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Definition - Area
"AN approximately straight,
or gently undulating line taken from Stonehaven, in a south-west direction,
along the northern outskirts of Strathmore to Glen Artney, and thence
through the lower reaches of Loch Lomond to the Firth of Clyde at Kilcreggan,
marks out with precision the southern limits of the Highland area." Such is
the definition of the Northern Highlands by Professor Geikie; and although
this
boundary does not define the usually accepted limits, it is, nevertheless,
the true physical frontier of the Scottish Highlands. The division of
Scotland recognised to-day as "The Highlands" may be strictly confined to
the area occupied by the Gaelic- speaking portion of the population.
It is not, however, within
the province of this book to discuss the precise demarcation of the
Highlands; and it will therefore be understood that the area herein referred
to embraces the district popularly known as strictly Highland ground.
The region is wild and
mountainous, intersected with many large and picturesque lochs traversing
the country generally in a north-easterly and southwesterly direction; and
although the country is of a wild savage nature, yet many rich, fertile
straths and glens are interspersed among the mountains,. and wide stretches
of fruitful alluvial plains are scattered along the seaboard and along the
river valleys. Except at a considerable altitude, the mountains offer rich
grazing for cattle and sheep, while the higher grounds afford sustenance for
deer, and a quiet retreat for the various kinds of game so plentiful in the
Highlands. The coast line is wild, rugged, and indented with long arms of
the sea or lochs, running far up into the interior, and these lochs are at
seasons of the year visited by shoals of herrings, which are caught by the
fishing population along the shores. The herring and other fish are a source
of considerable income to the country, but as this subject is referred to in
another chapter I shall dismiss it at present. Scattered along the western
seaboard are numerous islands, which are divided into two groups—called the
Inner and Outer Hebrides. These islands form detached portions of the
Highlands, and they have a still more rugged coast than the mainland, being
scattered and battered by the incessant roll of the wild Atlantic waves.
POPULATION
HE Highlands are now very
sparsely populated, even when compared with the most ` impoverished
agricultural county of Ireland.
Take for illustration the
extensive and by no means barren county of Inverness, with an area of 4088
square miles and a population of 90,454, being only a density of 22.10
inhabitants to a square mile; whereas county Galway in Ireland has 103.11
inhabitants to the square mile. Again Sutherland-shire will compare still
more unfavourably with county 'Mayo in Ireland—the latter one of the poorest
counties in Great Britain or Ireland—being situated on the bleak and barren
western seaboard, which yet has 120 inhabitants to the square mile, while in
Sutherlandshire there are barely 112.
Whether or not there are
means of subsistence for a larger population the reader is allowed to draw
his own inference, from the above and the following facts.
The appended table will show
at a glance the amount of depopulation that has taken place in the following
counties since 1841: —
According to this table it
will be seen that in five of the above counties there is a total decrease of
38,248, and were we to take into consideration the increase of population in
towns, the percentage of rural depopulation would show a corresponding
decrease. Inverness, for instance, had a population of only 12,575 in 1841.
The actual population within the Old Burgh boundary in 1841 was 11,575, but
I have added 1,000 to include portions now embraced within the Parliamentary
Boundary extension of 1847; while the burgh census of 1881 records 17,385,
being an increase of 4,810, which number should be added to the rural
depopulation column for the entire county, and therefore we may assume that
the actual decrease in the county. of Inverness, during the forty years
above referred to, is something like 10,000, allowing 2,158 as a fair
increase for the burgh. It will also be seen that two counties—Caithness and
Nairn—show a slight increase, but these may be accounted for by the great
development, in recent years, of the herring industry at Wick, and by the
popularity of the town of Nairn as a watering-place a.nd health resort. The
combined counties of Ross and Cromarty show but a small decrease between the
periods quoted in fable; but were the census of 1851 taken when the
population reached 32,707, we should have a decrease of 4,160 in thirty
years.
The total increase of
population of the Highlands and Islands (including Orkney and Zetland) from
1755 to 1821 has been 118,213. Three-fourths of the population speak the
Gaelic language, the number of persons understanding English better than
Gaelic being 133,699, that of persons more proficient in Gaelic
303,153.—Vide Prize Essay by John Anderson, F.S.A. Scot., Highland Society
Transactions, 1831.
CHARACTER AND
CONDITION OF THE INHABITANTS
THERE are as distinctive
characteristic feature of difference between the Highland and Lowland
population of Scotland as there are in the physical demarcation line of the
two divisions of the country. The Highlanders, socially and physically, are
an entirely distinct people from the inhabitants of the Lowlands. Their
language, dress, pursuits and customs are totally unlike those of the
Southerner. The Highlanders or Celtic Scoti at the same time have always
been sub-divided into two groups—the Hebridean and the Mainland Celts. When
the Irish Scoti race moved northwards from the coast of Antrim they diverged
into two streams, one branching north-eastward and on the mainland, and the
other streaming away north and north-west among the Hebridean Islands. The
Hebridean race on their northward course encountered the Scandinavians
moving southward, while the Mainland Celts came in contact with the Picts,
and later on with the Saxons, this contact and intermingling of the
different races causing a certain amount of amalgamation and fusing, as it
were,. of the various tribes into a distinct race, essentially different
from the Irish Celts—their original progenitors—and also different from each
other; and. hence we find in the Western Highlands what we may call the
Scandinavian Celt, and the Picto-Celt in the eastern and midland districts.
