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 w