MEMOIR OF RAY. 
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 belloivs or luarming-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 layed 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 smoaky 
cottage clad like a gentleman.”* 
* Itineraries, p. 186. 
