were informed; but, except this bedding and the cooking apparatus, there did not seem to be an article of furniture in the hut. In England, were such a thing possible, a spectator would have been much more affected with such a display of wretchedness; but here, he becomes not only accustomed to it, but is also aware that the condition of these poor people is not so very widely different as it seems to be, from that which, however miserable to the eyes of a stranger, is, in this country, the usual state of life. Accordingly, they seemed to bear it with patience, as part of the common order of things; making no complaints, and asking neither for pity nor relief. For myself, I must how ever own, that it gave me much greater pain 'than ordinary complaining misery ever did in any situation'; and perhaps for this very reason, that it was attended by no complaints. Why the sight of that misery which is insensible to its own wretchedness, should be more painful than that of suffering united to the bitter consciousness of it, is not very difficult to explain. In contemplating the individual, we are struck with reflecting on what must have been endured before it could have produced such insensibility; or, when we see that such things are borne as if they were the necessary condition of human life, we sicken at reflecting that its situations should be so unequal. But, after all, we ought to console ourselves, as far as we can, by recollecting that this very insensibility is a palliation, at least, if not a blessing. We found, on inquiry, that, having been ejected from their farm, and having no other resource, they had been suffered by a neighbouring farmer to build their hut from his woods and to graze their only cow upon his waste; and thus, with the assistance of the shell fish which they caught at low water, and some casual labour, they had contrived to live through that portion of the summer which was past. How the winter was to be surmounted, it was both too easy and too painful to imagine.

'GARDENING.

I can venture to say, that there is not a garden from Barra Head to the Butt of the Lewis, nor from the Mull of Cantyre to Cape Rath. I can most truly assure you that I never saw such a thing, nor even a culinary vegetable of any kind. You might as well seek for a mangosteen as for an onion, a leek, a turnip, or even a cabbage. Whether the Gaelic language has names for such objects, I know not, but the articles themselves are utterly unknown; and I will produce you ten thousand Highlanders who never saw either. When an Englishman hears of Scotch kale and reads songs about cauld kale, and is

asked to sup his kale, he is apt to imagine thas he is arrived in a land of cabbages. Even with respect to the low country, there is more cabbage in one English cottage establishment, than in ten of their kale yards; in the Highlands, “stat nominis umbra." It must be supposed that broth did once really contain cabbage; whence the term kale continues to be applied, by courtesy, to a mixture of barley and water, or, under circumstances of peculiar wealth, to the same solution with a few scraps of something green, as large as a thumb-nail, swimming about " in gurgite vasto." I once supposed that the poor little people in the Highlands had never heard of gardens and vegetables, and that they might therefore be taught to mend their diet and increase their comforts. But many more examples than this of Pol Ewe demolished my theory.

'It seems odd that reformers like us are always angry because we cannot persuade people to be happy in our way instead of their own. Yet odd as it may be, it is difficult to avoid a feeling of vexation at such neglect as that of this Pol Ewe gentleman, or at seeing the number of poor creatures who are often not able to command even potatoes or bread to their fish, who, at the best, are tied down to an unvarying round of miserable diet, who are often suffering from diseases in consequence of the want of green vegetables, and who, at the same time, by three days' labour in the year, might ensure themselves, without any other expense, an ample supply of articles, equally wholesome, profitable, and agreeable. Where kitchen gardens are cultivated in this country, nothing can exceed the produce, in goodness; so that the climate offers no objection.

'It is not uncommon to find that one division of the present race of Highlanders has as little respect for its neighbours as the most prejudiced enemy can have for the whole tribe, though they are all confounded under a common term. This is not an uncommon feeling, in fact, throughout the country at large. In Sky, my friend Campbell, who was an Argyllshire man, was considered by the common people as a foreigner; and, because he was a foreigner, they refused to work for him, plundered his turnips, and persecuted him for his improvements.

'HABITATIONS.

No human heart can possibly represent a Highland cottage so as to render it. a picturesque object. If alone, it is a shapeless pile of stones and turf: if congregated into a town, that looks like a heap of dunghills or peat-stacks. Were it not for the occasional wreath of blue smoke, a

southern traveller would never suspect their presence at a small distance. Hence the unfortunate artist in Highland landscape is deprived of the aid which is elsewhere afforded him by the infinite varieties of rural architecture; of the life and in-terest which human habitations bestow on a picture; and of that source of contrast and scale of measurement which are afforded by a mixture of the petty works of man with the bold and wild features of Nature. In Sutherland, and some other parts of the country, the same roof sometimes covers the cattle and the owners both as it did in ancient Egypt, in the bright days of Rome, says Juvenal. The entrance is then generally through the cow-house, which is only separated from the dwelling by the well-known partition, the hallan.

" DOGS AND PIGS.

Among the branches of Highland pasturage, the least profitable is the breeding of those abominable black and white collies which seem to have little other occupation than to bark at the heels of horses. If the people would eat them, there might be some excuse. Their diet might almost keep as many children; and, excepting the very few wanted on the sheep farms, there is literally no business for them. Among the small tenants, they lead the lives of gentlemen. Mr. Dent would have performed a humane act if he had taxed them at five guineas a poll. I once saw executed an edict which savoured deeply of oppression, but which I believe was necessary, certainly advantageous. The poor people were positively in want; and the alternative offered, was to quit their farms or execute their dogs. From forty families, I think, there were one hundred and twenty useless animals destroyed.

