Chapter XXIII: Epilogue: To the Carmen Saeculare of Horace; (6)

There are two cities of the name of Aberdeen: the old town, built about a mile inland, once the see of a bishop, which contains the king's college, and the remains of the cathedral; and the new town, which stands, for the sake of trade, upon a frith or arm of the sea, so that ships rest against the quay.

The two cities have their separate magistrates; and the two colleges are, in effect, two universities, which confer degrees independently of each other.

New Aberdeen is a large town, built almost wholly of that granite which is used for the new pavement in London, which, hard as it is, they square with very little difficulty. Here I first saw the women in plaids. The plaid makes, at once, a hood and cloak, without cutting or sewing, merely by the manner of drawing the opposite sides over the shoulders. The maids, at the inns, run over the house barefoot; and children, not dressed in rags, go without shoes or stockings. Shoes are, indeed, not yet in universal use; they came late into this country. One of the professors told us, as we were mentioning a fort, built by Cromwell, that the country owed much of its present industry to Cromwell's soldiers. They taught us, said he, to raise cabbage, and make shoes. How they lived without shoes may yet be seen; but, in the passage through villages, it seems to him, that surveys their gardens, that when they had not cabbage, they had nothing.

Education is here of the same price as at St. Andrew's, only the session is but from the 1st of November to the 1st of April. The academical buildings seem rather to advance than decline. They showed their libraries, which were not very splendid, but some manuscripts were so exquisitely penned, that I wished my dear mistress to have seen them. I had an unexpected pleasure, by finding an old acquaintance, now professor of physick, in the king's college: we were, on both sides, glad of the interview, having not seen, nor, perhaps, thought on one another, for many years; but we had no emulation, nor had either of us risen to the other's envy, and our old kindness was easily renewed. I hope we shall never try the effect of so long an absence, and that I shall always be, madam your, &c.

XIX.--To MRS. THRALE.

Inverness, August 28, 1773.

DEAR MADAM,--August 23rd, I had the honour of attending the lord provost of Aberdeen, and was presented with the freedom of the city, not in a gold box, but in good Latin. Let me pay Scotland one just praise! there was no officer gaping for a fee; this could have been said of no city on the English side of the Tweed. I wore my patent of freedom, _pro more_, in my hat, from the new town to the old, about a mile. I then dined with my friend, the professor of physick, at his house, and saw the king's college. Boswell was very angry, that the Aberdeen professors would not talk. When I was at the English church, in Aberdeen, I happened to be espied by lady Di. Middleton, whom I had sometime seen in London; she told what she had seen to Mr. Boyd, lord Errol's brother, who wrote us an invitation to lord Errol's house, called Slane's castle We went thither on the next day, (24th of August,) and found a house, not old, except but one tower, built on the margin of the sea, upon a rock, scarce accessible from the sea; at one corner, a tower makes a perpendicular continuation of the lateral surface of the rock, so that it is impracticable to walk round; the house inclosed a square court, and on all sides within the court is a piazza, or gallery, two stories high. We came in, as we were invited to dinner, and, after dinner, offered to go; but lady Errol sent us word by Mr. Boyd, that if we went before lord Errol came home, we must never be forgiven, and ordered out the coach to show us two curiosities. We were first conducted, by Mr. Boyd, to Dunbuys, or the yellow rock. Dunbuys is a rock, consisting of two protuberances, each, perhaps, one hundred yards round, joined together by a narrow neck, and separated from the land by a very narrow channel or gully. These rocks are the haunts of seafowl, whose clang, though this is not their season, we heard at a distance. The eggs and the young are gathered here, in great numbers, at the time of breeding. There is a bird here, called a coot, which, though not much bigger than a duck, lays a larger egg than a goose. We went then to see the Buller, or Bouilloir, of Buchan: Buchan is the name of the district, and the Buller is a small creek, or gulf, into which the sea flows through an arch of the rock. We walked round it, and saw it black, at a great depth. It has its name from the violent ebullition of the water, when high winds or high tides drive it up the arch into the basin. Walking a little farther, I spied some boats, and told my companions that we would go into the Buller and examine it. There was no danger; all was calm; we went through the arch, and found ourselves in a narrow gulf, surrounded by craggy rocks, of height not stupendous, but, to a mediterranean visitor, uncommon. On each side was a cave, of which the fisherman knew not the extent, in which smugglers hide their goods, and sometimes parties of pleasure take a dinner. I am, &c.

XX.--To MRS. THRALE.

Skie, September 6, 1773.

DEAREST MADAM,--I am now looking on the sea, from a house of sir Alexander Macdonald, in the isle of Skie. Little did I once think of seeing this region of obscurity, and little did you once expect a salutation from this verge of European life. I have now the pleasure of going where nobody goes, and seeing what nobody sees. Our design is to visit several of the smaller islands, and then pass over to the south-west of Scotland.

