He has begun a road capable of a wheel-carriage.
He has carried it about a mile, and will continue it by annual
elongation from his house to the harbour.
Of taxes here is no reason for complaining; they are paid by a very
easy composition. The malt-tax for Col is twenty shillings.
Whisky is very plentiful: there are several stills in the Island,
and more is made than the inhabitants consume.
The great business of insular policy is now to keep the people in
their own country. As the world has been let in upon them, they
have heard of happier climates, and less arbitrary government; and
if they are disgusted, have emissaries among them ready to offer
them land and houses, as a reward for deserting their Chief and
clan. Many have departed both from the main of Scotland, and from
the Islands; and all that go may be considered as subjects lost to
the British crown; for a nation scattered in the boundless regions
of America resembles rays diverging from a focus. All the rays
remain, but the heat is gone. Their power consisted in their
concentration: when they are dispersed, they have no effect.
It may be thought that they are happier by the change; but they are
not happy as a nation, for they are a nation no longer. As they
contribute not to the prosperity of any community, they must want
that security, that dignity, that happiness, whatever it be, which
a prosperous community throws back upon individuals.
The inhabitants of Col have not yet learned to be weary of their
heath and rocks, but attend their agriculture and their dairies,
without listening to American seducements.
There are some however who think that this emigration has raised
terrour disproportionate to its real evil; and that it is only a
new mode of doing what was always done. The Highlands, they say,
never maintained their natural inhabitants; but the people, when
they found themselves too numerous, instead of extending
cultivation, provided for themselves by a more compendious method,
and sought better fortune in other countries. They did not indeed
go away in collective bodies, but withdrew invisibly, a few at a
time; but the whole number of fugitives was not less, and the
difference between other times and this, is only the same as
between evaporation and effusion.
This is plausible, but I am afraid it is not true. Those who went
before, if they were not sensibly missed, as the argument supposes,
must have gone either in less number, or in a manner less
detrimental, than at present; because formerly there was no
complaint. Those who then left the country were generally the idle
dependants on overburdened families, or men who had no property;
and therefore carried away only themselves. In the present
eagerness of emigration, families, and almost communities, go away
together. Those who were considered as prosperous and wealthy sell
their stock and carry away the money. Once none went away but the
useless and poor; in some parts there is now reason to fear, that
none will stay but those who are too poor to remove themselves, and
too useless to be removed at the cost of others.
Of antiquity there is not more knowledge in Col than in other
places; but every where something may be gleaned.
How ladies were portioned, when there was no money, it would be
difficult for an Englishman to guess. In 1649, Maclean of Dronart
in Mull married his sister Fingala to Maclean of Coll, with a
hundred and eighty kine; and stipulated, that if she became a
widow, her jointure should be three hundred and sixty. I suppose
some proportionate tract of land was appropriated to their
pasturage.
The disposition to pompous and expensive funerals, which has at one
time or other prevailed in most parts of the civilized world, is
not yet suppressed in the Islands, though some of the ancient
solemnities are worn away, and singers are no longer hired to
attend the procession. Nineteen years ago, at the burial of the
Laird of Col, were killed thirty cows, and about fifty sheep. The
number of the cows is positively told, and we must suppose other
victuals in like proportion.
Mr. Maclean informed us of an odd game, of which he did not tell
the original, but which may perhaps be used in other places, where
the reason of it is not yet forgot. At New-year's eve, in the hall
or castle of the Laird, where, at festal seasons, there may be
supposed a very numerous company, one man dresses himself in a
cow's hide, upon which other men beat with sticks. He runs with
all this noise round the house, which all the company quits in a
counterfeited fright: the door is then shut. At New-year's eve
there is no great pleasure to be had out of doors in the Hebrides.
They are sure soon to recover from their terrour enough to solicit
for re-admission; which, for the honour of poetry, is not to be
obtained but by repeating a verse, with which those that are
knowing and provident take care to be furnished.
Very near the house of Maclean stands the castle of Col, which was
the mansion of the Laird, till the house was built. It is built
upon a rock, as Mr. Boswell remarked, that it might not be mined.
It is very strong, and having been not long uninhabited, is yet in
repair. On the wall was, not long ago, a stone with an
inscription, importing, that 'if any man of the clan of Maclonich
shall appear before this castle, though he come at midnight, with a
man's head in his hand, he shall there find safety and protection
against all but the King.'
This is an old Highland treaty made upon a very memorable occasion.
Maclean, the son of John Gerves, who recovered Col, and conquered
Barra, had obtained, it is said, from James the Second, a grant of
the lands of Lochiel, forfeited, I suppose, by some offence against
the state.
