anies in and Kadient auš vri hum my œR STEL whom he wūmed a say in the QUISIDE – ENË W should see She z210 1024 MEVINY CH Väkä it beng the imation of Kacem as y me prod him to lay hands men im and push him back Bea tered the text aime, vai ins Lochaber axe in his hand. and struck such terror inso the wive assembly, that they dismissed his marie.

When he landed at Col. he saw the sentinel, who kept watch towards the sea, running on to Grissipol, to give Macneil, who was there with a hundred and twenty mo an account of the invasion. He told Margill, one of his followers, that if he intercepted that dangerous intelligence, by catching the courier, he would give him certain lands in Mull. Upon this promise, Macgill pursued the messenger, and either killed or stopped him; and his posterity, till very lately, held the lands in Mull.

The alarm being thus prevented, he came unexpectedly upon Macneil. Chiefs were in those days never wholly unprovided for an enemy. A fight ensued, in which one of their followers is said to have given an extraordinary proof of activity, by bounding backwards over the brook of Grissipol. Macneil being killed, and many of his clan destroyed, Maclean took possession of the island, which the Macneils attempted to conquer by another invasion, but were defeated and repulsed.

Maclean, in his turn, invaded the estate of the Macneils, took the castle of Brecacig, and conquered the isle of Barra, which he held for seven years, and then restored it to the heirs.

From Grissipol Mr. Maclean conducted us to his father's seat; a neat new house erected near the old castle, I think, by the last proprietor. Here we were allowed to take our station, and lived very commodiously while we waited for moderate weather and a fair wind, which we did not so soon obtain, but we had time to get some information of the present state of Col, partly by inquiry, and partly by wwwsional excursions.

Col is computed to be thirteen miles in length, and ee in breadth. Both the ends are the property of the ke of Argyle, but the middle belongs to Maclean, who called Col, as the only laird.

Col is not properly rocky; it is rather one continued ek, of a surface much diversified with protuberances, and vered with a thin layer of earth, which is often broken, ad discovers the stone. Such a soil is not for plants that rike deep roots; and perhaps in the whole island nothing is ever yet grown to the height of a table. The unculvated parts are clothed with heath, among which industry as interspersed spots of grass and corn; but no attempt as been made to raise a tree. Young Col, who has a ery laudable desire of improving his patrimony, purposes One time to plant an orchard; which, if it be sheltered y a wall, may perhaps succeed. He has introduced the

ture of turnips, of which he has a field, where the vhole work was performed by his own hand. His intention s to provide food for his cattle in the winter. This innovation was considered by Mr. Macsweyn as the idle project of a young head, heated with English fancies; but he has now found that turnips will really grow, and that hungry sheep and cows will really eat them.

By such acquisitions as these, the Hebrides may in time rise above their annual distress. Wherever heath will grow, there is reason to think something better may draw nourishment; and by trying the production of other places, plants will be found suitable to every soil.

Col has many lochs, some of which have trouts and eels, and others have never yet been stocked; another proof of the negligence of the islanders, who might take fish in the inland waters, when they cannot go to sea.

Their quadrupeds are horses, cows, sheep, and goats. They have neither deer, hares, nor rabbits. They have no vermin except rats, which have been lately brought thither by sea, as to other places; and are free from serpents, frogs, and toads.

The harvest in Col, and in Lewis, is ripe sooner than in

Sky, and the winter in Col is never cold, but very tempestuous. I know not that I ever heard the wind so bai in any other place; and Mr. Boswell observed that its noise was all its own, for there were no trees to increase i

Noise is not the worst effect of the tempests; for they have thrown the sand from the shore over a considerable part of the land, and it is said still to encroach and destroy more and more pasture; but I am not of opinion, that by any surveys or land-marks, its limits have been ever fixed. or its progression ascertained. If one man has confidence enough to say, that it advances, nobody can bring any proof to support him in denying it. The reason why it is not spread to a greater extent, seems to be, that the wind and rain come almost together, and that it is made close and heavy by the wet before the storms can put it in motion. So thick is the bed, and so small the particles, that if a traveller should be caught by a sudden gust in dry weather, he would find it very difficult to escape with life.

