第55章 CASTLE OF COL(3)

Near to Col is another Island called Tireye,eminent for its fertility.Though it has but half the extent of Rum,it is so well peopled,that there have appeared,not long ago,nine hundred and fourteen at a funeral.The plenty of this Island enticed beggars to it,who seemed so burdensome to the inhabitants,that a formal compact was drawn up,by which they obliged themselves to grant no more relief to casual wanderers,because they had among them an indigent woman of high birth,whom they considered as entitled to all that they could spare.I have read the stipulation,which was indited with juridical formality,but was never made valid by regular subion.

If the inhabitants of Col have nothing to give,it is not that they are oppressed by their landlord:their leases seem to be very profitable.One farmer,who pays only seven pounds a year,has maintained seven daughters and three sons,of whom the eldest is educated at Aberdeen for the ministry;and now,at every vacation,opens a school in Col.

Life is here,in some respects,improved beyond the condition of some other Islands.In Sky what is wanted can only be bought,as the arrival of some wandering pedlar may afford an opportunity;but in Col there is a standing shop,and in Mull there are two.A shop in the Islands,as in other places of little frequentation,is a repository of every thing requisite for common use.Mr.Boswell's journal was filled,and he bought some paper in Col.To a man that ranges the streets of London,where he is tempted to contrive wants,for the pleasure of supplying them,a shop affords no image worthy of attention;but in an Island,it turns the balance of existence between good and evil.To live in perpetual want of little things,is a state not indeed of torture,but of constant vexation.I have in Sky had some difficulty to find ink for a letter;and if a woman breaks her needle,the work is at a stop.

As it is,the Islanders are obliged to content themselves with succedaneous means for many common purposes.I have seen the chief man of a very wide district riding with a halter for a bridle,and governing his hobby with a wooden curb.

The people of Col,however,do not want dexterity to supply some of their necessities.Several arts which make trades,and demand apprenticeships in great cities,are here the practices of daily economy.In every house candles are made,both moulded and dipped.

Their wicks are small shreds of linen cloth.They all know how to extract from the Cuddy,oil for their lamps.They all tan skins,and make brogues.

As we travelled through Sky,we saw many cottages,but they very frequently stood single on the naked ground.In Col,where the hills opened a place convenient for habitation,we found a petty village,of which every hut had a little garden adjoining;thus they made an appearance of social commerce and mutual offices,and of some attention to convenience and future supply.There is not in the Western Islands any collection of buildings that can make pretensions to be called a town,except in the Isle of Lewis,which I have not seen.

If Lewis is distinguished by a town,Col has also something peculiar.The young Laird has attempted what no Islander perhaps ever thought on.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.