Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-11-23

service, and their altered condition and
reeds deprive them of both their love of
the Highland home aud the power to be-
stow more than pittance upon its
keeping. The sons become giliies to
Highland sportsmen with u few weeks OF
of demorslizing luxury and ten months
of idleness and unrest; or better, though
still bad are crowded to the towns TO
further itnpoverish labor there; or per-
maps in the end, best, reach Canada or
the states, where, for years the little
saved beyond Il bare living
FINDS IT'S WAY BACK
to the crofter father and eventually to
the landlord for rent. AS a rule the
oldest son marries and remains at home
He seldom has the inclination or the
means to '.hive off, and set up home
keeping on another croft, and besides it
Is the in flexible policy of Highland land
lords 10 restrict, rather than increase +.
croft holdings. This leads to a subdi-
vision of the already inadequate home
croft and two families, instead of one,
repeat an intensified struggle for exist
ence, Increasing the evil, and giving
warrant for the ever-reCurring landlord
cry OF 'congested crofter districts, -
while millions of acres of land, idle save
for its use to sportsmeD, are sweeping
away into almost impenetrable wilder
nesses around them.
In all the crofter settlements estab-
lished at the different occasions of
'clearauces, - there is little of interest
save the unvarying desolation of environ
ment and every day life. This class of
crofters are the most snileless, yoicel 'ss
people that live. bringing the entire
bao N A /,
COASTS of Scotland may be found hamlets
of this class. There is not the sound of
mirlh, the tone OF content or the look of
hope to be heard or seen IN one. The
land is barren, the seacoast is grewsome
ana dreary the habitations are wretrhed
fishing is precarious and the entire life OF
these people is a ceaseless, sunless effort
to live. 1t is only in the elens, on the
mountain sides, within the straths, clus-
tered In the upland corries or hOllows,
or here and there nestled by the side of
mountain lochs and rivers, where the
'remuvuls' and 'clearances, like
some wild mountain tempest, swept over
the old HiShlanders without annthilatinS
all their homes, that the crofter of
OLD, the crotter OF song and story
and tourists tales, may yet be found. He
Is grave and silent in his loneliness; but
ebout this child of the mist fingers nearly
all that remaius OF High and tradition,
folk-lore and picturesQueness Of envi-
ronInent. The single, lonely, isolated
croft is too dreary for winsomness. But
you Will now and then come upon an old
''clachan where three or four, or per-
haps half dozen, crofts nestle ia a cor
ner together, are huddled under the
friendly protection of some precipitous
crag, or are grouped like brown Gypsy
tents beneath the strong arms of prime
va! trees; and here life and customs are
in many respects very primitive indeed.
The "auld clachan,'' aside from SO
universally being the hnmlet-home of the
crofter, is worthy OF attention on its own
account. The word is occasionally O
rnisnomer among Scottish people them.
selves, as applied to any ancient and
picturesque hamlet of q half-score or so
Quaint old houses. Clachan has more
ancient and honorable Specification. 1t
is pure Gaelic word, meaning "a
circle of stones. The clachan was the
fame or place of worship Of the pagan
Caledonians. When Christianity was
introduced the mission aries from Iona
very wisely
PLANTED THE CROSS
within the sacred cachsn. In time,
little chapsls. and finally churches. fol-