entertainment, is made along the rock, in the direction of the lough,
sometimes by breaking off protuberances, and sometimes by cutting the
great mass of stone to a considerable depth. The fragments are piled in
a loose wall on either side, with apertures left at very short spaces, to
give a passage to the wintry currents. Part of it is bordered with low
trees, from which our guides gathered nuts, and would have had the
appearance of an English lane, except that an English lane is almost
always dirty. It has been made with great labour, but has this
advantage, that it cannot, without equal labour, be broken up.

Within our sight there were goats feeding or playing. The mountains have
red deer, but they came not within view; and if what is said of their
vigilance and subtlety be true, they have some claim to that palm of
wisdom, which the eastern philosopher, whom Alexander interrogated, gave
to those beasts which live furthest from men.

Near the way, by the water side, we espied a cottage. This was the first
Highland Hut that I had seen; and as our business was with life and
manners, we were willing to visit it. To enter a habitation without
leave, seems to be not considered here as rudeness or intrusion. The old
laws of hospitality still give this licence to a stranger.

A hut is constructed with loose stones, ranged for the most part with
some tendency to circularity. It must be placed where the wind cannot
act upon it with violence, because it has no cement; and where the water
will run easily away, because it has no floor but the naked ground. The
wall, which is commonly about six feet high, declines from the
perpendicular a little inward. Such rafters as can be procured are then
raised for a roof, and covered with heath, which makes a strong and warm
thatch, kept from flying off by ropes of twisted heath, of which the