Each of these (the tacksmen) ‘possesses some very poor people under him, perhaps five or six on a farm, to whom he lets out the skirts of his possession, these people are generally the soberest and honestest of the whole. Their food all summer is milk and whey mixed together without any bread, the little butter or cheese they are able to make is reserved for winter provision, they sleep away the greatest part of the summer, and when the little Barley they sow becomes ripe, the women pull it as they do flax, and dry it on a large wicker machine over the fire. Then burn the straw, and grind the corn upon Quearns or hand mills. In the end of Harvest, and During the winter they have some Flesh, Butter, and cheese, with great scarcity of Bread. All their business is to take care of the few Cattle they have. In spring, which is their only season in which they work, their whole food is bread and gruel without so much as salt to season it. ‘About twenty years ago Lochiel erected two or three Water Mills, but by reason of the great distance of many of the people from them, and their natural Laziness, with the prejudice in favour of the old Custom of burning the straw, they were made very little use of. The custom has been given up some time except by the Camerons and Macdonalds, some McLeans, and some of the people of Skye.’ It is not safe, of course, to argue from a report about the state of the people in one part of the Highlands to a conclusion about their condition everywhere. A river may divide comfort from destitution. And it is certain that reports by Lowlanders, Englishmen, or Highlanders, like the famous Forbes of Culloden, who practically defeated the Rising of 1745, will not please some Highland reasoners.[175] Forbes reported in 1737 on the Duke of Argyll’s lands in Morven, Mull, and Tyree. He speaks of the ‘tyranny’ and ‘unmerciful exactions’ of the tacksmen, large leaseholders who sub-let to smaller tenants. Hence the lands lie waste, and ‘above one hundred families have been reduced to beggary and driven out of the island.’ This is precisely the modern complaint against the bad new times, a complaint with which we all sympathise. Tacksmen, according to Culloden, were as bad as factors.