Old and rare Scottish tartans : $b with historical introduction and descriptive noticesStewart, Donald William
History
Old and rare Scottish tartans : $b with historical introduction and descriptive notices
Stewart, Donald William
Tartans -- Scotland
The Highland dress consists of a bonnet made of thrum without a
brim, a short coat, a waistcoat, longer by five or six inches, short
stockings, and brogues, or pumps without heels. By the way, they cut
holes in their brogues, though new made, to let out the water, when
they have far to go and rivers to pass: this they do to preserve their
feet from galling.
Few besides gentlemen wear the _trowze_,—that is, the breeches and
stockings all of one piece, and drawn on together; over this habit
they wear a plaid, which is usually three yards long and two breadths
wide, and the whole garb is made of chequered tartan, or plaiding:
this, with the sword and pistol, is called a _full dress_, and, to a
well-proportioned man, with any tolerable air, it makes an agreeable
figure; but this you have seen in London, and it is chiefly their
mode of dressing when they are in the Lowlands, or when they make a
neighbouring visit, or go anywhere on horseback; but when those among
them who travel on foot, and have not attendants to carry them over
the waters, they vary it into the _quelt_ [kilt], which is a manner I
am about to describe.
The common habit of the ordinary Highlanders is far from being
acceptable to the eye: with them a small part of the plaid, which
is not so large as the former, is set in folds and girt round the
waist, to make of it a short petticoat that reaches half way down
the thigh, and the rest is brought over the shoulders, and then
fastened before, below the neck, often with a fork, and sometimes
with a bodkin or sharpened piece of stick, so that they make pretty
nearly the appearance of the poor women in London when they bring
their gowns over their heads to shelter them from the rain. In this
way of wearing the plaid, they have sometimes nothing else to cover
them, and are often barefoot; but some I have seen shod with a kind
of pumps, made out of a raw cow-hide, with the hair turned outward,
which being ill made, the wearer’s foot looked something like those
of a rough-footed hen or pigeon: these are called _quarrants_, and
are not only offensive to the sight, but intolerable to the smell of
those who are near them. The stocking rises no higher than the thick
of the calf, and from the middle of the thigh to the middle of the leg
is a naked space, which, being exposed to all weathers, becomes tanned
and freckled, and the joint being mostly infected with the country
distemper, the whole is very disagreeable to the eye. This dress is
called the _quelt_; and, for the most part, they wear the petticoat
so very short, that in a windy day, going up a hill, or stooping, the
indecency of it is plainly discovered....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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