gance of conversation, and strength of judgment, would make him conspicuous in places of greater celebrity. Next day we dined with Dr. Maclean, another physician, and then travelled on to the house of a very powerful laird, Maclean of Lochbuy; for, in this country, every man's name is Maclean.

Where races are thus numerous, and thus combined, none but the chief of a clan is addressed by his name. The laird of Dunvegan is called Macleod, but other gentlemen of the same family are denominated by the places where they reside, as Raasay, or Talisker. The distinction of the meaner people is made by their christian names.

Our afternoon journey was through a country of such gloomy desolation, that Mr. Boswell thought no part of the Highlands equally terrific, yet we came without any difficulty, at evening, to Lochbuy, where we found a true Highland laird, rough and haughty, and tenacious of his dignity; who, hearing my name, inquired whether I was of the Johnstons of Glencoe, or of Ardnamurchan.

Lochbuy has, like the other insular chieftains, quitted the castle that sheltered his ancestors, and lives near it, in a mansion not very spacious or splendid. I have seen no houses in the islands much to be envied for convenience or magnificence, yet they bear testimony to the progress of arts and civility, as they show that rapine and surprise are no longer dreaded, and are much more commodious than the ancient fortresses.

The castles of the Hebrides, many of which are standing, and many ruined, were always built upon points of land, on the margin of the sea. For the choice of this situation, there must have been some general reason, which the change of manners has left in obscurity.

If they be considered merely as places of retreat,

the situation seems not well chosen; for the laird of an island is safest from foreign enemies in the centre. On the coast he might be more suddenly surprised than in the inland parts; and the invaders, if their enterprise miscarried, might more easily retreat. Some convenience, however, whatever it was, their position on the shore afforded; for uniformity of practice seldom continues long with good reason*.

A castle in the islands is only a single tower of three or four stories, of which the walls are sometimes eight or nine feet thick, with narrow windows, and close winding stairs of stone. The top rises in a cone, or pyramid of stone, encompassed by battlements. The intermediate floors are sometimes frames of timber, as in common houses, and sometimes arches of stone, or alter nately stone and timber; so that there was very little danger from fire. In the centre of every floor from the top to bottom is the chief room, of no great extent, round which there are narrow cavities, or recesses, formed by small vacuities, or by a double wall. I know not whether there be ever more than one fire-place. They had not capacity to contain many people, or much provision; but their enemies could seldom blockade them; for, if they failed in the first attack, their next care was to escape.

The walls were always too strong to be shaken by such desultory hostilities; the windows were too narrow to be entered, and the battlements too high to be scaled. The only danger was at the gates, over which the wall was built with a square cavity, not unlike a chimney, continued to the top. Through this hollow, the defendants let fall stones

*Uniformity of practice, we conceive, is more frequently the result of custom, or fashion, than of reason,

upon those who attempted to break the gate, and poured down water, perhaps scalding water, if the attack was made with fire. The castle of Lochbuy was secured by double doors, of which the outer was an iron gate.

In every castle is a well and a dungeon. The dungeon is a deep subterraneous cavity, walled on the sides, and arched on the top, into which the descent is through a narrow door, by a ladder or a rope, so that it seems impossible to escape, when the rope or ladder is drawn up. The dungeon was, I suppose, in war, a prison for such captives as were treated with severity; and, in peace, for such delinquents as had committed crimes withinthe laird's jurisdiction.

As these fortifications were the productions of mere necessity, they are built only for safety, with little regard to convenience, and with none to ele gance or pleasure. It was sufficient for a laird of the Hebrides, if he had a strong house, in which he could hide his wife and children from the next clan. That they are not large nor splendid is no wonder. It is not easy to find how they were raised, such as they are, by men who had no money, in countries where the labourers and artificers could scarcely be fed. The buildings in different parts of the islands shew their degrees of wealth and power.

These castles afford another evidence that the fictions of romantic chivalry had for their basis the real manners of the feudal times, when every lord of a seignory lived in his hold, lawless and unaccountable, with all the licentiousness and insolence of uncontested superiority and unprincipled power. The traveller, whoever he might be, coming to the fortified habitation of a chieftain, would, probaby, have been interrogated from the battlements, ad. mitted with caution to the gate, introduced to a

petty monarch, fierce with habitnal hostility, and vigilant with ignorant suspicion; who, according to his general temper or accidental humour, would have seated a stranger as his guest at the table, or as a spy confined him in the dungeon.

We were now to leave the Hebrides, where we had spent some weeks with sufficient amusement," and where we had amplified our thoughts with new scenes of nature, and new modes of life.

Of these islands it must be confessed, that they have not many allurements, but to the mere lover of naked nature. The inhabitants are thin, provisions are scarce, and desolation and penury give little pleasure.

The people collectively considered are not few, though their numbers are small in proportion to the space which they occupy. Mull is said to contain six thousand, and Skie fifteen thousand. Of the computation respecting Mull, I can give no account; but when I doubted the truth of the numbers attributed to Skie, one of the ministers exhibited such facts as conquered my incredulity.

In the Western Islands there is so little internal commerce, that hardly any thing has a known or settled rate. The price of things brought in, or carried out, is to be considered as that of a foreign market; and even this there is some difficulty in discovering, because their denominations of quantity are different from ours; and when there is ignorance on both sides, no appeal can be made to a common

measure.

From Lochbuy we rode a very few miles to the 'side of Mull, which faces Scotland, where, having taken leave of our kind protector, Sir Allan, we embarked in a boat, in which the seat provided for our accommodation was a heap of rough brushwood; and on the 22d of October reposed at a to lerable inn on the main land,

On the next day we began our journey southwards. The weather was tempestuous. For half the day the ground was rough, and our horses were still small. Had they required much restraint, we might have been reduced to difficulties; for I think we had amongst us but one bridle. We fed the poor animals liberally, and they performed their journey well. In the latter part of the day we came to a firm and smooth road, made by the soldiers, on which we travelled with great security, busied with contemplating the scene about us. The night came on while we had yet a great part of the way to go, though not so dark but that we could discern the cataracts which poured down the hills, on one side, and fell into one general channel, that ran with great violence on the other. The wind was loud, the rain was heavy, and the whistling of the blast, the fall of the shower, the rush of the cataracts, and the roar of the torrent, made a nobler chorus of the rough music of nature than it had ever been my chance to hear before. The streams, which ran across the way from the hills to the main cur. rent, where so frequent, that, after a while, I be gan to count them: and, in ten miles, reckoned fifty-five, probably missing some, and having let some pass before they forced themselves upon my notice. At last we came to Inverary, where we found an inn, not only commodious but magnificent.

The difficulties of peregrination were now at an end. Mr. Boswell had the honour of being known to the Duke of Argyle, by whom we were very kindly entertained at his splendid seat, and supplied with conveniences for surveying his spacious park and rising forests.

After two days stay at Inverary, we proceeded southward over Glencroe, a black and dreary region, now made casily passable by a military road,