time, in the interior of this cottage, what I had frequent occasion to
remark afterwards, that much of the wood used in building in the smaller
and outer islands of the Hebrides must have drifted across the Atlantic,
borne eastwards and northwards by the great Gulf-stream. Many of the
beams and boards, sorely drilled by the _Teredo navalis_, are of
American timber, that, from time to time, has been cast upon the
shore,--a portion of it, apparently, from timber-laden vessels
unfortunate in their voyage, but a portion of it, also, with root and
branch still attached, bearing mark of having been swept to the sea by
transatlantic rivers. Nuts and seeds of tropical plants are occasionally
picked up on the beach. My friend gave me a bean or nut of the _Dolichos
urens_, or cow-itch shrub, of the West Indies, which an islander had
found on the shore sometime in the previous year, and given to one of
the manse children as a toy; and I attach some little interest to it, as
a curiosity of the same class with the large canes and the fragment of
carved wood found floating near the shores of Madeira by the
brother-in-law of Columbus, and which, among other pieces of
circumstantial evidence, led the great navigator to infer the existence
of a western continent. Curiosities of this kind seem still more common
in the northern than in the western islands of Scotland. "Large exotic
nuts or seeds," says Dr. Patrick Neill, in his interesting "Tour,"
quoted in a former chapter, "which in Orkney are known by the name of
Molucca beans, are occasionally found among the _rejectamenta_ of the
sea, especially after westerly winds. There are two kinds commonly
found: the larger (of which the fishermen very generally make
snuff-boxes) seem to be seeds from the great pod of the _Mimosa
scandens_ of the West Indies; the smaller seeds, from the pod of the
_Dolichos urens_, also a native of the same region. It is probable that
the currents of the ocean, and particularly that great current which
issues from the Gulf of Florida, and is hence denominated the Gulf
Stream, aid very much in transporting across the mighty Atlantic these
American products. They are generally quite fresh and entire, and afford
an additional proof how impervious to moisture, and how imperishable,
nuts and seeds generally are."

The evening was fast falling ere the minister closed his discourse; and
we had but just light enough left, on reaching the Betsey, to show us
that there l