I returned from the sight of Buller's Buchan to lord Errol's, and, having seen his library, had, for a time, only to look upon the sea, which rolled between us and Norway. Next morning, August 25th, we continued our journey through a country not uncultivated, but so denuded of its woods, that, in all this journey, I had not travelled a hundred yards between hedges, or seen five trees fit for the carpenter. A few small plantations may be found, but I believe scarcely any thirty years old; at least, they are all posterior to the union. This day we dined with a country-gentleman, who has in his grounds the remains of a Druid's temple, which, when it is complete, is nothing more than a circle, or double circle, of stones, placed at equal distances, with a flat stone, perhaps an altar, at a certain point, and a stone, taller than the rest, at the opposite point. The tall stone is erected, I think, at the south. Of these circles, there are many in all the unfrequented parts of the island. The inhabitants of these parts respect them as memorials of the sculpture of some illustrious person. Here I saw a few trees. We lay at Bamff.

August 26th. We dined at Elgin, where we saw the ruins of a noble cathedral; the chapter-house is yet standing. A great part of Elgin is built with small piazzas to the lower story. We went on to Foris, over the heath where Macbeth met the witches, but had no adventure; only in the way we saw, for the first time, some houses with fruit-trees about them. The improvements of the Scotch are for immediate profit; they do not yet think it quite worth their while to plant what will not produce something to be eaten, or sold, in a very little time. We rested at Foris.

A very great proportion of the people are barefoot; shoes are not yet considered as necessaries of life. It is still the custom to send out the sons of gentlemen without them into the streets and ways. There are more beggars than I have ever seen in England; they beg, if not silently, yet very modestly.

Next day we came to Nairn, a miserable town, but a royal burgh, of which the chief annual magistrate is styled lord provost. In the neighbourhood we saw the castle of the old thane of Cawdor. There is one ancient tower, with its battlements and winding stairs, yet remaining; the rest of the house is, though not modern, of later erection.

On the 28th we went to Fort George, which is accounted the most regular fortification in the island. The major of artillery walked with us round the walls, and showed us the principles upon which every part was constructed, and the way in which it could be defended. We dined with the governour, sir Eyre Coote, and his officers. It was a very pleasant and instructive day; but nothing puts my honoured mistress out of my mind.

At night we came to Inverness, the last considerable town in the north, where we staid all the next day, for it was Sunday, and saw the ruins of what is called Macbeth's castle. It never was a large house, but was strongly situated. From Inverness we were to travel on horseback.

August 30th. We set out with four horses. We had two highlanders to run by us, who were active, officious, civil, and hardy. Our journey was, for many miles, along a military way, made upon the banks of Lough Ness, a water about eighteen miles long, but not, I think, half a mile broad. Our horses were not bad, and the way was very pleasant; the rock, out of which the road was cut, was covered with birch-trees, fern, and heath. The lake below was beating its bank by a gentle wind, and the rocks beyond the water, on the right, stood sometimes horrid, and wild, and sometimes opened into a kind of bay, in which there was a spot of cultivated ground, yellow with corn. In one part of the way we had trees on both sides, for, perhaps, half a mile. Such a length of shade, perhaps Scotland cannot show in any other place.

You are not to suppose, that here are to be any more towns or inns. We came to a cottage, which they call the General's Hut, where we alighted to dine, and had eggs and bacon, and mutton, with wine, rum, and whiskey. I had water.

At a bridge over the river, which runs into the Ness the rocks rise on three sides, with a direction almost perpendicular, to a great height; they are, in part, covered with trees, and exhibit a kind of dreadful magnificence:--standing like the barriers of nature, placed to keep different orders of being in perpetual separation. Near this bridge is the fall of Fiers, a famous cataract, of which, by clambering over the rocks, we obtained a view. The water was low, and, therefore, we had only the pleasure of knowing that rain would make it, at once, pleasing and formidable; there will then be a mighty flood, foaming along a rocky channel, frequently obstructed by protuberances, and exasperated by reverberation, at last precipitated with a sudden descent, and lost in the depth of a gloomy chasm.

We came, somewhat late, to Fort Augustus, where the lieutenant-governour met us beyond the gates, and apologized that, at that hour, he could not, by the rules of a garrison, admit us, otherwise than at a narrow door, which only one can enter at a time. We were well entertained and well lodged, and, next morning, after having viewed the fort, we pursued our journey.

Our way now lay over the mountains, which are not to be passed by climbing them directly, but by traversing; so that, as we went forward, we saw our baggage following us below, in a direction exactly contrary. There is, in these ways, much labour, but little danger, and, perhaps, other places, of which very terrifick representations are made, are not, in themselves, more formidable. These roads have all been made by hewing the rock away with pickaxes, or bursting it with gunpowder. The stones, so separated, are often piled loose, as a wall by the wayside. We saw an inscription, importing the year in which one of the regiments made two thousand yards of the road eastward.

After tedious travel of some hours, we came to what, I believe, we must call a village, a place where there were three huts built of turf; at one of which we were to have our dinner and our bed, for we could not reach any better place that night. This place is called Enoch in Glenmorrison. The house, in which we lodged, was distinguished by a chimney, the rest had only a hole for the smoke. Here we had eggs, and mutton, and a chicken, and a sausage, and rum. In the afternoon tea was made by a very decent girl in a printed linen: she engaged me so much, that I made her a present of Cocker's arithmetick. I am, &c.