For natural curiosities I was shown only two great masses of stone, which lie loose upon the ground; one on the top of a hill, and the other at a small distance from the bottom. They certainly were never put into their present places by human strength or skill; and though an earthquake might have broken off the lower stone, and rolled it into the valley, no account can be given of the other, which lies on the hill, unless, which I forgot to examine, there be still near it some higher rock, from which it might be torn. All nations have a tradition, that their earliest ancestors were giants, and these stones are said to have been thrown up and down by a giant and his mistress. There are so many important things of which human knowledge can give no account, that it may be forgiven us, if we speculate no longer on two stones in Col.

This island is very populous. About nine-and-twenty years ago, the fencible men of Col were reckoned one hundred and forty; which is the sixth of eight hundred and forty; and probably some contrived to be left out of the list. The minister told us, that a few years ago the

nhabitants were eight hundred, between the ages of seven and of seventy. Round numbers are seldom exact. But n this case the authority is good, and the errour likely to be little. If to the eight hundred be added what the laws of computation require, they will be increased to at least a thousand; and if the dimensions of the country have been accurately related, every mile maintains more than twenty-five.

This proportion of habitation is greater than the appearance of the country seems to admit: for wherever the eye wanders, it sees much waste and little cultivation. I am more inclined to extend the land, of which no measure has ever been taken, than to diminish the people, who have been really numbered. Let it be supposed, that a computed mile contains a mile and a half, as was commonly found true in the mensuration of the English roads, and we shall then allot nearly twelve to a mile, which agrees much better with ocular observation.

Here, as in Sky, and other islands, are the laird, the tacksmen, and the under-tenants.

Mr. Maclean, the laird, has very extensive possessions, being proprietor, not only of far the greater part of Col, but of the extensive island of Rum, and a very considerable territory in Mull.

Rum is one of the larger islands, almost square, and therefore of great capacity in proportion to its sides. By the usual method of estimating computed extent, it may contain more than a hundred and twenty square miles.

It originally belonged to Clanronald, and was purchased by Col; who, in some dispute about the bargain, made Clanronald prisoner, and kept him nine months in confinement. Its owner represents it as mountainous, rugged, and barren. In the hills there are red deer. The horses are very small, but of a breed eminent for beauty. Col, not long ago, bought one of them from a tenant; who told him, that as he was of a shape uncommonly elegant, he could not sell him but at a high price; and that whoever had him should pay a guinea and a half.

Mr. Maclean declared could set his land at

Then are sad to be in Barra a mee of horses yet smålet, o winch the inghest is not above thirty-six inches. The reas of Farm is not great. that he should be very nch, if he 16-pence halfpemy an acre. The inhabitants are fiftyeight famines, who carrinned papists for some time after the lard became a protestant. Their adherence to their oid rehirion was strengthened by the countenance of the lard's sister, a nesious Romanist, one Sunday, as they were going to mass under the cominct of their patroness, Maclean met them on the way, gave one of them a blow on the head with a geoer stick, I suppose a cane, for whach the Erse had ne name, and drove them to the kirk, from which they have never since departed. Since the use of this method of conversion, the inhabitants of Egg and Canna, who continue papists, call the protestantism of Rum, the religion of the yellow stick.

The only popish islands are Egg and Canna. Egg is the principal island of a parish, in which, though he has no congregation, the protestant minister resides. I have heard of nothing curious in it, but the cave in which a former generation of the islanders were smothered by

Macleod.

If we had travelled with more leisure, it had not been fit to have neglected the popish islands. Popery is favourable to ceremony; and, among ignorant nations, ceremony is the only preservative of tradition. Since protestantism was extended to the savage parts of Scotland, it has, perhaps, been one of the chief labours of the ministers to abolish stated observances, because they continued the remembrance of the former religion. We, therefore, who came to hear old traditions, and see antiquated manners, should, probably, have found them amongst the papists.

Canna, the other popish island, belongs to Clanro nald. It is said not to comprise more than twelve miles of land, and yet maintains as many inhabitants as Rum We were at Col under the protection of the young laird, without any of the distresses which Mr. Pennant, in a