Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450

There are several long and extremely circumstantial tables given of the amount of work done per day, per week, per month, &c. We gather, that the estimated value of the work earned by all the convicts in the six months ending 31st December 1850, was no less than L.3128, 9s. 4d. The total number of 'non-effectives'—men unable to labour through illness or otherwise—was 40 in the six months. The total 'effective' workers, during the same time, was 586—artisans, 218; labourers, 368; and this gives the average number of effectives as nearly 98 per month; so that some idea may be formed of their individual earnings. In the month of November, the total number of effectives was 154; and they earned the large sum of L.823, 17s. 6d. During the following month of December, task-work was adopted, and the effectives, 143 in number, earned L.665, 19s. 10d. We are informed that task-work has been contrived to allow each man to do 1¼ to 1½-days' work per diem, and to obtain credit for the extra amount earned. Were we, however, to take the above figures as a criterion, we should conclude that less, rather than more, was proportionately earned during the month of task-work; yet this conclusion would not be fair, for doubtless many modifying circumstances require to be taken into consideration—such as the state of the weather, the number of artisans as compared with the labourers, &c.; besides which, it must be borne in mind, that although task-work has been specially designed to benefit the convicts themselves, yet, while some would work with a will, others, and perhaps many, would prefer unremunerative idleness.

To every breach of discipline, certain punishments are allotted; some, indeed, appear very severe; and for many misdemeanours, corporal punishment is not merely held out in terrorem, but inflicted. Attempts at escape are liable to be punished by labour in chains, or flogging up to 100 lashes, or to a renewed sentence of transportation; and the recaptured convict has to work out the expenses of his capture, and the reward paid for the same. In the list of offences and punishments for the month of December, we see some very curious items; and, not knowing anything of the peculiar circumstances of each case, they are apt to strike one as being somewhat arbitrary. For instance, 'for refusing to work,' a man had 'bread and water for three days;' a second, 'for insubordinate conduct'—much the same thing, we should suppose, as 'refusing to work'—had the very severe punishment of 'bread and water, and twenty-eight days' solitary confinement;' a third, for 'talking to a female,' was 'admonished;' a fourth, for being 'drunk at work,' had 'bread and water for three days, and fourteen days' solitary confinement;' a fifth, 'for threatening language,' had his 'tobacco stopped for three days!' On the subject of the 'pernicious Indian weed,' there is the following passage in the Report of the comptroller-general of Fremantle:—'The issue, under his Excellency's sanction, of a small allowance of tobacco, has been appreciated as a very great boon, and has prevented many irregularities. It also furnishes an excellent means of punishment for minor offences—that is, by its stoppage.' We can well believe this. We know positively that prisoners will undergo any risk to get even a morsel of tobacco, and would gladly sacrifice a day's food for it. It is almost incredible what an intense longing for tobacco arises in the minds of those forcibly restrained from the indulgence.

Several 'tickets-of-leave' had already been granted at Fremantle; and on this subject we are presented with a mass of remarkable and instructive information. The reader is probably aware, that convicts in prison, before quitting England, are subjected to a term of hard labour—proportionate in duration to the length of their sentences of transportation—and to a further term of hard labour on arriving in Australia. When the latter term has expired, if the prisoner has conducted himself well, he is presented with a ticket-of-leave, which confines him to a certain district, where he may engage to labour for his own benefit under an employer. He does this, however, under very strict rules, and the least transgression is punished severely. If, for instance, he leaves the district, he is liable to be apprehended, and summarily convicted by a magistrate, who may sentence him to labour in irons; or he may forfeit his ticket-of-leave, and relapse into his former situation as a convict. Or if he at all misconducts himself, or is insubordinate, his employer may carry him before a magistrate, and have him corporally punished. A list is given of the convicts who obtained tickets-of-leave at Fremantle, with their trades, and the names of their employers, and the wages they were to receive. A groom received L.12 per annum; a carpenter, L.14; a labourer, L.1 per month; a blacksmith, L.1, 8s. per month; a mason, L.1, 10s. per month; and a brickmaker, L.2, 10s. per month. Each ticket-holder must pay to the comptroller-general the sum of L.15, for the expenses of his passage out to the colony. No ticket-holder, unless under very special circumstances, gets a 'conditional pardon' till one-half of his sentence, from date of conviction, is expired; nor will he receive a conditional pardon till the whole of the L.15 is paid. 'Wives and families of well-conducted ticket-of-leave men will be sent out to them, when one-half the cost of so doing has been paid, either by themselves, their friends, or their parishes in the United Kingdom; or the expenses of their passage may be assumed as a debt by the ticket-of-leave holder, to be repaid (under a bond) by the same means as the expenses of his own passage.' This is paid by the employer handing over to the comptroller-general annually any sum not exceeding one-third of the ticket-holder's salary, and not above L.5 a year in any case, unless at the man's own desire. On the subject of this forced payment of L.15 to government, the comptroller-general in his Report animadverts strongly. He says that ticket-men will try every trick to evade it; and that many of them openly say, that the situation of a well-conducted ticket-holder is such, as to make them think it not worth while paying so much as L.15 for a conditional pardon. The employers, however, he hints, object to pay ticket-men at all; seeming to think government ought to assign them gratuitously, as was done, we believe, under the old system.

