Note 53 — Chapter XLII · (continued 2)

“The spades, ploughs, harrows, and sledges, of the most feeble and imperfect kinds, with all their harnessing, are made by the farmer and his servants; as also the boats, with all their tackle.—The boat has a Highland plaid for a sail; the running rigging is made of leather thongs and willow twigs; and a large stone and a heather rope serve for an anchor and cable; and all this, among a people of much natural ingenuity and perseverance. There is no fulling mill nor bleachfield; no tanner, maltster, or dyer; all the yarn is dyed, and all the cloth fulled or bleached by the women on the farm. The grain for malt is steeped in sacks in the river; and the hides are tanned, and the shoes made at home. There are, indeed, itinerant shoemakers, tailors, wrights, and masons, but none of these has full employment in his business, as all the inhabitants, in some measure, serve themselves in these trades: hence, in the royal boroughs of Inveraray, Campbelton, and Inverness, and in the considerable villages of Crieff, Callander, Oban, Maryburgh, Fort Augustus, and Stornoway, there are fewer tradesmen, and less demand for the workmanship of mechanics, than in any other places of the same size; yet these are either situated in, or are next adjacent to, a more extensive and populous country, than any other similar towns or villages in Scotland.”—Walker’s Hebrides, vol. ii. pp. 374, 5.