XXI.--To MRS. THRALE.

Skie, Sept. 14,1773.

DEAREST MADAM,--The post, which comes but once a week into these parts, is so soon to go, that I have not time to go on where I left off in my last letter. I have been several days in the island of Raarsa, and am now again in the isle of Skie, but at the other end of it.

Skie is almost equally divided between the two great families of Macdonald and Macleod, other proprietors having only small districts. The two great lords do not know, within twenty square miles, the contents of their own territories.

--kept up but ill the reputation of highland hospitality; we are now with Macleod, quite at the other end of the island, where there is a fine young gentleman and fine ladies. The ladies are studying Erse. I have a cold, and am miserably deaf, and am troublesome to lady Macleod; I force her to speak loud, but she will seldom speak loud enough.

Raarsa is an island about fifteen miles long and two broad, under the dominion of one gentleman, who has three sons and ten daughters; the eldest is the beauty of this part of the world, and has been polished at Edinburgh: they sing and dance, and, without expense, have upon their table most of what sea, air, or earth can afford. I intended to have written about Raarsa, but the post will not wait longer than while I send my compliments to my dear master and little mistresses. I am, &c.

XXII.--To MRS. THRALE.

Skie, Sept. 21, 1773.

DEAREST MADAM,--I am so vexed at the necessity of sending yesterday so short a letter, that I purpose to get a long letter beforehand, by writing something every day, which I may the more easily do, as a cold makes me now too deaf to take the usual pleasure in conversation. Lady Macleod is very good to me; and the place, at which we now are, is equal, in strength of situation, in the wildness of the adjacent country, and in the plenty and elegance of the domestick entertainment, to a castle in Gothick romances. The sea, with a little island, is before us; cascades play within view. Close to the house is the formidable skeleton of an old castle, probably Danish; and the whole mass of building stands upon a protuberance of rock, inaccessible till of late, but by a pair of stairs on the seaside, and secure, in ancient times, against any enemy that was likely to invade the kingdom of Skie.

Macleod has offered me an island; if it were not too far off, I should hardly refuse it: my island would be pleasanter than Brighthelmstone, if you and my master could come to it; but I cannot think it pleasant to live quite alone,

"Oblitusque meorum, obliviscendus et illis."

That I should be elated, by the dominion of an island to forgetfulness of my friends at Streatham, I cannot believe, and I hope never to deserve that they should be willing to forget me.

It has happened, that I have been often recognised in my journey, where I did not expect it. At Aberdeen, I found one of my acquaintance professor of physick: turning aside to dine with a country-gentleman, I was owned, at table, by one who had seen me at a philosophical lecture: at Macdonald's I was claimed by a naturalist, who wanders about the islands to pick up curiosities: and I had once, in London, attracted the notice of lady Macleod. I will now go on with my account.

The highland girl made tea, and looked and talked not inelegantly; her father was by no means an ignorant or a weak man; there were books in the cottage, among which were some volumes of Prideaux's Connexion: this man's conversation we were glad of while we staid. He had been out, as they call it, in forty-five, and still retained his old opinions. He was going to America, because his rent was raised beyond what he thought himself able to pay.

At night our beds were made, but we had some difficulty in persuading ourselves to lie down in them, though we had put on our own sheets; at last we ventured, and I slept very soundly in the vale of Glenmorrison, amidst the rocks and mountains. Next morning our landlord liked us so well, that he walked some miles with us for our company, through a country so wild and barren, that the proprietor does not, with all his pressure upon his tenants, raise more than four hundred pounds a year for near one hundred square miles, or sixty thousand acres. He let us know, that he had forty head of black cattle, a hundred goats, and a hundred sheep, upon a farm that he remembered let at five pounds a year, but for which he now paid twenty. He told us some stories of their march into England. At last, he left us, and we went forward, winding among mountains, sometimes green and sometimes naked, commonly so steep, as not easily to be climbed by the greatest vigour and activity: our way was often crossed by little rivulets, and we were entertained with small streams trickling from the rocks, which, after heavy rains, must be tremendous torrents.

About noon we came to a small glen, so they call a valley, which, compared with other places, appeared rich and fertile; here our guides desired us to stop, that the horses might graze, for the journey was very laborious, and no more grass would be found. We made no difficulty of compliance, and I sat down to take notes on a green bank, with a small stream running at my feet, in the midst of savage solitude, with mountains before me, and, on either hand, covered with heath. I looked around me, and wondered, that I was not more affected, but the mind is not at all times equally ready to be put in motion; if my mistress, and master, and Queeney had been there, we should have produced some reflections among us, either poetical or philosophical; for though "solitude be the nurse of woe," conversation is often the parent of remarks and discoveries.

