We reached the shore of Armidale before one o’clock.  Sir Alexander M’Donald came down to receive us.  He and his lady, (formerly Miss Bosville of Yorkshire[449],) were then in a house built by a tenant at this place, which is in the district of Slate, the family mansion here having been burned in Sir Donald Macdonald’s time.  The most ancient seat of the chief of the Macdonalds in the isle of Sky was at Duntulm, where there are the remains of a stately castle.  The principal residence of the family is now at Mugstot, at which there is a considerable building.  Sir Alexander and Lady Macdonald had come to Armidale in their way to Edinburgh, where it was necessary for them to be soon after this time.  Armidale is situated on a pretty bay of the narrow sea, which flows between the main land of Scotland and the Isle of Sky.  In front there is a grand prospect of the rude mountains of Moidart and Knoidart[451].  Behind are hills gently rising and covered with a finer verdure than I expected to see in this climate, and the scene is enlivened by a number of little clear brooks.

Sir Alexander Macdonald having been an Eton scholar[452], and being a gentleman of talents, Dr. Johnson had been very well pleased with him in London[453].  But my fellow-traveller and I were now full of the old Highland spirit, and were dissatisfied at hearing of racked rents and emigration, and finding a chief not surrounded by his clan.  Dr. Johnson said, ’Sir, the Highland chiefs should not be allowed to go farther south than Aberdeen.  A strong-minded man, like Sir James Macdonald[454], may be improved by an English education; but in general, they will be tamed into insignificance.’

We found here Mr. Janes of Aberdeenshire, a naturalist.  Janes said he had been at Dr. Johnson’s in London, with Ferguson the astronomer[455].  JOHNSON.  ’It is strange that, in such distant places, I should meet with any one who knows me.  I should have thought I might hide myself in Sky.’

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 3.

This day proving wet, we should have passed our time very uncomfortably, had we not found in the house two chests of books, which we eagerly ransacked.  After dinner, when I alone was left at table with the few Highland gentlemen who were of the company, having talked with very high respect of Sir James Macdonald, they were all so much affected as to shed tears.  One of them was Mr. Donald Macdonald, who had been lieutenant of grenadiers in the Highland regiment, raised by Colonel Montgomery, now Earl of Eglintoune, in the war before last; one of those regiments which the late Lord Chatham prided himself in having brought from ‘the mountains of the North[456]:’  by doing which he contributed to extinguish in the Highlands the remains of disaffection to the present Royal Family.  From this gentleman’s conversation, I first learnt how very popular his Colonel was among the Highlanders; of which I had such continued proofs, during the whole course of my Tour, that on my return I could not help telling the noble Earl himself, that I did not before know how great a man he was.