300 TOUR IN SUTHERLANDSHIRE. 



away from the general utility of the garment, forms a pocket 

 of wondrous capacity, in which, without inconvenience to the 

 wearer, no small amount of weight and bulk may be carried. 

 The weakly lamb often is taken home in this warm recep- 

 tacle, while the anxious ewe follows, bleating incessantly, but 

 apparently with perfect confidence in the good intentions of 

 her master. In fact, its uses are endless ; and those, and 

 those only, know its real value who have thoroughly learnt 

 how to put it on, so as to suit all weathers, all states of the 

 atmosphere, and, above all, the direction and power of the 

 wind. 



A good plaid is not, however, always to be bought at a 

 shop ; and unless the wool be new and well spun, and the 

 fabric tight and regular, it will disappoint the wearer. When 

 I speak of new wool, I mean that the wool of which the plaid 

 is made should be new. But in these days, when all manu- 

 facturing processes are cheap, and the demand for woollen 

 goods enormous, great quantities of old and worn-out clothes 

 are ground, or rather teased up again, with machinery invented 

 for the purpose, and are rewove into new cloth and plaiding. 

 The worthlessness of all goods in which this renovated trash 

 forms a considerable portion may easily be imagined. 



I am inclined to think that in the smaller woollen manu- 

 factories such tricks are less easily and less frequently 

 played. At the bonny and pleasant little town of Torres I 

 have for many years had most excellent and trustworthy 

 pieces of plaiding made for me of all degrees of fineness and 

 coarseness ; not only rough, coarse fabrics made of black- 

 faced wool, for a winter dreadnought shooting coat, impervious 

 to cold or wet, but also the finest and softest plaiding for 

 ladies' dresses. Nor did I ever put any of my Torres-made 

 stuff into the hands of a tailor, Scotch or English, without its 

 being pronounced superlative of its kind. 



Nothing is so invisible on the hill-side as the common 

 shepherd's check of a small pattern. It forms a tout ensemble 

 of an indistinct grey colour, which is most difficult to 

 distinguish from a grey stone or rock ; indeed, at a certain 

 distance this kind of grey becomes almost invisible. I have 

 tried many shades of colour, but never found anything so 

 suited to purposes of concealment as the common small-sized 

 black and white check. 



Dressed in this kind of stuff, and sitting motionless against 

 a rock, I have seen a roebuck, or even a red deer, approach 