In about an hour we remounted, and pursued our journey. The lake, by which we had travelled for some time, ended in a river, which we passed by a bridge, and came to another glen, with a collection of huts, called Auknashealds; the huts were, generally, built of clods of earth, held together by the intertexture of vegetable fibres, of which earth there are great levels in Scotland, which they call mosses. Moss in Scotland is bog in Ireland, and moss-trooper is bog-trotter; there was, however, one hut built of loose stones, piled up, with great thickness, into a strong, though not solid wall. From this house we obtained some great pails of milk, and having brought bread with us, we were liberally regaled. The inhabitants, a very coarse tribe, ignorant of any language but Erse, gathered so fast about us, that, if we had not had highlanders with us, they might have caused more alarm than pleasure; they are called the clan of Macrae.

We had been told, that nothing gratified the highlanders so much as snuff and tobacco, and had, accordingly, stored ourselves with both at Fort Augustus. Boswell opened his treasure, and gave them each a piece of tobacco roll. We had more bread than we could eat for the present, and were more liberal than provident. Boswell cut it in slices, and gave them an opportunity of tasting wheaten bread, for the first time. I then got some half-pence for a shilling, and made up the deficiencies of Boswell's distribution, who had given some money among the children. We then directed, that the mistress of the stone-house should be asked, what we must pay her. She, who, perhaps, had never before sold any thing but cattle, knew not, I believe, well what to ask, and referred herself to us: we obliged her to make some demand, and one of the Highlanders settled the account with her at a shilling. One of the men advised her, with the cunning that clowns never can be without, to ask more; but she said that a shilling was enough. We gave her half-a-crown, and she offered part of it again. The Macraes were so well pleased with our behaviour, that they declared it the best day they had seen, since the time of the old laird of Macleod, who, I suppose, like us, stopped in their valley, as he was travelling to Skie.

We were mentioning this view of the highlander's life at Macdonald's, and mentioning the Macraes, with some degree of pity, when a highland lady informed us, that we might spare our tenderness, for she doubted not but the woman, who supplied us with milk, was mistress of thirteen or fourteen milch cows.

I cannot forbear to interrupt my narrative. Boswell, with some of his troublesome kindness, has informed this family, and reminded me, that the 18th of September is my birthday. The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape. I can now look back upon threescore and four years, in which little has been done, and little has been enjoyed; a life, diversified by misery, spent part in the sluggishness of penury, and part under the violence of pain, in gloomy discontent, or importunate distress. But, perhaps, I am better than I should have been, if I had been less afflicted. With this I will try to be content.

In proportion as there is less pleasure in retrospective considerations, the mind is more disposed to wander forward into futurity; but, at sixty-four, what promises, however liberal, of imaginary good can futurity venture to make? yet something will be always promised, and some promises will be always credited. I am hoping, and I am praying, that I may live better in the time to come, whether long or short, than I have yet lived, and, in the solace of that hope, endeavour to repose. Dear Queeney's day is next: I hope she, at sixty-four, will have less to regret.

I will now complain no more, but tell my mistress of my travels.

After we left the Macraes, we travelled on through a country like that which we passed in the morning. The highlands are very uniform, for there is little variety in universal barrenness; the rocks, however, are not all naked, for some have grass on their sides, and birches and alders on their tops, and in the valleys are often broad and clear streams, which have little depth, and commonly run very quick; the channels are made by the violence of the wintry floods; the quickness of the stream is in proportion to the declivity of the descent, and the breadth of the channel makes the water shallow in a dry season.

There are red deer and roe bucks in the mountains, but we found only goats in the road, and had very little entertainment, as we travelled, either for the eye or ear. There are, I fancy, no singing birds in the highlands.

Towards night we came to a very formidable hill, called Rattiken, which we climbed with more difficulty than we had yet experienced, and, at last, came to Glanelg, a place on the seaside, opposite to Skie. We were, by this time, weary and disgusted, nor was our humour much mended by our inn, which, though it was built of lime and slate, the highlander's description of a house, which he thinks magnificent, had neither wine, bread, eggs, nor any thing that we could eat or drink. When we were taken up stairs, a dirty fellow bounced out of the bed, where one of us was to lie. Boswell blustered, but nothing could be got. At last, a gentleman in the neighbourhood, who heard of our arrival, sent us rum and white sugar. Boswell was now provided for, in part, and the landlord prepared some mutton chops, which we could not eat, and killed two hens, of which Boswell made his servant broil a limb; with what effect I know not. We had a lemon and a piece of bread, which supplied me with my supper. When the repast was ended, we began to deliberate upon bed: Mrs. Boswell had warned us, that we should _catch something_, and had given us _sheets_, for our _security_, for--and--, she said, came back from Skie, so scratching themselves. I thought sheets a slender defence against the confederacy with which we were threatened, and, by this time, our Highlanders had found a place, where they could get some hay: I ordered hay to be laid thick upon the bed, and slept upon it in my great coat: Boswell laid sheets upon his bed, and reposed in linen, like a gentleman. The horses were turned out to grass, with a man to watch them. The hill Rattiken, and the inn at Glanelg, were the only things of which we, or travellers yet more delicate, could find any pretensions to complain.