The surgeon states in his report, that the food supplied at the establishment is 'wholesome, and ample;' and the health of the convicts seems very good, for only two had died up to that time, and both of these were landed in a very debilitated condition. He states the number of convicts in January 1851 at 140.

The chaplain's report is interesting and encouraging. He says, that 'the present discipline is well calculated to maintain the habits of industry, order, and cleanliness acquired in preceding prisons;' and he speaks well of the general attention of the convicts to religious exercises. Above all, he strongly and wisely advocates the formation of a library for their use; and hints that the books selected should not merely be religious, but 'entertaining and instructive'—such as history, biography, voyages and travels, scientific books with illustrations, &c. One exceedingly interesting fact mentioned is, that certain of the best educated and most intelligent convicts have been permitted to deliver lectures to their fellow-prisoners on the subjects with which they were best conversant, and with the happiest effects. Thus, a man who had been employed in a large brewery, described the whole 'mystery' in a very able manner; a second, who was by trade a French polisher, did the same; and a third, who had been a sailor, gave two lectures on the art of navigation, and illustrated them in capital style with diagrams drawn on a black-board. We cannot but think that the beneficial tendency of these novel prison recreations will be very great.

The Report of the comptroller-general himself is, on the whole, decidedly cheering; and he says of the convicts, that, 'taken as a body, I am inclined to believe they are anxious to do well, and by honest and steady conduct, to regain here that position they have forfeited in their native land.' When inquiring of government whether the same scale is to be adopted at Fremantle as at Van Diemen's Land, he says, that at the latter place the cost of officers—such as magistrates, superintendents, overseers, storekeepers, religious instructors, medical men, &c.—allowed for each 300 convicts, amounts to L.1337, 3s. 6d. per annum, or L.4, 9s. 2d. for each convict. This seems a large sum, and does not appear to include the heavy additional cost of warders and other prison-officers.

The necessary brevity of this article precludes any allusion to a great variety of curious and instructive details of the Fremantle 'establishment,' as it is called; but if what we have already said interests the reader, and he requires to know more, we can confidently refer him to the bulky Blue Book alluded to, with an assurance that he will there find most ample and authentic information.

THE TRIAL OF ELIZABETH CANNING

In the year 1753, London was so deeply convulsed with a great question at issue in the criminal courts, that the peace of the city was seriously threatened. From the highest to the lowest grades, society was divided into two parties on this question; and it was impossible to speak of it at a dinner-table or in a street assemblage without exciting a dangerous quarrel. This dispute was an extravagant illustration of English zeal for justice and fair play. The real question lay between an old gipsy woman and a young servant-girl. The question at issue was—Had the gipsy robbed and forcibly confined Elizabeth Canning, or had Elizabeth Canning falsely accused the gipsy of these outrages? By the force of incidental circumstances, the question came to be a really important one, in which the statesmen and jurists of the age took a lively interest. In fact, it connected itself with the efficacy of the great judicial institutions of the land, and their capacity to do justice and protect innocence. Hence the several trials and inquiries occupy as much space in the State Trials as three or four modern novels. In giving our readers an outline of the events so recorded, only the more prominent and marked features of them can of course find room.