Undoubtedly in the portions of the country originally peopled by the Celtic
race lying south of the Highland boundary, and which had originally been
peopled by the Celtic race, there was effected a gradual alienation from the
old and rude Celtic customs, and an adoption of the more civilized
institutions of the Saxons.
It took many years after the
rebellion of 1745 before the hitherto turbulent spirit in the Highlands
subsided; but with the dawn of the new century, the peaceful influences of
civilizing enterprise seemed to renovate the war-worn and jaded Highlander
with an amount of vigour and energy which I fear has not since then been
manifesting itself in the same forcible manner; for we find that industry,
education, and the general development of the natural resources of the
country received at that time such an impulse that, in the few years
embraced in the first quarter of that century, the
country assumed a comparative
position in the commercial world that perhaps no other country under the sun
can lay claim to as having achieved at a. single stride within the same
period. The powerful natural energies of the Highland people, which,
previous to the pacification of the country, were wasted on petty feuds and
contentious rebellions against the crown—a misconceived Celtic idea of
genuine loyalty to their chiefs—we find developing and progressing to that
exalted position which ranks the Scottish Highlander so high among the.
peoples of the world. The martial spirit of their ancestors still holds sway
in the dispositions of true Highlanders; and multitudes of the sturdy sons.
of the "land of brown heath and shaggy wood" have displayed their warlike
and chivalrous spirit, on many a bloody battlefield during the last century;
and should Britain's cause require his assistance to-day, the Highland
warrior's arm is as vigorous to wield his broad claymore or handle the
rifle, and his courage is as undaunted to face the foe, "as when heretofore
he marshalled for the lawless foray, or shed his blood in the shock of
conflicting clans."
A writer in "Blackwood's
Magazine" in 1836, speaking of the character of the Highlander, says "We
love the people too well to praise them—we have had heartfelt experience in
their virtues. In castle, hall, house, manse, hut, hovel, and shieling --on
mountain and moor, we have known without having to study their character. It
manifests itself in their manner, in their whole frame of life. They are now
as they were, affectionate, faithful, and fearless ; and far more delightful
surely it is to see such qualities in all their pristine strength—for
civilization has not weakened nor ever will weaken them—without the alloy of
fierceness and ferocity which was inseparable from them in the turbulence of
feudal times. They are now a peaceful people; severe as are the hardships of
their condition, they are in the main contented with it; and nothing short
of necessity can drive them from their dear mountains."
Although more than half a
century has elapsed -since the above was written, it may still be applied to
the average Highlander. The Saxon reckons the Celt a lazy animal; and not
only do the Irish lie under this stigma, but the Scoto-Celt is classed as
equally indolent, and perhaps, in a sense, John Bull, with his advanced
notions of social and political economy, is partly justified in asserting
this. But when we consider the circumstances and the isolated position of
the inhabitants of the west of Ireland and Scotland, we should not judge too
harshly. Removed far from the centres of industry, with no opportunity of
obtaining regular employment, ill fed and poorly clad, need we wonder at
their lapsing into a state of what some people imagine to be indolence?
The Scottish Highlander of
the littoral districts is engaged during part of the year at the fishing, or
training in the Militia or Royal Naval Reserve Corps; and when these
occupations are over, he wanders home to his bleak moorland holding to
secure his scanty crops of corn and potatoes. What can he now do during the
long dreary winter but mope about in idleness; for were he even disposed to
improve his land the severe Highland winter prevents him; and, were he
anxious to do a day's fishing, the tempestuous sea and a dangerous coast
will prohibit him. These surroundings, therefore, tend to unnerve and suck
the very ambition from their souls, so that they never seek to rise from the
prison house of their mean estate. Were this people taught home arts and
industries, these would not only help them to pass the dreary winter, but
would form a source of income, and would ultimately be the means of
elevating their social position and stimulating them to uproot themselves
from the "bogs of immemorial routine."
[Since these lines were
written the Home Industries Associations, in whose useful work the Duchess
of Sutherland takes such a noble part, and other similar organizations, have
worked a social revolution in Highland homes. In many parts of the Highlands
and Islands the people are actively employed in weaving, knitting, carving,
and other suitable home occupations, the remuneration for which adds
considerably to their limited income.]
I must not, however, overlook
the record made by General Stewart of Garth in his excellent work, "Sketches
of the Highlanders." Speaking of the charge of indolence made against them,
he mentions the fact that during the construction of the Caledonian Canal
very few Highlanders availed themselves of this constant and well-paid
labour-offered them in the very heart of their own country. This at the time
was attributed to their natural lazy disposition; while, as a matter of
fact, at the very time they refused work at their doors, thousands flocked
southward in search of employment. General Stewart refutes the charge of
laziness by ascribing it to Highland ambition; and, undoubtedly, the
recollection of their former independence under the feudal or clan system
prevented them from accepting a labourer's hire in
sight of the scenes which
once witnessed them in better circumstances. The semi-military life they
also led, together with their constant contemplation of the renown of their
noble ancestors, imbued them with the notion that they were "gentlemen" in
comparison with their Lowland brethren, and their supreme contempt for any
commercial or servile pursuit served to make them look upon manual work as
degrading and dishonourable. Perhaps if I quote from the late Professor
Walker it will illustrate more clearly what I wish to show. He says:—
"Wherever the Highlanders are defective in industry, it will be found, upon
fair enquiry, to be rather their misfortune than their fault, and owing to
their want of knowledge and opportunity, rather than to any want of spirit
for labour. Their disposition to industry is greater than is usually
imagined, and if judiciously directed is capable of being highly
advantageous both to themselves and to their country." This forecast has
proved true; for to-day Highlanders may be found all over the world
occupying positions of honour and trust.