Sept. 2nd. I rose, rustling from the hay, and went to tea, which I forget, whether we found or brought. We saw the isle of Skie before us, darkening the horizon with its rocky coast. A boat was procured, and we lanched into one of the straits of the Atlantick ocean. We had a passage of about twelve miles to the point where--resided, having come from his seat in the middle of the island, to a small house on the shore, as we believe, that he might, with less reproach, entertain us meanly. If he aspired to meanness, his retrograde ambition was completely gratified, but he did not succeed equally in escaping reproach. He had no cook, nor, I suppose, much provision, nor had the lady the common decencies of her tea-table; we picked up our sugar with our fingers. Boswell was very angry, and reproached him with his improper parsimony; I did not much reflect upon the conduct of a man with whom I was not likely to converse as long at any other time.

You will now expect that I should give you some account of the isle of Skie, of which, though I have been twelve days upon it, I have little to say. It is an island, perhaps, fifty miles long, so much indented by inlets of the sea, that there is no part of it removed from the water more than six miles. No part, that I have seen, is plain; you are always climbing or descending, and every step is upon rock or mire. A walk upon ploughed ground in England is a dance upon carpets, compared to the toilsome drudgery of wandering in Skie. There is neither town nor village in the island, nor have I seen any house but Macleod's, that is not much below your habitation at Brighthelmstone. In the mountains there are stags and roe bucks, but no hares, and few rabbits; nor have I seen any thing that interested me, as a zoologist, except an otter, bigger than I thought an otter could have been.

You are, perhaps, imagining that I am withdrawing from the gay and the busy world, into regions of peace and pastoral felicity, and am enjoying the relicks of the golden age; that I am surveying nature's magnificence from a mountain, or remarking her minuter beauties on the flowery bank of a winding rivulet; that I am invigorating myself in the sunshine, or delighting my imagination with being hidden from the invasion of human evils and human passions, in the darkness of a thicket; that I am busy in gathering shells and pebbles on the shore, or contemplative on a rock, from which I look upon the water, and consider how many waves are rolling between me and Streatham.

The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and, instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are. Here are mountains which I should once have climbed; but to climb steeps is now very laborious, and to descend them, dangerous; and I am now content with knowing, that, by scrambling up a rock, I shall only see other rocks, and a wider circuit of barren desolation. Of streams, we have here a sufficient number; but they murmur not upon pebbles, but upon rocks. Of flowers, if Chloris herself were here, I could present her only with the bloom of heath. Of lawns and thickets, he must read that would know them, for here is little sun, and no shade. On the sea I look from my window, but am not much tempted to the shore; for since I came to this island, almost every breath of air has been a storm, and, what is worse, a storm with all its severity, but without its magnificence, for the sea is here so broken into channels, that there is not a sufficient volume of water either for lofty surges, or a loud roar.

On Sept. 6th, we left--to visit Raarsa, the island which I have already mentioned. We were to cross part of Skie on horseback; a mode of travelling very uncomfortable, for the road is so narrow, where any road can be found, that only one can go, and so craggy, that the attention can never be remitted; it allows, therefore, neither the gaiety of conversation, nor the laxity of solitude; nor has it, in itself, the amusement of much variety, as it affords only all the possible transpositions of bog, rock, and rivulet. Twelve miles, by computation, make a reasonable journey for a day.

At night we came to a tenant's house, of the first rank of tenants, where we were entertained better than at the landlord's. There were books, both English and Latin. Company gathered about us, and we heard some talk of the second sight, and some talk of the events of forty-five; a year which will not soon be forgotten among the islanders. The next day we were confined by a storm. The company, I think, increased, and our entertainment was not only hospitable, but elegant. At night, a minister's sister, in very fine brocade, sung Erse songs; I wished to know the meaning; but the highlanders are not much used to scholastick questions, and no translations could be obtained.

Next day, Sept. 8th, the weather allowed us to depart; a good boat was provided us, and we went to Raarsa, under the conduct of Mr. Malcolm Macleod, a gentleman who conducted prince Charles through the mountains in his distresses. The prince, he says, was more active than himself; they were, at least, one night without any shelter.

The wind blew enough to give the boat a kind of dancing agitation, and, in about three or four hours, we arrived at Raarsa, where we were met by the laird, and his friends, upon the shore. Raarsa, for such is his title, is master of two islands; upon the smaller of which, called Rona, he has only flocks and herds. Rona gives title to his eldest son. The money which he raises annually by rent from all his dominions, which contain, at least, fifty thousand acres, is not believed to exceed two hundred and fifty pounds; but, as he keeps a large farm in his own hands, he sells, every year, great numbers of cattle, which add to his revenue, and his table is furnished from the farm and from the sea, with very little expense, except for those things this country does not produce, and of those he is very liberal. The wine circulates vigorously; and the tea, chocolate, and coffee, however they are got, are always at hand. I am, &c.

We are this morning trying to get out of Skie.

XXIII.--To MRS. THRALE.

Skie, Sept. 24, 1773.

DEAR MADAM,--I am still in Skie. Do you remember the song,

"Every island is a prison,
Strongly guarded by the sea."

