Children Continue With The Fosterer Perhaps Six Years, And Cannot,
Where This Is The Practice, Be Considered As Burdensome.
The
fosterer, if he gives four cows, receives likewise four, and has,
while the child continues with him, grass
For eight without rent,
with half the calves, and all the milk, for which he pays only four
cows when he dismisses his Dalt, for that is the name for a foster
child.
Fosterage is, I believe, sometimes performed upon more liberal
terms. Our friend, the young Laird of Col, was fostered by
Macsweyn of Grissipol. Macsweyn then lived a tenant to Sir James
Macdonald in the Isle of Sky; and therefore Col, whether he sent
him cattle or not, could grant him no land. The Dalt, however, at
his return, brought back a considerable number of Macalive cattle,
and of the friendship so formed there have been good effects. When
Macdonald raised his rents, Macsweyn was, like other tenants,
discontented, and, resigning his farm, removed from Sky to Col, and
was established at Grissipol.
These observations we made by favour of the contrary wind that
drove us to Col, an Island not often visited; for there is not much
to amuse curiosity, or to attract avarice.
The ground has been hitherto, I believe, used chiefly for
pasturage. In a district, such as the eye can command, there is a
general herdsman, who knows all the cattle of the neighbourhood,
and whose station is upon a hill, from which he surveys the lower
grounds; and if one man's cattle invade another's grass, drives
them back to their own borders.
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