nothing more than a bare existence, and even that upon the most precarious tenure." He made an attempt to enlist the aid of the Highland Society of London, which had been established several years before this, in his work in the Highlands, in which he was afterwards to some extent successful. His description of the Highland Society at the time is worth reproducing. "It was," he says, "partly a convivial club, who met to enjoy themselves according to the customs of their country, to hear the bagpipe, drink whisky out of the clam-shell, etc.; and, partly, an institution for the encouragement of collections and publications in their native tongue and of their native music, and similar objects."

On the 29th of June, 1768, he started from London on a remarkable tour, which he completed, mostly on foot, in the space of six months from the time he left. The tour was from Oban to Cape Wrath, from thence along the shore of the Pentland Firth to Duncansbay Head, in Caithness, then along the East Coast of that County, Sutherland, and Ross-shire, to the Town of Inverness, continuing along the coast of the Moray Firth to Kinnaird Head, Peterhead, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh, the whole distance exceeding over 3000 miles. In the course of this tour he also visited some of the Western Isles. Of this tour he wrote a journal, the first portion of which, dealing with the part of the country from Oban to Cape Wrath, including the Western Isles, was published shortly after his return to Edinburgh. From it we shall give a few interesting extracts in these papers. Meantime, we shall cull a few from some other documents which are published in the book.

In his appeal to the proprietors of lands along the Highland coasts, after stating several things which they ought to do, he says "By thus blending private benefit with the general good, the names of such proprietors, who shall, with a liberal hand, come forward, and at an early period, will be engraved upon every Highland rock, and be recorded with applause to the end of time. But something further remains on the part of the gentlemen of the Highlands towards the success of the various branches which constitute this great design. The servitude required by proprietors, tacksmen, and some factors, amounts, according to

ancient usage, to forty-two days every year, and these the most favourable for ploughing, sowing, digging peats, leading them home, cutting down and leading home the grain. While the poor men and their families are thus employed upon the business of their superiors, and for which they receive neither money nor provisions, their own affairs are neglected, and their little crops rot upon the ground; yet the rent must be paid, or they must turn out to make room for others."

After describing the nature of the tenure, which was generally from year to year; the custom of paying a large grassum on the renewal of a lease, when such was granted, and the difficulties of raising this money, he proceeds to point out that none of those things were so unfavourable to the population as the then "newly devised custom of ejecting fifty or a hundred families at a time, to make room for a stock of sheep, which can be managed by one family, and, in some places, by a servant or herd only. This practice, with the religious commotions of the last century, nearly depopulated the South of Scotland, from whence, it is said, 7000 families transported themselves to the North of Ireland, America, and other parts." He then proceeds to show what was actually being done then in the Highlands.

He

In the month of June, 1786, 550 persons embarked in one ship for America, and of these, 500 were from one estate. says that the parting scene between the emigrants and those they left behind them was "too moving for human nature to behold.” He and others estimated that, since 1763, no less than 50,000 people had left the Highlands, and of these, about 30,000 went to America. He points out the difficulty of improving the circumstances of the people. The landlords might abolish servitude, and many other customs which he condemned; they might extend the length of their leases, and otherwise encourage the industrious; "but they must be more than human to resist invariably the tempting offers that are constantly made by sheep farmers. One man will occupy the land that starved fifty or more families; he gives a double or treble rent, and is punctual to the day of payment; consequently numbers of ejected poor people are continually on the wing for America."

Mr. Knox, while pointing out the great difficulties there were

in building good houses in the Highlands at the time of his visit, informs us that, within a few years, the ordinary wages of masons and house carpenters had been six shillings per week, but, such was the improvement in the building trade in the principal towns of Scotland, that the wages, in 1786, jumped up and ranged from about nine to twelve shillings a week, and he considers it quite remarkable that, even at such wages, there was a scarcity of workmen. He further says that "this great augmentation is partly owing to the great rise in the price of provisions within these last thirty years, of which I shall give an instance from Glasgow and other trading towns in that part of the kingdom :— In the Spring of 1786.

"Thirty Years Ago (1756.)

The following reference to the origin of the now beautiful and enterprising town of Oban will prove interesting to many. Mr. Knox says, "One of the proprietors of the coast of Oban, in Argyleshire, has brought together on that spot about twenty-six families, who built their own houses upon a very moderate plan, and through whose exertions great things were expected; but the people still remain in much the same situation as formerly, with the additional circumstance against them of having exhausted their little property, or a considerable part of it, in mere dwellings only."

Some very remarkable restrictions were at that time placed upon the West Highland fishermen. Such as, for instance, busses or large boats, coming from other places to purchase herring, were prohibited from buying the fish from the natives. These busses received bounties from Government, and, to secure it, it was enacted that they should continue fishing for a period of not less than three months from the date of their departure from their own ports, unless they should have sooner completed their load of fish, all of which must be caught by their own men. "In the meantime," our author continues, "the poor natives, thus deprived of their natural right (of selling their fish), and without redress,

remained, as they still do, a miserable, helpless burden upon the proprietors whose lands they occupied. A petty fishery for the support of their own families, or their neighbourhood, in fresh herrings, were the only benefits which they could derive from the riches that came periodically upon their shores"; and he then informs us of a great measure of relief, which, by a Statute passed in 1785, permitted these strange and subsidised fishermen to purchase herring from the Highlanders, provided that, at the expiration of three months, they had not themselves fished their full cargo. One can scarcely believe that such foolish laws were in force in this country within the last hundred years.

At this time two traders in white and red herrings had settled at Lochbroom, and they purchased all the fish that the native boats could take, in its fresh state, at five shillings or upwards per cran. This figure our author considered an extraordinary one, for he says, "Let traders be encouraged to settle on all the fishing stations of the coast, and the same high prices will be given ; but care should be taken to keep the boat people independent of the traders, otherwise it may happen that the latter will lay exorbitant prices upon the articles which the natives stand in need of, and cannot purchase elsewhere." It is curious to find that, at this period, in the whole district from Belfast Loch to Cape Wrath; from thence to Duncansbay Head in Caithness; and from there to Cromarty, in the Moray Frith; there were no towns, dockyards, or even a carpenter to be found to execute any repairs upon the boats or their gear. A coast of nearly 500 miles, we are told, could not, upon any sudden emergency, furnish a single sail, a cable, or an anchor.

Mr. Knox strongly urges that roads and bridges should be constructed in the Highlands, whereat, he says, the Highlanders would be glad to work as labourers at seven or eightpence per day. He then refers at considerable length to the salt duties which were exacted at the time, and from which an annual sum of £900,000 was raised. In 1776 the gross revenue was £895,489, and of this £649,275 went in the way of drawbacks, discounts, charges of management, etc., leaving a nett sum of only £246,214 as the amount which went to the Exchequer. The result of this tax was the entire crippling, if not prohibition, of the herring and

other fishings in the Highlands, and, "having no towns or stores where this article can be retailed out at a moderate price, these poor people are forced to live through the winter and spring upon half-putrefied fish that have been dried without salt, the bad effects of which are severely felt by thousands in that miserable country. From the want of this article they cannot even supply themselves in the proper season with butter and cheese, and are therefore obliged very frequently to bring up more young cattle, by means of the milk in summer, than they can support in the winter." The duty on coal at the same period was 5s. 4d. per chaldron, and the Customs regulations were such as to make it almost impossible to get any to the Highlands on any condition. And only the miserable sum of £1100 was realised from this coal tax, though its exaction almost entirely stopped any paying enterprise on the part of the people.

It appears that the landlords of that time appropriated to themselves everything they could, as they are charged with doing before, since, and now. Referring to the religious frenzy of the people, after the death of James V., our author says that, in less than thirty years, all the national exertions in literature, civilisation, arts, agriculture, and commerce, vanished. The noble edifices, which it had taken five centuries to erect, were razed to the ground or laid in ruins within the space of a few years; and, then, we are told, "the nobility and great landholders encouraged these desolating scenes, or remained passive, while the outrageous humours of the preachers and people were venting themselves. They had an eye to the Church revenues, which they seized, and confirmed to their families in a Parliament of which they were themselves the members. The preachers, instead of sharing in the Church livings, as they had expected, were not even allowed to taste of the crumbs which these livings afforded. They now railed against the nobility and gentry, who, nevertheless, kept possesion of the revenues, which their descendants enjoy to the present day." After impoverishing the Church and the clergy, who, we are told, were without stipends or salaries, in this way, this Parliament of landlords, who had appropriated the whole lands and revenues of the Church to themselves, "did, in the munificence of their hearts, from a zeal for the Protestant religion,