Camps, Quarters, and Casual PlacesForbes, Archibald
History
Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places
Forbes, Archibald
Military camps; Military history, Modern
individual arrangement. A large proportion of the old ewes--no ewes are
sold but such as are old--go to England where a lamb or two is got from
them before they are fattened. Most of the lambs are bought by
sheep-farmers who, not keeping a ewe flock, are not themselves
breeders, and are kept till they are three years old--"three shears" as
they are technically called--and sold fat into the south country. There
they get what Mr. M'Combie called the last dip and the butcher sells
them as "prime four-year-old wedder mutton."
The size of some of the Highland sheep farms is to be reckoned by miles
not by acres; and the stock, as in Australia, by the thousand. The
largest sheep-owner, perhaps, that the Highlands ever knew was Cameron
of Corrichollie, now dead. He was once examined before a Committee of
the House of Commons, and came to be questioned on the subject of his
ownership of sheep. "You may have some 1500 sheep, probably, sir?"
quoth the interrogating M.P. "Aiblins," was Corrichollie's quiet reply
as he took a pinch of snuff; "aiblins I have a few more nor that." "Two
thousand, then?" "Yes, I pelieve I have that and a few more forpye,"
calmly responded the Highlander with another pinch. "Five thousand?"
"Oh, ay, and a few more." "Twenty thousand, sir?" cried the M.P.,
capping with a burst his previous bid. "Oh, ay, and some more forpye,"
was the imperturbable response. "In Heaven's name how many sheep have
you, man?" burst out the astonished catechist. "I'm no very sure to a
thousan' or two," replied Corrichollie in his dry laconic way and with
an extra big pinch; "but I'm owner of forty thousan' sheep at the
lowest reckoning." Lochiel, known to the Sassenach as Mr. Cameron,
M.P., is perhaps the largest living sheep-owner in Scotland. He has at
least 30,000 sheep on his vast tracks of moorland on the braes of
Lochaber. In the Island of Skye Captain Cameron of Talisker has a flock
of some 12,000; and there are several other flocks both in the islands
and on the mainland of more than equal magnitude. Sheep-farming, at
least in many instances, is an hereditary avocation, and some families
can trace a sheep-farming ancestry very far back. The oldest
sheep-farming family in Scotland are the Mackinnons of Corrie in Skye.
They have been on Corrie for four hundred years and they were holding
sheep-farms elsewhere even earlier. The Macraes of Achnagart in
Kintail, paid rent to Seaforth for two hundred years. For as long
before they had held Achnagart on the tenure of a bunch of heather
exigible annually and their fighting services as good clansmen. Two
hundred years ago an annual rental of £5 was substituted for the
heather "corve"; the clansmen's service continuing and being rendered
up till the '45. Now clanship is but a name: a Seaforth Mackenzie is no
longer chief in Kintail, and the Macrae who has succeeded his forbears
in Achnagart finds the bunch of heather and the £5 alike superseded by
the very far other than nominal rent of £1000.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account