HEBRIDES. 
291 
or, at leaf!, any accounts relating to the domeftic and ther in one mafh, and often without fait, are his only 
political fituation of the inhabitants. This, indeed, is food ; except in thofe feafons and days when he can 
at prefent mod deplorable; the relief of emigration, of- catch fome fi(h, which he is obliged not unfrequently 
fered to fome, being denied to the far greater number to eat without bread or fait. The only bread he taftes 
by extreme poverty; and a petty tyranny, arifing from is a cake made of the flour of barley. He is allowed 
immemorial'ufages eftablifhed in times of feudal oppref- coarfe (hoes, with tartan hofe, and a coarfe coat, with a 
fion, added to their Angular and remote fituation, fe- blanket or two, for clothing. 
elude the miferable natives of the Weftern Hebrides “ Although the Weftern Hebrides lie beyond the 
from the benign influence of the Britifh laws.and go- route purfued by the mod diftinguifhed travellers from 
vernment. A right avails nothing without a remedy, the fouth, whp have publifhed accounts of their travels 
The poor Hebridean, as well as the Highland cottager and voyages, (Mr. Pennant, Dr. Johnfon, and captain 
in the more fequeftered parts of North Britain, would Newte,) yet feveral gentlemen have vi/ited mod of thofe 
findit impoflible to'ed'ett, if he had courage to attempt, temote iflands, with a view of acquiring fuch local know- 
emancipation and independence on the tackfmen, and ledge as might enable them to employ the people in a 
petty lairds or landholders, who keep them in fubjec- (idling trade, or other indudry; though none of them 
tion. 1 fay petty lairds and tackfmen ; for, with regard ever touched on the horrid ifland of Harris. But from 
to the great proprietors of land and fea-coad in thofe want of time, and their not being able to converfe with 
parts, lord Macdonald, Mr. Humberftone Mackenzie, the common people, who know no other language than 
captain Macleod of Harris, Mr. Macdonald of Boifdale, the Celtic, and who alone could or would point out 
and a few other gentlemen of large edates, they have their grievances in their native colours, the benevolent 
given undoubted proofs of a difpofition to protect the purpofe of thofe gentlemen was, in a great meafure, fruf- 
great body of the poor people againd their immediate trated. The tackfmen, with whom they converfed, and 
fuperiors and oppreflors; by encouraging general induf- their own factors, had an intered in concealing fome 
try, which cannot exid without liberty, or, in other truths, the knowledge of which might have equally be- 
words, without juflice. But it too often, and indeed nefited the independent freeholders, and the great body 
for the mod part, happens, that non-refidence, and vari- of the labouring people. 
ous avocations, on the part of the great'landholders, af- “ The writer of thefe notes, whofe corn-million from 
ford opportunities to the tackfmen, among whom their the Society for propagating Chridian Knowledge, from , 
edates are divided, by leafehold, in large lots, or rather 1782 to 1791, gave him an opportunity of becoming ac- 
diftrifts, to conceal the real date of affairs from the dif- quainted with the aftual fituation of affairs in the Weft- 
tant chief, and to enter into fuch combinations, as at ern Hebrides, truds, that he fliall do no diflervice, but 
once, in fuft, fruflrate the good intentions of thofe chiefs, on the contrary promote the intereds of both the chiefs 
and defy‘the free genius of the Britidi confiitution. The and the natives at large, by difclofing fcenes induftri- 
land is parcelled out in fmall portions, by the tackfmen, oudy concealed from the eye of the benevolent land- 
among the imriiediate cultivators of the foil, who pay holder, as well as of the inquifitive ftranger ; in the hope 
their rent in kind, and in perfonal fervices. Though that humanity and found policy may devife fome means 
the tackfmen, for the mod part, enjoy their leafes of for alleviating the miferies, and converting, to both pub- 
whole didrifts bn liberal terms, their exaftionS from the lie and private advantage, the indudry of a fober, ingehi- 
fhbtehants are in general mod fevere. They grant them ous, but ill-treated, people.” The pifture, on the whole. 
