at the 



* Among these may be named the Reminiscences of "Sixty One"; 

 Anderson Smith's Lewsiana ; Robert Buchanan's Hebrid Isles ; Miss Gordon 

 Cumming's From the Hebrides to the Himalayas ; and John Bickerdyke's 

 With Rod and Gun in Lewis. The most widely known book about Lewis 

 is the late William Black's Princess of Thule, that brilliant novel which won 

 fame for its author. The most recent work on the Long Island is Miss 

 Goodrich-Freer's Outer Isles, a sympathetic study displaying much insight. 



