REALITIES OF LIFE IN THE WEST HIGHLANDS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4565, 6 November 1875, Page 2 (Supplement)

REALITIES OF LIFE IN THE WEST HIGHLANDS.

(By the Special Commissioner, Qlusyow Mail.) SANNA. I begin this letter sitting on the side of a grass-covered sandhill looking out over the western sea. Ardnamurchan Point, with the white lighthouse upon it, lies close at hand to the left and south-west. To the north, six miles away over the water, lies the island of Muck, with the larger bulk of Rum rising behind it, the cleft summit of Ben More (2300 ft. high) standing out large and clear. To the east of both is Big, with its bold rough range of hills terminating in the Scuir of Eig, some 1335 ft. high. Still further away, some eighteen miles to the north, you can see the long misty Point of Sleat, the southern headland of Skye. A fine view to seaward well repays you for making your way to such an out-of-the-way spot. Eor an out-of-the-way spot it is. The nearest road comes to an end on the other side of the hills that shut in Sanna to its sweet seclusion by the sea. So much by way of answer to the question you may be disposed to ask at the outset, Where is Sanna? Between the hills and the water lies a long stretch of sandy ground, covered in part with a thin coating of grass, and up from the beach run long sandy hollows and hillocks, strewn thick with the detritus of innumerable shells. This is Sanna Beg—for small as the whole place is, there is both a little and a big Sauna. At Sanna Moore there is boggy land, cut up for fuel, and dug in patches for potatoes. The scattered houses of the hamlet or village, as you please to call it, give shelter to a number of people for the most part well up in year's, and too many of them poor among the poor. The greater number seem to have drifted here from other places in the district from which they had to clear out ten, twenty, or more years ago. Before this letter will find its way into your columns some of them, according to all appearance, will have had to clear out of Sanna as well, for they have received notices to quit from Tobermory. It might be interesting to ascertain, here and elsewhere, in what proportion keeping a dog or getting into arrearsTwith the rent accounts for these warnings ; but in what follows I shall only set down some notes of talk held in some of the domestic interiors of Sanna.

We turn into a house at one end of the hamlet. There seems to be -no one in it at first, but our inquiry is answered by a voice from the little room to the right of the passage, and we push open the door and go iu. The fire is low, and there is little smoke from it ; but an incrustation of soot, an inch and a half thick, on the chain that swings the pot over the embers, bears witness to long uso of denser reek. On one side of the room, against the wall, are two bedsteads of a kind, with a wooden partition between. It was the voice of the goodman of the house that we heard, and here he is lying on one of the beds, while his wife lies on the other—the feet of the one to the head of the other. The man is seventyseven years old, according to his own account ; his wife is seventy-two. They have been here some twenty-three years. The wan was born near Ardslignish, aud was ou the other side of Kilchoan before he came here. He aud his neighbors shifted from one spot in Ardnamurchan to another, because they couldn't manage to keep out of arrears iu Sir James Kiddell's times. He is behindhand with the rent just now, aud has been warned ; but he keeps a dog, and thinks that has more to do with it, as he has been more in arrears before than he is now. He can't help himself any way. He used to drive cattle ; but last Mavtinmas he fell off the factor's machine at liagga, and got his back hurt. His head struck on the road, and it was a sore fall that he has not been ablo to got over. His left hand is twisted and contracted. His wife has been in bad health for the last sixteen years. For seven years past she has been bedridden for the most part, though she did «et over to Kilchoan fivo years ago. She looks wasted and worn as she lies on her side, putting in a

word now and then as we talk. They have had six children, but there is only one living now, a daughter that looks after the house. A little boy, a grandchild, stays with them too. They liave some ground that " the lassie" works ; but it gives them less potatoes than they need. The old woman, we are told, is a great poetess, in tho Gaelic, and boforo we leave we are favored with a recitation from a piece that she wrote on some lads that tarried rather late at the inn at Kilchoan. Hard by lives an old woman all by herself. She is a widow, and lost two fine sons on the sea. One was drowned seven years since, and tho other the year after. More fortunate is another widow, who went over the sands with us. Her family are all scattered ; some have gone to Australia, some to America. But she has one son in Glasgow, who comes home once a year to work his mother's croft, and the kindly and pleasant dame looks as if she had some one to look after her comfort, which is more than can be said of some of her neighbors. In another house we find a man and his wife, who came hero from a place near Achatiny (a few miles off) more than twenty years ago. They had a croft there—rather a lot of land according to their own account, which was taken from them " when the children were very weak." They were not in arrears, nor were any of their neighbors, when four families of them were turned out. Other four were not removed at the time, but got a hint from the factor that they had better go ; so these last went off to Australia. It was a year when the disease was bad in the potatoes, and they had just enough to pay their passage. When this man and his wife came down here they were very poor, and they are poor enough still, though the crofts are getting into better condition. They have no sheep ; have grazing for two cows, but keep only one. They have a boat, but not much is to be done with the fishing. Crabs and lobsters, but few of the latter, arc a help for food in the summer, with other shellfish. They have not been warned. The laird is " a very good master, the best ever was." On the side of a rising ground is the house of an old woman who has been here as long as she can remember. She is—by the best calculation—more than 83. She has no ground of her own, but is allowed to plant some potatoes on a neighbor's croft. Not that she plants them or can do so herself, for she is ill and helpless in bed ; but she has a daughter that stays with her, and looks after her. She gets a pound a quarter from the parish, and the daughter gets ten shillings. She has been a widow for forty years. She has been ever here, and her people before her ; but she can scarcely expect to be here much longer. She is ill with liver complaint and asthma. Her cough is very bad, and she feels her throat closing up sometimes so that she can scarcely breathe. It is getting worse, she tells us, and the hard rattle in the throat and constant cough are distressing enough. It requires no skill to see that the great ailment here is that the system of the poor old body is breaking up with age. The great Relief cannot be far off. Is it better to wait for it here in this smoky hut, but with the wide open expanse of sea and sky around, though unseen and unenjoyed, than in a close poor room in the midst of the crowded city 1