Elizabeth Canning, a young woman between eighteen and nineteen years of age, had borne an unexceptionable character, and was a domestic servant in the house of a gentleman living in Aldermanbury, named Edward Lyon. On the 1st of January 1753, she obtained liberty to pay a visit to her uncle, who lived at Saltpetre Bank. As she did not return at the specified time, Mr Lyon's family made inquiry of her mother about her, and learned that she had not made her appearance among her other relations after the visit to her uncle. Days and weeks passed, in which every inquiry was unavailingly made after her, and her mother suffered intense anxiety. Public notice had been taken of the mystery; it was commented on in the newspapers, and much talked of. At length, at the end of January, Elizabeth entered her mother's house in a wretched condition—emaciated and exhausted, and with scarcely a sufficiency of clothes on her person for mere decorum. She was, of course, asked eagerly to give an account of her misfortunes. Her narrative by degrees resolved itself into this shape: She set out on her visit at eleven o'clock in the day, and stayed with her uncle till nine o'clock in the evening. Her uncle and aunt accompanied her as far as Aldgate. Then setting off alone, as she crossed Moorfields, and passed the back of Bethlehem Hospital, two stout men seized her. 'They said nothing to me,' she said, 'at first, but took half a guinea, in a little box, out of my pocket, and three shillings that were loose. They took my gown, apron, and hat, and folded them up, and put them into a greatcoat pocket. I screamed out; then the man who took my gown put a handkerchief or some such thing in my mouth.' They then tied her hands behind her, swore savagely at her, and dragged her along with them. She now, according to her own account, swooned, and on recovering from her fit, she felt herself still in their hands; they were swearing, and calling on her to move on. Partly insensible, she was conveyed for a considerable distance, but could not say whether she was dragged or carried. When she found herself at rest, it was daylight in the morning. She remembered being in a disreputable-looking house, in the presence of a woman, who said if she would accompany her, she should have fine clothes. Elizabeth refused, and the woman taking a knife from a dresser, cut open her stays, and removed them. The woman and the other people present then hustled her up stairs into a wretched garret, and locked the door. She found here a miserable straw-bed, a large black pitcher nearly full of water, and twenty-four pieces of bread, seeming as if a quartern-loaf had been cut in so many pieces. Her story went on to say, that she remained in this place for four weeks, eating so much of the bread and drinking a little water daily, till both were exhausted. She then succeeded in making her escape, by removing a board which was nailed across a window. 'First,' she said, 'I got my head out, and kept fast hold of the wall, and got my body out; after that, I turned myself round, and jumped into a little narrow place by a lane, with a field beside it. Having nothing on but 'an old sort of a bedgown and a handkerchief, that were in this hay-loft, and lay in a grate in the chimney,' she managed to travel twelve miles through an unknown country to her mother's house, not daring, as she said, to call at any place by the way, lest she should again fall into the hands of her persecutors.

If Elizabeth's absence created excitement, her reappearance in the plight she was in, and with such a story to tell, increased it tenfold. She was an attractive-looking girl; and seeing the sympathy she excited, had no objection to assent to the theory formed by her friends, that the people in whose hands she had fallen had the basest designs upon her; that they had resolved to conquer her virtue by imprisonment and starvation; and that she had magnanimously and patiently resisted all their efforts. The story was hawked about everywhere. It was spoken of in every tavern and at every dinner-table. The indignation of many respectable citizens was roused. They were parents, and had daughters of their own, who might be made the victims of the diabolical crew from which this poor girl had escaped. Many of them resolved to rally round her—avenge her wrongs, and punish the perpetrators. Elizabeth found herself one of the most important people in London. She received many presents, and considerable funds were raised to prosecute the inquiry. In these circumstances, she was bound of course to assist her friends by remembering every little incident that could lead them to the place of her sufferings. She believed that it must have been on the Hertford road, for in looking from the window, she had caught sight of a coach on that road with which she was familiar, as a former mistress had been accustomed to travel in it. This circumstance, with the distance travelled by the girl, afforded her champions a clue, and they concentrated their researches at Enfield Wash. There they found a questionable-looking lodging-house kept by a family of the name of Wells, which seemed to answer to Elizabeth's description. It had a garret with an old straw-bed, and a black pitcher was found in the house.

