The picture of Wales is that of a not less primitive society[33]. The Welsh do not congregate in towns, or in villages, or in fortified places, but live solitary in the woods; they build no sumptuous houses of stone and lime, but only ozier booths, sufficient for the year, which they run up with little labour or cost. They have neither orchards nor gardens, and little else than pasture land. They partake of a sober meal in the evening, and if there should be little or nothing to eat at the close of day, they wait patiently until the next evening. They do not use table-cloths nor towels; they are more natural than neat (_naturae magis student quam nitori_). They lie down to sleep in their day clothes, all in one room, with a coarse covering drawn over them, their feet to the fire, lying close to keep each other warm, and when they are sore on one side from lying on the hard floor, they turn over to the other. There are no beggars among this nation. It is of interest, from the point of view of the “positive checks” of Malthus, to note that Giraldus more than hints at the practice of a grosser form of immorality than he had charged the Irish with. Spinning and weaving were of course not unknown, for the hard and rough blanket mentioned above was a native product. By the time that Higden wrote (about 1340), he has to record a considerable advance in the civilization of Wales. Having used the description of Giraldus, he adds: “They now acquire property, apply themselves to agriculture, and live in towns[34].” But in the reign of Henry II., it was found easy to bring the rebellious Welsh to terms by stopping the supplies of corn from England, upon which they were largely dependent[35]. Of the condition of Scotland in the twelfth century we have no such sketch as Giraldus has left for Wales and Ireland. Uncivilized compared with England, the northern part of the island must certainly have been, if we may trust the indignant references by Simeon of Durham and Henry of Huntingdon to the savage practices of the Scots who swarmed over the border, with or without their king to lead them, or the remark by William of Malmesbury concerning the Scots who went on the Crusade leaving behind them the insects of their native country.