nor lasting. The ashes are yellowish, and in a
large quantity. When they dig peat, they cut it into square pieces, and
pile it up to dry beside the house. In some places it has an offensive
smell. It is like wood charked for the smith. The common method of
making peat fires, is by heaping it on the hearth; but it burns well in
grates, and in the best houses is so used.

The common opinion is, that peat grows again where it has been cut;
which, as it seems to be chiefly a vegetable substance, is not unlikely
to be true, whether known or not to those who relate it.

There are water mills in Sky and Raasa; but where they are too far
distant, the house-wives grind their oats with a quern, or hand-mill,
which consists of two stones, about a foot and a half in diameter; the
lower is a little convex, to which the concavity of the upper must be
fitted. In the middle of the upper stone is a round hole, and on one
side is a long handle. The grinder sheds the corn gradually into the
hole with one hand, and works the handle round with the other. The corn
slides down the convexity of the lower stone, and by the motion of the
upper is ground in its passage. These stones are found in Lochabar.

The Islands afford few pleasures, except to the hardy sportsman, who can
tread the moor and climb the mountain. The distance of one family from
another, in a country where travelling has so much difficulty, makes
frequent intercourse impracticable. Visits last several days, and are
commonly paid by water; yet I never saw a boat furnished with benches, or
made commodious by any addition to the first fabric. Conveniences are
not missed where they never were enjoyed.

The solace which the bagpipe can give, they have long enjoyed; but among
other changes, which the last Revolution introduced, the use of the
bagpipe begins to be forgotten. Some of the chief families still
entertain a piper, whose office was anciently hereditary. Macrimmon was
piper to Macleod, and Rankin to Maclean of Col.

The tunes of the bagpipe are traditional. There has been in Sky, beyond
all time of memory, a college of pipers, under the direction of
Macrimmon, which is not quite extinct. There was another in Mull,
superintended by Rankin, which expired about sixteen years ago. To these
colleges, while the pipe retained its honour, the students of musick
repaired for education. I have had my dinner exhilarated by the bagpipe,
at Armidale, at Dunvegan, a