The hospitality of the
Highlanders once upon a time was unbounded; but since the Saxon has invaded
their land, they have become more or less contaminated, and the greed for
gold has developed. Donald's erroneous idea that English tourists are
actually rolling in money leads him to overreach his conscience in matters
of pecuniary detail; and hence the defamatory reports of the avaricious
disposition of the Highlander. A Highland Chieftain's house was always open;
and the law of hospitality and politeness forbade him, until a year had
passed, to enquire of his guest what business he had called upon. Perhaps
nothing can more beautifully and graphically illustrate pure Highland
hospitality and confidence than the circumstances attending "The Massacre of
Glencoe: --
"And tho' in them
Glencoe's devoted men
Beheld the foes of all who held their name,
Yet simple faith allowed the stranger's claim
To hospitable cheer and welcome kind;
Undreaming that a Highland hand could shame
The ancient faith—the sacred ties that bind
The guest to him beside whose hearth he hath reclined."
I may be pardoned for here
quoting Pennant's description of the character of the Highlanders; and
although the date of "Pennant's Tour" is somewhat earlier than the period
embraced in this work, the description would, nevertheless, be as applicable
at any stage of the present century as it was in 1769. "The manner of the
native Highlander," says Pennant, "may justly be described in these words:
Indolent to a high degree unless roused to war, or to any animated
amusements; or, I may say, from experience, to lend any disinterested
assistance to the distressed traveller, either in directing him on his way
or affording their aid in passing the dangerous torrents of the Highlands;
hospitable to the highest degree, and full of generosity; are much affected
with the civility of strangers, and have in themselves a natural politeness
and address which often flows from the meanest when least expected. Through
my whole tour I never met with a single instance of national reflection,
their forbearance proves them to be superior to the meanness of retaliation.
I fear they pity us, but I hope not indiscriminately. Are excessively
inquisitive after your business, your name, and other particulars of little
consequence to them, most curious after the politics of the world, and when
they procure an old newspaper will listen. to it with the avidity of
Shakespeare's blacksmith. Have much pride and consequently are impatient of
affronts and revengeful of injuries." In the, main Pennant's description
still holds good when applied to the average Highlander, yet much of the
original character of the genuine son of the mountain has been destroyed.
The rough and ragged edges of honest simplicity have been rubbed off by the
so-called polishing influences of society, and the sturdy independence and
self reliance of their ancestors are now being supplanted by, I fear, less
commendable qualities, and they are gradually having transfused into them
the Saxon .and Southern elements. This is one of the nu-avoidable results of
the development of civilization, and although, in a sense, it may be a
source of regret to the enthusiastic patriot that the good old Highland
character is being gradually obliterated, still the Highlands and
Highlanders have benefited in no small degree from their intercourse with
the English nation, and they still retain the inestimable virtues of
integrity and charity.
Sir John Dalrymple has
observed of the Highlanders:—"That to be modest as well as brave, to be
contented with a few things which nature requires, to act and to suffer
without complaining, to be as much ashamed of doing anything insolent or
ungenerous to others as of bearing it when done to ourselves, and to die
with pleasure to revenge .affronts offered to their clan or their country,
these are accounted their highest accomplishments."
SUPERSTITIONS, Etc.
"The gleaming path of the
steel winds through the gloomy ghost. The form fell shapeless into air, like
a column of smoke which the staff of the boy disturbs as it rises from the
half extinguished furnace."—Ossian.
THE Highlanders are a
superstitious people. Anyone acquainted with their finely strung
imagination, and the weird, wild regions they inhabit, can well imagine
"As when a
shepherd of the Hebrid's Isles,
Placed far amid the melancholy main,
Whether it be lone fancy him beguiles,
Or that aerial spirits sometimes deign
To stand embodied to our senses plain,
Sees on the naked hill, or valley low,
The while in ocean Phoebus dips his wane,
A vast assembly moving to and fro,
Then all at once in air dissolves the wondrous show."
—THOMPSON.
Often have I myself, while
crossing some bleak moor, or traversing a lonely deserted glen, experienced
a weird awe-stricken feeling; and it would require but very little
imaginative power to convert a grey rock or a waving tuft of heather into a
filmy ghost, a kelpie, or a brownie. Educational enlightenment has done much
to dispel the darkness of superstitious beliefs which enveloped Highlanders
up to near the middle of the nineteenth century; and in many parts of the
Highlands, at. this very hour, scores of apparently very sensible people
cling to the creed of their forefathers, and are firm believers in the
existence of ghosts, fairies, and witches.
Witchcraft was the most
prevalent superstition;: and many a' poor decrepit or eccentric individual
suffered—under the very eye of the church—the extreme penalty of the law,
branded with the appellation of wizard or witch. Although it takes a long
time to eradicate a belief, when once rooted in so tenacious and
conservative a mind as that possessed by the Celt, the belief in witchcraft,
to the extent of persecuting the supposed subjects of it, is well-nigh
extinct. Yet fairies, ghosts, and. brownies are still often seen hovering
about some lonely and haunted locality—if reliance may be placed on the
statements of belated travellers. Another common belief, prevalent all over
the Highlands fifty years ago, and in some degree believed in at the present
time--particularly in the western isles—is second sight, supposed to be a
supernatural gift whereby the seer can see the distant future, and
........."Framed
hideous spells,
In Skye's lone isle the gifted wizard seer
Lodged in the wintry cave, with fate's fell spear,
Or in the depths of Uist's dark forest dwells.
