 inquired after is »Nae waur.«
 
21 In the fishing villages on the Firths of Forth and Tay, as well as elsewhere
in Scotland, the government is gyneocracy, as described in the text. In the
course of the late war, and during the alarm of invasion, a fleet of transports
entered the Firth of Forth under the convoy of some ships of war, which would
reply to no signals. A general alarm was excited, in consequence of which, all
the fishers, who were enrolled as sea-fencibles, got on board the gun-boats
which they were to man as occasion should require, and sailed to oppose the
supposed enemy. The foreigners proved to be Russians, with whom we were then at
peace. The county gentlemen of Mid-Lothian, pleased with the zeal displayed by
the sea-fencibles at a critical moment, passed a vote for presenting the
community of fishers with a silver punchbowl, to be used on occasions of
festivity. But the fisher-women, on hearing what was intended, put in their
claim to have some separate share in the intended honorary reward. The men, they
said, were their husbands; it was they who would have been sufferers if their
husbands had been killed, and it was by their permission and injunctions that
they embarked on board the gun-boats for the public service. They therefore
claimed to share the reward in some manner which should distinguish the female
patriotism which they had shown on the occasion. The gentlemen of the county
willingly admitted the claim; and without diminishing the value of their
compliment to the men, they made the females a present of a valuable brooch, to
fasten the plaid of the queen of the fisher-women for the time.
It may be further remarked, that these Nereids are punctilious among themselves,
and observe different ranks according to the commodities they deal in. One
experienced dame was heard to characterise a younger damsel as »a puir silly
thing, who had no ambition, and would never,« she prophesied, »rise above the
mussel-line of business.«
22 A single soldier means, in Scotch, a private soldier.
 
23 Massa-mora, an ancient name for a dungeon, derived from the Moorish language,
perhaps as far back as the time of the Crusades.
 
24 Pousowdie, - Miscellaneous mess.
 
25 The doctrine of Monkbarns on the origin of imprisonment for civil debt in
Scotland, may appear somewhat whimsical, but was referred to, and admitted to be
correct, by the Bench of the Supreme Scottish Court, on 5th December 1828, in
the case of
