Their gardens
afford them no great variety, but they have always some vegetables
on the table. Potatoes at least are never wanting, which, though
they have not known them long, are now one of the principal parts
of their food. They are not of the mealy, but the viscous kind.
Their more elaborate cookery, or made dishes, an Englishman at the
first taste is not likely to approve, but the culinary compositions
of every country are often such as become grateful to other nations
only by degrees; though I have read a French author, who, in the
elation of his heart, says, that French cookery pleases all
foreigners, but foreign cookery never satisfies a Frenchman.
Their suppers are, like their dinners, various and plentiful. The
table is always covered with elegant linen. Their plates for
common use are often of that kind of manufacture which is called
cream coloured, or queen's ware. They use silver on all occasions
where it is common in England, nor did I ever find the spoon of
horn, but in one house.
The knives are not often either very bright, or very sharp. They
are indeed instruments of which the Highlanders have not been long
acquainted with the general use. They were not regularly laid on
the table, before the prohibition of arms, and the change of dress.
Thirty years ago the Highlander wore his knife as a companion to
his dirk or dagger, and when the company sat down to meat, the men
who had knives, cut the flesh into small pieces for the women, who
with their fingers conveyed it to their mouths.
There was perhaps never any change of national manners so quick, so
great, and so general, as that which has operated in the Highlands,
by the last conquest, and the subsequent laws. We came thither too
late to see what we expected, a people of peculiar appearance, and
a system of antiquated life. The clans retain little now of their
original character, their ferocity of temper is softened, their
military ardour is extinguished, their dignity of independence is
depressed, their contempt of government subdued, and the reverence
for their chiefs abated. Of what they had before the late conquest
of their country, there remain only their language and their
poverty. Their language is attacked on every side. Schools are
erected, in which English only is taught, and there were lately
some who thought it reasonable to refuse them a version of the holy
scriptures, that they might have no monument of their mother-
tongue.
That their poverty is gradually abated, cannot be mentioned among
the unpleasing consequences of subjection. They are now acquainted
with money, and the possibility of gain will by degrees make them
industrious. Such is the effect of the late regulations, that a
longer journey than to the Highlands must be taken by him whose
curiosity pants for savage virtues and barbarous grandeur.
