第36章 OSTIG IN SKY(1)

At Ostig,of which Mr.Macpherson is minister,we were entertained for some days,then removed to Armidel,where we finished our observations on the island of Sky.

As this Island lies in the fifty-seventh degree,the air cannot be supposed to have much warmth.The long continuance of the sun above the horizon,does indeed sometimes produce great heat in northern latitudes;but this can only happen in sheltered places,where the atmosphere is to a certain degree stagnant,and the same mass of air continues to receive for many hours the rays of the sun,and the vapours of the earth.Sky lies open on the west and north to a vast extent of ocean,and is cooled in the summer by perpetual ventilation,but by the same blasts is kept warm in winter.Their weather is not pleasing.Half the year is deluged with rain.From the autumnal to the vernal equinox,a dry day is hardly known,except when the showers are suspended by a tempest.

Under such skies can be expected no great exuberance of vegetation.

Their winter overtakes their summer,and their harvest lies upon the ground drenched with rain.The autumn struggles hard to produce some of our early fruits.I gathered gooseberries in September;but they were small,and the husk was thick.

Their winter is seldom such as puts a full stop to the growth of plants,or reduces the cattle to live wholly on the surplusage of the summer.In the year Seventy-one they had a severe season,remembered by the name of the Black Spring,from which the island has not yet recovered.The snow lay long upon the ground,a calamity hardly known before.Part of their cattle died for want,part were unseasonably sold to buy sustenance for the owners;and,what I have not read or heard of before,the kine that survived were so emaciated and dispirited,that they did not require the male at the usual time.Many of the roebucks perished.

The soil,as in other countries,has its diversities.In some parts there is only a thin layer of earth spread upon a rock,which bears nothing but short brown heath,and perhaps is not generally capable of any better product.There are many bogs or mosses of greater or less extent,where the soil cannot be supposed to want depth,though it is too wet for the plow.But we did not observe in these any aquatick plants.The vallies and the mountains are alike darkened with heath.Some grass,however,grows here and there,and some happier spots of earth are capable of tillage.

Their agriculture is laborious,and perhaps rather feeble than unskilful.Their chief manure is seaweed,which,when they lay it to rot upon the field,gives them a better crop than those of the Highlands.They heap sea shells upon the dunghill,which in time moulder into a fertilising substance.When they find a vein of earth where they cannot use it,they dig it up,and add it to the mould of a more commodious place.

Their corn grounds often lie in such intricacies among the craggs,that there is no room for the action of a team and plow.The soil is then turned up by manual labour,with an instrument called a crooked spade,of a form and weight which to me appeared very incommodious,and would perhaps be soon improved in a country where workmen could be easily found and easily paid.It has a narrow blade of iron fixed to a long and heavy piece of wood,which must have,about a foot and a half above the iron,a knee or flexure with the angle downwards.When the farmer encounters a stone which is the great impediment of his operations,he drives the blade under it,and bringing the knee or angle to the ground,has in the long handle a very forcible lever.

According to the different mode of tillage,farms are distinguished into long land and short land.Long land is that which affords room for a plow,and short land is turned up by the spade.

The grain which they commit to the furrows thus tediously formed,is either oats or barley.They do not sow barley without very copious manure,and then they expect from it ten for one,an increase equal to that of better countries;but the culture is so operose that they content themselves commonly with oats;and who can relate without compassion,that after all their diligence they are to expect only a triple increase?It is in vain to hope for plenty,when a third part of the harvest must be reserved for seed.

When their grain is arrived at the state which they must consider as ripeness,they do not cut,but pull the barley:to the oats they apply the sickle.Wheel carriages they have none,but make a frame of timber,which is drawn by one horse with the two points behind pressing on the ground.On this they sometimes drag home their sheaves,but often convey them home in a kind of open panier,or frame of sticks upon the horse's back.

Of that which is obtained with so much difficulty,nothing surely ought to be wasted;yet their method of clearing their oats from the husk is by parching them in the straw.Thus with the genuine improvidence of savages,they destroy that fodder for want of which their cattle may perish.From this practice they have two petty conveniences.They dry the grain so that it is easily reduced to meal,and they escape the theft of the thresher.The taste contracted from the fire by the oats,as by every other scorched substance,use must long ago have made grateful.The oats that are not parched must be dried in a kiln.

The barns of Sky I never saw.That which Macleod of Raasay had erected near his house was so contrived,because the harvest is seldom brought home dry,as by perpetual perflation to prevent the mow from heating.

Of their gardens I can judge only from their tables.I did not observe that the common greens were wanting,and suppose,that by choosing an advantageous exposition,they can raise all the more hardy esculent plants.Of vegetable fragrance or beauty they are not yet studious.Few vows are made to Flora in the Hebrides.