. . .. . . .. . ...
To monarchs dear,
some hundred miles away,
Oft have they seen fate give the fatal blow,
The Seer in Skye shriek'd as the blood did flow,
When headless Charles warm on the scaffold lay."
The Seer was a very reticent
and mysterious person, employing enigmatical language when disclosing any of
his prophecies so as to be construed to suit the circumstances of the case,
and they were regarded "as men to whom strange things had happened."
ANCIENT CUSTOMS AND
FESTIVE AMUSEMENTS
MANY of the ancient customs
peculiar to the Highlands are being Anglo-Saxonised, or gradually dying out.
Hallowe'en is still celebrated with much of its ancient rites and
ceremonies, and: —
"The auld
guidwifes weel hoordet nits
Are round and round divided,
And mony lads' and lasses' fates
Are there that night decided;
Some kindle, couthie, side by side,
And brin thegither trimly;
Some start awa' wi' saucy pride
And jump out owre the chimlie,
Fu' high that night."
These lines from Burns's "Hallowe'en"
refer to the custom of burning nuts, to decide if some secretly admired one
would yet be wooed and won. But within my own recollection Hallowe'en
festivities have lost much of the enthusiasm and excitement once associated
with them. Many of the ancient games and pastimes of the country are
neglected or abolished. The "Northern orthern Meeting' has done more than
any other institution I know of towards promoting and stimulating the
continuance of the manly and athletic sports so peculiar to the Highlands.
Where can you see a finer gathering of strapping, stalwart fellows, and of
noble, commanding, and lovely women, than at the Northern Meetings in
Inverness? While the institution has done much towards developing and
perpetuating the national music—and in this respect I must not omit the
minor kindred societies and associations which I am glad to see springing up
in almost every parish—yet I will venture to suggest that the usefulness
and, I may assert, the attractiveness of the meeting might be greatly
extended were prizes offered for the best web of home spun cloth, tartan-
plaid, the best knitted pair of hose, or other articles of home manufacture,
so as to kindle the desire for industry among the peasantry.
RELIGION
SCOTLAND is a Presbyterian
nation. Roman Catholicism, and Episcopacy have often endeavoured to gain the
ascendency, but the former as a national religion died with James Beaton,
Archbishop of Glasgow, and only in very remote regions of the Highlands did
popery find space to raise its head. Recently, however, it has apparently
been regaining vitality, and the re-establishment by the Pope of the Scots
Hierarchy has given a stimulus to a creed which was fast falling into decay
in the Highlands. Episcopacy received a very crushing blow at the time of
the memorable '45, whose echo rings through Scotland to this hour, and from
then till the middle of the present century it struggled to keep itself
rooted in Scottish soil; but in recent years it has been asserting its
position in the Highlands to such an extent, that the erection of a
magnificent Cathedral in Inverness and the creation of a new See indicate
that its roots have again dipped into good soil in the North, and that the
independence-dreaming Presbyterian creed of the Highlands is succumb:ing to
the once despised and rejected Prelatic form of religion. The Established
Church of Scotland is in a minority in the Highlands when compared with the
United Free Church and other dissenting Presbyterian bodies. In 1843, what
has been called the Disruption took place, whereby 451 ministers [Of these
451, 289 were Parish and 162 Quoad Sacra Ministers, or Ministers of Chapels
of Ease.] of the Church of Scotland resigned their livings and formed
themselves into a religious body called the Free Church of Scotland. The
main causes of this secession may be ascribed partly to certain abuses in
the patronage system, and partly to the looseness of the Presbyteries in
licensing unsuitable persons to be preachers. Patronage had been previously
twice abolished and reinstated again by Parliament. This Act empowered the
patron of a living to appoint 'as minister his own nominee without
consulting either the congregation or the Presbytery. There is no essential
.difference between the doctrines of the Established Church and those of the
United Free Church, and now that the obstacle of patronage is abolished, it
seems a matter of regret that the two bodies do not unite, and thereby
instil new life and vigour into a Free United Established Church for the
advancement of a true and not spurious Christianity in Scotland. It is
lamentable to think that petty jealousies and ill-feeling often exist
between the, adherents of the two churches. [Since the above was written a
serious schism has. occurred between the United Free Church and the little
Body that has vindicated for herself the name of "the Free Church of
Scotland." There is now much bitterness of feeling between these two
Churches. This is a great pity.] Notwithstanding all this, the Highland
peasantry are a religious people, and I venture to affirm that in no country
in the world is the observance of the Sabbath day more rigorously enforced
or more strictly adhered to than in the Highlands of Scotland.
"How softly,
Scotia, falls the Sabbath's calm
O'er thy hushed valleys, and thy listening hills;
And, oh! how purifying is the balm
Of that day's peace which then the bosom fills!"
To some minds, perhaps, this
unduly rigorous observance of the Sabbath day may seem extravagant, and when
carried to extremes often appears ludicrous. Professor Blackie illustrates
an instance when he ventured to pass a remark on the weather to a Skye elder
on the Sabbath day. "A fine day," said the Professor. "Ay," retorted the
elder, "a fine day indeed, but is this a day to be speaking about days?"
