The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-06-05
Scottish CrOfters.

The gray wretchedness of the after.
noon was a fit prelude to Barra. When
we came to Castle Bay rain was falling
upon its waters, on the battlemented
castle, perched upon rocky, seaweed-
covered islet, and on the town set against
background of high, bare hills. But
the steamer stopped, and we went ashore
to look about us. A few ugly new
houses, shops with plate glass windows,
often cited as proofs of the islands
prosperity, and then the real Barra,
mass of black cottages to
which those of Null were mansions,
those of Kilchrennau palaces running
up and down the rocky hillside. Only
by a polite figure of speech can the stone
pile in which the Hebridean croftcr
makes his home be called a cottage. 1t
is, as it was described many years ago,
but "a heavy matched roof thrown over
a few rudely put together stones" The
long low walls are built of loose rock
blackened by constant rain. The
thatched roof, almost as black, is held
in place without by network of ropes,
within by rafters of drift-wood: The
crofter has no wood save that which the
sea Yields, and yet in some districts ne
must pay for picking up the beams and
spars washed up on his wild shores, just
as he must for the grass and heather he
cuts from the wilder moorland, when he
makes his roof. Not until you come close
to the rough stone heap can you see that
it is house, with AN opening for door
way, one tiny hole for window. From
a distance there is but its smoke to
distinguish it from the rocks strewn
around it.
At Castle Bay, where many of these
ssscenes of misery as Pennant called
them one hundred years ago, were
grouped together, there was not even
the pretense of a street, but just the
rock, rough, ragged and broken, as God
made it. The people who live here are
almost all fishermen, and, as if in token
of their calling, they have fashioned the
thatch of their roofs into the shape OF
boats. One cottage, indeed, is topped
with genuine boat. There were 1ew
chimneys, but smoke came pouring from
the doors, from holes in the thatch and
walls. Many of the roofs had luxuriant
growth of grass, with here and there
clump of daisies, or of yellow flowers
which give color to Highland road-sides.
But this was all the green we saw on
their hillside of rock and mud.
Through open doorways we had
glimpses of dark, gloomy interiors, dense
with smoke. We did not cross a
threshold, however; to seek admittance
seemed not unlike making show OF the
peoples misery. The women and girls
who passed in and out and stood to stare
at US, looked strong and healthy. Theirs
is life which must either kill or harden.
Many were handsome, with strangely
foreign, gypsy-like faces, and 80 were the
bonneted men at work on the pier. 1t
may be there is truth in the story which
gives a touch of Spanish blood to the
peoi.!c Of the Outer Hebrides. If the
ships of the Armada went down with
all their treasure, it is said their crew
survived, aud lived and took unto them
selves wives in the Islands, from which
chance of del;verance was small. We
heard only Gaelic spoken while we were
at Castle Bay. The people of Great
Britain need not 60 abroad in search of
foreign parts; but an Englishman, who
only wants to see the misery and wrongs
of nations foreign in name as well as in
reality, would find little pleasure in
Barra. .-Harper's Basar.