An Account by John Knox who visited the Hebrides on behalf of the British Society for Extending the Fisheries and wrote the report 'A Tour Through the Highlands of Scotland and the Hebride Isles'.

"The island of Harris, with a number of lesser ones, and the rocks of St. Kilda, were purchased eight years ago from the laird of Macleod, by his kinsman, captain Macleod of the Mansfield East-Indiaman.

Harris is twenty miles in length, and ten in breadth; it is on the east side mostly rock, but on the west, there are some tolerable farms; and the number of people amounts to 2000. It has Lewis to the north, and North Uist on the south, from which it is separated by a channel of four miles of width, called the Sound of Harris. This channel is navigable for vessels of burden, but it requires a skilful pilot. It is the only passage between the Butt of the Lewis, and Bara, for vessels of burthen, passing to and from the west side of the Long Island. The sound is greatly incumbered with rocks, and islands, some of which are considerable, as Bernera, Pabay, Ensay, Killegray. These, with Scalpay, Taransay, and Scarp, compose the inhabited islands on the coast of Harris. Some of them produce good crops of grain, and all of them good pasture.

Harris and its islands fell from 4 to 500 ton of kelp annually; it abounds, on the east side, in excellent lochs and bays, and its shores on both sides form one continued fishery. The fish on this coast, and along the whole shores of the Long Island, are more numerous, and of longer dimensions, than those on the opposite continent; on which account, two royal fishing stations begun in the reign of Charles 1. on in loch Maddie, and the other in the Sound of Harris.

About four years ago captain Macleod came to settle in Harris, and fixed upon Rowdil Bay as the best adapted to his view; that place being situated on the south-east side of the island, and contiguous to the Sound of Harris. Within the Bay of Rowdil, on the north side, there is an opening, through a channel of only 30 yards wide to one of the best sheltered little bays in the Highlands; from which, on the opposite side, there is an opening of the same dimensions to the sea. This has water for any vessel to enter or depart at any time of the tide; and captain Macleod had deepened the south passage to fifteen feet at common spring tides. The circumstances of this little harbour or bason is nearly an English mile; and here ships lie always afloat, and as safe as in Greenock Dock. Here the captain has made an excellent graving bank, and formed two keys, one at the edge of the bason, where ships may load or discharge afloat, at all times of the tide; the other on the graving bank.

He has also bult a store-house for salt, casks, meal, etc. and a manufacturing house for spinning wollen and linen thread, and twine for herring nets, which he makes for his own use. He had procured some East Country fishers, with Orkney yawls, to teach the inhabitants; and has built a boat-house, sixty feet long by twenty wide, capable of containing nine boats, with all their tackling, etc.

He has raised, or rather repaired, a very handsome church, out of the ruins o fan old monastery, called St. Clements. He has also built a school-house and public house; and he is now carrying on good cart roads from the keys to the village, and from thence through the country, to facilitate the communication with the west side of the island. He had done something in the planting way, and he finds that the hazel and sycamore thrive best.

He brought with him the model of a press, corn and fulling mill, to work under the same roof; the two latter to go by one water wheel. He also brought the iron work for these machines. he fitted out a fine cutter, sounded the coast, and found a bank half way between Harris and Sky, where many boats have caught cod and ling. In August, 1785, he made a trial of the banks of St. Kilda, which lies fifty-four miles ewst from the nearest land of the Long Island. He sounded thirty miles round the former in every directon, and believes these banks to extend still farther, being yet very little known. In June, 1786, he sent out a stout boat, with expert fishermen, to make another trial of these banks. They met with great success, and he recommends a small bay on St. Kilda, (the only one on that coast) as a place worthy of public notice, both on account of the fisheries and general navigation.

Some time before my arrival in Harris, he had received a letter from the master of the above mentioned boat, wherein he says, that they observed the whaled plowing their way through the shoals of herrings that were passing to the south, between the Long Island and St. Kilda. He thinks the want of success in the herring fishery on the west coast, is partly owing to the custom of looking for them in the lochs only; and say, that the busses, on their way to the lochs, often pass over large shoals at seas without taking notice of them, and have been disappointed when they arrived at the lochs.