This morose or "gloomy religion" is chiefly confined to the Free Churchmen;
the Established Church adherents, or "Moderates," as they are called, are
somewhat more lax and advanced. Before closing these remarks on the religion
of the Highlands I must touch briefly on the Sacraments or Highland
Communion. The "Sacrament" is a great event in a Highland parish, and
thousands of people flock from every district to attend. It extends over
five days—Thursday, "the little Sabbath or Fast-day;" Friday, when the "Men"
address the people and pray; Saturday, a day of preparation; Sabbath,. the
great day for the celebration of the Lord's Supper; and Monday, a day of
solemn farewell.. On Sunday the Gaelic services are held in the, open air,
as no building sufficiently large can be found to contain so vast an
assemblage.
EDUCATION
THE current belief that
Scotland is such a well educated nation is erroneous in the extreme, for
this supposed universal "diffusion of education," particularly in the
Highlands, is anything but true; and although Scotland has long enjoyed the
reputation of being the best educated nation in Europe—and as far as
University education 'is concerned that is undoubtedly true—still we find
that the Commission
appointed to enquire into the educational state of the Highlands in 1818
found that portion of the kingdom sadly destitute of facilities for
elementary learning. Notwithstanding the efforts made by the S.P.C.K. and
the Church, little progress was made -until the "Grants in Aid " system was
established in 1839, which gave an impetus to the educational machinery of
the poorer districts of the Highlands.
Again the Free Church,
shortly after the Disruption, in order to vie with the Parish or Established
Church schools, erected, in almost every parish, schools in which the
children of their denomination were taught, perhaps not in so efficient a
degree as in the Parish school, nevertheless they created a healthy spirit
of rivalry, which benefitted in no small degree the educational development
of the country. The passing of he Education Act of 1872 was the means of
placing all the schools in a parish under the direct management of a Board,
elected triennially by the ratepayers. This School Board has full control
over the teachers, regulates the course of instruction, and was empowered to
levy a rate to meet any deficiency not covered by the Government Grant and
school fees. [School fees are now abolished in Board Schools.] In the poorer
and more thinly populated parishes the education rate was often excessive:
in the parish of Lochs it reached 4s. 6d. in the £, while in Barvas it
attained to the high figure of 5s. 8d. in the £. In these two parishes the
poor rate was fixed at 4s. 8d. and 4s. 6d. in the C respectively. Whether
the new system is an improvement on the old Parochial one remains yet to be
seen; but I fear very much that the high pressure under which it is worked
does not make the same lasting impression on the young mind as did the slow,
steady grinding under the old Parish Dominie. Dr. Norman Macleod, in his
"Reminiscences of a Highland Parish," depicts with lifelike touches the
quiet peaceful life of the parish schoolmaster, passed among the solitudes
of some wild Highland glen. "The glory," Dr. Macleod says, "of the old Scots
teacher of this stamp was to ground his pupils thoroughly in the elements of
Greek and Latin. He hated all shams, and placed little value on what was
acquired without labour. To master details, to stamp grammar rules,
thoroughly understood, upon the minds of his pupils as with a pen of iron;
to move slowly but accurately through a classic, this was his delight; not
his work only, but his recreation, the outlet for his tastes and energies."
. . . "I like to call those old teachers to remembrance. Take them all in
all they were a singular body of men; their humble homes and poor salaries
and hard work presented a remarkable contrast to their manners, abilities,
and literary culture. Scotland owes to them a debt of gratitude that never
can be repaid, and many a successful minister, lawyer, and physician is able
to recall some one of those old teachers as his earliest and best friend,
who first kindled in him the love of learning and helped him in the pursuit
of knowledge under difficulties." Then there is "Domsie" of Ian M'Laren's
creation, whose prototype is still often met with in the Highlands.
DOMESTIC LIFE
DOMESTIC life in the
Highlands may be divided into three classes—the Lairds, large Farmers and
Crofters. The Lairds or Land Lords have large and elegant castles or
mansions; and the majority of them live in luxury and maintain large and
expensive establishments. The extraordinary demand for land, for
agricultural and sporting purposes, caused a corresponding increase in the
value of this class of property, but recent depression of trade has
considerably reduced the rentals of several large estates, resulting in the
cutting down of expenditure, and this will be a loss very severely felt by
many poor workmen who were wholly dependant on the employment they
constantly obtained about the "Big Hoose. "Up to the middle of last century,
large and middle class tenantry were ill accommodated; but now few indeed
there are who have not handsome and commodious dwelling-houses and offices.
The crofters and cottars on the other hand, we may safely assume, are still
in some places not one whit better than they were a hundred years ago. Their
habitations are but miserable hovels, in many cases the walls being built of
turf, with a few cabers, thatched with heather, for a roof ; while an
opening in the roof serves the two-fold purpose of allowing the peat reek to
escape and admitting a dim light —for in many cases there are no windows.
