Blair Collection > Celtic magazine > Volume 11

Yachting and Electioneering in the Hebrides. 255
up the steep face of the hill to the edge of the road. The huts
were most wretched-looking, and the land not much better. A
group of men, standing at the end of one of the cottages, gave us
a hearty cheer as we passed, and, a little further on, three little
boys, carrying home peats on their backs in creels, gave us another,
no less hearty.
Glenuig, a beautiful opening between the hills, runs eastward
from the head of Uig Bay. Some fifteen or sixteen years ago,
this glen was filled with well-to-do crofters ; it is now part of the
Uig Inn farm, the crofters having been huddled down to the sea-
shore, or driven away elsewhere. Many other evictions have
taken place in the parish of Kilmuir in recent times. The town-
ships of Delista, Graulin, Balgown, Feaull, Lachsay, and Scorr,
have all been cleared of their inhabitants within the last twenty
years, and the lands added to the neighbouring sheep-farms,
Monkstadt and Duntulm getting the lion's share.
About four miles from Uig, we passed the most wretched hut,
I think, I have ever seen. It stood upon a slight eminence on
our left, a short distance off the road, and in the midst of a dreary-
looking moss. The roof appeared to be falling in, the walls to be
falling out — everything about it seemed to be going rapidly to
decay. This miserable place was the abode of a shepherd on one
of the largest and best-known sheep-farms in the Island.
On reaching the top of the ridge separating Uig from the
district of Eastside, a magnificent view presented itself. On our
left was the fantastic rock-face forming the entrance to the far-famed
Ouiraing ; away to our right extended in serried ranks the
picturesque and forbidding-looking cliffs which seem like so many
monsters keeping guard over the valley they enclose, while below,
the road went winding down the gully to Staffin. In front of us
lay the Sound of Gairloch, and Loch Torridon, flecked here and
there with a tiny brown sail, the north point of Rona Island, with
its lighthouse, just appearing on the right ; while in the far distance,
the serrated peaks of Ross-shire glittered in the sun-light. The
mountains of Torridon, Gairloch, and other ranges, lay piled
one upon another in majestic confusion, while away to the left
rose the bold outline of Ru Rea, the most north-westerly point on
the mainland of Scotland. Descending the ravine, we soon reached
Staffin Lodge, a shooting-box erected a few years ago by Major