Elizabeth was taken to examine this house in a sort of triumphal procession. Her friends went on horseback, making a complete cavalcade; she and her mother travelled in a coach. As many as could find room seem to have simultaneously rushed into the squalid lodging-house, and the natural astonishment and confusion of its inmates on such an invasion were at once assigned as the symptoms of conscious guilt. Elizabeth seemed to be at first somewhat confused and undecided; these symptoms were attributed to the excitement of the moment on recollection of the horrors she had endured, and to a feeling of insecurity. She was told to take courage; she was among her friends, who would support her cause; and she at last said decidedly, that she was in the house where she had been imprisoned. A gipsy woman of very remarkable appearance was present. One of the witnesses recognised her, from her likeness to the portraits of Mother Shipton the sorceress. She sat bending over the fire smoking a pipe, and exhibiting through the hubbub around the imperturbable calmness peculiar to her race. Elizabeth immediately pointed to her, and said she was the woman who had cut her stays, and helped to put her in her prison-room. Even this did not disturb the stolid indifference of the old woman, who was paying no attention to what the people said. When, however, her daughter stepped up and said: 'Good mother, this young woman says you robbed her,' she started to her feet, turned on the group her remarkable face, and said: 'I rob you! take care what you say. If you have once seen my face, you cannot mistake it, for God never made such another.' When told of the day of the robbery, she gave a wild laugh, and said she was then above a hundred miles off in Dorsetshire. This woman was named Squires. Her son, George Squires, was present. Elizabeth did not seem completely to remember him at first, but she in the end maintained him to be one of the ruffians who had attacked her in Moorfields. Her followers were now eminently satisfied. All the persons in the house were seized, and immediately committed for examination. The strange, wild aspect of the gipsy seems to have added an element to the horrors of the affair; and in the afternoon, when two of Elizabeth's friends were discussing the whole matter over a steak in the Three Crowns at Newington, one of them said to the other: 'Mr Lyon, I hope God Almighty will destroy the model that he made that face by, and never make another like it.' It was found that Mrs Wells, who kept the lodging-house, belonged to a disreputable family, and she admitted that her husband had been hanged. If Elizabeth had given a false tale to hide the questionable causes of her absenting herself, she had probably found that it took a much more serious turn than she intended, and she must now make up her mind to recant her tale or go through with it. She resolved on the latter course, to which she was probably tempted by having all London to back her. She could not well have carried on the charge alone, but the popularity of her cause brought her unexpected aid. A woman named Virtue Hall, who lived in Mrs Wells's lodging-house, thought it would be a good speculation to be partner with Elizabeth Canning, and she gave testimony which corroborated the whole story.

On the 21st of February, Mary Squires and Susannah Wells were brought to trial for a capital offence. The evidence adduced against them was the story just told. When Mrs Squires was called on for her defence, she gave a succinct account of how she had from day to day gone from one distant place to another during the time when Elizabeth said she was in confinement. Two or three witnesses came forward somewhat timidly to corroborate her statement; and it is a melancholy fact, that others would have appeared and offered convincing testimony of the innocence of the accused, but were intimidated by the ferocious aspect of the London populace from venturing to give their evidence. That it was not very safe to contradict the popular idol, Elizabeth Canning, was indeed experienced in a very unpleasant way by the witnesses John Gibbons, William Clarke, and Thomas Greville, who came forward in favour of Squires. Money was collected to prosecute them for perjury. Dreading the strength of the popular current against them, they had to incur great expense in preparation for their defence. Before the day of trial, however, some of Canning's champions began to feel a misgiving, and no prosecutor appeared. The counsel for the accused complained bitterly of the hardship of their position. They had incurred great expense. They felt that it was necessary for the complete removal of the stain of perjury thrown on their character, that there should be a trial. They said they had witnesses 'ready to give their testimony with such clear, ample, convincing circumstances, as would demand universal assent, and fully prove the innocence of the three defendants, and the falsity of Elizabeth Canning's story in every particular;' whereas, without a trial, all would be virtually lost to the accused, who, instead of obtaining a triumphant acquittal, might be suspected of having agreed to some dubious compromise.

Mrs Squires was at length convicted, and had judgment of death. But Sir Crisp Gascoyne, the lord mayor of London, who was nominally at the head of the commission for trying Squires, believed that she was the victim of falsehood and public prejudice. He resolved to subject the whole question to a searching investigation, and to obviate, if possible, the scandal to British institutions, of perpetrating a judicial murder, even though the victim should be among the most obscure of the inhabitants of the realm. In the first place, an inquiry was instituted by the law-officers of the crown, the result of which was, that the woman Squires received a royal pardon. The lord mayor, however, having satisfied himself that this poor woman had but narrowly escaped death from the perfidious falsehood of Elizabeth Canning, aided by an outbreak of popular zeal, was not content with the gipsy woman's escape, but thought that an example should be made of her persecutor. Accordingly, although he was met with much obloquy, both verbal and written—for controversial pamphlets were published against him as an enemy of Elizabeth Canning—he resolved to bring this popular idol to justice.