In the spring of 1786, he proposed to try the fishing on the coast of Harris, near his own house; but his generous design was ridiculed by his tenants, who maintained he would meet with no success, and incur a useless expence.

He persisted in the experiment, and caught between the 10th of March and the 15th of April, 4400 large cod and ling; 4 or 500 skate; innumerable quantities of dog fish, large eels, and many boat loads of cuddies.

He has declared that the greatest bar in the way of every exertion in these islands, is the high duty on, and vexatious trouble attending the purchase of salt and coals. As an instance of the inconvenience the inhabitants undergo with regard to the latter, he stated the following fact.

"I sent a sloop loaded with coals from Greenock to this place; I offered to pay the duty at the custom-house of Greenock, but it was refused. The sloop sprung a leak on the passage, and the factor on her arrival thought it advisable to unload the coals, but at the same time wrote to the collector at Stornoway, in Lewis, mentioning the circumstances, and requesting he would send an officer to see the coals measured, that the bond might be relieved and the duty paid, and that he (the factor) would defray any expence attending his journey. The collector returned for answer, that he could not comply with the request, as it was absolutely necessary that the sloop should be sent to Stornoway from the port of Rowdil, where she had in the meantime arrived, and had discharged the coals.

"The factor was obliged to ship the coals a second time, and send the vessel to Stornoway, where they were landed, re-shipped a third time, and brought back to Rowdil, not only attended with great expence, but with the mortifying delay of every work then in hand. The, and like circumstances," says he, "are found more grating, as the government reaps no benefit from the tax, as it almost totally prevents any coals from being brought into this country. Were it otherwise, not only the proprietors of coal pits would be benefited, but all improvement here would be facilitated, the fuel of this country not being near so proper." The winds and the rain having nearly exhausted themselves, the captain walked with me up the height upon the south end of Harris, where we had a full view of the sound, and of its islands, in all their glory, with a large extent of North Uist.

The view on the east, was a channel of sixteen or eighteen miles, bounded by the stretching land of Sky: beyond that, the mountains of Ross-shire, just perceivable. On the west, the great expanse of the Atlantic, which was bounded only by the horizon.

To one of these islands the late sir John Elliot flew for the recovery of his health, after having tried in vain the usual places of resort, and every assistance that water and medicine could bestow. for this voyage, he hired a large vessel at Leith or elsewhere, sailed round the north coast by the Pentland Firth, and stretched from thence to Harris, where his old acquintance capt. Macleod, provided a decent lodging for him in the house of Mr. Campbell, a respectable tacksman in the pleasant island of Bernera(y).

Upon his arrival in Harris, he was so far exhausted that he could scarcely walk a hundred yards from the vessel, and his voice was so feeble that he could not distinctly articulate his words. He began his regimen with goats whey, butter milk, vegetables, and other simples. His disorder lay in his stomach, which retained very little of even the weakest food or drink; yet was at the same time so voracious, that he could not be kept from eating almost constantly, and with the greatest desire, those kinds of food that were the least proper for him. he, who n his practice strictly forbade the use of flesh meat and butter, could not be prevented, by Mr Campbell and his family, from devouring quantities of both, which returned instantly into a tub placed before him.

He did not, however, neglect the whey, etc. which, with the air of the wide ocean, probably contributed to the change that began to appear in his looks, after he had been four or five weeks upon the island.

In proportion as his stomach began to retain proper nourishment, in the same proportion his unnatural sppetite abated; and in six weeks from the time of his arrival, his health seemed to be nearly restored. If he had set out earlier in the summer, and remained at least three months upon suitable diet, amusing himself in shooting, fishing and sailing among these islands, it is thought that he would have recovered entirely.

He returned in September, by the north passage, to Edinburgh, in a much better state of health than when he left that city, but died soon after at the seat of a nobleman in England. I had proposed to visit sir John in Bernera(y), but he sailed from Rowdil two days before my arrival. After staying here seven or eight days, as before observed, I set out for Stornoway in Lewis. Captain Macleod, who was not behind the gentlemen of the Highlands in civilities, kindly offered his company thither.