The
Inhabitants Are Thin, Provisions Are Scarce, And Desolation And
Penury Give Little Pleasure.
The people collectively considered are not few, though their
numbers are small in proportion to the space which they occupy.
Mull is said to contain six thousand, and Sky fifteen thousand.
Of
the computation respecting Mull, I can give no account; but when I
doubted the truth of the numbers attributed to Sky, one of the
Ministers exhibited such facts as conquered my incredulity.
Of the proportion, which the product of any region bears to the
people, an estimate is commonly made according to the pecuniary
price of the necessaries of life; a principle of judgment which is
never certain, because it supposes what is far from truth, that the
value of money is always the same, and so measures an unknown
quantity by an uncertain standard. It is competent enough when the
markets of the same country, at different times, and those times
not too distant, are to be compared; but of very little use for the
purpose of making one nation acquainted with the state of another.
Provisions, though plentiful, are sold in places of great pecuniary
opulence for nominal prices, to which, however scarce, where gold
and silver are yet scarcer, they can never be raised.
In the Western Islands there is so little internal commerce, that
hardly any thing has a known or settled rate. The price of things
brought in, or carried out, is to be considered as that of a
foreign market; and even this there is some difficulty in
discovering, because their denominations of quantity are different
from ours; and when there is ignorance on both sides, no appeal can
be made to a common measure.
This, however, is not the only impediment. The Scots, with a
vigilance of jealousy which never goes to sleep, always suspect
that an Englishman despises them for their poverty, and to convince
him that they are not less rich than their neighbours, are sure to
tell him a price higher than the true. When Lesley, two hundred
years ago, related so punctiliously, that a hundred hen eggs, new
laid, were sold in the Islands for a peny, he supposed that no
inference could possibly follow, but that eggs were in great
abundance. Posterity has since grown wiser; and having learned,
that nominal and real value may differ, they now tell no such
stories, lest the foreigner should happen to collect, not that eggs
are many, but that pence are few.
Money and wealth have by the use of commercial language been so
long confounded, that they are commonly supposed to be the same;
and this prejudice has spread so widely in Scotland, that I know
not whether I found man or woman, whom I interrogated concerning
payments of money, that could surmount the illiberal desire of
deceiving me, by representing every thing as dearer than it is.
From Lochbuy we rode a very few miles to the side of Mull, which
faces Scotland, where, having taken leave of our kind protector,
Sir Allan, we embarked in a boat, in which the seat provided for
our accommodation was a heap of rough brushwood; and on the twenty-
second of October reposed at a tolerable inn on the main land.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 105 of 110
Words from 53907 to 54451
of 56696
