re clothed with heath, among which industry has interspersed spots
of grass and corn; but no attempt has yet been made to raise a tree.
Young Col, who has a very laudable desire of improving his patrimony,
purposes some time to plant an orchard; which, if it be sheltered by a
wall, may perhaps succeed. He has introduced the culture of turnips, of
which he has a field, where the whole work was performed by his own hand.
His intention is to provide food for his cattle in the winter. This
innovation was considered by Mr. Macsweyn as the idle project of a young
head, heated with English fancies; but he has now found that turnips will
really grow, and that hungry sheep and cows will really eat them.

By such acquisitions as these, the Hebrides may in time rise above their
annual distress. Wherever heath will grow, there is reason to think
something better may draw nourishment; and by trying the production of
other places, plants will be found suitable to every soil.

Col has many lochs, some of which have trouts and eels, and others have
never yet been stocked; another proof of the negligence of the Islanders,
who might take fish in the inland waters, when they cannot go to sea.

Their quadrupeds are horses, cows, sheep, and goats. They have neither
deer, hares, nor rabbits. They have no vermin, except rats, which have
been lately brought thither by sea, as to other places; and are free from
serpents, frogs, and toads.

The harvest in Col, and in Lewis, is ripe sooner than in Sky; and the
winter in Col is never cold, but very tempestuous. I know not that I
ever heard the wind so loud in any other place; and Mr. Boswell observed,
that its noise was all its own, for there were no trees to increase it.

Noise is not the worst effect of the tempests; for they have thrown the
sand from the shore over a considerable part of the land; and it is said
still to encroach and destroy more and more pasture; but I am not of
opinion, that by any surveys or landmarks, its limits have been ever
fixed, or its progression ascertained. If one man has confidence enough
to say, that it advances, nobody can bring any proof to support him in
denying it. The reason why it is not spread to a greater extent, seems
to be, that the wind and rain come almost together, and that it is made
close and heavy by the wet before the storms can put it in motion. So
thick is the bed, and so small the particles, that if a traveller should
be caught by a