I saw the harvest of a
small field. The women reaped the Corn, and the men bound up the
sheaves. The strokes of the sickle were timed by the modulation of
the harvest song, in which all their voices were united. They
accompany in the Highlands every action, which can be done in equal
time, with an appropriated strain, which has, they say, not much
meaning; but its effects are regularity and cheerfulness. The
ancient proceleusmatick song, by which the rowers of gallies were
animated, may be supposed to have been of this kind. There is now
an oar-song used by the Hebridians.
The ground of Raasay seems fitter for cattle than for corn, and of
black cattle I suppose the number is very great. The Laird himself
keeps a herd of four hundred, one hundred of which are annually
sold. Of an extensive domain, which he holds in his own hands, he
considers the sale of cattle as repaying him the rent, and supports
the plenty of a very liberal table with the remaining product.
Raasay is supposed to have been very long inhabited. On one side
of it they show caves, into which the rude nations of the first
ages retreated from the weather. These dreary vaults might have
had other uses. There is still a cavity near the house called the
oar-cave, in which the seamen, after one of those piratical
expeditions, which in rougher times were very frequent, used, as
tradition tells, to hide their oars. This hollow was near the sea,
that nothing so necessary might be far to be fetched; and it was
secret, that enemies, if they landed, could find nothing. Yet it
is not very evident of what use it was to hide their oars from
those, who, if they were masters of the coast, could take away
their boats.
A proof much stronger of the distance at which the first possessors
of this island lived from the present time, is afforded by the
stone heads of arrows which are very frequently picked up. The
people call them Elf-bolts, and believe that the fairies shoot them
at the cattle. They nearly resemble those which Mr. Banks has
lately brought from the savage countries in the Pacifick Ocean, and
must have been made by a nation to which the use of metals was
unknown.
The number of this little community has never been counted by its
ruler, nor have I obtained any positive account, consistent with
the result of political computation. Not many years ago, the late
Laird led out one hundred men upon a military expedition. The
sixth part of a people is supposed capable of bearing arms: Raasay
had therefore six hundred inhabitants. But because it is not
likely, that every man able to serve in the field would follow the
summons, or that the chief would leave his lands totally
defenceless, or take away all the hands qualified for labour, let
it be supposed, that half as many might be permitted to stay at
home.