On the 29th of April 1754, she was brought to trial for wilful and corrupt perjury. Her trial lasted to the 13th of May. It is one of the longest in the collection called the State Trials, and is a more full and elaborate inquiry than the trial of Charles I. The case made out was complete and crushing, and the perfect clearness with which the whole truth connected with the movements from day to day, and from hour to hour, of people in the humblest rank was laid open, shews the great capabilities of our public jury-system for getting at the truth. One part of the case was, the absurdity of Elizabeth Canning's story, and its inconsistency, in minute particulars, with itself and with the concomitant facts. When her first description of the room, in which, she said, she was shut up, was compared with the full survey of it afterwards undertaken, important and fatal discrepancies were proved. She professed to have been unable to see anything going on in the house from her place of confinement, but in the room at Enfield Wash there was a large hole through the floor for a jack-rope, which gave a full view of the kitchen, where the inmates of the house chiefly resorted. She professed to describe every article in the room she was confined in, but she had said nothing of a very remarkable chest of drawers found in that which she identified as the same. That this piece of furniture had not been recently placed there was made evident, by the damp dust gluing it to the wall, and the host of spiders which ran from their webs when it was removed. She had escaped by stepping on a penthouse, but there was none against the garret of Mrs Wells's house; the windows were high, and she could not have leaped to the ground without severe injury. She stated that no one had entered the room during the four weeks of her imprisonment, but it was shewn that, during the period, a lodger had held an animated conversation from one of the windows of the identical garret with somebody occupied in lopping wood outside. Nay, a person had seen a poor woman, with the odd name of Natis, in bed in that very room. His reason for entering it was a curious one, which has almost a historical bearing. He went to try the ironwork of a sign which had once hung in front of the house, and lay in the garret. The sign had been taken down when the Jacobite army penetrated into England in the Rebellion of 1745. Probably it had been of a character likely to be offensive to the Jacobites, and its removal is a little incident, shewing how greatly the country apprehended a revolution in favour of the Stuarts.

These discrepancies were, however, far from being the most remarkable part of the evidence. Not content with shewing that Elizabeth Canning had told falsehoods, the prosecutor set to the laborious task of proving where the gipsy woman had been, along with her son and daughter, charged as her accomplices, during the time embraced by the mere active part of Elizabeth's narrative. From the vagrant habits of the race, evidence to the most minute particulars had thus to be collected over a large range of country; and the precision with which the statements of a multitude of people—of different ranks and pursuits, and quite unknown to each other, as well as to the person they spoke of—are fitted to each other, is very striking and interesting. The most trifling and unconsequential-looking facts tell with wonderful precision on the result. Thus a lodging-house keeper remembered the woman Squires being in her house on a certain day, and she made it sure by an entry in an account-book, as to which she remembered that she had consulted the almanac that she might put down the right day. The day of the woman's presence in another place was identical with the presence of an Excise surveyor, and the statements of the witnesses were tested by the Excise entry-books. The position of the wanderers was in another instance connected with the posting of a letter, and the post-office clerks bore testimony to the fact, that from the marks on the letter it must have been posted on that day. It was, as we have seen, on the 1st of January that Elizabeth Canning said she was seized. The journey of the gipsy family is traced from day to day through distant parts of England, from the preceding December down to the 24th of January, which was the day of their arrival at Enfield Wash. Thus fortified by counteracting facts of an unquestionable nature, the counsel for the prosecution felt himself in a position to turn the whole story into ridicule, and shew the innate absurdity of what all London had so resolutely believed.

He proceeded in this strain: 'Was it not strange that Canning should subsist so long on so small a quantity of bread and water—four weeks, wanting only a few hours? Strange that she should husband her store so well as to have some of her bread left, according to her first account, till the Wednesday; according to the last, till the Friday before she made her escape; and that she should save some of her miraculous pitcher till the last day? Was the twenty-fourth part of a sixpenny loaf a day sufficient to satisfy her hunger? If not, why should she defer the immediate gratification of her appetite in order to make provision for a precarious, uncertain futurity? Shall we suppose some revelation from above in favour of one of the faithful? Perhaps an angel from heaven appeared to this mirror of modern virtue, and informed her, that if she eat more than one piece of bread a day, her small pittance would not last her till the time she was to make her escape. Her mother, we know, is a very enthusiastical woman—a consulter of conjurors, a dreamer of dreams; perhaps the daughter dreamed also what was to happen, and so, in obedience to her vision, would not eat when she was hungry, nor drink when she was thirsty. However that was, I would risk the event of the prosecution on this single circumstance, that, without the interposition of some preternatural cause, this conduct of the prisoner's must appear to exceed all bounds of human probability.'

Notwithstanding the conclusive exposure of her criminality, Elizabeth Canning was not entirely deserted by her partisans to the last. Two of the jury had difficulty in reconciling themselves to the verdict of guilty, suggesting that her story might be substantially correct, though undoubtedly she had made a mistake about the persons by whom she was injured. There was a technical imperfection in the verdict, and her friends strove to the utmost to take advantage of it. When it was overruled, and a verdict of guilty was recorded, she pleaded for mercy, saying that she was more unfortunate than wicked; that self-preservation had been her sole object; and that she did not wish to take the gipsy's life. The punishment to be inflicted on her was a matter of serious deliberation, as many of the common people were still so unconvinced of her wickedness, that an attempt to break the jail in which she was imprisoned might be feared, and as at that time the transportation system had not been established. It was not, however, unusual to send criminals, by their own consent, to the plantations, and the court gladly acceded to a desire by her relations, that she should be banished to New England.

