sell the acre at 2s. 6d. on an average, to the clan-men who for
centuries past had shed their blood for her family. The whole of the
unrightfully appropriated clan-land she divided into twenty-nine
large sheep-farms, each of them inhabited by one single family,
mostly English farm-labourers; and in 1821 the 15,000 Gaels had
already been superseded by 131,000 sheep.

"A portion of the aborigines had been thrown upon the sea-shore, and
attempted to live by fishing. They became amphibious, and, as an
English author says, lived half on land and half on water, and after
all did not half live upon both."

Throughout the North of Scotland the tenants of the small grazing
farms into which the Highland counties had been divided, have been
ousted for the purpose of creating sheep-walks, and to such an extent
has this been carried, that where once, and at no distant period, were
numerous black-cattle farms, not an inhabitant is now to be seen for
many miles.[121] The work, too, is still going on. "The example of
Sutherland," says Mr. Thornton,[122] "is imitated in the neighbouring
counties."

The misery of these poor people is thus described:--

"Hinds engaged by the year are seldom paid more than two-thirds of
what they would receive in the South, and few of them are fortunate
enough to obtain regular employment. Farm-servants, however, form
only a small proportion of the peasantry, a much greater number being
crofters, or tenants of small pieces of ground, from which they
derive almost their whole subsistence. Most of them live very
miserably. The soil is so poor, and rents in some instances so