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O'.ci Highland Industries. 391
turn overlaid with (li\ ots or sods and linislicd with tliatch of straw.
The interior was iloored witli beaten clay and divided into two or
more rooms by a partition of slabs or cabers, the interstices beini^
filled in with clay and straw, or in more ambitious cases, wattled
with hazel and smoothened with clay. The windows were half
glazed with course glass and the lower half of timbin", with doors
hinged to open for ventilation. This was the Lowlander's cottage,
but amongst the hills and on the West Coast the house was still
more primitive, in these cases the materials had to be used of a
simpler kind. The walls are ilrystcne, facingoutside and infilled with
turf in the heart, the roof formed of trees and cabers undressed, and
roughly fitted as they came to hand. 'J'he construction was also different.
When a Highlander began to build his house he commenced
by fixing tl'.e main couples at certain intervals, and the lower portion
was let into the ground like a post. To the top of these the rafters
were secured "by a wooden pin and tied across by a tie Ijeam.
At tlie apex where the rafters met and crossed each other was
laid longitudinally a long tree or beam, on which the smaller
cabers or rafters and thatch depended and rested, and hence was
called the roof-tree, and on it the main security of the fabric depended,
and displacing the roof-tree was certain to bring the
whole fabric to the ground, and hence, in the importance of the
roof tree, and the common and genial toast, " To the Roof-tree,"
no doubt had reference to this important feature in the structure.
The eli'ect of those old Highland roofs w^as extremely good and
picturesque, and but few of them now remain ; they are fast disappearing
before the manufactured timber and slate. The important
feature of these houses and roofs is that they were entirely
the work of the natives, and required no foreign or skilled labour
in their production ; they were entirely the work of the founder,
who was his own architect and contractor. The cost was in those
days trifling, the labour not being taken into account ; but, so
scarce was, and still is, timber on the West Coast, that a crofter
removing claims and often carries, the roof with him. The
fire was placed on a stone slab or hearth in the centi'e of the floor,
and the smoke allowed to find its exit through sundry holes in the
roof. The result is that a large portion condenses on the rafters of
the house and forms a rich dark brown varnish, which is utilised
by the crofter as manure, and I have seen a good picture painted
with this varnish, the effect much resembling sepia. The custom
of unroofing annually is still practised, and I have often seen the
roof lying on the hillside getting washed with the rain. The neighbours,
on the occasion of a rooting, lend a helping hand, and I