Raafay is the only inhabited island in Mr Macleod's poffeffion. Rona and Fladda afford only pasture for cattle, of which one hundred and fixty winter in Rona, under the fuperintendance of a folitary herdsman.

The length of Raasay is, by computation, fifteen miles, and the breadth two. Thefe countries. have never been meafùred, and the computation by miles is negligent and arbitrary. We obferved in travelling, that the nominal and real distance of places had very little relation to each other. Raafay probably contains near a hundred square miles. It affords not much ground, notwithstanding its extent, either for tillage, or pafture; for it is rough, rocky, and barren. The cattle often perifh by falling from the precipices. It is like the other iflands, I think, generally naked of fhade, but it is. naked by neglect; for the laird has an orchard, and very large foreft trees grow about his houfe. Like other hilly countries, it has many rivulets. One of the brooks turns a corn-mill, and at least one produces trouts.

In the ftreams or fresh lakes of the islands, I have never heard of any other fish than trouts and eels. The trouts, which I have feen, are not large; the colour of their flesh is tinged as in England. Of their cels I can give no account, having never tasted them; for I believe they are not confidered as wholesome food.

It is not very eafy to fix the principles upon

which mankind have agreed to eat some animals, and reject others; and as the principle is not evident, it is not uniform. That which is felected as delicate in one country, is by its neighbours abhorred as loathfome. The Neapolitans lately refused to eat potatoes in a famine. An Englishman is not easily perfuaded to dine on fnails with an Ita lian, on frogs with a Frenchman, or on horseflesh with a Tartar. The vulgar inhabitants of Sky, I know not whether of the other islands, have not only eels, but pork and bacon in abhorrence, and ac. cordingly I never faw a hog in the Hebrides, except one at Dunvegan.

Raafay has wild fowl in abundance, but neither deer, hares, nor rabbits. Why it has them not may be afked, but that of fuch queftions there is no end. Why does any nation want what it might have? Why are not fpices tranfplanted to America? Why does tea continue to be brought from China? Life improves, but by flow degrees, and much in every place is yet to do. Attempts have been made to raife roebucks in Raafay, but without effect. The young ones it is extremely difficult to rear, and the old can very feldom be taken alive.

Hares and rabbits might be more easily obtained. That they have few or none of either in Sky, they impute to the ravage of the foxes, and have therefore fet, for fome years paft, a price upon their heads, which, as the number was diminish

ed

ed, has been gradually raised, from three fhillings and fixpence to a guinea; a fum fo great in this part of the world, that, in a fhort time, Sky may be as free from foxes, as England from wolves. The fund for these rewards is a tax of fixpence in the pound, imposed by the farmers on themselves, and faid to be paid with great willingness.

The beasts of prey in the islands are foxes, ot⚫ ters, and weafels. The foxes are bigger than those of England; but the otters exceed ours in a far greater proportion. I faw one at Armidel, of a fize much beyond that which I supposed them ever to attain; and Mr Maclean, the heir of Col, a man of middle ftature, informed me that he once fhot an otter, of which the tail reached the ground when he held up the head to a level with his own. I expected the otter to have a foot peculiarly formed for the art of fwimming; but upon examination, I did not find it differing much from that of a fpaniel. As he preys in the fea, he does little visible mischief, and is killed only for his fur. White otters are fometimes feen.'

In Raafay they might have hares and rabbits, for they have no foxes. Some depredations, fuch as were never made before, have caused a suspicion that a fox has been lately landed in the island by fpite or wantonnefs. This imaginary stranger has never yet been feen, and therefore, perhaps, the mifchief was done by fome other animal. It is not likely, that a creature fo ungentle, whose head could have been fold in Sky for a guinea, should

be

be kept alive only to gratify the malice of fending him to prey upon a neighbour: and the paffage from Sky is wider than a fox would venture to fwim, unless he were chafed by dogs into the fea, and perhaps then his ftrength would enable him to crofs. How beafts of prey came into any islands is not easy to guefs. In cold countries, they take advantage of hard winters, and travel over the ice : but this is a very scanty folution; for they are found where they have no difcoverable moans of coming.

The corn of this ifland is but little. I faw the harvest of a small field. The women reaped the corn, and the men bound up the fheaves. The ftrokes of the fickle 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 ftrain; which has, they fay, not much meaning but its effects are regularity and chearfulness. The ancient proceleufmatick fong, by which the rowers of gallies were animated, may be fuppofed to have been of this kind. There is now an oar-fong used by the Hebridians.

The ground of Raafay feems 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 fold. Of an extenfive domain, which he holds in his own hands, he confiders the fale of cattle as repaying him the rent, and fupports the

plenty of a very liberal table with the remaining

product.

Raafay is fuppofed to have been very long inhabited. On one fide of it they fhow caves, into which the rude nations of the firft ages retreated from the weather. Thefe dreary vaults might have had other uses. There is ftill a cavity near the houfe called the oar-cave, in which the feamen, after one of these piratical expeditions, which in rougher times were very frequent, used, as tradition tells, to hide their oars. This hollow was near the fea, that nothing neceffary might be far to be fetched; and it was fecret, that enemies, if they landed, could find nothing. Yet, it is not very evident of what use it was to hide their oars from thofe who, if they were mafters of the coaft, could take away their boats.

A proof much stronger of the distance at which the poffeffors of this ifland lived from the present time, is afforded by the ftone heads of arrows which are very frequently picked up. The people call them Elf-bolts, and believe that the fairies fhcot them at the cattle. They nearly refemble those which Mr Banks has lately brought from the favage countries in the Pacific Ocean, and muft have been made by a nation to which the ufe of metals was unknown.

The number of this little community has never been counted by its ruler, nor have I obtained any pofitive account, confiftent with the refult of poli