What We Have Long Used We Naturally Like, And Therefore The
Highlanders Were Unwilling To Lay Aside Their Plaid, Which
Yet to
an unprejudiced spectator must appear an incommodious and
cumbersome dress; for hanging loose upon the body, it must
Flutter
in a quick motion, or require one of the hands to keep it close.
The Romans always laid aside the gown when they had anything to do.
It was a dress so unsuitable to war, that the same word which
signified a gown signified peace. The chief use of a plaid seems
to be this, that they could commodiously wrap themselves in it,
when they were obliged to sleep without a better cover.
In our passage from Scotland to Sky, we were wet for the first time
with a shower. This was the beginning of the Highland winter,
after which we were told that a succession of three dry days was
not to be expected for many months. The winter of the Hebrides
consists of little more than rain and wind. As they are surrounded
by an ocean never frozen, the blasts that come to them over the
water are too much softened to have the power of congelation. The
salt loughs, or inlets of the sea, which shoot very far into the
island, never have any ice upon them, and the pools of fresh water
will never bear the walker. The snow that sometimes falls, is soon
dissolved by the air, or the rain.
This is not the description of a cruel climate, yet the dark months
are here a time of great distress; because the summer can do little
more than feed itself, and winter comes with its cold and its
scarcity upon families very slenderly provided.
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