Yesterday, Dr. Johnson said, ’I cannot but laugh, to think of myself roving among the Hebrides at sixty[760].  I wonder where I shall rove at fourscore[761]!’ This evening he disputed the truth of what is said, as to the people of St. Kilda catching cold whenever strangers come.  ’How can there (said he) be a physical effect without a physical cause[762]?’ He added, laughing, ’the arrival of a ship full of strangers would kill them; for, if one stranger gives them one cold, two strangers must give them two colds; and so in proportion.’  I wondered to hear him ridicule this, as he had praised M’Aulay for putting it in his book:  saying, that it was manly in him to tell a fact, however strange, if he himself believed it[763].  He said, the evidence was not adequate to the improbability of the thing; that if a physician, rather disposed to be incredulous, should go to St. Kilda, and report the fact, then he would begin to look about him.  They said, it was annually proved by M’Leod’s steward, on whose arrival all the inhabitants caught cold.  He jocularly remarked, ’the steward always comes to demand something from them; and so they fall a coughing.  I suppose the people in Sky all take a cold, when—­(naming a certain person[764]) comes.’  They said, he came only in summer.  JOHNSON.  ’That is out of tenderness to you.  Bad weather and he, at the same time, would be too much.’

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3.

Joseph reported that the wind was still against us.  Dr. Johnson said, ’A wind, or not a wind? that is the question[765];’ for he can amuse himself at times with a little play of words, or rather sentences.  I remember when he turned his cup at Aberbrothick, where we drank tea, he muttered Claudite jam rivos, pueri’[766].  I must again and again apologize to fastidious readers, for recording such minute particulars.  They prove the scrupulous fidelity of my Journal.  Dr. Johnson said it was a very exact picture of a portion of his life.

While we were chatting in the indolent stile of men who were to stay here all this day at least, we were suddenly roused at being told that the wind was fair, that a little fleet of herring-busses was passing by for Mull, and that Mr. Simpson’s vessel was about to sail.  Hugh M’Donald, the skipper, came to us, and was impatient that we should get ready, which we soon did.  Dr. Johnson, with composure and solemnity, repeated the observation of Epictetus, that, ’as man has the voyage of death before him,—­whatever may be his employment, he should be ready at the master’s call; and an old man should never be far from the shore, lest he should not be able to get himself ready.’  He rode, and I and the other gentlemen walked, about an English mile to the shore, where the vessel lay.  Dr. Johnson said, he should never forget Sky, and returned thanks for all civilities.  We were carried to the vessel in a small boat which she had, and we set