[20] “An English lady, who found herself something decaying in her health, and was advised to go among the hills, and drink goat’s milk or whey, told me lately, that seeing a Highlander basking at the foot of a hill in his full dress, while his wife and her mother were hard at work in reaping the oats, she asked the old woman how she could be contented to see her daughter labour in that manner, while her husband was only an idle spectator? And to this the woman answered, that her son-in-law was a _gentleman_, and it would be a disparagement to him to do any such work; and that both she and her daughter too were sufficiently honoured by the alliance. This instance, I own, has something particular in it, as such; but the thing is very common, _à la Palatine_, among the middling sort of people.”--_Burt’s Letters_, vol. ii. p. 45. The Highlander at home is indolent. It is with impatience that he allows himself to be diverted from his favourite occupation of traversing the mountains and moors in looking after his flocks, a few days in spring and autumn, for the purposes of his narrow scheme of agriculture. It is remarked, however, that the Highlander, when removed beyond his native bounds, is found capable of abundant exertion and industry.--_Graham’s Perthshire_, 235. [21] Walker’s _Hebrides_, &c., vol. i. p. 197. [22] _Old Statistical Account_, vol. x. p. 17. [23] See accounts of various Highland parishes in the _Old Statistical Account_. [24] Walker’s _Hebrides_, &c., vol. ii. p. 159. [25] Burt’s _Letters_, vol. ii. p. 38. [26] Still they would seem to have been of comparatively little use for farming operations; for Dr Walker, writing about 1760, when the breed was at least no worse than it was previous to 1745, speaks thus:--“The number of horses is by far too great upon every Highland farm. They are so numerous, because they are inefficient; and they are inefficient, because they have neither stature nor food to render them sufficiently useful. Their number has never been restrained by the authority of the landlords, like that of the sheep. For in many places, they are bred and sold off the farm to advantage, being sent in droves to the south. In this case, their numbers upon a farm may be proper. But in general, there are six, eight, or ten horses upon the smaller farms, and sixteen, twenty, or more upon the larger; without any being bred for sale, and even few for supporting the stock. None of them perform the work of a horse; even where such numbers are kept, and purely for labour, each of them, in many places, do not plough two acres of land annually. They get no food the whole year round, but what they can pick up upon the hills, and their sustenance is therefore unluckily accounted as nothing.” [27] _Hebrides_, &c., vol. ii. p. 50. [28] A penny land apparently contained about the tenth part of a davoch, _i.e._, about forty acres.