THE ISLAND OF ISLAY

There is, perhaps, no country in Europe which possesses so great a variety of territory and social condition as our own. Between the plains of Cambridgeshire and the wilds of Sutherland—between the toiling, densely-packed multitudes of Lancashire and the idle, scattered cotters of the Hebrides, how vast a difference! The Land we Live in, as Charles Knight has called it, in a very delightful descriptive book, is a much more interesting study to its own people than is generally supposed; and we somewhat wonder that comparatively so few of our tourists go in search of what is picturesque, romantic, and novel within our own seas. These ideas arise in our mind in perusing a few pages of the new edition of the Guide to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland,[2 - Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black. Pp. 808.] by the Messrs Anderson of Inverness. In this book we have the benefit of remarkable fulness of knowledge on the part of the authors, and the accuracy of their statements is only rivalled by their judicious brevity. The account of some of the more out-of-the-way parts of the country brings before us not merely physical conditions highly peculiar, but, as it were, a totally peculiar set of historical associations. As an example, take a few swatches of the Island of Islay.

It is about thirty miles long by twenty-four in breadth, composed chiefly of elevated, but not Alpine ground, much of it moorish and bleak, but a great and constantly increasing space cultivated and sheltered. The finest island in the Hebrides, it belonged almost wholly to one proprietor, whose dignity of course was great. Within the last few years, he came to greet the Queen at Inverary, with a gallant following of men clothed in the Highland garb at his own expense. The island is now, however, in the hands of trustees, for the benefit of creditors, whose claims amount to upwards of L.700,000. There are lead-mines on the island, now unwrought, but from which it is understood silver had been derived, wherewith some of the family plate of the proprietor was formed. Whisky is distilled to such an amount, as to return L.30,000 per annum of revenue to the government. The Gaelic-speaking people, the fine shooting-grounds, the romantic cliffs and caves, the lonely moors and lochs of this island, altogether give it a degree of romantic interest calculated strongly to attract the regard of the intelligent stranger.

To pursue the narration of Messrs Anderson—'Islay is not a little interesting from the historical associations connected with the remains of antiquity which it presents, in the ruins of its old castles, forts, and chapels. It was a chief place of residence of the celebrated lords, or rather kings, of the Isles, and afterwards of a near and powerful branch of the family of the great Macdonald. The original seat of the Scottish monarchy was Cantyre, and the capital is supposed to have been in the immediate vicinity of the site of Campbelltown. In the ninth century, it was removed to Forteviot, near the east end of Strathearn, in Perthshire. Shortly afterwards, the Western Isles and coasts, which had then become more exposed to the hostile incursions of the Scandinavian Vikingr, were completely reduced under the sway of Harold Harfager, of Denmark. Harold established a viceroy in the Isle of Man. In the beginning of the twelfth century, Somerled, a powerful chieftain of Cantyre, married Effrica, a daughter of Olaus or Olave, the swarthy viceroy or king of Man, a descendant of Harold Harfager, and assumed the independent sovereignty of Cantyre; to which he added, by conquest, Argyle and Lorn, with several islands contiguous thereto and to Cantyre. Somerled was slain in 1164, in an engagement with Malcolm IV. in Renfrewshire. His possessions on the mainland, excepting Cantyre, were bestowed on his younger son Dugal, from whom sprung the Macdougals of Lorn, who are to this day lineally represented by the family of Dunolly; while the islands and Cantyre descended to Reginald, his elder son. For more than three centuries, Somerled's descendants held these possessions, at times as independent princes, and at others as tributaries of Norway, Scotland, and even of England. In the sixteenth century they continued still troublesome, but not so formidable to the royal authority. After the battle of the Largs in 1263, in which Haco of Norway was defeated, the pretensions of that kingdom were resigned to the Scottish monarchs, for payment of a subsidy of 100 merks. Angus Og, fifth in descent from Somerled, entertained Robert Bruce in his flight to Ireland in his castle of Dunaverty, near the Mull of Cantyre, and afterwards at Dunnavinhaig, in Isla, and fought under his banner at Bannockburn. Bruce conferred on the Macdonalds the distinction of holding the post of honour on the right in battle—the withholding of which at Culloden occasioned a degree of disaffection on their part, in that dying struggle of the Stuart dynasty. This Angus's son, John, called by the Dean of the Isles "the good John of Isla," had by Amy, great-granddaughter of Roderick, son of Reginald, king of Man, three sons—John, Ronald, and Godfrey; and by subsequent marriage with Margaret, daughter of Robert Stuart, afterwards Robert II. of Scotland, other three sons—Donald of the Isles, John Mor the Tainnister, and Alexander Carrach. It is subject of dispute whether the first family were lawful issue or illegitimate, or had merely been set aside, for they were not called to the chief succession, as a stipulation of the connection with the royal family, to whom the others were particularly obnoxious; or, as has been conjectured, from the relationship of the parents being thought too much within the forbidden degrees. The power of John seems to have been singularly great. By successive grants of Robert Bruce to his father, and of David II., Baliol, and Robert II., to himself, he appears to have been in possession or superior of almost the whole western coasts and islands....

