ILAY, or Ilia, one of the chief of the Hebrides or Western isles of Scotland, lying to the west of Jura, from which it is separated by a narrow channel. It extends 24 miles in length from north to south, and is 18 in breadth from east to west. On the east side there are many lofty sterile mountains; but in the interior, and to the southward and westward, the land is in good cultivation. A great body of limestone of a bluish colour, lying in the middle part of the island, stretches almost through its whole length, and is now extensively employed for the purposes of manure. Marl, which is also abundant, is applied to the same use. Lead-ore has been dug out in several places, and at so early a period as the time of the Danes. The principal harbour in Ilia is at Lochindaal, but there are several others which are safe and commodious. Here are several rivers and lakes well stocked with trout, eels, and salmon. In the centre is Loch Finlagan, about three miles in circuit, with the little isle of that name in the middle. Here the great lord of the Isles once resided in all the pomp of royalty; but his palaces and offices are now in ruins. Instead of a throne, Macdonald stood on a stone seven feet square, in which there was an impression made to receive his feet; here he was crowned and anointed by the bishop of Argyle and seven inferior priests, in presence of the chieftains. This stone still exists. The ceremony (after the new lord had collected his kindred and vassals) was truly patriarchal. After putting on his armour, his helmet, and his sword, he took an oath to rule as his ancestors had done; that is, to govern as a father would his children: his people in return swore that they would pay the same obedience to him as children would to their parent. The dominions of this potentate, about the year 1586, consisted only of Ilay, Jura, Knapdale, and Cantyre: so reduced were they from what they had been before the deprivation of the great earl of Ross in the reign of James III. Near this is another little isle, where he assembled his council, Ilan-na-Corlle, or "the island of council;" where 13 judges constantly sat to decide differences among his subjects; and received for their trouble the 11th part of the value of the affair tried before them. In the first island were buried the wives and children of the lords of the Isles; but their own persons were deposited in the more sacred ground of Iona. On the shores of the lake are some marks of the quarters of his Carnouch and Gilli-glasfes, "the military of the isles;" the first signifying a strong man, the last a grim-looking fellow. The first were light-armed, and fought with darts and daggers; the last with sharp hatchets. These are the troops that Shakespeare alludes to, when he speaks of a Donald, who

From the Western isles Of Kerns and Gallow-glasfes was supplicated.

Besides those already mentioned, the lords had a house and chapel at Lagan, on the south side of Lochindaal; a strong castle on a rock in the sea, at Dunwick, at the south-east end of the country; for they made this island their residence after their expulsion from that of Man in 1324.—There is a tradition, that while the isle of Man was part of the kingdom of the Isles, the rents were for a time paid in this country: those in silver were paid on a rock, still called Creig-a-nione, or "the rock of the silver rent;" the other, Creig-a-naigrid, or "the rock of rents in kind." These lie opposite to each other, at the mouth of a harbour, on the south side of this island. There are several forts built on the isles in fresh water lakes, and divers caverns in different parts of the island, which have been used occasionally as places of strength. The island is divided into four parishes, viz. Kildalton, Killarow, Kilchoman, and Kilmenie. The produce is corn of different kinds; such as bear, which sometimes yields eleven fold; and oats six fold. Much flax is raised here, and about 2000l. worth fold out of the island in yarn, which might better be manufactured on the spot, to give employ to the poor natives. Notwithstanding the excellence of the land, above 1000l. worth of meal is annually imported (A). Ale is frequently made in this island of the young tops of heath, mixing two-thirds of that plant with one of malt, sometimes adding hops. Boethius relates, that this liquor was much used among the Picts; but when that nation was extirpated by the Scots, the secret of making it perished with them. Numbers of cattle are bred here, and about 1700 are annually exported at

(A) This might have been the case in the time of Pennant, from whom the above account is taken. It is not so now, although the population has increased to nearly 12,000. Ilia indeed enjoys the peculiar advantages of being not only a grazing but a corn country, and can thus afford a very considerable exportation of both species of produce. The number of cattle now exported far exceeds that stated above by Pennant. the price of 50 shillings each. The island is often overstocked, and numbers die in March for want of fodder. None but milch-cows are houled: cattle of all other kinds, except the faddle-horses, run out during winter.

