You may think their plots of ground are let cheap with a view to profit on the fish. The reverse is the fact. The price of land there is nearly double that of the lots I have priced in Sutherlandshire and the rest of Shetland The land is the source of the people's <loudest> and <bitterest complaints>. They say Mr. Bruce has doubled the rents since he got the island, four or five years ago and the tacksmen had overtaxed them before he got it. Many have left the island since then, on the plea of oppression voluntarily submitting to the only punishment they have to fear. ......................................... I received letters in October dated July, and none after till I came for them in March, although the people were fishing every month in the year, and we could speak the mail steamer going north twice in three trips. Going south, she is generally under night or very early in the morning. I have gone to the mail and spoken to the captain in October, November and December, and my letters and papers on board were carried fifty miles past me, to be obtained when anybody coming to the island chose to ask them; and thus I might obtain them in a few months, OR NEVER. And so of letters <leaving> the island. Now, a few pounds could establish a post-office in the island and the mail steamer could deliver a bag forty or fifty times in the year when going north; indeed always, unless she passed in a fog, or in the dark, or in a storm from a south or south-east wind. In a north wind, the harbour is perfectly calm, and the island shelters the steamer. IV.--EXTRACT FROM LETTER BY WM. MOUAT, ESQ. OF GARTH, ADVOCATE, TO MACCULLOCH, AUTHOR OF 'THE HIGHLANDS AND WESTERN ISLANDS OF SCOTLAND' (DISCOVERED AMONGST THE GARTH PAPERS IN MARCH 1872). <2d November> 1820. . . . With regard to the points in question, I think, if I can make myself understood, I should be able to satisfy you; but our mode of holding, or rather of describing property, is so different from anything practised either in England or Scotland, that I suspect it will be necessary to take a very elementary view before I can be sure of succeeding.