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.
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