On the right hand extremity of the 1804 Map in line with 'Loch Flodavagh' appears another annotation:
Bays Pop 350
200
There is an undecipherable 'squiggle' to the right of the figures, crossing the original double border of the map.
When I first noticed this entry, I thought that the first figure was '3500' but, as the final '0' is smudged and because the three digits in each number are aligned, I think they are as shown above.
Two numbers suggests, perhaps, males and females, but when was the population of the Bays 550?
Maybe the 'smudge' was indeed a '0' and the population 3500? so what does the 200 refer to?
Why write them on the map? I cannot be sure. They could be figures for proposed, or completed, emigration. They could be figures for 'spaces' to accomodate those the writer was planning to be 'cleared' from elsewhere. They might be a head count of weavers or some other occupational group. I cannot be sure.
The hand could be one of those that I have already described but it is beyond my skills to tell.
The many additions to this map add much to its intrigue, and I can feel myself being pulled ever-deeper into the world that it describes...
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