The number of inhabitants, when Ilay was visited by Pennant, is computed to have been between seven and eight thousand. About 700, says he, are employed in the mines and in the fishery: the rest are gentleman-farmers, and subtenants or servants. The women spin. The servants are paid in kind; the sixth part of the crop. They have houles gratis; the master gives them the feed for the first year, and lends them horses to plough annually the land annexed.

The quadrupeds of this island, as enumerated by Mr Pennant*, are flops, weefels, otters, and hares: the last small, dark-coloured, and bad runners. The birds are eagles, peregrine falcons, black and red game, and a very few ptarmigans. Red-breasted goosanders breed on the shore among the loose stones, wild geese in the moors, and herons in the island in Loch-guirn. The fish are plaice, flounder, large dabs, mullets, balan, lump-fish, black goby, greater dragonet, and that rare fish the lepadogaster of M. Gouan. Vipers swarm in the heath: the natives retain the vulgar error of their slinging with their forked tongues (B); that a sword on which the poison has fallen will hiss in water like a red-hot iron; and that a poultice of human ordure is an infallible cure for the bite.

In this island, Mr Pennant informs us, several ancient diversions and superstitions are still preserved: the last indeed are almost extinct, or at most lurk only amongst the very meanest of the people. The late wakes or funerals, like those of the Romans, were attended with sports, and dramatic entertainments composed of many parts, and the actors often changed their dresses suitably to their characters. The subject of the drama was historical, and preserved by memory.—The power of fascination is as strongly believed here as it was by the shepherds of Italy in times of old.

But here the power of the evil eye affects more the milch-cows than lambs. If the good housewife perceives the effect of the malicious on any of her kine, she takes as much milk as she can drain from the enchanted herd (for the witch commonly leaves very little). She then boils it with certain herbs, and adds to them flints and untempered steel; after that she secures the door, and invokes the three faired persons. This puts the witch into such an agony, that she comes willing-willing to the house, begs to be admitted, to obtain relief by touching the powerful pot: the good woman then makes her terms; the witch restores the milk to the cattle, and in return is freed from her pains. But sometimes, to save the trouble of those charms (for it may happen that the disorder may arise from other causes than an evil-eye), the trial is made by immersing in milk a certain herb, and if the cows are supernaturally affected, it instantly distils blood. The unsuccessful lover revenges himself on his happy rival by charms potent as those of the shepherd Alphesiboeus, and exactly similar:

Nece tribus nodis ternos, Amarylli, colores: Nece, Amarylli, modo.

Donald takes three threads of different hues, and ties three knots on each, three times imprecatting the most cruel disappointments on the nuptial bed: but the bridegroom, to avert the harm, stands at the altar with an untied shoe, and puts a sixpence beneath his foot.

History furnishes very few materials for the great events or revolutions of Ilay. It seems to have been long a seat of empire, probably jointly with the Isle of Man, as being most conveniently situated for the government of the rest of the Hebrides; for Crovan the Norwegian, after his conquest of that island in 1066, retired and finished his days in Ilay. There are more Danish or Norwegian names of places in this island than any other: almost all the present farms derive their titles from them; such as Peribus, Torridale, Torribolfe, and the like. On the retreat of the Danes it became the seat of their successors the lords of the isles; and continued, after their power was broken, in the reign of James III. in their descendants the Macdonalds, who held or ought to have held it from the crown. It was in the possession of a Sir James Macdonald, in the year 1598, the same who won the battle of Trai-dhruinard. His power gave umbrage to James VI. who directed the lord of Macleod, Cameron of Lochiel, and the Macneilles of Barra, to support the Macleans in another invasion. The rival parties met near the hill of Benbigger, east of Kilarrow; a fierce engagement ensued, and the Macdonalds were defeated and almost entirely cut off. Sir James escaped to Spain; but returned in 1620, was pardoned, received a pension, and died the same year at Glasgow; and in him expired the last of the great Macdonalds. But the king, irritated by the disturbances raised by private wars waged between these and other clans, resumed the grant made by his predecessor, and transferred it to Sir John Campbell of Calder, who held it on paying an annual feu-duty of five hundred pounds sterling, which is paid to this day. The island was granted to Sir John as a reward for his undertaking the conquest: but the family considered it as a dear acquisition, by the lofs of many gallant followers, and by the expences incurred in support of it.