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We were entertained here with a primitive heartiness. Whiskey was served round in a shell,* according to the ancient Highland custom. Dr. Johnson would not partake of it; but, being desirous to do honour to the "modes of other times," drank some water out of the shell.

In the forenoon Dr. Johnson said, "It would require great resignation to live in one of these islands."-BoSWELL: "I don't know, * Called a quaich, a small cup with handles, often finely mounted with silver.-ED.

Oh, many a maiden in her mirth

In costly habit+ fine,

From Manich town to Barra firth,
Would joy that she were thine.

Tha tigh'n, &c.

And some of England's daughters free,

And some in flowery France,

And some in sunny Italy,

May rue thy witching glance.

Tha tigh'n, &c.

Even to Kilphedar's‡ holy fane,

Crowd all the damsels fair,

Nor seem to list the preacher's strain,
For Allan Muidart's there.

Tha tigh'n, &c.

Or gathering at the trysting ground,
When falls the evening grey;
To pipe and flute the dancers bound,
With coifs and streamers gay.

Tha tigh'n, &c.

A pilot wise in storms art thou,

To sail by gulf or strand,

With dauntless skill to point the prow,

And steer the bark to land.

Tha tigh'n, &c.

A hunter brave, thy quarry still

On mountains rough to find,

When breaks the morn on pass and hill,

And starts the stag and hind!

Tha tigh'n, &c.

A lion fierce in battle thou,

Thy blood-red crest on high,||

Grim valour sits upon thy brow,

And glory lights thine eye!

Tha tigh'n, &c.

+ Habit, a loose dress used by ladies in the west Highlands in 1715; a fashionable walking-dress.

Cille Phedair, the chapel or burying-ground, dedicated to St. Peter.

The young women wore fillets of white cambric round the head, which were fastened behind, the ends falling down in long stripes, crossed like a clergyman's bands.

A red hand, a ship, and a salmon were the armorial bearings of the Captain of Clanranald.-ED.

sir; I have felt myself at times in a state of almost mere physical existence, satisfied to eat, drink, and sleep, and walk about, and enjoy my own thoughts; and I can figure a continuation of this."-JOHNSON: "Ay, sir; but if you were shut up here, your own thoughts would torment you. You would think of Edinburgh or London, and

that you I could not be there." We set out after dinner for Breacacha, the family seat of the Laird of Col, accompanied by the young laird, who had now got a horse, and by the younger Mr. Macsweyn, whose wife had gone thither before us, to prepare everything for our reception, the laird and his family being absent at Aberdeen. It is called Breacacha, or the Spotted Field, because in summer it is enamelled with clover and daisies, as young Col told me. We passed by a place where there is a very large stone, I may call it a rock ;-"a vast weight for Ajax." The tradition is, that a giant threw such another stone at his mistress, up to the top of a hill, at a small distance; and that she, in return, threw this mass down to him. It was all in sport.

"Malo me petit lasciva puella."*

As we advanced, we came to a large extent of plain ground. 1 had not seen such a place for a long time. Col and I took a gallop upon it by way of race. It was very refreshing to me, after having been so long taking short steps in hilly countries. It was like stretching a man's legs after being cramped in a short bed. We also passed close by a large extent of sand-hills, near two miles square. Dr. Johnson said, "He never had the image before. It was horrible, if barrenness and danger could be so." I heard him, after we were in the house of Breacacha, repeating to himself, as he walked about the

room

"And smothered in the dusty whirlwind, dies." Probably he had been thinking of the whole of the simile in Cato, of which that is the concluding line; the sandy desert had struck him so strongly. The sand has of late been blown over a good deal of

"My Phyllis me with pelted apples plies,

Then tripping to the woods the wanton hies."-Dryden.

+ A Highland snow-drift had, forty years before, suggested the same simile to Captain Burt. "These drifts are, above all other dangers, dreaded by the Highlanders; for my own part, I could not but think of Mr. Addison's short description of a whirlwind in the wild, sandy deserts of Numidia."-("Letters from the North of Scotland.") The passage alluded to closes the fourth act of Cato

"So where our wide Numidian wastes extend,

Sudden the impetuous hurricanes descend,
Wheel through the air, in circling eddies play,
Tear up the sands, and sweep whole plains away.

