'The Shetland cottage or hut is of the rudest description. It is
usually built of undressed stone, with a cement of clay or turf.
Over the rafters is laid a covering of pones, divots, or flaas,* and
above this again a thatch of straw, bound down with ropes of
heather, weighted at the ends with stones, as a protection against
the high winds which are so prevalent. Chimneys and windows
are rarely to be seen. One or more holes in the roof permit the
escape of the smoke, and at the same time admit light. Open
doors, the thatched roof, and loose joinings everywhere, insure a
certain ventilation, without which the dwellings would often be
more unhealthy than many in the lanes of our large cities. To this,
there is no doubt, we must attribute the comparative absence of
fever, the occasional presence of which, I think, is greatly due to
that violation of the plainest law of nature, the box-bed. This evil
is often intensified in Shetland by having the beds arranged in tiers
one above the other, in ship fashion, with the apertures of access
reduced to the smallest possible size.

'Drainage is wholly unattended to, and the dunghill is invariably
found at the very door. As the house is entered, the visitor first
comes upon that part allotted to the cattle, which in summer are
out night and day, but in winter are chiefly within doors. Their
dung is frequently allowed to accumulate about them; and I was
told that this part of the house is sometimes used by the family in
winter as a privy. Passing through the byre, the human habitation
is reached. The separation between it and the part for the cattle is
ingeniously effected by an arrangement of the furniture, the bed
chiefly serving for this purpose. The floor is of clay, and the fire is
nearly always in the middle of it ....