PART III. ARCHITECTURE, 131 



Highlands ; in others, blue slate, as in Peebleshire ; greystone 

 slate, as in Kircudbright ; or red flagstone, as in most parts of 

 Dumfriesshire. In every case, the roof being flatter, light gar- 

 rets were inadmissible ; and of course windows were seldom 

 made in the gable ends or in the sides of the roof. — [See 

 Plate V. fig. 2.] 



This cottage being peculiar to poor countries, as in those 

 rocks and stones most generally abound, the cottagers were sel- 

 dom blessed with a cow, or even pigs, and hence had no occa- 

 sion to add appendages, as in the other case. Fuel and most 

 other things were lodged under the principal roof. Happily, 

 in all the improving counties of the north, the practice of giv- 

 ing cows to all the farm servants is becoming general ; and the 

 pleasing appendages which they occasion begin to appear in 

 many of the counties south of Edinburgh. In most of the 

 northern and western counties, however, there still exists a pe- 

 culiar formality, or sense of imagined dignity, which manifests 

 itself upon every occasion, both in the physical and moral ac- 

 tions of the inhabitants. They are strict and formal in their 

 religion ; and so rigid in regard to symmetry, which, in a coun- 

 try so very irregular, it is natural to imagine will be the most 

 striking and generally perceived beauty, that rather than make 

 a cottage irregular by an exterior appendage (necessary for the 

 cow) they extend it in length, adding a gable and chimney 



