MEMOIR OF DR. WALKER. 
35 
Uiat, where he has officiated ever since. The parish 
of South Uist contains two thousand two hundred 
people, of whom only two hundred and fifty are 
Protestants ; and besides the island of South Uist, 
it comprehends the islands of Benbecula and Erisca, 
which altogether compose a parish between thirty 
and forty miles long. The charity school is at pre- 
sent, and has been kept for two years past, in the 
village of Kilbride, at the south extremity of South 
Uist ; hut for three years before it was settled here, 
it was kept in the island of Benbecula, and unless it 
be thus removed from place to place at proper pe- 
riods, it cannot have its full effect in instructing the 
inhabitants of such an extensive country. On the 
foresaid day, this school contained twenty scholars, 
most part of whom were very well instructed in 
reading and speaking English. The masters cha- 
racter and diligence were well attested by Colin 
M‘Donald, Esq. younger of Boysdalc, who is ruling 
elder, and by Ronald M'Donald, Esq. younger of 
Clanronald. He received a box of books from the 
society in the year 1738, containing a dozen of 
Bibles and a dozen and a half of New Testaments, 
but he. has received none since that time ; and is at 
present in such want of catechisms for teaching 
the children the alphabet, that he is forced to make 
use of the leaves of other books for that purpose. 
“ As the charity school kept at Balliloch, in 
North Uist, receives a vacation of twenty days in 
the beginning of August, this deprived me of an; 
opportunity of visiting the school, or of conversing 