The floors are formed of clay beaten down to a hard surface, which in dry
weather serves the purpose very efficiently, but in wet weather forms into a
slushy puddle. I am now referring more particularly to the dwellings in some
parts of the. Western Isles---on the mainland considerable improvements have
been effected on many estates within the last ten to twenty years—on the
dwellings of both crofters and cottars. [Since the passing of the Crofter
Act, in many townships. substantial houses have been erected by the
crofters.] Miss Gordon Cumming, in her interesting worn. "In the-Hebrides,"
published in 1883, graphically describes a South Uist crofter's "Home, Sweet
Home," as she calls it, in the following words: —"Right across the island
the road is built upon a narrow stone causeway, which is carried in a
straight line over moor and moss, bog and loch, and which grows worse and
worse year by year. Such miserable :human beings as have been compelled to
settle in this dreary district, having been evicted from comparatively good
crofts, are probably poorer and more wretched—their hovels more squalid,
their filth more unavoidable, than any others in the isles —the huts
clustering together in the middle of the :sodden morass, from which are dug
the damp turfs which form both walls and roof, and through these the rain
oozes, falling with dull drip upon the -earthen floor, where the half-naked
children crawl about among the puddles, which form even around the hearth—if
such a word may be used to describe a mere hollow in the floor, where the
sodden peats smoulder as though they had no energy to burn. Outside of each
threshold lie black quagmires crossed by stepping stones—drainage being
apparently deemed impossible. Yet with all this abundance of misplaced muddy
water, some of the townships have to complain of the difficulty of procuring
a supply of pure water, that which has -drained through the peat moss being
altogether unfit for drinking or cooking.
"Small wonder that the
children born and reared in such surroundings should be puny and sickly, and
their elders listless and dispirited, with no heart left to battle against
such circumstances. Existence in such hovels must be almost unendurable to
the strong and healthy, but -what must it be in the times of sickness? The
medical officer of this district states officially that much fever prevails
here, distinctly due to under feeding. He says, two families often live in
the same house, and that he has attended eight persons in one room all ill
with fever, and seven or eight other persons were ,obliged to sleep in the
same room." [Dr. Ogilvy Grant, Medical Officer for the County of Inverness,
has some very interesting statistics in his report for 1897. He finds that
the average length of life is seven years shorter in the Islands than on the
Mainland. Dr. Grant attributes the recent serious epidemic of typhus fever
in Skye to the insanitary state of the townships and contaminated water
supply. It is, however, gratifying to learn that the District Councils are
steadily forming special water supply districts, and that trained nurses are
being stationed all over the districts. But until the existing wretched
dwellings are substituted by cottages built on modern sanitary principles,
these ever-recurring epidemics can never hope to be stamped out.]
The foregoing picture, which,
alas! is too true, does not, however, depict the prevailing state of matters
in the Hebrides generally; but taking the most advanced townships in any
part of the Highlands or Islands of Scotland in this enlightened age, we
find the sanitation of those dwellings in a state that should certainly
claim the immediate attention of the Board of Supervision, and rather than
tolerate a recurrence of so deplorable and so, demoralising a thing as to
allow sixteen persons to. occupy one room—eight of whom were down with
fever—the Government should step in and compel the owners to supply adequate
accommodation and proper sanitary arrangements, failing which State aid
should be granted, and thus remove from our land one of the foulest stains
that ever disgraced-the annals of a civilized country.
Before leaving the question
of dwellings I will make a short extract from the report of Sir John
MacNeill, who specially surveyed the Northern districts of Scotland for the
Government in 1850. Sir John says:—"The crofters' houses, erected by
themselves, are of stone and earth or clay. The only materials they purchase
are the doors, and in most cases the rafters of the roof, on which are laid
thin turf covered with thatch. The crofters' furniture consists of some rude
bedsteads, a table, some stools, chests, and a few cooking utensils. At one
end of the house, often entering by the same door, is the byre for his
cattle, at the other the barn for his crop. His fuel is the peat he cuts in
the neighbouring moss, of which an allotted portion is often attached to
each croft. His capital consists of his cattle, his sheep, and perhaps one
or more horses or ponies; of his crop, that is to feed him till next
harvest, provide seed and winter provender for his animals; of his
furniture, his implements, the rafters of his house, and generally a boat or
a share of a boat, nets or other fishing gear, with some barrels of salt
herrings, or bundles of dried cod or ling for winter use."
Notwithstanding all this,
sanitary improvements in the Highlands have made remarkable progress during
the last century, particularly so in towns and villages. But although in
many cases rural districts have advanced considerably, still, as I have
already shown, much yet requires to be done. I presume the reader is fully
acquainted with the lovely town of Inverness with its charming surroundings,
its commanding views of miles of characteristic Highland landscape, with the
winding silvery Ness and its wooded islands and picturesque bridges; all
presenting an air of attractiveness which fills the beholder with ecstasy
and delight. Yet what do you think of the report of the Provost of Inverness
made to the Home Secretary from the Poor Law Commissioners "On an enquiry
into the sanitary condition of the labouring population of Great Britain,
July, 1842? [We need hardly add that the sanitary condition of Inverness has
greatly improved since 1842.] The worthy Provost says: —"Inverness is a nice
town, situated in a most beautiful country and with every facility for
cleanliness and comfort. The people are, generally speaking, a nice people,
but their sufferance of nastiness is past endurance. Contagious fever is
seldom, if ever, absent; but for many years it has seldom been rife in its
pestiferous influence. The people owe this more to the kindness of Almighty
God than to any means taken for its prevention." . . . He adds, "When
cholera prevailed in Inverness, it was more fatal than in almost any other
town of similar population in Britain."
