our entertainment; however, he soon produced more provision than men not luxurious required." There was not a single house in which, with any comfort, they could have been lodged. Pennant, who had been there a year earlier, "had pitched a rude tent formed of oars and sails." There was but one house which had a chimney. "Nevertheless, even in this," says Johnson, "the fire was made on the floor in the middle of the room, and notwithstanding the dignity of their mansion the inmates rejoiced like their neighbours in the comforts of smoke." Though the soil was naturally fruitful, yet the poverty of the people was great. "They are," he adds, "remarkably gross and remarkably neglected; I know not if they are visited by any minister. The island, which was once the metropolis of learning and piety, has now no school for education nor temple for worship, only two inhabitants that can speak English, and not one that can write or read." The population was probably not less than four hundred souls.[1] Sacheverell, who was there in 1688, mentions a class of "hereditary servants. They are," he adds, "miserably poor. They seem an innocent, simple people, ignorant and devout; and though they have no minister, they constantly assemble in the great church on Sundays, where they spend most part of the day in private devotions."[2] According to Pennant they were "the most stupid and the most lazy of all the islanders." "They used," he says, "the Chapel of the Nunnery as a cow-shed; the floor was covered some feet thick with dung, for they were too lazy to remove this fine manure, the collection of a century, to enrich their grounds."[3] Boswell, however, gives a much better report. "They are industrious," he says, "and make their own woollen and linen cloth; and they brew a good deal of beer, which we did not find in any of the other islands." In July, 1798, Dr. Garnett and his companion, Mr. Watts, the painter, passed a night in the public-house. The floor of their chamber was liquid mud; the rain fell on their beds. For fellow-lodgers they had several chickens, a tame lamb, a dog, some cats, and two or three pigs. Next morning they invited the schoolmaster to breakfast, and found that the inn could boast of only two tea-cups and one spoon, and that of wood.[4] Sir Walter Scott, who visited Iona in 1810 mentions "the squalid and dejected poverty of the
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THE MACLEANES OF IONA.
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