3i6 Notes on Sport and Travel n 



are the national instrument of North Britain, and 

 peculiarly appertain to that land, we shall not have 

 much trouble. Every traveller knovveth that he 

 findeth them everywhere in the old world, and every 

 reader that they were in use in South Britain as late, 

 at least, as the time of Captain Cook, who tells us 

 that on encountering certain 'salvages,' he caused 

 bagpipes and fifers to play and the drums to beat. 

 The first two they did not regard, but the latter 

 caused some little attention. A strange savage 

 indeed, and a bold, who was not moved in some 

 manner by the first skirling of the pipes ! In 

 the days of good Queen Bess and the ' later James,' 

 the pipes were common in England ; and the pipers 

 of Lincolnshire were considered very eminent in 

 their art, the millers being particularly addicted to 

 them,^ either from their having spare time for practice 

 whilst their corn was a-grinding, or from the clatter 

 and clapper of the mill somewhat abating the noisome- 

 ness of the noise. In those days it was the custom 

 for English squires and wealthy yeomen to hire two 

 of these bagpipers about Christmas, or Yule-time, to 

 play for the dancing of their hinds and serving-folk. 

 The pipes may be seen strangely played once 

 only in the year in the island of Malta, these being 

 cunningly made out of a whole pig's skin, all his 

 legs but two being sealed up, and pipes put into the 

 others, whereby, by squeezings and puffings, they 



1 See Chaucer's Miller of Trumpwgton, also Shakespeare, passitii, 

 and Robert Armin's Nest of Ninnies, 1608.— Ed. 