The mode of living among the
poorer classes is of the commonest description, indeed often bordering on
starvation. Their chief fare is oatmeal porridge, or salt herrings and
potatoes, while in many of the outer isles a meal has often to be made on a
few cockles gathered on the sands or some limpets picked off the rocks.
During the most prosperous year, the poor crofter lives but a "hand to
mouth" existence; and when a bad season turns up, Or the fishing proves a
failure, starvation stares him in the face—hence the famine which occurred
during the years 1846-47 when the potato blight visited the country, and
plunged the poorer people. into the severest distress. Their chronic state
of almost entire poverty, together with the potato failure, landed them in a
state of extreme wretchedness. Ireland was suffering in a similar manner;
yet notwithstanding the heavy drain made on public generosity, in the case
of Ireland, a "Destitution Fund" was raised by voluntary subscription in
Scotland, England, and the Colonies, to relieve, if not to check, the
prevailing distress in the Highlands. Sir John MacNeill, who, at the time of
the potato failure, was chairman of the Poor Law Board of Scotland, in
speaking of the demoralising effects of eleemosynary aid, said: —"The
inhabitants of Lewis appear to have no feeling of thankfulness for the aid
extended to them, but on the contrary regard the exaction of labour in
return for wages as oppression. Yet many of these very men, on a coast
singularly destitute of safe creeks, prosecute the winter
cod-and-ling-fishing in open row boats, at a distance from the land that
renders. it invisible, unless in clear weather, and in a sea open to the
Atlantic and Northern Oceans, with no land beyond it nearer than Iceland or
America. They cheerfully encounter the perils and hardships of such a life,
and tug for hours at an oar, or sit drenched in their boat without
complaint; but to labour with a pick or a spade to them is most
distasteful."
Highlanders are a very
sociable race, and perhaps nothing is more enjoyed, by old and young, than a
"Ceilidh," when, sitting around the glowing turf fire, they repeat story
upon story, each more wonderful than the other, about giants and witches and
fairies and midnight adventures, that make the very hairs of the head stand
on end. These tales are sometimes varied by songs; and often does Donald
blow his chanter and make his bagpipes skirl; and all join in a hearty
country dance or in the good old-fashioned "Reel of Tulloch," and thus the
long winter nights are passed by those humble people in innocent simplicity.
Can we wonder at them thus trying to wile away the long dreary weary time in
that desolate country and damp moorland atmosphere, where they are compelled
to pass an existence in poverty, hardship, and isolated imprisonment?
The characteristic Highland
weddings and funerals, with their peculiar customs, are fast be-coming
extinct, and of one thing I am glad, that considerable reformation has taken
place in the matter of Highland funerals; and, although as yet, as a rule,
no religious ceremony is conducted at a burial further than, perhaps, the
offering up of a prayer by the minister, still many of the scenes of revelry
and apparent levity, in olden times, have been abolished. Refreshments are
still dispensed; and the practice—unless abused—is commendable, as many of
the mourners come from remote places, and perform long and weary journeys to
attend the funeral.
Lord Teignmouth, in his
"Sketches of the Coasts and Islands of Scotland," thus relates the
description of the funeral of a distinguished officer, as conveyed to him by
an enthusiastic Highlander: "Oh, sir, it was a grand entertainment, there
were five thousand Highlanders present; we were so jolly!" continued the
guileless native, "some did not quit the spot till next morning, some not
till the following day, they lay drinking on the ground; it was like a field
of battle."
To those acquainted with the
Highland character, the foregoing may appear uncivilized and barbarous
conduct; nor will I attempt to justify it. Yet for all this it cannot be
attributed to their levity, as Highlanders regard death with becoming,
solemnity; neither is it want of attachment to the memory of the deceased.
It is but the perpetuation of a remnant of a rude custom of showing respect
to the dead and hospitality to the mourners. In our day, at festive seasons,
the customs of "drinking the health" of friends is still indulged in; and,
undoubtedly, in those "good old times," long ago, the same method was
employed in paying respects to the memory of the dead.
EMIGRATION
"From the lone sheiling on the
misty island,
Mountains divide us, and a waste of seas,
But still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland,
And we in dreams behold the Hebrides."
THE emigration question is
one which requires very careful consideration before any definite conclusion
is arrived at, for it is nothing less than a great national problem, a
problem which, up till now, has had no satisfactory solution.
That our surplus population
must be got rid of is an undisputed fact, but whether it is the wisest
course to drain off the congested districts by emigration I am not prepared
to say. I, however think that voluntary emigration, whether of communities
or individuals, should be encouraged, so long as it can be satisfactorily
shown that those persons are qualified and adapted to undergo the life of an
emigrant; but wholesale compulsory emigration cannot be too strongly
condemned, as a system rotten at its very core, for while it hurls whole
townships higgledy-piggledy into a howling, wilderness in a foreign land, it
also forms a cloak to screen many cruel evictions that have occurred
throughout the Highlands. But, as I have said, we must somehow dispose of
our over population; and still I question very much if it is a judicious
policy to drive from their native land a race of people who, in bygone
years, formed the stamina end backbone of the nation. [The Island of Skye
alone has sent forth since the beginning of the last wars of the French
Revolution, 21 lieutenant-generals and major-generals, 48 colonels, 600
commissioned officers, 10,000 soldiers, 4 governors of colonies, 1
governor-general, 1 chief baron of England, and 1 judge of •the Supreme
Court of Scotland.—DR. NORMAN MACLEOD.]
