even scallags, by the old lessees, descended of ancient and honorable
families, and the outrageous rapacity of those necessitous strangers who
have obtained leases from absent proprietors, who treat the natives as
if they were a conquered and inferior race of mortals. In short, they
treat them like beasts of burden; and in all respects like slaves
attached to the soil, as they cannot obtain new habitations, on account
of the combinations already mentioned, and are entirely at the mercy of
the laird or tacksman. Formerly, the personal service of the tenant did
not usually exceed eight or ten days in the year. There lives at present
at Scalpa, in the isle of Harris, a tacksman of a large district, who
instead of six days' work paid by the sub-tenants to his predecessor in
the lease, has raised the predial service, called in that and in other
parts of Scotland, _manerial bondage_, to fifty-two days in the year at
once; besides many other services to be performed at different though
regular and stated times; as tanning leather for brogans, making heather
ropes for thatch, digging and drying peats for fuel; one pannier of peat
charcoal to be carried to the smith; so many days for gathering and
shearing sheep and lambs: for ferrying cattle from island to island, and
other distant places, and several days for going on distant errands: so
many pounds of wool to be spun into yarn. And over and above all this,
they must lend their aid upon any unforeseen occurrence whenever they
are called on. The constant service of two months at once is performed
at the proper season in making kelp. On the whole, this gentleman's
sub-tenants may be computed to devote to his service full three days in
the week. But this is not all: they have to pay besides yearly a certain
number of cocks, hen, butter, and cheese, called Caorigh-Ferrin, the
Wife's Portion. This, it must be owned, is one of the most severe and
rigorous tacksmen descended from the old inhabitants, in all the Western
Hebrides; but the situation of his sub-tenants exhibits but too faithful
a picture of the sub-tenants of those places in general, and the exact
counterpart of such enormous oppression is to be found at
Luskintire."[8]

The dismissal of retainers kept by the chiefs during feudal times added
to the discontent. For the protection of the clan it had been necessary
to keep a retinue of trained warriors. These were no longer necessary,
and under the changed state of affairs,