'Now these good people, who thus liberally entertain guests from which they can derive no benefit, are silly enough to hate or fear pigs as much as if they were Jews or Turks. Here the people of Shetland and Orkney have shown much more good sense. If they choose to persist in disliking pork, or, what is the fact, in not choosing to try whether they like it or not, they might recollect that the animal is saleable under many forms, and that they are under no compulsion to eat their own bacon. Not but what they would soon learn; if we may judge by their emigrants in Canada, to whom salt pork is a daily diet, and who are not long in understanding how to devour it voraciously. A pig is at least as ornamental as a collie; what he devours he will at some day refund, and he has the merit of neither barking nor biting. It is plain that the Highland cot. -tagers could keep them on at least as good terins as the Irish; and it is very desirable VOL. I.-No. 8.

The construction of the ploughs and the harrows is as defective as every thing else, and scarifying and rolling are totally unknown; nor has the hoe and drill system yet been introduced, even for potatoes, except in the hands of a few opulent tenants, who have adopted the Lowland system of farming. In reaping, the sickle is exclusively used; but, considering the necessity of expedition, in a climate so varying, and where labour cannot be purchased, the scythe might often be introduced with advantage. But so little activity is shown in the business of harvesting, urgent as it almost always is, that we need not be surprised at any other kind of neglect. Taking the country altogether, more than half the loss experienced from the autumnal rains, the consequence of procrastination and indolence. It is often painful to see those crops which form half the support of the people, dead-ripe and blown away by the winds, or drenched in the rain till they are rotten; when, by timely reaping, by getting up at four instead of ten, and by really working instead of lounging about, talking and gazing, the whole might have been saved with the greatest ease.

6 WOMEN.

But I must not forget that I did see something, of which the modification was new, although the principle is common. Whether it proves that the Stornowegians think what Mahomet was falsely accused of teaching, namely, that women have no souls, I shall not, on so short an acquaintance, decide. Droves of these animals were collected in the neighbourhood, trudging into the town from the moors, with loads of peat on their backs. The men dig the peat, and the women supply the place of horses; being regularly trained to it. I was also informed that they did actually draw the harrows; but this I did not witness.

: portant, and, from the extension of the system of maritime crofting, has for some time been gradually increasing. Of course, I allude to fish; since, of any other, the Highlanders have little experience. In the great pastoral districts, the mutton of sheep that have died of braxy is generally dried or salted for use; but it is rare that the smaller or general order of tenants can afford to eat their sheep or lambs on any other terms. Sea-birds need scarcely be named; as their use is almost limited to St. Kilda; although there are many other situations where the example of those active people might be followed with advantage.

6 POTATOES.

To proceed now to another question connected with the food of the Highlands, it is very evident that the large increase of the population which has been experienced of late, and which is still in progress, has been chiefly the consequence of the introduction of the potatoe; although the better method of occupying lands, the increase of sheep, the diminution of horses, the aug mentation of fishing, and some other causes, must be allowed a share in the effect. Whether it has really been doubled in the Western Islands alone, within sixty years, as has been said, the documents are perhaps insufficient to allow us to judge. Yet, not only has this great and leading effect followed, but the supply of food, which has enabled the people to rear more children, producing this consequence, has also improved their strength and health; since, in a general sense, they are not stinted in the quantity. It is also to be believed that the people have gained in beauty from the same cause; that being very much determined by the sufficient or insufficient supply of food which children get in early life. Better fed children than those of the Highland peasantry there cannot be; and, to the disgrace of England, they are, on the average, in far better and higher condition than the children in large English towns, and where wages are high. The English labourer or manufacturer either starves his family to indulge himself in gin and porter, or else, instead of being fed with a sufficiency of cheap and substantial diet, they are, from false pride, starved on an insufficient proportion of wheaten bread, flesh meat, and tea. Another great advantage has arisen from the potatoe; and this is, that the food of the people is less subject to casualties and failures than when it consisted of grain. Except from early frosts, it seldom suffers; and any very considerable or extensive failures. of the Highland potatoe crops have, I believe, never yet occurred. The failure of grain crops, from bad seasons and various causes, still hap

pens; and formerly, when that was the sole dependence, the effects were serious, and often dreadful, even with a far inferior population. Ancient tales of famine are frequent; and it was under such visitations as these that the people had recourse to the singular and apparently savage expedient, long since abandoned, of bleeding their cattle; the expedient of a starving Arab. Of absolute famine now, there are no examples: but cases very nearly approaching to it have occurred, from the failure of the grain crops. Taking that part of the supply only at a third of all the food, it is plain that a half crop would leave a serious deficiency; and, according to the too common improvidence of the people, perhaps a month of famine. If, in many places, the small tenants are really unable to raise a surplus for contingencies, on account of the want of land, it is also but too true that they are not sufficiently provident against possible failures.

That something far too nearly approaching to famine does occasionally occur, even at the present day, is too well known.

"FAMINE.

I visited many cottages here, and found the people living on milk and cockles, without a particle of vegetable matter. In other parts of the country, where this resource was not to be obtained, their sufferings were severe; and although cases of death from mere famine were not said to have occurred, it is too well known that it often produces this effect, by the intervention of the diseases which it generates. At Loch Inver, I was informed that many, even of the young and strong, were confined to their beds from mere debility; and that a shoal of fish having come into the Bay, the men were, literally, unable to row their boats out to take them. Similar distress was experienced in many of the Highland districts, and among the islands, during the same season; but, in general, the maritime inhabitants suffered little, compared to those who had no access to fish, or who happened to be placed in situations where the fisheries were not productive.

These accidents, scarcities approaching to famine, which are now so rare in comparison with former times, offer a sufficient proof of the improvement which the Highlands have undergone ; not merely from the introduction of the potatoe, but from the change, so often reprobated by thoughtless and angry persons, which has taken place in the whole system of Highland tenantry?'

Having now seen how they manage things in the Highlands, we shall byand-by see if they are much better off in the Lowlands.