CORRESPONDENCE.

THE SCENERY AND THE PEOPLE OF LEWIS.

[FROM A CORREMONDENT.]

• Sin,—Why don't more people go to the Lews ? The island has a peculiar charm of its own, and is a nuch better resting-place, after the fierce wear-and-tear of a London season, than the Troesachs, the Caledonian Canal, and the other well-known places in the Highlands where tourists most do congregate. For years it had been a sort of "Yarrow unvisited" to me. Again and again, in yearly wanderings amongst the dark blue lakes and purple hills of Scotland, I had cast wistful glances towards the laud of Shiela Mackenzie ; but year after year I had returned to London leaving the restless waters of the Minch uncrossed. You can tell therefore how great was my delight when last month I whirled away from smoky, noisy, bustling London in the night express, with luggage labelled, "Stornoway, per steamer ' Clansman.' " By ten o'clock

next morning we were in Glasgow, and had taken possession of our small deck cabin. Small though it was, it was all our own, and from its windows we could watch the shores as they glided by. At that dismal and busy place Greenock we stayed some weary hours, taking on board every con- ceivable thing—timber, flour, whisky, sugar, glass, china, and furniture, enough to stock, I should think, every island-home in existence. Worst of all, we took on board a large number of passengers. It is very wicked and unsympathetic, I know, but I cannot endure travelling with a great assortment of fellow-beings, and it was, therefore, with very unchristian feel- ings that I watched every fresh batch come on board. We stayed so long at Greenock, that the light had faded before we reached the beautiful shores of Bute and Arran, and we were in our berths as the vessel plunged and rolled and tumbled through the rough waters that wash the rugged Mull of Cantire. Early next morning, when we went on deck, we found ourselves in the lovely bay of Oban. All through the sunny day we glided past the purple hills of Mull, and in the evening we watched the glories of the setting sea spread over the Atlantic, whilst the

and Muck seemed to float in a purple heights of Rum, and hg,

sea of silver and gold. Then the brilliant colours deepened into a soft glow behind the misty hills of Skye, and the quiet night came down as the Clansman' pushed her way through the almost land-locked waters that divide Skye from the main- land. In the morning, we found the bright sun shining on the red cliffs that guard the entrance to the harbour of Portree. Here, to my great delight, nearly all that was left of our tourist companions went ashore, and my husband and I, with but two or three more were left in possession of the white and shining deck. Here we walked about with a sort of trium- phant "monarch of all I survey" feeling, and watched the broken cliff-line of Skye growing faint, and lonely little islands on the horizon appear and disappear. Then to the north-west across the green waters we saw at last the dim line of the Lewis coast. Presently we were sailing past the white lighthouse that guards the entrance to Stornoway Harbour, and before us lay the little town. A semicircular line of white houses skirts the bay ; be- hind stretches the brown and treeless moorland, dotted here and there with white farmhouses. To the left, on the hill- side over-hanging the town, is the castle, with its beautiful wooded gardens and grounds.

After securing rooms and the promise of some dinner in a somewhat uninviting-looking hotel, we marched off to inspect the town, which we found to consist of rather narrow streets of thick-walled houses built of grey stone

About every other house was a shop. Such marvellous shape !_uarrow and small, but containing everything, and filled with a curious compound smell, suggesting soap, candles,

boots and shoes, cheese, blankets, furniture, and hair-oil In the streets near the harbour "an ancient fish-like smell" prevailed ; and no wonder, for in our walk we discovered numbers of barrels of herrings lying on the little wharf waiting to be shipped, and just outside the town we found the sea-beach covered with hun- dreds of cod-fish drying in the sun. I suppose people exist who enjoy a meal of dried cod-fish. Indeed, we were told that the Russian peasant consumes enormous quantities of this dainty, but to my mind, as delicioue a dish could be produced from a stewed herring-barrel. The fisher-folk in Lewis, however, pay great respect to the cod, for it yields them a good incomo. We were told that the fish-curers pay the fishers from ninepenee to a shilling for every dried cod.

The first thing that struck us, when we extended our walks into the island, was the absence of men. Everywhere we saw troops of women and girls busy about the houses, working in the fields, driving cattle, or trudging along the road, bearing on their broad shoulders wicker creels filled with pests, or fish, or potatoes. Are there no men in Lewis ? we naturally asked. "Oh, aye ! plenty," was the answer, "but the lads are a' awa' just noo at the East Coast Feshing." The women did not look at all miserable, however, in their deserted condition. They are broad-shouldered, stalwart creatures, and look fully competent to carry on alone the work of the island. I was delighted with their costume. They wear a short dark-blue woollen skirt, which comes but little below the knees, a red tartan shawl over their shoulders, and a white, full-bordered cap. The married women, at least, wear caps ; the unmarried go bare-headed. Most of them have nothing on their legs or feet,- and none wear shoes, but a few indulge themselves with long dark-blue woollen stockings without soles. The large brown wicker creel is almost a part of their costume, for they are rarely seen without it. They always work in corn-

pany. As we passed them, they would stop talking and cast a hurried and critical look at me and my companion, and then resume their conversation, in soft, low Gaelic, with some remark, doubtless, on the absurdity of long skirts and Balmoral boots. Most of them were busy knitting long blue stockings, as they trudged along with shoulders bent beneath a weight that would make a London porter grumble. The women do nearly all the work on the land, the men considering that after the summer and autumn fishing is done they are entitled to rest all the winter and spring. We were told that in the winter it is quite a common sight to see a row of men leaning all the morning against a house-side, whilst their wives and daughters are busy digging and manuring their small fields, or carrying peats. Before Sir James Matheson built the stone bridges that cross the numberless little rivers, it was a common practice for the women to carry the men across the water on their backs ! The authorities, however, have set their faces against such abominable doings, and occasionally it is suppressed by merited chastisement. This scene really happened one evening not very far from Stornoway ; would that I had been by to see it A person of position in the island was passing a ford in his gig, when he saw a woman wading through the water, with her stalwart fisher husband perched on her back. Pursuing the delinquent, and giving him a heavy stroke across the back with his whip, he induced the good-wife to drop her burden in mid-stream !