their polfeftions only from year to year ; and, led they 
fhotild forget their dependent condition, they are every 
is a grievous and melancholy one; and it is hoped that 
thofe legiflators who (hudder at the idea of human flave- 
year, at a certain term, with the mod regular formality, ry, will exert their endeavours to relieve fome thoufands 
Warned to quit their tenements, and to go Out of the 
bounds of the leafehold edate. The fob tenant, by what 
prefents he can command, or by humble fupplications, 
endeavours to work on the mind of the tacklmyn, and-. 
of their own poor remote countrymen from lawlefs thral¬ 
dom and tyranny, and not content themfelves with, fearch. 
ing for objefts of benevolence in Africa. 
The fituation of the Hebrides in the North Atlantic 
on any condition he pleafes to impofe, to retain a home. Ocean, renders the air cold and moid in the greater part of 
for himfelf, his wife and children ; for he has no other 
refource. And here I am to difclofe to the Englifh na¬ 
tion, as well, I hope, as the greater part of the Scotch, 
and to the whole world, a matter of faft, which cannot 
fail to excite a very general fympathy and concern for a 
fober, harmlefs, and much-injured, people. 
“ It is an invariable cuflom, and etiabliflied by a kind 
of tacit compact among the tackfmen'and inferior lairds, 
to refute, with the nioft invincible obduracy, anafylum, 
bn their ground, to any fubtenant without the rec 
them. In the mod northerly ides, 'the fun, at the fummer 
foldice, is not above an hour under the horizon at mid¬ 
night ; and not -longer above it at mid-day in the depth 
of winter. The foil of the Hebrides varies alfo in dif¬ 
ferent ides, and in different parts of tlve fame ifland ; 
fome are mountainous and barren, producing little elfe 
than heath, wild myrtle, fern, and a little grafs ; while 
•others, being cultivated and manured with lea-weed, 
yield plentiful crops of oats and barley. Lead mines 
have been difeovered'in fome of t'hele illands, but not 
mendation of lvis landlord. The wretched outcaft, there- worked to much advantage ; others have been found to 
fore, has no alternative, but to fink down into the fun- contain quarries of marble, lime-(lone, and free-done ; 
atio'n and rank of an unfortunate and numerous clafs of nor are they deftitute of iron, talc, cryltals, and many 
men known under the -natae of Scallags. The fcallag, curious pebbles, fome of which emulate ti.e Bralilian 
whether male or female, is a' pool being, wlro, for mere topaz. With reipeft to vegetables, over and above the 
ftibliftence, becomes a predial (lave to another, whether harvells of corn that the natives earn from agriculture, 
a fubtenant, a t'ackfman, ora laird. The leallag builds and the pot-herbs and roots that ate' planted in gardens 
his own hut with fods and boughs of trees; and, if he for the (uftenance of the people, thefe iflands produce 
is lent from one part of the country to another, he moves fpontaneoully a variety of plants and fimplcs, uled by 
oil Ins Hicks, and, by means of thefe, forms a new hut the iflanders in the cure of their difeafes; but there is 
in another place. He however, in mod places, en- hardly a fhrub or tree to be feeii, except in a very few 
couraged by the pollellion of the walls ot a hut, which fpots, where fome gentlemen have endeavoured to rear 
he covers in the belt way he can with his old (ticks, (tub- them with much more trouble than fuccefs. 
nd fern. Five days in the week he works for his The commodities which may be deemed the (laple of 
the Weftern Iflands, are black cattle, fheep, and fifti, 
which they (ell to their fellow-fubjefts of Scotland. 
Part of the wool they work up into knit-dockings, coarfe 
matter; the lixth is allowed to himfelf, for the cultiva. 
tion of lome (crap of iand, on the edge of fome mofs or 
moor; on which lie railes a little kale, or cole-worts, 
barley, and potatoes. .Thefe articles, boiled up toge- cloth, and that variegated Huff called tartan. They 
likewiie 