'The inordinate power of these island princes was gradually broken down by the Scottish monarchs in the course of the fifteenth and early part of the sixteenth century. On the death of John, Lord of the Isles and Earl of Ross, grandson of Donald, Hugh of Sleat, John's nearest brother and his descendants became rightful representatives of the family, and so continue. Claim to the title of Lord of the Isles was made by Donald, great-grandson of Hugh of Sleat; but James V. refused to restore the title, deeming its suppression advisable for the peace of the country.'

At the close of the sixteenth century, when Bacon was writing his Essays, and Shakspeare his Hamlet, this remote part of the country was the scene of bloody feuds between semi-barbarous chieftains. A battle, with from one to two thousand men on each side, took place in Islay in 1598. The power of the Islay Macdonalds ultimately passed into the hands of the Campbells, who have since been the ascendant family in these insular regions.

'The remains of the strongholds of the Macdonalds in Islay are the following:—In Loch Finlagan, a lake about three miles in circumference, three miles from Port Askaig, and a mile off the road to Loch-in-Daal, on the right hand, on an islet, are the ruins of their principal castle or palace and chapel; and on an adjoining island the Macdonald council held their meetings. There are traces of a pier, and of the habitations of the guards on the shore. A large stone was, till no very distant period, to be seen, on which Macdonald stood, when crowned, by the Bishop of Argyle, King of the Isles. On an island, in a similar lake, Loch Guirm, to the west of Loch-in-Daal, are the remains of a strong square fort, with round corner towers; and towards the head of Loch-in-Daal, on the same side, are vestiges of another dwelling and pier.

'Where are thy pristine glories, Finlagan?
The voice of mirth has ceased to ring thy walls,
Where Celtic lords and their fair ladies sang
Their songs of joy in Great Macdonald's halls.
And where true knights, the flower of chivalry,
Oft met their chiefs in scenes of revelry—
All, all are gone, and left thee to repose,
Since a new race and measures new arose.

'The Macdonalds had a body-guard of 500 men, of whose quarters there are marks still to be seen on the banks of the loch. For their personal services they had lands, the produce of which fed and clothed them. They were formed into two divisions. The first was called Ceatharnaich, and composed of the very tallest and strongest of the islanders. Of these, sixteen, called Buannachan, constantly attended their lord wheresoever he went, even in his rural walks; and one of them, denominated "Gille 'shiabadh dealt," headed the party. This piece of honourable distinction was conferred upon him on account of his feet being of such size and form as, in his progress, to cover the greatest extent of ground, and to shake the dew from the grass preparatory to its being trodden by his master. These Buannachan enjoyed certain privileges, which rendered them particularly obnoxious to their countrymen. The last gang of them was destroyed in the following manner by one Macphail in the Rinns:—Seeing Macdonald and his men coming, he set about splitting the trunk of a tree, in which he had partly succeeded by the time they had reached. He requested the visitors to lend a hand. So, eight on each side, they took hold of the partially severed splits; on doing which, Macphail removed the wedges which had kept open the slit, which now closed on their fingers, holding them hard and fast in the rustic man-trap. Macphail and his three sons equipped themselves from the armour of their captives, compelled them to eat a lusty dinner, and then beheaded them, leaving their master to return in safety. Macphail and his sons took shelter in Ireland. The other division of these 500 were called Gillean-glasa, and their post was within the outer walls of their fastnesses. These forts were so constructed that the Gillean-glasa might fight in the outer breach, whilst their lords, together with their guests, were enjoying themselves in security within the walls, and especially within the impenetrable fortifications of Finlagan.

