In the time of the Roman occupation of Great Britain the Highlands were almost destitute of agriculture. That some corn was grown is manifest, from the ancient querns or hand-mills found everywhere. The possessions of the Highlanders then principally consisted of herds of cattle. Tradition says that cheese and butter supplied the place of bread and butter, and that a sort of pudding was made of blood taken from living cattle and mixed with a little meal. These, with meat and milk, formed the diet of the people. When the Highlands became more settled, agriculture increased, more corn was grown, and oatmeal, in some form or other, became a leading article of food. The cattle of the Highlanders were mostly of the small black kind. Now-a-days there is a mixture of other breeds amongst the crofters' stock, and since the introduction of the black-faced sheep the cattle have become less numerous. The practice of drawing blood from living cattle was universal in the Highlands, even in 1730, when Captain Burt wrote his "Letters," and Pennant noticed the same usage in 1772. In Gairloch the practice continued to the beginning of the nineteenth century, if we may trust the evidence of the old inhabitants. At the east end of "the glen" (the narrow pass about half way between Gairloch and Poolewe), there is a flat moss called to this day Blar na Fala, or "the bog of the blood," because this was a usual place for the inhabitants to assemble their cattle and take blood from them. At Tournaig also a place is still pointed out where the natives used to bleed the cattle landed here from the Lews. This barbarous mode of obtaining blood as an article of food, affords striking evidence of the miserable poverty of the old days. There was a pernicious practice much in vogue amongst the small farmers here up to the beginning of the nineteenth century; they let their cows for the season to a person called a "bowman," who engaged to produce for every two cows, one calf, two stones of butter weighing 24 lbs. English, and four stones of cheese. The calf was generally starved, and during winter the cattle got food sufficient only to keep them alive.