er, one inn by the sea-
side at Sconsor, in Sky, where the post-office is kept.

At the tables where a stranger is received, neither plenty nor delicacy
is wanting. A tract of land so thinly inhabited, must have much wild-
fowl; and I scarcely remember to have seen a dinner without them. The
moorgame is every where to be had. That the sea abounds with fish, needs
not be told, for it supplies a great part of Europe. The Isle of Sky has
stags and roebucks, but no hares. They sell very numerous droves of oxen
yearly to England, and therefore cannot be supposed to want beef at home.
Sheep and goats are in great numbers, and they have the common domestick
fowls.

But as here is nothing to be bought, every family must kill its own meat,
and roast part of it somewhat sooner than Apicius would prescribe. Every
kind of flesh is undoubtedly excelled by the variety and emulation of
English markets; but that which is not best may be yet very far from bad,
and he that shall complain of his fare in the Hebrides, has improved his
delicacy more than his manhood.

Their fowls are not like those plumped for sale by the poulterers of
London, but they are as good as other places commonly afford, except that
the geese, by feeding in the sea, have universally a fishy rankness.

These geese seem to be of a middle race, between the wild and domestick
kinds. They are so tame as to own a home, and so wild as sometimes to
fly quite away.

Their native bread is made of oats, or barley. Of oatmeal they spread
very thin cakes, coarse and hard, to which unaccustomed palates are not
easily reconciled. The barley cakes are thicker and softer; I began to
eat them without unwillingness; the blackness of their colour raises some
dislike, but the taste is not disagreeable. In most houses there is
wheat flower, with which we were sure to be treated, if we staid long
enough to have it kneaded and baked. As neither yeast nor leaven are
used among them, their bread of every kind is unfermented. They make
only cakes, and never mould a loaf.

A man of the Hebrides, for of the women's diet I can give no account, as
soon as he appears in the morning, swallows a glass of whisky; yet they
are not a drunken race, at least I never was present at much
intemperance; but no man is so abstemious as to refuse the morning dram,
which they call a skalk.

The word whisky signifies water, and is applied by way of eminence to
strong water, or distilled liquo