MEMOIR OF KAY. 29 



spoken against. They have neither good bread, 

 cheese, or drink. They cannot make them, nor will 

 they learn. Their butter is very indifferent, and one 

 would wonder how they could contrive to make it so 

 bad. They use much pottage made of coal-wort, 

 which they call keal, sometimes broth of decorticated 

 barley. The ordinary country-houses are pitiful cots, 

 built of stone, and covered with turves, having in 

 them but one room, many of them no chimneys, the 

 windows very small holes, and not glazed. In the 

 most stately and fashionable houses in great towns, 

 instead of cieling, they cover the chambers with firr 

 boards, nailed on the roof within side. They have 

 rarely any bellows or warming-pans. It is the man- 

 ner in some places there, to lay on but one sheet 

 as large as two, turned up from the feet upwards. 

 The ground in the valleys and plains bears good 

 corn, but especially beer-barley or bigge, and oats, 

 but rarely wheat and rye. We observed little or 

 no fallow grounds in Scotland ; some laved ground 

 we saw, which they manured with sea-wreck. The 

 people seemed to be very lazy, at least the men, 

 and may be frequently observed to plow in their 

 cloaks. It is the fashion of them to wear cloaks 

 when they go abroad, but especially on Sundays 

 They lay out most they are worth in cloaths, and 

 a fellow that has scarce ten groats besides to help 

 himself with, you shall see come out of his srooaky 

 cottage clad like a gentleman."* 



* Itineraries^ p. 186. 



