40, Transactions. 
Creation.” The rocky ridges, with morasses intervening, 
‘separate the different straths or valleys, of which the parish is 
made up, the one from the other, and render intercourse between 
them impracticable except for pedestrians. Anyone wishing to 
ride or drive from one strath to the next, must needs go down 
to the sea level and turn the flank of the intervening barrier. 
But as bearing upon the insulated or semi-insulated condition of © 
the parish as it existed fifty years ago, what I would especially 
draw attention to is that Colvend on its landward side is 
surrounded by hills, particularly the Criffel range, which for 
miles form a barrier separating the parish from other parishes 
adjacent, and rendering intercourse between them impracticable. 
This, concurring with the previous cause referred to—their sea 
surroundings—made the people live a sort of isolated life, having 
little communication with the outside world. At that time the 
saying was common—‘Out of the world and into Colvend.” 
The effect was to beget selfishness and exclusiveness—to make 
the native population intolerant and jealous of strangers. I 
heard a farmer, an incomer, whose descendants are now recognised 
as natives, say that when he came into the parish a stranger, 
some sixty years ago, he was the object of general suspicion and 
dislike, but that, when in the course of time another farmer, a 
stranger also, came to occupy a farm near him, “‘he was glad, 
for Mr So-and-So would take the people off his back.” 
. Another and a less objectionable peculiarity common to com- 
munities circumstanced like the peopleof Colvend, who live isolated 
and removed to a distance from the bustle and turmoil of the 
outside world, is that they retain long a simplicity of character 
and a naivety of expression, which others, mingling much in the 
civilised world, have lost, or do not care to retain. To be so 
regarded by outsiders is naturally resented as matter of offence. 
, An old lady whom I knew well, and who was very properly 
proud of her native parish of Colvend and its people, was in no 
little degree disp:eased with a neighbouring clergyman because, in 
speaking to her of the people of Colvend, he called them a 
primitive people. This, of course, he did to teaze her, for he 
knew her susceptibility. 
Colvend differs from the majority of parishes, which, as a 
rule, are divided, and belong to a few individuals. In many 
cases a single individual owns the whole. In Colvend it is 
different. At the beginning of the time with which my paper is 