We soon noticed that there were two distinct types in the island, the Celtic and the Scandinavian. Some of the men might seem to have come direct from Denmark. The red-brown curly hair, the blue eyes, and the bright-coloured faces of the Norse race form a curious contrast to the olive skin and jet-black hair of the Celt. You meet with faces of a decided Spanish type. This is due, we were told, to the fact that one of the ships of the Spanish Armada was wrecked on the coast of Lewis. Many of the sailors did not return to Spain, but settled down in the island. I met a girl of this type on board the Clansman.' She was a domestic servant in Rothesay, and was going home for a few week's holiday. She was very pretty, with an oval face, olive skin, and soft, dark eyes. Her manners were dignified and graceful. As she sat and talked to me, and told me of her home on the Atlantic shore, I might have fancied she had come straight from Granada.

The island has a strange charm of colour and outline. I felt this charm most forcibly the first time we drove across to Garry- nahine. For fourteen or fifteen miles the road runs up and down over the wide-stretching moor. Sometimes the ground is nothing but a stretch of brown moss, broken here and there by the cuttings of jet-black peat, tufts of purple heather, and the waving heads of the cotton-weed. Then the road turns round a shoulder of the hill, and you come upon the blue and glittering water of a little lake, and by the side of it a cluster of huts. The little stripes of oats, and barley, and potatoes which surround them seem marvellously green, set as they are amongst the prevailing brown, whilst far away in the south are the blue and purple mountains of Harris. There was something very touching about these clusters of little huts, with their small patches of cultivated land. Everything about them tells of the hard struggle for existence. The ground is very damp, the climate is moist, and, though there is not much snow or frost, there is also very little sunshine. Stone is abundant, but it is not good for building purposes. Wood there is none, except in the Castle grounds. Most of the houses are little better than hovels, formed of a rude wall of uncemented stones about six feet high, covered by a roof of thatch, which is tied down with ropes made of twisted heather-stalks. One morning we made an excuse for entering one of these small homes. The gude- wife welcomed us, and bade us sit down. The house consisted of one room, about twelve feet wide and twenty feet long. A peat fire burnt in a hole in the middle of the clay floor, some of the smoke finding its way out through a hole in the roof, while the rest escaped through the door and countless thin places in the thatch. Over the fire hung an iron pot that evidently played the part of oven, frying-pan, and boiler to the establishment. On either side of the door was a small window about two feet square. At one end of the room reposed the cow ; at the other, behind a partition of boards, was the sleeping-room. A little child about three years of age pattered about the hard floor with bare feet, whilst a baby lay near the fire asleep in a high wooden cradle. In the gentle, hesitating manner of Highlanders who have only learnt English in school, the woman talktd to us about her husband, who was away at Wick, fishing, about her children, and about the cow.

Then she rose and offered me, with much graciousness, a cup of sweet fresh milk. I thought to myself, as 1 sat there, that in spite

of the apparent squalor and discomfort of such a home, it was a hundred times better than the life of a London back street,

and that if 1 had to choose, I would infinitely prefer my children

to grow up amidst such surroundings than amongst the poor of one of our great cities. Their fare would be wholesome,—milk, oat- cake, fish, and potatoes. They would go to church every Sunday, and be sent regularly to school, and their early ambitions would be to drive home the cows, help to cut peat, and be allowed to go out on the loch and fish,—healthier occupations for body and soul than following a Punch and Judy show, or playing pitch-

and-toss on a crowded pavement. From all we saw and heard, we were convinced that Sir James and Lady Matheson spare no,

pains to make the people's lives more healthy and orderly. The' regulations of the estate distinctly provide that the abode of each family shall be cut off from the place in which the cow is kept; but the truth is that the prohibition of it will for a long time be baffled by the despotism of physical conditions. The poor people defend themselves by saying that, in the first place, they lodge the cow under their own roof for the sake of warmth. They say that the cow, if kept warm, requires less food, and gives more milk than she otherwise would. They cannot afford to feed it better, nor can they afford a second fire. They give a similar answer when asked why they leave the manure of the cowhouse untouched from one month to another. If they were to remove it every day, a great quantity of the fertilising properties would be lost. For the same reason, they dislike to build chimneys, for they have found that their thatch, when thoroughly saturated with smoke, makes excellent manure.

Ignorant of all the difficulties of the poor crofters, I asked a highly intelligent islander why the all-powerful Free-Church

Ministers did not boldly preach the gospel of pure air and separate cow-houses. My intelligent islander said the people would be greatly shocked by such a proceeding. The Highland' Free-Churchman does not approve of purely practical sermons.

This is forcibly brought out in the story of a Highlander, who' came out of church one day in a violent state of indignation, be- cause the minister had so far forgotten his duty as to preach a whole sermon against Sandy Beau, for ill-treating his whiter horse :—" As if that wass the Cospel I He said we wass to do unto others as we would they should do to us,—as if horses wass others whatever I"

In another letter, I should like to tell you something of the charm of the coast and sea lochs of Lewis, and the ways and doings of the fisher-folk.-1 am, Sir, &c.,

ANNIE H. MACDONELL.