Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

FOOD OF THE HIGHLANDS. 335
grain or potatoes. To say that the introduction of this
practice is impossible, is to argue against all experience :
it may possibly not be very easy ; but a real philan-
thropist, he who shall exert himself personally, on his
own estate, in the field, and among the people, instead
of sitting down to fashionable canting in the pages of a
magazine, will not easily fail of being rewarded with
success. If half of the talk and trouble which has been
bestowed on kilts and such like follies, were directed
to this improvement, if those who labour to restore their
people to as much of the barbarism of antiquity as they
can compass, would bestow the same energy on really
bettering their condition, they would scarcely be dis-
appointed ; while, if to be contented with the quiet
reward of an approving conscience were to them more
valuable than the unmeaning applause which a few an-
nual paragraphs bestow on that shadowy and unintelli-
gible entity, a " true Highlander," they would assuredly
sleep sounder after contemplating fifty kale yards of their
own creation, than from drinking as many toasts to Clan
na Gael or Clymore and Breachan. As to myself, if I
were a Highland Chief, I would let my people wear as
many breeches as a Dutchman, provided they would
also add to them, even cole slaw or sour krout.
It is marvellous, on physical and political considera-
tions, that the Highlanders should so totally neglect what
is so attainable and would be so advantageous. On one
articleofgardening, it is marvellous in an antiquarian and
historical view. Among their Danish or Norwegian an-
cestors, the leek was venerated, as much at least as it was
in ancient Egypt ; and it has never been denied that
the Egyptians ate their Gods ; as the Turks accuse the
Catholics of doing still. The grass that grew in the
Danish Paradise consisted of leeks. To describe a land
flowing with milk and honey, as we call it, the Scandina-