"Ill fares the
land, to hast'ning ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay,
Princes and Lords may flourish or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed can never be supplied."
—GOLDSMITH.
True it may be that it is
next to impossible for so large a population as now occupy the barren and
.swampy wastes of many of the Western Isles to ,even eke out a miserable
existence; yet were the Government aid which was offered to emigrants given
to them, with the power to migrate and settle on some of the rich fertile
lands scattered throughout the many beautiful straths and glens of bonnie
Scotland, we should not only be retaining the people and their capital in
our midst, but also ,enriching the land, and, above all, feeling that we
were not expatriating a people whose love for their native land is such
that, when the heather-clad mountains sank from their view-, their hearts
would sink, and their arms would shrink like ferns in the winter's frost;
and when they reached that far western land, with no heart or energy to face
the rough battle of life, they would say
"The Highlands! the Highlands! O gin I were
there,
Tho' the mountains an' moorlands be rugged and bare."
"In these grim wastes new homes we'll rear,
New scenes shall wear old names so dear
And while our axes fell the tree,
Resound old Scotia's minstrelsy
Stand fast, stand fast, Craig Elachie?"
—Mrs. D. OGILVY. After
the Anglo-Boer War the Land Settlement Departments of the Transvaal and
Orange River Colony made several attempts to settle Government lands, but
after enormous sums of money had been expended on the scheme, the results
have been anything but satisfactory. Had one half of this money been
expended in erecting houses and supplying-stock and implements for
re-peopling the fertile straths and glens of Scotland, the result would not
only be remunerative, but a more happy and contented community would be the
result. The-Imperial Government would act wisely if they devoted a large sun
of money for this object.
Between the years 1773-1775 30,000 persons. from
various parts of the Highlands crossed the. Atlantic, but it was not until
about the beginning. of the last century that the tide of emigration reached
its full height, when the crofters were swept away to make room for the
wealthy sheep farmers. from the southern dales who invaded the Highlands,
and offered an enormous increase for the summer "shielings" of the poor
crofters. The late, Dr. Carruthers, of Inverness, quotes an instance in
which a sheep farmer from the south offered no less a rent than £350 for a
cattle grazing belonging to the men of Kintail who only paid an annual rent
of £15 for it. To impecunious lairds such temptations were beyond their
power to resist. "Then
it was that the more active and enterprising of the people had emigrated;
and the few that remained squatted down in lethargic contentment, so long as
their miserable patches of half cultivated lands yielded them a few potatoes
and sufficient corn for some meal, with an occasional shoal of herrings
throwing themselves within the weirs of the lochs; and thus the people
struggled on in that lethargic manner, never endeavouring to elevate or
improve themselves above the customs and manners of their forefathers. They
married and multiplied; the crofts were sub-divided, and additional huts
thrown up to accommodate an ever-increasing population, which,
notwithstanding the moderately steady drain of emigration and military
employment, still went on growing till the townships failed to support a
population now double that of its original settlers. No opportunity was
given for spreading out from their confined area; and as they depended
wholly on potatoes as their staple food, which now failed them, in 1846,
when the destitution crisis began, and became so unequalled for intensity,
and which involved both chief and clan, landlord and tenant, in
irretrievable embarrassment and ruin." And though the immediate distress was
mitigated by the generosity of the British public, its effects are still
more or less chronic; and ever and anon the sad case of human destitution
and starvation occurs, and will continue to do so, until permanent remedial
measures are introduced that will for ever place it beyond the possibility
of recurring. The
natural aversion Highlanders have to emigrate further suggests that some
improvement of their condition at home should be first attempted before the
adoption of the extreme measure—emigration; for when the late Sir James
Matheson of Lewis offered to cancel all arrears of rent, forgive all debts,
purchase the stock, and provide a free passage to Canada, to any of his
tenants willing to emigrate, his generous offer was only accepted by a few.
As I have already observed, men who emigrate and have their whole soul
concentrated on "the old country," cannot be expected to labour with that
energy which is necessary to cope with the difficulties of a new country,
and to make them successful in proportion to the troubles they have
undergone. Dr. Norman
Macleod illustrates this in that graphic and pathetic styli so peculiar to
him. "To Highlanders," he says, "emigration has often been a very
passion—their only refuge from starvation. Their love of country has been
counteracted on the one band by the lash of famine, and on the other by the
attraction of a better land opening up its arms to receive them with the
promise of abundance to reward their toil. They have chosen, then, to
emigrate; but what agonising scenes have been witnessed on their leaving
their native land? The women have cast themselves on the ground, kissing it
with intense fervour. The-men, though not manifesting their attachment by
such violent demonstrations on this side of the Atlantic, have done so in a
still more impressive form in the colonies—whether wisely or not is another
question—by retaining their native-language and cherishing feelings of the
warmest affection for the country which they still call 'Home.'"
In his "Reminiscences of a Highland Parish, Dr.
Macleod, in describing the departure of some emigrants, says:—"Among the
emigrants from `the parish' many years ago was the piper of an old family
which was broken up by the death of the last laird. Poor `Duncan Piper' had
to, enpatriate himself from the house which had sheltered him and his
ancestors. The evening before he sailed he visited the tomb of his old
master, and, playing the family pibroch while he slowly and solemnly paced
round the grave, his wild and wailing notes strangely disturbed the silence
of the lonely spot where his chief lay interred. Having done so, he broke
his pipes, and laying them on the green sod, departed to return no more." |
