The
Mountains Have Red Deer, But They Came Not Within View; And If What
Is Said Of Their Vigilance And Subtlety Be True, They Have Some
Claim To That Palm Of Wisdom, Which The Eastern Philosopher, Whom
Alexander Interrogated, Gave To Those Beasts Which Live Furthest
From Men.
Near the way, by the water side, we espied a cottage.
This was the
first Highland Hut that I had seen; and as our business was with
life and manners, we were willing to visit it. To enter a
habitation without leave, seems to be not considered here as
rudeness or intrusion. The old laws of hospitality still give this
licence to a stranger.
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
Towards evening we crossed, by a bridge, the river which makes the
celebrated fall of Fiers. The country at the bridge strikes the
imagination with all the gloom and grandeur of Siberian solitude.
The way makes a flexure, and the mountains, covered with trees,
rise at once on the left hand and in the front. We desired our
guides to shew us the fall, and dismounting, clambered over very
rugged crags, till I began to wish that our curiosity might have
been gratified with less trouble and danger. We came at last to a
place where we could overlook the river, and saw a channel torn, as
it seems, through black piles of stone, by which the stream is
obstructed and broken, till it comes to a very steep descent, of
such dreadful depth, that we were naturally inclined to turn aside
our eyes.
But we visited the place at an unseasonable time, and found it
divested of its dignity and terror. Nature never gives every thing
at once. A long continuance of dry weather, which made the rest of
the way easy and delightful, deprived us of the pleasure expected
from the fall of Fiers. The river having now no water but what the
springs supply, showed us only a swift current, clear and shallow,
fretting over the asperities of the rocky bottom, and we were left
to exercise our thoughts, by endeavouring to conceive the effect of
a thousand streams poured from the mountains into one channel,
struggling for expansion in a narrow passage, exasperated by rocks
rising in their way, and at last discharging all their violence of
waters by a sudden fall through the horrid chasm.
The way now grew less easy, descending by an uneven declivity, but
without either dirt or danger. We did not arrive at Fort Augustus
till it was late. Mr. Boswell, who, between his father's merit and
his own, is sure of reception wherever he comes, sent a servant
before to beg admission and entertainment for that night. Mr.
Trapaud, the governor, treated us with that courtesy which is so
closely connected with the military character. He came out to meet
us beyond the gates, and apologized that, at so late an hour, the
rules of a garrison suffered him to give us entrance only at the
postern.
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