60 BERTHA'S VISIT TO HER 



themselves, loaded with whatever moveable pro- 

 perty they possessed, while the man and his son 

 began to drive away the sheep. A few words of 

 Gaelic recalled the men, but it was sometime 

 before the females ventured from their retreat, 

 and when they did, the impression they made 

 on us was not very favourable to the progress 

 of civilization in Rona; the mistress of the 

 family would have ill stood a comparison with 

 Iliglaik, whose accomplishments are so well 

 described by Captain Lyon. 



" Not even the solid Highland hut can with- 

 stand the violence of the wind in this region. 

 The dwelling is, therefore, excavated in the 

 earth, the wall requisite for the support of the 

 roof scarcely rising two feet above the surface, 

 and the whole is surrounded with turf stacks to 

 ward off the gales. The entrance to this sub- 

 terranean retreat is through a long winding pas- 

 sage, like the gallery of a mine, commencing 

 by an aperture not three feet high, and very 

 difficult to find. Were it not for the smoke, the 

 existence of a house could never be suspected ; 

 indeed, we had been talking to its possessor for 

 some time, before we discovered that we were 

 actually standing on the top of his castle. Like 

 a Kamtschatkan hut, it receives no other light 

 than that from the smoke hole ; it is floored with 

 ashes, and festooned and ornamented with strings 

 of dried fish. Its inmates, however, appeared to 



