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.
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