The Minister told us, that a few years
ago the inhabitants were eight hundred, between the ages of seven
and of seventy. Round numbers are seldom exact. But in this case
the authority is good, and the errour likely to be little. If to
the eight hundred be added what the laws of computation require,
they will be increased to at least a thousand; and if the
dimensions of the country have been accurately related, every mile
maintains more than twenty-five.
This proportion of habitation is greater than the appearance of the
country seems to admit; for wherever the eye wanders, it sees much
waste and little cultivation. I am more inclined to extend the
land, of which no measure has ever been taken, than to diminish the
people, who have been really numbered. Let it be supposed, that a
computed mile contains a mile and a half, as was commonly found
true in the mensuration of the English roads, and we shall then
allot nearly twelve to a mile, which agrees much better with ocular
observation.
Here, as in Sky, and other Islands, are the Laird, the Tacksmen,
and the under tenants.
Mr. Maclean, the Laird, has very extensive possessions, being
proprietor, not only of far the greater part of Col, but of the
extensive Island of Rum, and a very considerable territory in Mull.
Rum is one of the larger Islands, almost square, and therefore of
great capacity in proportion to its sides. By the usual method of
estimating computed extent, it may contain more than a hundred and
twenty square miles.
It originally belonged to Clanronald, and was purchased by Col;
who, in some dispute about the bargain, made Clanronald prisoner,
and kept him nine months in confinement. Its owner represents it
as mountainous, rugged, and barren. In the hills there are red
deer. The horses are very small, but of a breed eminent for
beauty. Col, not long ago, bought one of them from a tenant; who
told him, that as he was of a shape uncommonly elegant, he could
not sell him but at a high price; and that whoever had him should
pay a guinea and a half.
There are said to be in Barra a race of horses yet smaller, of
which the highest is not above thirty-six inches.
The rent of Rum is not great. Mr. Maclean declared, that he should
be very rich, if he could set his land at two-pence halfpenny an
acre. The inhabitants are fifty-eight families, who continued
Papists for some time after the Laird became a Protestant. Their
adherence to their old religion was strengthened by the countenance
of the Laird's sister, a zealous Romanist, till one Sunday, as they
were going to mass under the conduct of their patroness, Maclean
met them on the way, gave one of them a blow on the head with a
yellow stick, I suppose a cane, for which the Earse had no name,
and drove them to the kirk, from which they have never since
departed.
