Scotland/Scots > Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland

WESTERN ISLANDS, &c.' 177
berance of vegetation. Their winter over¬
takes their fummer, and their harvefl lies
upon the ground drenched with rain. The
autumn ftruggles hard to produce fome of
our early fruits. I gathered goofeberries
in September; but they were fmall, and
the hulk was thick.
Their winter is feldom fuch as puts a
full flop to the growth of plants, or reduces
the cattle to live wholly on the furplufage
of the fummer. In the year feventy-one
they had a fevere feafon, remembered by
the name of the Black Spring,^frcm which
the ifland has not yet recovered. The
fnow lay long upon the ground, a calamity
hardly known before. Part of their cattle
died for want, part were unfeafonably fold
to buy fullenance for the owners; and,
what I have not read or heard of before,
the kine that furvived were fo emaciated
and difpirited, that they did not require
1 5 the