The “quelt,” as very ancient writers called it, is one of the few things that are left to remind Scotland of its once distinctive nationality. Together with the Gaelic and the pipes, it makes Scottish history peculiar among the histories of countries. In no other land have the distinguishing marks of a nationality that, as a separate kingdom, has ceased to exist been retained in almost all their original purity. Of the three things, the kilt is perhaps the most interesting. The language and the music have been, and are, confined to the people of the Highlands, either in or out of the Highlands; but the kilt, while no longer the everyday wear of Highland people, has found its way into non- Highland circles, and the tartan has become a fashionable dress. But still, and this is a peculiar thing, it remains the Highland garb, and must, wheresoever seen, be associated with a distinctive country and a distinctive people. The kilt is the most ancient of all garments. It is the development of the fig leaves of our first parents. Primitive man wrapped himself round with a piece of cloth, when he had cloth, caring little about the niceties of cut or fashion. When the cloth didn’t hang properly he, quite naturally, tied it round his waist with a string, and in so doing transformed his wrappings into a belted plaid, the immediate predecessor of the plaid and kilt. It was certainly not a sense of delicacy but a desire for outward show that led primitive man to clothe himself. Cæsar found the Britons with their bodies painted with woad, and they appeared naked in public. Afterwards they clothed themselves with skins of animals and with woollen garments, the latter of which was undoubtedly the string-bound plaid of the well-to-do Highlander.