imes by
reading. I have never wanted books in the isle of Skie.

We were invited one day by the laird and lady of Muck, one of the
western islands, two miles long, and three quarters of a mile high. He
has half his island in his own culture, and upon the other half live one
hundred and fifty dependants, who not only live upon the product, but
export corn sufficient for the payment of their rent.

Lady Macleod has a son and four daughters; they have lived long in
England, and have the language and manners of English ladies. We lived
with them very easily. The hospitality of this remote region is like
that of the golden age. We have found ourselves treated, at every house,
as if we came to confer a benefit.

We were eight days at Dunvegan, but we took the first opportunity which
the weather afforded, after the first days, of going away, and, on the
21st, went to Ulinish, where we were well entertained, and wandered a
little after curiosities. In the afternoon, an interval of calm sunshine
courted us out, to see a cave on the shore, famous for its echo. When we
went into the boat, one of our companions was asked, in Erse, by the
boatmen, who they were, that came with him. He gave us characters, I
suppose, to our advantage, and was asked, in the spirit of the
highlands, whether I could recite a long series of ancestors. The
boatmen said, as I perceived afterwards, that they heard the cry of an
English ghost. This, Boswell says, disturbed him. We came to the cave,
and, clambering up the rocks, came to an arch, open at one end, one
hundred and eighty feet long, thirty broad, in the broadest part, and
about thirty high. There was no echo: such is the fidelity of report;
but I saw, what I had never seen before, muscles and whilks, in their
natural state. There was another arch in the rock, open at both ends.

September 23rd. We removed to Talisker, a house occupied by Mr. Macleod,
a lieutenant colonel in the Dutch service. Talisker has been long in the
possession of gentlemen, and, therefore, has a garden well cultivated,
and, what is here very rare, is shaded by trees; a place where the
imagination is more amused cannot easily be found. The mountains about
it are of great height, with waterfalls succeeding one another so fast,
that as one ceases to be heard, another begins. Between the mountains
there is a small valley, extending to the sea, which is not far off,
beating upon a coast, very difficult of access.

Two nights