Ossian Collection > Highlands and Western Isles of Scotland > Volume 4

016 Ii\doli:nce.
naturally indolent unless pressed by want, stimulated by
ambition or luxury, or roused by example or emulation.
Industry is an artificial habit; and it is not very wonder-
ful that the Highlander, who sees all idle about him, who
is nearly deprived of exertion for want of objects, and
who is habitually contented with the narrow circle of his
possessions and conveniences, should follow the propen-
sities of his nature, and be what we almost every where
find him in the remote districts. Such habits indeed un-
fortunately stick to him, even when he might benefit
himself by exertion ; nor is it unusual every year to see his
crops of corn ready for the sickle, and neg-lected till the
rainy season arrives and ruins his prospects. He is rarely
to beseeninhisharvestfield till ten or eleven o'clock; and
when there, half his time is spent, like " Tom," in " help-
ing Jack:" in talking to his fellow labourers, lounging
about the sheaves, looking at the sky, and wondering
when it is going to rain. With all this, hundreds, in every
summer, are found travelling to the south, to reap foreign
harvests, and returning homewards with the pittance,
gained by a few weeks of hard labour, for which they
have perhaps walked a hundred or two of miles without
pay.
The case is the same with respect to the fisheries.
Where they are pressed by want, as in Canna, no people
can be more active ; and, where fisheries have been long-
established, as in Barra or Loch Torridon, there some-
times appears no want of activity. Yet, on many parts of
the west coast, though the shores abound with cod and
numerous other fish, as I have already remarked, a boat
is seldom seen employed in this pursuit ; nor will the
natives often take the trouble to increase their scanty
commons by an exertion so easily made. Yet the herring-
fisheries, in which there is the prospect of great and sud-
den gain, sets a whole coast in motion; and he who
should chance to visit the Islands during- that season,
will wonder that any one should accuse a Highlander of
indolence. The fact is, nevertheless, unquestionable as a