We sailed from South Uist to North Uist, a great broad-reaching sail for 20 nautical miles. This area is beautiful, but very desolate. People used to live on these islands, but during the "Clearance" the tenant farmers were forcibly removed by the land barons. They wanted to switch from cattle-based forming to sheep and did not need as many farmers on their land. It became more profitable that way. The island of Mull went from over 20,000 residents to just 2,000. This was a massive undertaking in the late 1700's and early 1800's and many people immigrated to the US and Canada. And more people were evicted later when they were replaced by the red deer of the "sporting" estates. If you have Scottish ancestors, chances are good they were among those forcibly removed during the Clearance.
The picture is a stone house, we believe abandoned during the clearance. If you look really closely, you can see Nokomis just to the right side of the left pointy part of the building. The walls on this house were over a foot thick, which is why it is still standing.