Page "Rùm" Paragraph 39

In 1827, when giving evidence to a government select committee on emigration, an agent of Maclean of Coll was asked " And were the people willing to go?

" " Some of them ", came the reply, " Others were not very willing, they did not like to leave the land of their ancestors ".

Years later an eyewitness, a local shepherd, was more forthcoming in his description of the events: " The people of the island were carried off in one mass, for ever, from the sea-girt spot where they were born and bred ...

The wild outcries of the men and heart-breaking wails of the women and children filled all the air between the mountainous shore of the bay ".