an account of particular parks, they are innumerable, every small house having a few sodds thrown into a little bank about it, and this for the state of the business (forsooth) must be called a park though not a pole of land in it.

"Fowl are as scarce here as birds of paradise, the charity of the inhabitants denying harbour to such celestial animals, though gulls and cormorants abound, there being a greater sympathy betwixt them. There is one sort of ravenous fowl amongst them that has one web foot, one foot suited for land and another for water; but whether or no this fowl (being particular to this country) be not the lively picture of the inhabitants, I shall leave to wiser conjectures.

"Their cities are poor and populous, especially Edenborough, their metropolis, which so well suits with the inhabitants, that one character will serve them both, viz. high and dirty. The houses mount seven or eight stories high, with many families on one floor, one room being sufficient for all occasions, eating, drinking, sleeping, &c. &c. The town is like. a double comb (an engine not commonly knowa amongst them) one great street, and each side stockt with narrow allies, which I mistook for common shores. Some of the kirks have been of antient foundations, and well and regularly built, but order and uniformity is in perfect antipathy to the humour of this nation, these goodly structures being either wholly destroyed (as at St. Andrews and Elgin, where, by the remaining ruins, you may see what it was in perfec, tion) or very much defaced; they make use of nó quires, those are either quite pulled down, or converted into another kirk, for it is common here to have three,

four,

four, or five kirks under one roof, which being preserved entire, would have made one good church, but they could not then have had preaching enough in it.

"The castles of defence in this country are almost impregnable, only to be taken by treachery or long siege, their water failing them soonest; they are built upon high and almost inaccessible rocks, only one forced passage up to them, so that a few men may easily defend them. Indeed all the gentlemen's houses are strong castles, they being so treacherous one to another, that they are forced to defend themselves in strong holds; they are commonly built upon some single rock in the sea, or some high precipice near the mid-land, with many towers and strong iron grates before their windows (the lower part whereof, is only a'woodden shutter, and the upper part glass) so that they look more like prisons than houses of reception; some few houses there are of late erection, that are built in a better form, with good walks and gardens about them, but their fruit rarely comes to any perfection. The houses of the commonalty are very mean, mud-wall and thatch the best; but the poorer sort live in such miserable hutts as never eye beheld; men, women, and children, pigg altogether in a poor mousehole of mud, heath, and such like matter. In some parts where turf is plentiful, they build up little cabbins thereof with arched roofs of turf, without a stick of timber in it; when the house is dry enough to burn, it serves them for fuel, and they remove to another. The habit of the people is very different, according to the qualities or the places they live in, as Low-land or High-land men. The Low-land gentry go well enough habited, but the poorer sort go (almost) naked, only

an

an old cloak, or a part of their bed-cloaths thrown over them. The Highlanders wear slashed doublets, com. monly without breeches, only a plad tyed about their wasts, &c. thrown over one shoulder, with short stockings to the gartering place, their knees and part of their thighs being naked; others have breeches and stockings all of a piece of plad ware, close to their thighs; in one side of their girdle sticks a durk or skean, about a foot or half a yard long, very sharp, and the back of it filed into divers notches, wherein they put poyson; on the other side a brace (at least) of brass pistols; nor is this honour sufficient; if they can purchase more, they must have a long swinging sword.

"The people are proud, arrogant, vain-glorious boasters, bloody, barbarous, and inhuman butchers. Couzenage and theft is in perfection amongst them, and they are perfect English haters; they shew their pride in exalting themselves and depressing their neighbours. When the palace at Edenburgh is finished, they exu pect his Majesty will leave his rotten house at Whites Hall, and live splendidly amongst his nown countrey men the Scots; for they say that Englishmen are very much beholden to them that we have their King amongst us. The nobility and gentry lord it over their poor tenants and use them worse than galley slaves; they are all bound to serve them, nien, women, and children; the first fruits is always the fandlord's due, he is the man that must first board all the young married women within his lairdship, and their sons are all his slaves, so that any mean laird will have six or teh more followers.".

The

The following extract is extremely curious, as it Dears a similarity to one of those extraordinary cir cumstances mentioned by Bruce, as occurring in the course of his travels, and which, in some degree, brought his work into disrepute.

Their cruelty descends to their beasts; it being a custom in some places to feast upon a living cow, they tye in the middle of them, near a great fire, and then cut collops of this poor living beast, and broil them on the fire, till they have mangled her all to pieces; nay, sometimes they will only cut off as much as will satisfie their present appetites, and let her go till their greedy stomacks calls for a new supply; such horrible cruelty as can scarce be parallel'd in the whole world! Their theft is so well known that it needs no proving; they are forced to keep watch over all they have, to secure it; their cattle are watched day and night, or otherwise they would be over-grown by morning. In the Highlands they do it publicly before the face of the sun; if one man has two cows, and another wants, he shall soon supply himself from his neighbour, who can find no remedy for it. The gentry keep an armory in their own houses, furnished with several sorts of fire arms, pikes, and halberts, with which they arm their followers, to secure themselves from the rapine of their neighbourhood.

"Their drink is ale made of beer malt, and tunned up in a small vessel, called a cogue: after it has stood a few hours, they drink it out of the cogue, yest and all; the better sort brew it in larger quantities, and drink it in wooden queighs, but it is sorry stuff, yet excellent for preparing bird-lime;. but wine is the great drink

2

with the gentry, which they pour in like fishes, as if it were their natural element; the glasses they drink out of, are considerably large, and they always fill them to the brim, and away with it; some of them have arrived at the perfection to tope brandy at the same rate sure these are a bowl above Bacchus, and of right ought to have a nobler throne than an hogshead.

"Musick they have, but not the harmony of the spheres, but loud terrene noises, like the bellowing of beasts; the loud bagpipe is their chief delight; stringed instruments are too soft to penetrate the organs of their ears that are only pleased with sounds of substance.

"The highways in Scotland are tolerably good, which is the greatest comfort a traveller meets with amongst them; they have not inus, but changehouses (as they call them) poor small cottages, where you must be content to take what you find, perhaps eggs with chucks in them, and some lang-cale; at the better sort of them, a dish of chop'd chickens, which they esteem a dainty dish, and will take it unkindly if you do not eat very heartily of it, though for the most part you may make a meal with the sight of the fare, and be satisfied with the steam only, like the inhabitants of the world in the moon; your horses must be sent to a stabler's (for the change-houses have no lodging for them) where they may feed' voluptuously on straw only, for grass is not to be had, and hay is so much a stranger to them, that they are scarce familiar with the name of it.

"The Scotch gentry commonly travel from one -friend's house to another, so seldom make use of a ehange-house; their way is to hire a horse and a mån for two pence a mile; they ride on the horse thirty or forty