ITINERARIES. 



153 



only white linen, which hangs down their backs as if a 

 napkin were pinned about them. When they go abroad 

 none of them wear hats, but a party-coloured blanket, 

 which they call a plaid, over their heads and shoulders. 

 The women, generally, to us seemed none of the hand- 

 somest. They are not very cleanly in then' houses, and 

 but sluttish in dressing their meat. Their way of washing 

 linen is to tuck up their coats, and tread them with their 

 feet in a tub. They have a custom to make up the fronts 

 of their houses, even in their principal towns, with fir 

 boards nailed one over another, in which are often made 

 many round holes or windows to put out their heads. In 

 the best Scottish houses, even the king's palaces, the 

 window^s are not glazed throughout, but the upper part 

 only, the lower have two wooden shuts or folds to open 

 at pleasure and admit the fresh air. The Scots cannot 

 endure to hear their country or countrymen spoken 

 against. They have neither good bread, cheese, or drink. 

 They cannot make them, nor will they learn. Their 

 butter is very indifierent, 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, some- 

 times 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 ceiling they cover the chambers with fir boards 

 nailed on the roof within side. They have rarely any 

 bellows, or warming-pans. It is the manner 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 

 layed ground we saw which they manured with sea-wreck, 

 [sea- weeds.] The people seem to be very lazy, at least the 

 men, and may be frequently observed to plough in their 



