On most of the properties there were arrears of eight, ten, and twenty years' standing.
There was one priest in the district, and one National School, the schoolmaster, with a family of nine persons, receiving the munificent stipend of eight pounds a year.

These nine thousand people, depending absolutely upon tillage and pasture, owned among them all one cart and one plough, eight saddles, two pillions, eleven bridles, and thirty-two rakes! They had no means of harrowing their lands but with meadow rakes, and the farms were so small that from four to ten farms could be harrowed in a day with one rake.
Their beds were of straw, mountain grass, or green and dried rushes.
Among the nine thousand people there were but two feather-beds, and but eight beds stuffed with chaff.

There were but two stables and six cow-houses in the whole district.

None of the women owned more than one shift, nor was there a single bonnet among them all, nor a looking-glass costing more than threepence.
The climate and the scenery took the fancy of Lord George.

He made up his mind to see what could be done with this forgotten corner of the world, and to that end bought up as he could the small and scattered properties, till he had invested the greater part of his small fortune, and acquired about twenty thousand acres of land.