A hut is constructed with loose stones, ranged for the most part with some tendency to circularity.  It must be placed where the wind cannot act upon it with violence, because it has no cement; and where the water will run easily away, because it has no floor but the naked ground.  The wall, which is commonly about six feet high, declines from the perpendicular a little inward.  Such rafters as can be procured are then raised for a roof, and covered with heath, which makes a strong and warm thatch, kept from flying off by ropes of twisted heath, of which the ends, reaching from the center of the thatch to the top of the wall, are held firm by the weight of a large stone.  No light is admitted but at the entrance, and through a hole in the thatch, which gives vent to the smoke.  This hole is not directly over the fire, lest the rain should extinguish it; and the smoke therefore naturally fills the place before it escapes.  Such is the general structure of the houses in which one of the nations of this opulent and powerful island has been hitherto content to live.  Huts however are not more uniform than palaces; and this which we were inspecting was very far from one of the meanest, for it was divided into several apartments; and its inhabitants possessed such property as a pastoral poet might exalt into riches.

When we entered, we found an old woman boiling goats-flesh in a kettle.  She spoke little English, but we had interpreters at hand; and she was willing enough to display her whole system of economy.  She has five children, of which none are yet gone from her.  The eldest, a boy of thirteen, and her husband, who is eighty years old, were at work in the wood.  Her two next sons were gone to Inverness to buy meal, by which oatmeal is always meant.  Meal she considered as expensive food, and told us, that in Spring, when the goats gave milk, the children could live without it.  She is mistress of sixty goats, and I saw many kids in an enclosure at the end of her house.  She had also some poultry.  By the lake we saw a potatoe-garden, and a small spot of ground on which stood four shucks, containing each twelve sheaves of barley.  She has all this from the labour of their own hands, and for what is necessary to be bought, her kids and her chickens are sent to market.

With the true pastoral hospitality, she asked us to sit down and drink whisky.  She is religious, and though the kirk is four miles off, probably eight English miles, she goes thither every Sunday.  We gave her a shilling, and she begged snuff; for snuff is the luxury of a Highland cottage.

Soon afterwards we came to the General’s Hut, so called because it was the temporary abode of Wade, while he superintended the works upon the road.  It is now a house of entertainment for passengers, and we found it not ill stocked with provisions.

FALL OF FIERS