STROMNESS. "J 



At length, however, we made acquaintance 1824. 

 with an old woman, who took us into her July* 

 smoky cabin, and laid before us abundance of 

 roasted eggs, roasted potatoes, bannocks, 

 butter, and milk, while her husband produced 

 his ^' ain wee bottle," from which he poured 

 us some excellent whiskey. The old gentle- 

 man, who called himself a farmer, had several 

 acres under cultivation, but the hut in which 

 ^^ Christy" and he lived, was most miserable 

 and dirty, having no light but through the 

 smoke-hole in the roof. 



While the good farmer stood declaiming 

 before us on his visit to London many years 

 ago, we could not but admire his costume, 

 consisting of sufficiently ill-assorted articles of 

 various colours ; and he had completed the ar- 

 ray of his outward man by wearing a 7^ed wig, 

 which had been cropped or rather notched, 

 over a dark shock head of hair, w^hich peeped 

 like a fancy fringe from beneath the boun- 

 daries of this supplemental covering. The 

 ground of our friend was well tilled, as indeed 

 were all the other fields through w^hich we 

 passed, but the corn was only yet in blade. 



On the 2d of July we hoisted in two very 

 powerful little ponies, which Mr. Manico had 

 procured, as a great favour, at Kirkwall ; for 



