SANDY ISLE. DISEASES OF THE HIGHLANDS. 471 



I have hinted at the deficiency of food among the 

 Highlanders. The introduction of the potatoe has done 

 so much to remove this once prevalent cause of misery 

 and depopulation, that such a want is scarcely suspected. 

 It is however still apparent. At present, it is true, the 

 Highlander rears a fair proportion of children, the average 

 number varying between three and four ; a great proof 

 of amelioration in the means of living. The children are 

 also universally strong, ruddy, and handsome, yielding 

 nothing in that respect to their better clothed and better 

 lodged neighbours of the low country, or of England. 

 This air of health and good feeding continues till the 

 age of labour, and for some space beyond it. But at 

 twenty, or shortly after, an evident change takes place. 

 The skin shrivels, the bones of the face project, and the 

 marks of age, already perceptible, increase rapidly to that 

 period in which it becomes sensible in the labouring 

 part of the community every where. After that, there is 

 perhaps no further comparative difference, and the limit 

 of the Highland labourer's life stands on a fair average 

 with that of the Lowlander or Englishman. This change 

 is most sensible in the women. Instances of beauty are 

 by no means uncommon in female children. But it 

 vanishes at seventeen, and shortly after, the marks of 

 age hasten on so rapidly that, (with deference to the 

 Highland fair it must be said,) they acquire that aspect 

 so dreaded by Queen Elizabeth, or the ancient fair one 

 recorded in the well known epigram of Plato. This effect 

 seems to proceed from the insufficiency of the food com- 

 pared to the labour ; and to those who have seen the 

 country I need scarcely say, that an equal, if not a greater 

 share of that labour, is often the lot of the females. There 

 is reason to suspect, from the greater durability of the 

 lower classes of the Irish, where potatoes form the sole 

 food, that this root is superior in its nutritive qualities to 

 oats or barley ; and we may therefore slight the misplaced 

 compassion of those who lament the hard fate of the 



