552 HISTORY OF THE OUTER HEBRIDES. 



were the chief causes assigned by the proprietors for the 

 poverty and congestion ; the gradual attenuation of their 

 holdings, to increase the area of deer forests and farms, was 

 the chief cause from the tenants' standpoint. Proprietors 

 and people were both right in their assumptions : each 

 half of the truth formed the complement of the other half. 

 In Lewis, the congestion, consequent upon the gradual 

 increase of landless cottars, was a more pressing questioitj 

 than in any other island of the Hebrides. Sir Jame 

 Matheson was fully alive to the obvious outlet for th 

 surplus population, which emigration provided. But he wa 

 a humane, as well as a practical man, and emigratio 

 from Lewis has always been free from the stain of an 

 compulsion, except that of circumstances. In 1851, 185: 

 and 1855, 1,772 persons emigrated from Lewis, chiefly t 

 Canada, at the proprietor's expense. Since then, a revu 

 sion of feeling has set in, and a wholesale exodus from th 

 Outer Hebrides is now a thing of the past, although th 

 congestion, particularly in Lewis, is greater than ever. A 

 one time, the difficulty was to keep the people from em 

 grating ; now the conditions are exactly reversed. Govern 

 ment aid has been freely offered to stimulate emigratioi 

 but all to no purpose. Discouraging reports from UP 

 successful settlers ; the indoctrination of the people wit 

 modern ideas of property, its rights, and its duties ; their 

 acquisition of political power ; the relief afforded by the 

 Crofters Act and by Treasury grants for developing the 

 fishing industry ; all these elements have combined to 

 render emigration distasteful and impossible. The Long 

 Islander clings like his native limpet to the rocky shore 

 that is his home ; the possibilities across the seas are, in 

 his view, a poor off-set against the wrench from early 

 associations. 



The fluctuations in the population of the islands are 

 curiously illustrative of the results we have been noticing. 

 The earliest record of the population and rental of Lewis 

 we possess, are those given in 1630. In that year, the 

 population was about 4,000, and the rental 12,000 merks 