The helpless traveller, with wild surprise,

Sees the dry desert all around him rise,

And, smothered in the dusty whirlwind, dies.

meadow; and the people of the island say, that their fathers remembered much of the space which is now covered with sand to have been under tillage. Col's house is situated on a bay called Breacacha Bay. We found here a neat new-built gentleman's house, better than any we had been in since we were at Lord Errol's. Dr. Johnson relished it much at first, but soon remarked to me, that "There was nothing becoming a chief about it: it was a mere tradesman's box." He seemed quite at home, and no longer found any difficulty in using the Highland address; for as soon as we arrived, he said, with a spirited familiarity, "Now, Col, if you could get us a dish of tea."-Dr. Johnson and I had each an excellent bed-chamber. We had a dispute which of us had the best curtains. His were rather the best, being of linen; but I insisted that my bed had the best posts, which was undeniable. "Well, (said he,) if you have the best posts, we will have you tied to them, and whipped."-I mention this slight circumstance, only to show how ready he is, even in mere trifles, to get the better of his antagonist, by placing him in a ludicrous view. I have known him sometimes use the same art, when hard pressed in serious disputation. Goldsmith, I remember, to retaliate for many a severe defeat which he has suffered from him, applied to him a lively saying in one of Cibber's comedies, which puts this part of his character in a strong light,- -" There is no arguing with Johnson; for, if his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt-end of it."

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6.

We were

After a sufficiency of sleep, we assembled at breakfast. just as if in barracks. Every body was master. We went and viewed the old castle of Col, which is not far from the present house, near the shore, and founded on a rock. It has never been a large feudal residence, and has nothing about it that requires a particular description. Like other old inconvenient buildings of the same age, it exemplified Gray's picturesque lines

"Huge windows that exclude the light,
And passages that lead to nothing." ""*

It may, however, be worth mentioning, that on the second story we saw a vault, which was, and still is, the family prison. There was a woman put into it by the laird for theft, within these ten years, and any offender would be confined there yet; for, from the necessity of the thing, as the island is remote from any power established by law, the laird must exercise his jurisdiction to a certain degree.

*Gray has "Rich windows," but the epithet would not have suited the windows of an old Highland castle-ED.

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We were shown, in a corner of this vault, a hole, into which Col said greater criminals used to be put. It was now filled up with rubbish of different kinds. He said it was of a great depth. Ay," (said Dr. Johnson, smiling,) all such places, that are filled up, were of a great depth." He is very quick in showing that he does not give credit to careless or exaggerated accounts of things. After seeing the castle, we looked at a small hut,near it. It is called Teigh Franchich, i. e. the Frenchman's House. Col could not tell us the history of it. A poor man with a wife and children now lived in it. We went into

[graphic][merged small]

it, and Dr. Johnson gave them some charity. There was but one bed for all the family, and the hut was very smoky. When he came out, he said to me, "Et hoc secundum sententiam philosophorum est esse beatus [And this, in the opinion of the philosophers, is to be happy.] BOSWELL: "The philosophers, when they placed happiness in a cottage, supposed cleanliness and no smoke."-JOHNSON: "Sir, they did not think about either."

We walked a little in the laird's garden, in which endeavours have been used to rear some trees; but as soon as they got above the surrounding wall, they died. Dr. Johnson recommended sowing the seeds of hardy trees, instead of planting.

Col and I rode out this morning, and viewed a part of the island. In the course of our ride, we saw a turnip-field, which he had hoed with his own hands. He first introduced this kind of husbandry into the Western islands. We also looked at an appearance of lead, which seemed very promising. It has been long known; for I found letters to the late laird, from Sir John Erskine and Sir Alexander Murray, respecting it.

After dinner came Mr. Maclean, of Corneck, brother to Isle of Muck, who is a cadet of the family of Col. He possesses the two ends of Col, which belong to the Duke of Argyl. Corneck had lately taken a lease of them at a very advanced rent, rather than let the Campbells get a footing in the island, one of whom had offered nearly as much as he. Dr. Johnson well observed, that "Landlords err much when they calculate merely what their land may yield. The rent must be in a proportionate ratio of what the land may yield, and of the power of the tenant to make it yield. A tenant cannot make by his land, but according to the corn and cattle which he has. Suppose you should give him twice as much land as he has, it does him no good, unless he gets also more stock. It is clear, then, that the Highland landlords, who let their substantial tenants leave them, are infatuated; for the poor small tenants cannot give them good rents, from the very nature of things. They have not the means of raising more from their farms." Corneck, Dr. Johnson said, was the most distinct man that he had met with in these isles; he did not shut his eyes, or put his fingers in his ears, which he seemed to think was a good deal the mode with most of the people whom we have seen of late.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7.

There

Captain Maclean joined us this morning at breakfast. came on a dreadful storm of wind and rain, which continued all day, and rather increased at night. The wind was directly against our getting to Mull. We were in a strange state of abstraction from the world: we could neither hear from our friends, nor write to them. Col had brought Daille "On the Fathers," Lucas "On Happiness," and More's "Dialogues," from the Reverend Mr. Maclean's, and Burnet's "History of his own Times," from Captain Maclean's; and he had of his own some books of farming, and Gregory's "Geometry." Dr. Johnson read a good deal of Burnet, and of Gregory, and I ob

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