When the house is small, and the company very numerous, the partitions are frequently taken down, and the whole “biel” thrown into one space. A large table, the entire length of the house, is formed of deal planks laid upon tressels, and covered with a succession of table-cloths, white though coarse. The quantity of the dinner is answerable to the space which it is to cover: it generally consists of barley broth, or cock-a-leeky, boiled fowls, roasted ducks, joints of meat, sheep’s heads, oat and barley cakes, butter, and cheese; and in summer, frothed buttermilk, and slam. In the glens where goats are kept, haunches of these animals and roasted kids are also added to the feast. In the olden time, venison and all kinds of game, from the cappercalich to the grouse, were also furnished; but since the breach of the feudal system, and its privileges, the highland lairds have become like other proprietors in the regulation of their game, and have prohibited its slaughter to their tenants upon pain of banishment. Yet the cheer of the dinner is not so remarkable as the gear of the guests. No stranger who looked along the board could recognise in their “braws” the individuals whom the day before he had seen in the mill, the field, or the “smiddie.” The men are generally dressed to the best of their power in the lowland fashion. There are still a few who have the spirit, and who take a pride, to appear in the noble dress of their ancestors. These are always considered as an honour and an ornament to the day. So far however has habit altered the custom of the people, even against their own approbation, that notwithstanding the convenience and respect attached to the tartans, they are generally laid aside. But though the men are nothing deficient in the disposition to set themselves off in the lowland fashions, from the superior expense of cloth and other materials of a masculine dress, they are by no means so gay as the lasses. Girls, who the yester even were seen bare-headed and bare-footed, lightly dressed in a blue flannel petticoat and dark linen jacket, are now busked in white frocks, riband sashes, cotton stockings on their feet, and artificial flowers on their heads. The “merchant’s” and the miller’s daughters frequently exhibit the last fashion from Edinburgh, and are beautified and garnished with escalloped trimmings, tabbed sleeves, tucks, lace, gathers, and French frills! As it has been discovered that tartan is nothing esteemed in London, little or none is to be seen, except in the red plaid or broached tunic of some old wife, whose days of gayety are past, but who still loves that with which she was gay in her youth. It is to be regretted that Dr. Samuel Johnson had not lived to witness these dawnings of _reason_ and _improvement_; his philosophical mind might have rejoiced in the symptoms of approaching “_civilization_” among the highlanders.