RUSH-LIGHTS BUCKIE-SHELL LAMPS. 61 



the Highlands. We invited him to sit down beside us, and at once 

 he sat down and entered into conversation with us about the 

 weather, crops, fishing, and other such obvious matters as are 

 seldom overlooked during the first five minutes of a roadside crack 

 at this season. By-and-by we asked him about the bundle of 

 rushes. There were too few of them to be of any use as thatch, 

 and we observed that they were not of the kind generally used 

 in basket-making a common amusement for the idle hours of 

 shepherds, herdboys, and others in the past generation, who made 

 very pretty rush baskets for carrying eggs, butter, and other such 

 light goods to the nearest shop, and bringing back the tea, sugar, 

 &c., usually taken in exchange. What were his rushes for then ] 

 He gathered them, he told us, from time to time, always selecting 

 the largest and best, for the sake of their pith, which served as wick 

 for his lamp ; and he showed us the process of extracting the pith 

 on the spot. He first split the rush longitudinally, by running his 

 thumb-nail along its length, and then pressing his thumb trans- 

 versely against the pith, he ran it along until the whole beautifully 

 soft and white substance was gathered into a bundle free of its skin, 

 the pith still remaining unbroken by the deftness of the process, 

 and easily extended at will to its original length. This pith is 

 inserted in the same manner as wick in the lamp, and answers its 

 purpose admirably. We recollect seeing the thing before, but it is 

 many years since, and we had thought that cotton had everywhere, 

 even in the remotest parts of the Highlands, long since superseded 

 the primitive rush pith as wick for lamps. "All the people about 

 me," said the old man, " now use paraffin lamps and cotton wicks, 

 but although perhaps I could afford these as well as they can, I 

 prefer the good old rush light of my boyhood. I remember," he 

 continued, " when all the people in our hamlet gave a day's work 

 to the tenant of the adjoining farm for leave to gather rushes for 

 their lamps in the proper season. Fish oil of our own manufacture 



