Note 74 — III THE EMPIRE
W. G. (William George) Waters translation
Variants of this legend are numerous. Hector Boece (cap. ix.) affirms there are no rats in Buchan, and Sir Robert Gordon, writing on Sutherlandshire, says: “If they come thither from other parts in ships they die presently as soon as they do smell the air of that country.” In Sir John Sinclair’s “Statistical Account of Scotland,” in an account of Roseneath, in Argyleshire, it is stated: “From a prevailing opinion that the soil of this parish is hostile to that animal, some years ago a West India planter actually carried out to Jamaica several casks of Roseneath earth, with a view to kill the rats that were destroying his sugar canes.”