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 e