[29] The rule in souming seems to have been that one cow was equal to eight, in some places ten, sheep, and two cows equal to one horse.
[30] Walker’s Hebrides, &c., vol. i. p. 56.
[31] Logan’s Scottish Gael, vol. ii. p. 65.
[32] The following remarks, taken from the Gartmore MS. at the end of Burt’s Letters, gives one by no means a favourable idea of these drovers, but it must be borne in mind that the writer lived on the border of the most notorious and ill-behaved part of the Highlands, Rob Roy’s country, and that he himself was properly a Lowlander. The extract will serve to show how business transactions were conducted in the Highlands. “It is alledged, that much of the Highlands lye at a great distance from publick fairs, mercates, and places of commerce, and that the access to these places is both difficult and dangerous; by reason of all which, trading people decline to go into the country in order to traffick and deal with the people. It is on this account that the farmers, having no way to turn the produce of their farms, which is mostly cattle, into money, are obliged to pay their rents in cattle, which the landlord takes at his own price, in regaird that he must either grase them himself, send them to distant markets, or credite some person with them, to be againe at a certain profite disposed of by him. This introduced the busieness of that sort of people commonly known by the name of Drovers. These men have little or no substance, they must know the language, the different places, and consequently be of that country. The farmers, then, do either sell their cattle to these drovers upon credite, at the drovers price (for ready money they seldom have), or to the landlord at his price, for payment of his rent. If this last is the case, the landlord does again dispose of them to the drover upon credite, and these drovers make what profites they can by selling them to grasiers, or at markets. These drovers make payments, and keep credite for a few years, and then they either in reality become bankrupts, or pretend to be so. The last is most frequently the case, and then the subject of which they have cheated is privately transferred to a confident person in whose name, upon that reall stock, a trade is sometimes carried on, for their behoof, till this trustee gett into credite, and prepaire his affairs for a bankruptcy. Thus the farmers are still keept poor; they first sell at an under rate, and then they often lose alltogether. The landlords, too, must either turn traders, and take their cattle to markets, or give these people credite, and by the same means suffer.”—Burt’s Letters, vol. ii. pp. 364, 365.
[33] “The latter part of the season is often very wet; and the corn, particularly oats, suffer very much. June and August are the months which have least rain. September and October are frequently very wet: during these months, not only a greater quantity of rain falls, but it is more constant, accompanied by a cold and cloudy atmosphere, which is very unfavourable either to the ripening of grain, or drying it after it is cut. In July and August a good deal of rain falls; but it is in heavy showers, and the intervals are fine, the sun shining clear and bright often for several days together.”—Garnett’s Tour, vol. i. p. 24.
[34] Buchanan’s Travels in the Hebrides, p. 154.
[35] “In larger farms belonging to gentlemen of the clan, where there are any number of women employed in harvest-work, they all keep time together by several barbarous tones of the voice, and stoop and rise together as regularly as a rank of soldiers when they ground their arms. Sometimes they are incited to their work by the sound of a bagpipe, and by either of these they proceed with great alacrity, it being disgraceful for any one to be out of time with the sickle.” This custom of using music to enable a number of common workers to keep time, seems to have been in vogue in many operations in the Highlands. We quote the following graphic account of the process of fulling given by Burt in the same letter that contains the above quotation, (vol. ii. p. 48.) “They use the same tone, or a piper, when they thicken the newly-woven plaiding, instead of a fulling-mill. This is done by six or eight women sitting upon the ground, near some river or rivulet, in two opposite ranks, with the wet cloth between them; their coats are tucked up, and with their naked feet they strike one against another’s, keeping exact time as above mentioned. And among numbers of men, employed in any work that requires strength and joint labour (as the launching a large boat, or the like), they must have the piper to regulate their time, as well as usky to keep up their spirits in the performance; for pay they often have little, or none at all.”—Burt’s Letters.
[36] Burton’s Scotland (1689–1748), vol. ii. p. 395.—“The poverty of the field labourers hereabouts is deplorable. I was one day riding out for air and exercise, and in my way I saw a woman cutting green barley in a little plot before her hut: this induced me to turn aside and ask her what use she intended it for, and she told me it was to make bread for her family. The grain was so green and soft that I easily pressed some of it between my fingers; so that when she had prepared it, certainly it must have been more like a poultice than what she called it, bread.”—Burt’s Letters, vol. i. p. 224.
[37] Buchanan’s Hebrides, p. 156.
[38] Logan’s Gael, vol. ii. p. 97.