58 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



the island its name from the saint, as might possibly be 

 thought. 



Another author of a somewhat later period, in a " Descrip- 

 tion of the Lews by John Morisone, Indueller there," ^ gives 

 the following particulars about Eona : — 



" There are also, 17 leagues from the Lews, and to the north 

 of it, the islands called Suliskerr, which is the westmost, 

 and Eonay, fyve myls to the eas[t] of it ; Eonay (onlie) 

 inhabited, and ordinarlie be five small tennents. There ordinar 

 is to have all things common : they have a considerable 

 grouth of victuall (onlie bear). The best of their sustinance 

 is fowl, which they take in girns, and sometimes in a stormie 

 night they creep to them where they sleep thickest, and 

 throwing some handfuUs of sand over there heads as if it wer 

 hailes, they take them be the necks. Of the grease of those 

 fowlls (especiallie the Solind Goose) they make an excellent 

 oyle, called the gibanirtick, which is exceeding good for heal- 

 ing of anie sore ore wound ore cancer, either one man or beast. 

 This I myself found true by experience, by applying of it to 

 the legg of a young gentleman which had been inflamed and 

 cankered for the space of two years, and his father being a 

 trader south and north, sought all phisicians and doctors with 

 whom he hade occasion to meet, but all was in vain. Yet in 

 three weeks tyme, being in my hous, was perfetlie whole be 

 applying the forsaid oyle. The way they make it is — they put 

 the grease and fatt into the great gutt of the fowll, and so it 

 is hung within a hous untill it run in oyle. In this Eonay 

 are two litle cheapels where sanct Eonan lived all his tym 

 as an heremit." 



About the end of 1600, Sir G. Mackenzie of Tarbert gave 

 a not much longer account to Sir Eobert Sibbald,^ of the 

 island, in which he states that for many generations the 

 island had been inhabited by about 5 families or about 30 

 individuals, and that these numbers never increased, because 

 if any one man had more children than another he gave some 

 to his neighbours, and any surplus above 30 souls was sent 

 to Lewis by a boat which went for the rent paid to the Earl 



1 Sibbald MSS., Advocates Lib., Ed., xxxiv., 2-8. 



2 Printed in Monro's Description of the Western Isles, Edinburgh, 1774, p. 63. 



