70 Transactions. 



with heavy loads over slippery stones, and with the water, when 

 lowest, up to their middle, because they could not afford to pay 

 the impost. Indeed, these poor Highland women seem to have 

 been treated as beasts of burden. It is difficult to believe the 

 author when he says that " at low ebb, when the fishing boats 

 lie off at a considerable distance from the shore, the women tuck 

 up their coats to an indecent height and wade to the vessels, when 

 they receive their load of fish for sale ;" and that " when they have 

 landed the whole cargo they take the fishermen upon their backs 

 and carry them on shore in the same manner." 



As to matters ecclesiastical, we read : — " In this place there 

 are six ministers — three to the English and three to the Irish 

 (Gaelic) Church — who have each of them £100 per annum, none 

 having more than that stipend, nor any less than £50. Their 

 manner of preaching is with a whine, which they call the sough ; 

 and as they pray extempore, they are often betrayed into ludicrous 

 absurdities. They do not drink so much as a dram -without say- 

 ing a long grace over it ; and one of them was suspended for 

 riding on horseback on the Sabbath, though it was occasioned by 

 his not being able to pass a ford on Saturday evening on his way 

 to the kirk. By the general tenor of their preaching and their 

 proceedings as a synod, a stranger would be inclined to think that 

 they held nothing to be a sin but unchastity, nor a virtue but keep- 

 ing the Sabbath." 



After referring to the marriage ceremony and describing- 

 penny weddings, the author proceeds to detail the proceedings at 

 funerals. " The people are invited to ordinary burials by a man 

 who goes about with a bell, and at certain stations declares aloud 

 the death of the party, the name and place of abode ; this bell is 

 also tinkled before the funeral jjrocessiou. To the burial of per- 

 sons of higher rank an invitation is usually given by a printed 

 letter signed by the nearest relation ; but sometimes it is general 

 by beat of drum. The company, which is always numerous, meets 

 in the street at the door of the house, a convenient number of 

 whom (strangers are always the first) are then invited into a room, 

 where there are pyramids of cake and sweetmeats, to which some 

 dishes with pipes and tobacco are added, merely because it is an 

 old custom, for it is rare to see any smoking in Scotland. Each 

 of the nearest relations presents wine to every individual of the 

 company, and, as it is expected the guest when he has accepted 



