300 Notes on Sport and Travel w 



for if they do, they will disdain to hunt, or willingly 

 to bring in their dogs. But if men be kind to them 

 and be in their habit, they are conquered by kindness, 

 and the sport will be plentiful.' Is not this, my 

 reader, a true touch of the humour of the proud 

 but kindly and warm-hearted Highlander, who, 

 Taylor telleth us, in his time for the most part 

 spoke nothing but — Irish? Now let us see what 

 garb this was which so endeared their guests to 

 them. 



' Their habit is shoes, with but one sole apiece,^ 

 and stockens which they call " short hose," ^ made of 

 a warm stuff of divers colours, which they call Tartan. 

 As for breeches, many of them, nor their forefathers, 

 never wore any, but a jerkin of the same stuff their 

 hose is of (which I deem a sort of long, non-button- 

 ing frock-coat), their garters being haybands, or 

 wreaths of hay or straw, with a plaid about their 

 shoulders, which is a mantle of divers colours, of 

 much finer and lighter stuff than their hose, with 

 flat blue caps on their heads,^ a handkerchief with 

 two knots about their neck.' Yea, marry, but no 



but by Englishmen whom Scotsmen smuggled across the Borders, 

 'and this often at forbidden times.' How soon Elizabeth's threat that 

 she would make Scotland a hunting-ground began to be fulfilled, 

 which shows her sagacity ! — Ed. 



^ Probably deerskin brogues. — Ed. 



2 It would be interesting to know whether these early people had 

 the art of ' turning the heel,' and making what we should now call a 

 stocking ; or whether, like the Bavarian highlander, the stocking was 

 only a leg-piece without a foot. — Ed. 



' Often with a steel lining. — Ed. 



