ends, reaching from the center of the thatch to the top of the wall, are
held firm by the weight of a large stone. No light is admitted but at
the entrance, and through a hole in the thatch, which gives vent to the
smoke. This hole is not directly over the fire, lest the rain should
extinguish it; and the smoke therefore naturally fills the place before
it escapes. Such is the general structure of the houses in which one of
the nations of this opulent and powerful island has been hitherto content
to live. Huts however are not more uniform than palaces; and this which
we were inspecting was very far from one of the meanest, for it was
divided into several apartments; and its inhabitants possessed such
property as a pastoral poet might exalt into riches.

When we entered, we found an old woman boiling goats-flesh in a kettle.
She spoke little English, but we had interpreters at hand; and she was
willing enough to display her whole system of economy. She has five
children, of which none are yet gone from her. The eldest, a boy of
thirteen, and her husband, who is eighty years old, were at work in the
wood. Her two next sons were gone to Inverness to buy meal, by which
oatmeal is always meant. Meal she considered as expensive food, and told
us, that in Spring, when the goats gave milk, the children could live
without it. She is mistress of sixty goats, and I saw many kids in an
enclosure at the end of her house. She had also some poultry. By the
lake we saw a potatoe-garden, and a small spot of ground on which stood
four shucks, containing each twelve sheaves of barley. She has all this
from the labour of their own hands, and for what is necessary to be
bought, her kids and her chickens are sent to market.

With the true pastoral hospitality, she asked us to sit down and drink
whisky. She is religious, and though the kirk is four miles off,
probably eight English miles, she goes thither every Sunday. We gave her