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We had scarcely satisfied our curiosity in exploring this rude but sublime cathedral of nature before the weather began to thicken, and the wind to freshen in a direction that determined our hospitable host, to whom the navigation of these seas is familiar, not to venture upon extending our voyage to Iona, which we reluctantly gave up, although all the accounts we have of it concur in describing it as a spot better adapted for the mind than the eye, and abounding more with matter for meditation than with interesting objects. The sublime eulogy pronounced upon this island by Johnson was adverted to as we lay upon our oars, at first dubious as to our course, when we quitted the island of Staffa.

Two of our party had been at Iona a short time before with the Duke of Argyle, whose presence produced almost as great a sensation as if St. Columba, attended by St. Patrick and St. Bridget, had arisen from his tomb, to revisit this his favourite island. His Grace is the great chieftain of the place, and during a century it had never been so honoured. All the population crowded to the shore when the Duke and his party landed, to whom they offered some of the finest pebbles found on the island, inany of which are very beautiful. The tombs of the Scottish and Irish Kings had been cleared of their superincumbent loads of cattle-dung, and duly washed and

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scrubbed. The schoolmaster, the greatest personage upon the island, had "wasted the midnight oil" in preparing a speech with which to address the Duke; but, alas! like many an unpractised orator, when the long-looked for opportunity arrived, the powers of his memory melted away, and he stood in a state of pale and trembling stupefaction. The men and women, in fine white mob caps, and without shoes or stockings, danced an Iona fandango before the Duke, whilst the children pressed forward to touch his coat. Although Dr. Johnson has as much contributed to the immortality of the fame of Iona by his pen as St. Columba by his piety, the memory of the sage is not popular amongst the

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CHAP. XXVI.

A DELUVIAN DINNER-FISHERIES-KELP-KELP-TENANTS-REMARKS ON LETTING LANDS TO KELP-TENANTS-ON AGRICUL TURAL IMPROVEMENTS-ON THE POPULATION OF THE HEBRIDES-ADVANTAGES OF PRIMOGENITURE-HEBRIDEAN VOLUNTEERS -FOOD AND HAPPINESS OF THE HEBRIDEANSQUERNS AND CORN-MILLS-HEBRIDEAN PIETY-WOLVES GAME COAL.

WE dined, on our return to Ulva, in the boat, under such a deluge, that my plate overflowed with rain-water as I extended it for some refreshment. Our repast consisted of an excellent collation, and various and the best wines, of which we drank so bountifully, but not intemperately, that in a short time, from their influence, and the general good humour of the party, we began to think even kindly of the weather. Our poor boatmen and piper were plyed with what they loved next to life, copious quantities of whisky, animated by which, and their wild Gaelic songs, they pulled us back with Herculean vigour to the spot where we embarked, within an hour after a stormy darkness had settled upon the face of this part of the Atlantic.

It is to be lamented that the fisheries in the Hebrides,

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and on the whole western and north-western coast of Scotland, and in particular the herring-fishery, so important to the state, should for many years past have been, in a manner, monopolized by the bounty, or bush, men, to the great prejudice of the interests of the native fisher. No encouragement of any kind or description whatever has hitherto been held out, either by Government or individuals, to any inhabitant of the western coast or islands to embark in the fisheries, with the exception of a slight bounty, called the barrel bounty, and to obtain which there are so many excise-forms necessary to go through, that the poor fisherman generally gives up the whole bounty to the officer of the custom-house when he comes to brand his barrels; by which means the returns of the fisherman's toil and enterprise are greatly reduced. The fisheries which were some time since established at Lochfine, by Lachlan Mac Lachlan, Esq. of Mac Lachlan, at Castle Lachlan, in Stath Lachlaw, as also those at Tobermorry, with laudable perseverance continue their operations; but without some alteration or mitigation of the penalties contained in many of the clauses in the Acts of Parliament relative to the saltlaws, it is not likely that these fisheries or any others can ever become a source of permanent national wealth. Indeed it would fill a tolerably-sized volume to enumerate the grievances which the fisheries sustain in consequence of the many involved, intricate, and unintelligible clauses in the

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salt-laws now existing, and by which the fisheries are attempted to be regulated: I shall merely remark, that it is not by any means the duties of which the fishermen have to complain, but the rigid interpretation which the petty officers of excise (commonly called gaugers) think proper to put upon some of the clauses contained in these statutes, and the great rigour with which they carry them into execution; hence the more illiterate of the fishermen frequently suffer by such severity and their own ignorance. Notwithstanding these impediments, Staffa, to his honour, has bestowed unceasing zeal and ardour in encouraging his tenants in the islands of Staffa and Mull to embark in fisheries, and his exertions have been on several occasions attended with great success. Owing to the uncertainty of the visits of the herrings, and their equally uncertain duration, Staffa, by close observation and experience, has seen the sound policy of blending the occupations of farming and fishing, which do not interfere with each other, and which cause a certain supply of sustenance.

Whilst the fisheries in the Hebrides labour under such impolitic restraints, the natives find considerable employ and profit from the manufacture of kelp, which was introduced from Ireland between fifty and sixty years since, and has become a valuable source of income to the

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