We have, at one time, no boat, and, at another, may have too much wind; but, of our reception here, we have no reason to complain. We are now with colonel Macleod, in a more pleasant place than I thought Skie could afford. Now to the narrative.

We were received at Raarsa on the seaside, and after clambering, with some difficulty, over the rocks, a labour which the traveller, wherever he reposes himself on land, must, in these islands, be contented to endure; we were introduced into the house, which one of the company called the court of Raarsa, with politeness, which not the court of Versailles could have thought defective. The house is not large, though we were told, in our passage, that it had eleven fine rooms, nor magnificently furnished; but our utensils were, most commonly, silver. We went up into a dining-room, about as large as your blue room, where we had something given us to eat, and tea and coffee.

Raarsa himself is a man of no inelegant appearance, and of manners uncommonly refined. Lady Raarsa makes no very sublime appearance for a sovereign, but is a good housewife, and a very prudent and diligent conductress of her family. Miss Flora Macleod is a celebrated beauty; has been admired at Edinburgh; dresses her head very high; and has manners so lady-like, that I wish her head-dress was lower. The rest of the nine girls are all pretty; the youngest is between Queeney and Lucy. The youngest boy, of four years old, runs barefoot, and wandered with us over the rocks to see a mill: I believe he would walk on that rough ground, without shoes, ten miles in a day.

The laird of Raarsa has sometimes disputed the chieftainry of the clan with Macleod of Skie, but, being much inferiour in extent of possessions, has, I suppose, been forced to desist. Raarsa, and its provinces, have descended to its present possessour, through a succession of four hundred years, without any increase or diminution. It was, indeed, lately in danger of forfeiture, but the old laird joined some prudence with his zeal, and when prince Charles landed in Scotland, made over his estate to this son, the present laird, and led one hundred men of Raarsa into the field, with officers of his own family. Eighty-six only came back after the last battle. The prince was hidden, in his distress, two nights at Raarsa, and the king's troops burnt the whole country, and killed some of the cattle.

You may guess at the opinions that prevail in this country; they are, however, content with fighting for their king; they do not drink for him. We had no foolish healths. At night, unexpectedly to us, who were strangers, the carpet was taken up; the fiddler of the family came up, and a very vigorous and general dance was begun. As I told you, we were two and thirty at supper; there were full as many dancers; for, though all who supped did not dance, some danced of the young people who did not sup. Raarsa himself danced with his children, and old Malcolm, in his fillibeg, was as nimble, as when he led the prince over the mountains. When they had danced themselves weary, two tables were spread, and, I suppose, at least twenty dishes were upon them. In this country, some preparations of milk are always served up at supper, and sometimes, in the place of tarts, at dinner. The table was not coarsely heaped, but, at once, plentiful and elegant. They do not pretend to make a loaf; there are only cakes, commonly of oats or barley, but they made me very nice cakes of wheat flour. I always sat at the left hand of lady Raarsa; and young Macleod of Skie, the chieftain of the clan, sat on the right.

After supper, a young lady, who was visiting, sung Erse songs, in which lady Raarsa joined, prettily enough, but not gracefully; the young ladies sustained the chorus better. They are very little used to be asked questions, and not well prepared with answers. When one of the songs was over, I asked the princess, that sat next to me, "What is that about?" I question if she conceived that I did not understand it. "For the entertainment of the company," said she. "But, madam, what is the meaning of it?" "It is a love song." This was all the intelligence that I could obtain; nor have I been able to procure the translation of a single line of Erse.

At twelve it was bed-time. I had a chamber to myself, which, in eleven rooms to forty people, was more than my share. How the company and the family were distributed, is not easy to tell. Macleod, the chieftain, and Boswell, and I, had all single chambers, on the first floor. There remained eight rooms only, for, at least, seven and thirty lodgers. I suppose they put up temporary beds in the dining-room, where they stowed all the young ladies. There was a room above stairs with six beds, in which they put ten men. The rest in my next.

XXIV.--To MRS. THRALE.

Ostich in Skie, Sept. 30, 1773.

DEAREST MADAM,--I am still confined in Skie. We were unskilful travellers, and imagined that the sea was an open road, which we could pass at pleasure; but we have now learned, with some pain, that we may still wait, for a long time, the caprices of the equinoctial winds, and sit reading or writing, as I now do, while the tempest is rolling the sea, or roaring in the mountains. I am now no longer pleased with the delay; you can hear from me but seldom, and I cannot at all hear from you. It comes into my mind, that some evil may happen, or that I might be of use while I am away. But these thoughts are vain; the wind is violent and adverse, and our boat cannot yet come. I must content myself with writing to you, and hoping that you will sometime receive my letter. Now to my narrative.

Sept. 9th. Having passed the night as is usual, I rose, and found the dining-room full of company; we feasted and talked, and when the evening came it brought musick and dancing. Young Macleod, the great proprietor of Skie, and head of his clan, was very distinguishable; a young man of nineteen, bred awhile at St. Andrew's, and afterwards at Oxford, a pupil of G. Strahan. He is a young man of a mind, as much advanced as I have ever known; very elegant of manners, and very graceful in his person. He has the full spirit of a feudal chief; and I was very ready to accept his invitation to Dunvegan. All Raarsa's children are beautiful. The ladies, all, except the eldest, are in the morning dressed in their hair. The true highlander never wears more than a riband on her head, till she is married.

