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. The whole number will then be nine hundred, or nine to a
square mile; a degree of populousness greater than those tracts of
desolation can often show. They are content with their country,
and faithful to their chiefs, and yet uninfected with the fever of
migration.
Near the house, at Raasay, is a chapel unroofed and ruinous, which
has long been used only as a place of burial. About the churches,
in the Islands, are small squares inclosed with stone, which belong
to particular families, as repositories for the dead. At Raasay
there is one, I think, for the proprietor, and one for some
collateral house.
It is told by Martin, that at the death of the Lady of the Island,
it has been here the custom to erect a cross. This we found not to
be true. The stones that stand about the chapel at a small
distance, some of which perhaps have crosses cut upon them, are
believed to have been not funeral monuments, but the ancient
boundaries of the sanctuary or consecrated ground.
Martin was a man not illiterate:
