richest counties in Scotland was one of dependence on the import of grain from foreign countries. In Charles the First's Parliament of 1633, a Bill was brought in "desiring that all impositions for restraining the inbringing of victual may be discharged, it being "without example in any part of the world, and so much the more "that the whole sheriffdoms of Dumbarton, Renfrew, Argyll, Ayr, "Wigtown, Nithsdale, steuartry of Kirkcudbright, and Anandale are "not able to entertain themselves in the most plentiful years that ever "fell out without supply from foreign parts." Accordingly there is abundant evidence of the constant scarcity and frequent starvation in which the Highland population lived. Some striking illustrations of this are given in Captain Burt's well-known letters written in 1726. Pennant, at a later period in the same century, speaking of Skye, says "the crops are most precarious; the poor are left to "Providence's care. They prowl like other animals along the "shore to pick up limpets and other shellfish, the casual repasts of "hundreds during part of the year in these unhappy islands. "Hundreds thus drag through the season a wretched life, and "numbers unknown in all parts of the Western Highlands fall "beneath the pressure, some of hunger, more of the putrid fever, "the epidemic of the coast, originating from unwholesome food, "the dire effects of necessity. The produce of the crops very "rarely is proportioned in any degree to the wants of the inha"bitants: golden seasons have happened when they have had super"fluity, but the years of famine are ten to one."

This state of things is not astonishing; the only matter of astonishment is how any considerable population could have lived at all. Let us remember, in the first place, that the food which now for several generations has been the principal food of all poor agricultural populations, was not then available. There were no potatoes. Let us remember, in the second place, that the climate is a wet one, and that drainage was absolutely unknown. Let us remember, in the third place, that although potatoes will grow on damp and even wet soils, barley and oats will not grow except on land which is comparatively dry. Let us remember, in the fourth place, that in a mountainous country, with a wet climate and no artificial drainage, the best land in the bottoms of the valleys must have been very wet, and that even the sides of the hills must in most places have been covered with a boggy and spongy soil. It follows from all these considerations that corn could only be raised on those spots and portions of land which were dry by natural drainage. Sometimes these may have been in the bottoms of the valleys when the soil happened to be light and shingly, but more often they were on the steepest sides of the hills, on the banks of streams, and among the naturally dry and even stony knolls. Accordingly nothing is more

common in the Highlands than to see the old marks of the plough upon land so high and so steep, that no farmer in his senses would now consider it as arable at all. When these marks catch the eye of the stranger, full it may be of sentiment or of political economy, or of a confusion of both, he looks upon them and quotes them as the melancholy proofs of ancient and abandoned industry, of the decay of agriculture, in short of a stagnant declining state. Whereas in truth these are the most sure and certain indications of the low and rude condition of agriculture in former times; of the better lands which are now drained and cleared, and ploughed, having been then under swamp and tangled wood. When again we remember that such dry spots and patches of land as were then capable of bearing corn, were used for that purpose year after year; when we remember that there was no such a thing known as a rotation of crops, since turnips and potatoes were wanting; when we consider further, that even the rudiments of a system of manuring land were also unknown, it is impossible to be surprised that the population of the Highlands was exposed to frequent and severe famines, and we may well even wonder how any considerable population was maintained at all.

It is a common but erroneous notion, that the Highlanders, like the inhabitants of other wild countries, had at least an abundant supply of game. But neither was this resource extensively available. The country swarmed with foxes, eagles, hawks, and at an earlier period, with wolves. These animals effectually prevented the breeding of game; even the deer being unprotected, killed out of season, driven about and allowed no rest, were reduced extremely in number, and in the seventeenth century were found only in the remotest fastnesses of the country. So early as 1551 an Act of Parliament set forth that deer, roe, and wild fowl were clean exiled and banished from over persecution.

Indeed the only explanation of this difficulty is to be found in these two facts, first, that the population of the Highlands was never so great as is commonly supposed; secondly, that it was a population inured to hardship and accustomed to a very low scale of living; and thirdly, that such as it was it did not live on its own resources, but habitually eked out its own means of subsistence by preying upon its neighbours. This is the real explanation of the habit so famous in Highland story, of black mail raids upon the low countries of Scotland. Sir Walter Scott, who in all his novels keeps close to the facts of history and of nature, has put into the mouth of Bailie Jarvie, in "Rob Roy," the true explanation of a habit so unpleasant to those who lived within reach of the Grampians: "The military array of this Hieland country, were a' the "men-folk between aughteen and fifty-six brought out that could "bear arms, couldna come weel short of fifty-seven thousand and

VOL. XXIX. PART IV.

2 M

"five hundred men. Now, sir, it's a sad and awfu' truth, that there "is neither wark, nor the very fashion nor appearance of wark, for "the tae half of thae puir creatures; that is to say, that the "agriculture, the pasturage, the fisheries, and every species of "honest industry about the country, cannot employ the one moiety "of the population, let them work as lazily as they like, and they "do work as if a pleugh or a spade burnt their fingers. Aweel, sir, "this moiety of unemployed bodies, amounting to one hundred "and fifteen thousand souls, whereof there may be twenty-eight "thousand seven hundred able-bodied gillies fit to bear arms, and "that do bear arms, and will touch or look at nae honest means of "livelihood even if they could get it-which, lack-a-day! they "cannot. And mair especially, mony hundreds o' "them come down to the borders of the low country, where there's gear to grip, and live by stealing, reiving, lifting cows, and the "like depredations-a thing deplorable in any Christian country!— "the mair especially that they take pride in it," &c., &c.

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My attention was called last autumn by an unknown correspondent, to a very curious and interesting document in the British Museum, which contains much valuable information on the condition of the Highlands immediately after the Rebellion of 1745. It is No. 104 in "the King's Collection," and is the account of an eyewitness, a gentleman who travelled all over the Highland counties, and communicated the result to a friend in London. It is very probable that he was an agent of the Government. He is mainly occupied in noting the military condition and strength of the clans, their politics and their character; but incidentally it gives us some valuable facts also touching the economic condition of the people. Thus in speaking of the district of Lochaber, he gives the following account of the small tenants who held under the tacksmen or leaseholders. 66 Each of these has some very poor people under him, perhaps four or six on a farm, to whom he lets out the skirts "of his possession. These people are generally the soberest and "honestest of the whole. Their food all summer is milk and whey "mixed together without any bread; the little butter or cheese they "are able to make, is reserved for winter provision; they sleep away "the greater part of the summer, and when the little barley they sow becomes ripe, the women pull it as they do flax, and dry it on a large wicker machine over the fire, then burn the straw and grind the corn upon quearns or hand mills. In the end of harvest "and during the winter, they have some flesh, butter, and cheese, "with great scarcity of bread. All their business is to take care of "the few cattle they have. In spring, which is the only season in "which they work, their whole food is bread and gruel, without so "much as salt to season it."

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No mention is made here of another source of food which, however, it is well known was a constant and habitual resource to the people of the Highlands, viz., the bleeding of live cattle and the mixing of the blood with meal. It is quite obvious how this practice should arise in a country where the people were constantly struggling with scarcity. But it is a curious circumstance that like other customs originating in necessity, it gathered round it for its support reasons and opinions which are still sometimes given as the true explanation of its origin. It came to be considered as beneficial, not only to the men who consumed the blood, but to the poor beasts who afforded it; and there is ground for believing that on the strength of this notion the practice did actually linger on in the Highlands after it had ceased to be a necessity for the support of life. I have met with many Highlanders of middle age, who recollect their fathers speaking of it as a custom general in their own younger days. Under such habits of life, and such conditions of husbandry, it is impossible that the Highland counties can ever have been thickly peopled. It is very difficult, however, to arrive at any even approximate estimate of the population before the close of the civil wars. The most definite information I have seen is that given in the MS. already referred to. It will surprise many to be told that the greatest number of men in arms against the Government in the Great Rebellion of 1745, from the beginning to the end of that rebellion, did not exceed 11,000 men. In the same

paper an estimate is given of the number of men in arms which each clan could turn out, and the comparative smallness of that number, even in the case of the most powerful clans, is remarkable. It is specially mentioned, not only that Argyllshire was then the most fertile of the Highland counties, but that ever since the Union the proprietors of land there "had made very great improvements, "whence it came that they were all in easy circumstances." The Campbells, including both the Argyll and Breadalbane branches, are put down as able to turn out 3,000 men, besides leaving at home enough to carry on the usual cultivation of the soil. The Gordons had at one time been able to produce an equal number, but were then much reduced. But when we come to the western and northern clans, the numbers are comparatively small.

The Stuarts of Apine could bring 300 "good" men into the field.

The Camerons from first to last, during the Rebellion of 1745, brought into the field over 900 effective men, of which number they lost above 400.

Keppoch, of Lochaber, "joined the rebels with 300 stout fellows, all Popish."

Glengarry could raise "about 500 strong fierce fellows."

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Lord Lovat could have raised 900 men, were extremely bad."

a third part of which

McPherson of Cluny, 400.

The Farquharsons of Invercauld, 400.
Rose of Kilravock, 300.

The clan of the Grants, of Strathspey, consisted of " about 1,000 "good men."

The Gordons "who one hundred and fifty years ago could have "brought of their vassals and tenants 3,000 men into the field, are now so greatly degenerated that all the Highland clans despise "them."

"The Duke of Argyll and his clan, including Breadalbin, can "raise 3,000 men, and leave enough at home for cultivating the land " and other necessary uses; and if the Campbels were to raise their men as the Camerons and McDonalds, they could bring together "above 10,000 able to bear arms."

It is specially mentioned in the King's MS., that the McLeods of Skye, who were zealous royalists, had lost in the civil wars, and especially at Worcester, so many men that, by the general consent of all the northern clans, it was agreed they should have a respite from war till their numbers should increase.

Such having been the condition of the Highland population about the close of the civil wars and at the termination of the last rebellion, it remains to inquire what progress they had made during the period of peace and of comparative prosperity which occupied the remainder of the eighteenth century. There were three great causes which during that period were brought into operation upon the condition of the people. First, there was the natural effect of a settled Government, the saving of life from the cessation of civil war, feuds, and broils; secondly, there was the saving of life, not less important, from the introduction of inoculation for small-pox; and thirdly, there was the first introduction of potatoes as a new and most abundant means of subsistence. Potatoes were first introduced in the island of South Uist so early as 1743, by Clanranald, from Ireland. Their use seems to have been violently resisted at first by the inhabitants; and we are told that they did not reach the next island of Berna till 1752, whilst in the course of another ten years they had come to support the whole inhabitants for at least one-quarter of the year. Once established, their use soon spread over the Highlands, and their effect in promoting the increase of population must have been as powerful as it has elsewhere been. Inoculation was introduced into the Highlands in 1763, and as it appears never to have encountered the same hostile prejudices which existed in other parts of the country, and as the people generally are described as having accepted the new discovery "with devout thank