On the third day Boswell went out, with old Malcolm, to see a ruined castle, which he found less entire than was promised, but he saw the country. I did not go, for the castle was, perhaps, ten miles off, and there is no riding at Raarsa, the whole island being rock or mountain, from which the cattle often fall, and are destroyed. It is very barren, and maintains, as near as I could collect, about seven hundred inhabitants, perhaps ten to a square mile. In these countries you are not to suppose that you shall find villages or inclosures. The traveller wanders through a naked desert, gratified sometimes, but rarely, with the sight of cows, and now and then finds a heap of loose stones and turf, in a cavity between rocks, where a being, born with all those powers which education expands, and all those sensations which culture refines, is condemned to shelter itself from the wind and rain. Philosophers there are, who try to make themselves believe, that this life is happy; but they believe it only while they are saying it, and never yet produced conviction in a single mind; he whom want of words or images sunk into silence still thought, as he thought before, that privation of pleasure can never please, and that content is not to be much envied, when it has no other principle than ignorance of good.

This gloomy tranquillity, which some may call fortitude, and others, wisdom, was, I believe, for a long time, to be very frequently found in these dens of poverty; every man was content to live like his neighbours, and, never wandering from home, saw no mode of life preferable to his own, except at the house of the laird, or the laird's nearest relations, whom he considered as a superiour order of beings, to whose luxuries or honours he had no pretensions. But the end of this reverence and submission seems now approaching; the highlanders have learned, that there are countries less bleak and barren than their own, where, instead of working for the laird, every man will till his own ground, and eat the produce of his own labour. Great numbers have been induced, by this discovery, to go, every year, for some time past, to America. Macdonald and Macleod, of Skie, have lost many tenants and many labourers; but Raarsa has not yet been forsaken by a single inhabitant.

Rona is yet more rocky and barren than Raarsa, and, though it contains, perhaps, four thousand acres, is possessed only by a herd of cattle and the keepers.

I find myself not very able to walk upon the mountains, but one day I went out to see the walls, yet standing, of an ancient chapel. In almost every island the superstitious votaries of the Romish church erected places of worship, in which the drones of convents, or cathedrals, performed the holy offices; but, by the active zeal of protestant devotion, almost all of them have sunk into ruin. The chapel at Raarsa is now only considered as the burying-place of the family, and, I suppose, of the whole island.

We would now have gone away, and left room for others to enjoy the pleasures of this little court; but the wind detained us till the 12th, when, though it was Sunday, we thought it proper to snatch the opportunity of a calm day. Raarsa accompanied us in his six-oared boat, which, he said, was his coach and six. It is, indeed, the vehicle in which the ladies take the air, and pay their visits, but they have taken very little care for accommodations. There is no way, in or out of the boat, for a woman, but by being carried; and in the boat thus dignified with a pompous name, there is no seat, but an occasional bundle of straw. Thus we left Raarsa; the seat of plenty, civility, and cheerfulness.

We dined at a publick house at Port Re; so called, because one of the Scottish kings landed there, in a progress through the western isles. Raarsa paid the reckoning privately. We then got on horseback, and, by a short, but very tedious journey, came to Kingsburgh, at which the same king lodged, after he landed. Here I had the honour of saluting the far-famed Miss Flora Macdonald, who conducted the prince, dressed as her maid, through the English forces, from the island of Lewes; and, when she came to Skie, dined with the English officers, and left her maid below. She must then have been a very young lady; she is now not old; of a pleasing person, and elegant behaviour. She told me, that she thought herself honoured by my visit; and, I am sure, that whatever regard she bestowed on me was liberally repaid. "If thou likest her opinions, thou wilt praise her virtue." She was carried to London, but dismissed without a trial, and came down with Malcolm Macleod, against whom sufficient evidence could not be procured. She and her husband are poor, and are going to try their fortune in America:

"Sic rerum volvitur orbis."

At Kingsburgh we were very liberally feasted, and I slept in the bed in which the prince reposed in his distress; the sheets which he used were never put to any meaner offices, but were wrapped up by the lady of the house, and at last, according to her desire, were laid round her in her grave. These are not whigs.

On the 13th, travelling partly on horseback, where we could not row, and partly on foot, where we could not ride, we came to Dunvegan, which I have described already. Here, though poor Macleod had been left by his grandfather overwhelmed with debts, we had another exhibition of feudal hospitality. There were two stags in the house, and venison came to the table every day in its various forms. Macleod, besides his estate in Skie, larger, I suppose, than some English counties, is proprietor of nine inhabited isles; and, of his islands uninhabited, I doubt if he very exactly knows the number. I told him that he was a mighty monarch. Such dominions fill an Englishman with envious wonder; but, when he surveys the naked mountains, and treads the quaking moor, and wanders over the wild regions of gloomy barrenness, his wonder may continue, but his envy ceases. The unprofitableness of these vast domains can be conceived only by the means of positive instances. The heir of Col, an island not far distant, has lately told me, how wealthy he should be, if he could let Rum, another of his islands, for twopence halfpenny an acre; and Macleod has an estate, which the surveyor reports to contain eighty thousand acres, rented at six hundred pounds a year.

