‘Misery and penury’ in Fife left traveller in 1801 less than impressed.

● DUNDEE: “Internally it resembles a Continental town – that is, the houses are old, lofty, and dark – and many of the streets gloomy, ill-swept, and infested with pestilent odours.” SUTHERLAND, A, A Summer Ramble in the North Highlands, Edinburgh, 1825. “Their butter but little better than grease we usually grease cart wheels with.” FRANCK, R, Northern Memoirs calculated for the Meridian of Scotland…writ in the year 1658, Edinburgh, 1821.

● FIFE: “Indeed our pleasure from viewing the country was much diminished by the contemplation of the penury and misery of the inhabitants; such squalid, wretched, emaciated, rude, inhuman, dejected, lifeless, indolent, spiritless, sluggish beings we had never beheld.” BRISTED, J, A Pedestrian Tour through part of the Highlands of Scotland in 1801, London, 1803.

● ABERFELDY: “Aberfeldy is a place that might properly be called Aberfilthy, for marvellously foul it is. You enter through a beggarly street and arrive at a dirty inn.” SOUTHEY, R, Journal of a tour in Scotland in 1819, London, 1929.

● DUNBLANE: “It is a populous, but dirty place, with nothing interesting about it, except the ruins of the large cathedral.” CARTER, N, Letters from Europe comprising The Journal of a Tour through… Scotland… in 1825, New York, 1827.

● MIDGES: “Small flies, alias midges… the little miscreants are the very torture of life in Skye. They start in ravenous armed myriads, making work utterly impossible, till at last, with fevered blood, and face and hands literally swollen by their attacks… you have to leave the spot.” GORDON CUMMING, C, From the Hebrides to the Himalayas, London, 1876.

● HAGGIS: “This singular compound is boiled and brought to the table without being stripped of its envelope; it is cut into slices, like pudding, and eaten without any addition. Its taste is fat and heavy, nor did I feel any regret that the haggis was not an American dish.” SILLIMAN, B, A Journal of Travels in England, Holland and Scotland… in the years 1805 and 1806, New York, 1810.