tion of a
district by anglers and the excellence of its hotels. Where there is no
great influx of tourists, the hotel accommodation is decidedly poor. I
remember one inn, at a cold windy clachan on the west coast, which only
stress of weather and dire necessity would make a man enter. Dirty stone
steps, worn and crumbled in the centre, led to an upper room which had
apparently not been swept out for a year or two. Not even the city of
Cologne in Coleridge's time could have produced from among its imposing
catalogue of stenches anything to match the complex ensemble of that
malodorous inn. There was stale fish intil't, and bad beer intil't, and
peat reek intil't, and mice intil't, and candle grease intil't, and the
devil and all intil't. Though I was the only visitor, I feared I should
not have the bed to myself: so I e'en wrapped myself in my Highland
plaidie (after the minimum of disinvestiture), and stretched my limbs on
an arthritic settee, with intent to sleep. No sleep came till the
quaffing roysterers of the clachan had ceased fighting under the moon
outside, about 2 A.M. namely. Rather than stay two nights in such a
place, I boated out early next day into the mid-channel of the Sound of
Mull, and clambered up the sides of Macbrayne's _Lapwing_, which took me
to Oban.

RECENT BOOKS.

The most charming of recent works on the Outer Islands is that one of
which the preface was written in Jerusalem. I refer to the volume of
Miss Goodrich Frere, a lady whose vivacity, fervour, and picturesque
style are deserving of unqualified praise. All the libraries in the
bilingual districts contain the book, and few are so often asked for. In
conversation and publicly I have often given myself the pleasure of
recommending it, alike to Highlander and Lowlander. My admiration for
Miss Frere's talents makes me wish that one or two of her prejudices had
been less glaringly displayed. She speaks, for example, with something
like scornful reproach of Lochmaddy, because the habit of taking
afternoon tea is common in that township. It would have been more to the
purpose if Miss Frere had issued a general warning to the people of the
Hebrides not to drink tea as black as porter, and, above all, not to
boil it. The pale anaemic faces one so often sees in the north and west,
the mental prostration and actual insanity so alarmingly on the increase
in the Long Island, are unquestionably due, in great measure, to the
abominably strong tea t