While we were at Dunvegan, the wind was high, and the rain violent, so that we were not able to put forth a boat to fish in the sea, or to visit the adjacent islands, which may be seen from the house; but we filled up the time, as we could, sometimes by talk, sometimes by reading. I have never wanted books in the isle of Skie.

We were invited one day by the laird and lady of Muck, one of the western islands, two miles long, and three quarters of a mile high. He has half his island in his own culture, and upon the other half live one hundred and fifty dependants, who not only live upon the product, but export corn sufficient for the payment of their rent.

Lady Macleod has a son and four daughters; they have lived long in England, and have the language and manners of English ladies. We lived with them very easily. The hospitality of this remote region is like that of the golden age. We have found ourselves treated, at every house, as if we came to confer a benefit.

We were eight days at Dunvegan, but we took the first opportunity which the weather afforded, after the first days, of going away, and, on the 21st, went to Ulinish, where we were well entertained, and wandered a little after curiosities. In the afternoon, an interval of calm sunshine courted us out, to see a cave on the shore, famous for its echo. When we went into the boat, one of our companions was asked, in Erse, by the boatmen, who they were, that came with him. He gave us characters, I suppose, to our advantage, and was asked, in the spirit of the highlands, whether I could recite a long series of ancestors. The boatmen said, as I perceived afterwards, that they heard the cry of an English ghost. This, Boswell says, disturbed him. We came to the cave, and, clambering up the rocks, came to an arch, open at one end, one hundred and eighty feet long, thirty broad, in the broadest part, and about thirty high. There was no echo: such is the fidelity of report; but I saw, what I had never seen before, muscles and whilks, in their natural state. There was another arch in the rock, open at both ends.

September 23rd. We removed to Talisker, a house occupied by Mr. Macleod, a lieutenant colonel in the Dutch service. Talisker has been long in the possession of gentlemen, and, therefore, has a garden well cultivated, and, what is here very rare, is shaded by trees; a place where the imagination is more amused cannot easily be found. The mountains about it are of great height, with waterfalls succeeding one another so fast, that as one ceases to be heard, another begins. Between the mountains there is a small valley, extending to the sea, which is not far off, beating upon a coast, very difficult of access.

Two nights before our arrival, two boats were driven upon this coast by the tempest; one of them had a pilot that knew the passage; the second followed, but a third missed the true course, and was driven forward, with great danger of being forced into the vast ocean, but, however, gained, at last, some other island. The crews crept to Talisker, almost lifeless with wet, cold, fatigue, and terrour, but the lady took care of them. She is a woman of more than common qualifications; having travelled with her husband, she speaks four languages.

You find, that all the islanders, even in these recesses of life, are not barbarous. One of the ministers, who has adhered to us almost all the time, is an excellent scholar. We have now with us the young laird of Col, who is heir, perhaps, to two hundred square miles of land. He has first studied at Aberdeen, and afterwards gone to Hertfordshire, to learn agriculture, being much impressed with desire of improvement; he, likewise, has the notions of a chief, and keeps a piper. At Macleod's the bagpipe always played, while we were dining.

Col has undertaken, by permission of the waves and wind, to carry us about several of the islands, with which he is acquainted enough to show us whatever curious is given by nature, or left by antiquity; but we grew afraid of deviating from our way home, lest we should be shut up for months upon some little protuberance of rock, that just appears above the sea, and, perhaps, is scarcely marked upon a map.

You remember the doge of Genoa, who being asked, what struck him most at the French court, answered, "myself." I cannot think many things here more likely to affect the fancy, than to see Johnson ending his sixty-fourth year in the wilderness of the Hebrides. But now I am here, it will gratify me very little to return without seeing, or doing my best to see, what those places afford. I have a desire to instruct myself in the whole system of pastoral life, but I know not whether I shall be able to perfect the idea. However, I have many pictures in my mind, which I could not have had without this journey, and should have passed it with great pleasure, had you, and master, and Queeney, been in the party. We should have excited the attention, and enlarged the observation of each other, and obtained many pleasing topicks of future conversation. As it is, I travel with my mind too much at home, and, perhaps, miss many things worthy of observation, or pass them with transient notice; so that the images, for want of that reimpression which discussion and comparison produce, easily fade away; but I keep a book of remarks, and Boswell writes a regular journal of our travels, which, I think, contains as much of what I say and do, as of all other occurrences together; "for such a faithful chronicler as Griffith."

I hope, dearest madam, you are equally careful to reposit proper memorials of all that happens to you and your family, and then, when we meet, we shall tell our stories. I wish you had gone this summer, in your usual splendour, to Brighthelmstone.