did not find it differing much from
that of a spaniel. As he preys in the sea, he does little visible
mischief, and is killed only for his fur. White otters are sometimes
seen.

In Raasay they might have hares and rabbits, for they have no foxes. Some
depredations, such as were never made before, have caused a suspicion
that a fox has been lately landed in the Island by spite or wantonness.
This imaginary stranger has never yet been seen, and therefore, perhaps,
the mischief was done by some other animal. It is not likely that a
creature so ungentle, whose head could have been sold in Sky for a
guinea, should be kept alive only to gratify the malice of sending him to
prey upon a neighbour: and the passage from Sky is wider than a fox would
venture to swim, unless he were chased by dogs into the sea, and perhaps
than his strength would enable him to cross. How beasts of prey came
into any islands is not easy to guess. In cold countries they take
advantage of hard winters, and travel over the ice: but this is a very
scanty solution; for they are found where they have no discoverable means
of coming.

The corn of this island is but little. I saw the harvest of a small
field. The women reaped the Corn, and the men bound up the sheaves. The
strokes of the sickle were timed by the modulation of the harvest song,
in which all their voices were united. They accompany in the Highlands
every action, which can be done in equal time, with an appropriated
strain, which has, they say, not much meaning; but its effects are
regularity and cheerfulness. The ancient proceleusmatick song, by which
the rowers of gallies were animated, may be supposed to have been of this
kind. There is now an oar-song used by the Hebridians.

The ground of Raasay seems fitter for cattle than for corn, and of black
cattle I suppose the number is very great. The Laird himself keeps a
herd of four hundred, one hundred of which are annually sold. Of an
extensive domain, which he holds in his own hands, he considers the sale
of cattle as repaying him the rent, and supports the plenty of a very
liberal table with the remaining product.

Raasay is supposed to have been very long inhabited. On one side of it
they show caves, into which the rude nations of the first ages retreated
from the weather. These dreary vaults might have had other uses. There
is still a cavity near the house called the oar-cave, in which the
seamen, after one of those p