Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

4J0
SKY.
SKY. STRATH. SLEAT. DUNSCAITH.
STRATHAIRD. SPAR CAVE.
As I was riding gingerly along a road which did not
admit of rapid movements, I overtook a horse carrying a
deal board. If you do not know how this matter is ma-
naged, it is done on the true statical principle of the equi-
librium ; just as Lucian's load was balanced when he
acted the part of an ass. The said deal, being slung on
one side of a pack saddle, is counterpoised by a pannier
full of stones, and trailed along the ground. Persons
with no more philosophy than you and I, might per-
haps imagine that two deals would counterpoise each
other; but I understood that one was a sufficient load for
a horse ; an argument against which nothing could
be offered. As there was a whole ship-load of deal
boards to be thus transferred over fifteen miles of a stony
track, I proposed to the master mason to screw a Hano-
verian truck into the lower end, to diminish the friction
and the draught. But this was too much trouble : though
the sheave of one of the ship's blocks could have been
adapted in half an hour.
" It had always been done in
the same way." The appointments of these country
horses are picturesque, at least ; and that is a great merit
in the eyes of a tourist. A Highland horse with a bundle
of hay on his back, may, when seen through a fog, con-
vey a vague notion of some strange ship under sail. The
sprit-sail yard and braces are represented by the crupper,
which consists of a pole of four feet long, placed under
his tail, and braced forward a midships by two straw
ropes. As to the expedient for a bridle, it is well known.