'On Freuch Isle, in the Sound, are the ruins of Claig Castle—a square tower, defended by a deep ditch, which at once served as a prison and a protection to the passage. At Laggavoulin Bay, an inlet on the east coast, and on the opposite side to the village, on a large peninsular rock, stands part of the walls of a round substantial stone burgh or tower, protected on the land side by a thick earthen mound. It is called Dun Naomhaig, or Dunnivaig (such is Gaelic orthography.) There are ruins of several houses beyond the mound, separated from the main building by a strong wall. This may have been a Danish structure, subsequently used by the Macdonalds, and it was one of their strongest naval stations. There are remains of several such strongholds in the same quarter. The ruins of one are to be seen on an inland hill, Dun Borreraig, with walls twelve feet thick, and fifty-two feet in diameter inside, and having a stone seat two feet high round the area. As usual, there is a gallery in the midst of the wall. Another had occupied the summit of Dun Aidh, a large, high, and almost inaccessible rock near the Mull. Between Loch Guirm and Saneg, and south of Loch Gruinart, at Dun Bheolain (Vollan), there are a series of rocks, projecting one behind another into the sea, with precipitous seaward fronts, and defended on the land side by cross dikes; and in the neighbourhood numerous small pits in the earth, of a size to admit of a single person seated. These are covered by flat stones, which were concealed by sods.

'There are also several ruins of chapels and places of worship in Islay, as in many other islands. The names of fourteen founded by the Lords of the Isles might be enumerated. Indeed, most of the names, especially of parishes of the west coast, have some old ecclesiastical allusion. In the ancient burying-ground of Kildalton, a few miles south-west of the entrance of the Sound, are two large, but clumsily-sculptured stone-crosses. In this quarter, near the Bay of Knock, distinguished by a high sugar-loaf-shaped hill, are two large upright flagstones, called the two stones of Islay, reputed to mark the burying-place of Yula, a Danish princess, who gives the island its name. In the church-yard of Killarrow, near Bowmore, there was a prostrate column, rudely sculptured; and, among others, two grave-stones, one with the figure of a warrior, habited in a sort of tunic reaching to the knees, and a conical head-dress. His hand holds a sword, and by his side is a dirk. The decoration of the other is a large sword, surrounded by a wreath of leaves; and at one end the figures of three animals. This column has been removed from its resting-place, and set up in the centre of a battery erected near Islay House some years ago. Monumental stones, as well as cairns and barrows, occur elsewhere; and there is said to be a specimen of a circular mound, with successive terraces, resembling the tynewalds, or judgment-seats, of the Isle of Man, and almost unique in the Western Islands. Stone and brass hatchet-shaped weapons or celts, elf-shots or flint arrow-heads, and brass fibulæ, have been frequently dug up.'

THE APPLE OF THE DEAD SEA

We made a somewhat singular discovery when travelling among the mountains to the east of the Dead Sea, where the ruins of Ammon Jerash and Ajoloun well repay the labour and fatigue encountered in visiting them. It was a remarkably hot and sultry day. We were scrambling up the mountain through a thick jungle of bushes and low trees, which rises above the east shore of the Dead Sea, when I saw before me a fine plum-tree, loaded with fresh blooming plums. I cried out to my fellow-traveller: 'Now, then, who will arrive first at the plum-tree?' and as he caught a glimpse of so refreshing an object, we both pressed our horses into a gallop, to see which would get the first plum from the branches. We both arrived at the same moment; and, each snatching at a fine ripe plum, put it at once into our mouths, when, on biting it, instead of the cool, delicious juicy fruit which we expected, our mouths were filled with a dry bitter dust, and we sat under the tree upon our horses, sputtering, and hemming, and doing all we could to be relieved of the nauseous taste of this strange fruit. We then perceived, and to my great delight, that we had discovered the famous apple of the Dead Sea, the existence of which has been doubted and canvassed since the days of Strabo and Pliny, who first described it. Many travellers have given descriptions of other vegetable productions which bear analogy to the one described by Pliny; but, up to this time, no one had met with the thing itself, either upon the spot mentioned by the ancient authors or elsewhere.—Curzon's Visits to Monasteries in the Levant.

INVOCATION

Creator of the universal heart
In nature's bosom beating!
Life of all forms, which are but as a part
Of Thee, thy life repeating!
Soul of the earth, thy sanctity impart
Where human souls are meeting!

Bright as the first faint beam in mercy shewn
Unto the barren-sighted,
Where, on the yet unbroken darkness thrown,
A sunny ray hath lighted,
The glory of thy presence streameth down
On us, the world-benighted.

To us the shadow of the earth is given,
And ours the lower cloud;
But though along its pathways tempest-driven,
Our hearts shall not be bowed,
While yet our eyes unto the stars of heaven
We lift, and pray aloud!

Not with the prayers of long ago we pray,
With red raised hand beseeching—
Not with the war-voice of our elder clay,
With the mammoth's bones now bleaching—
Not for the mortal victories of a day,
But—for the Spirit's teaching!