was last night a hospitable house, was, in my mind, changed to-day into a prison.  After dinner I read some of Dr. Macpherson’s Dissertations on the Ancient Caledonians[477].  I was disgusted by the unsatisfactory conjectures as to antiquity, before the days of record.  I was happy when tea came.  Such, I take it, is the state of those who live in the country.  Meals are wished for from the cravings of vacuity of mind, as well as from the desire of eating.  I was hurt to find even such a temporary feebleness, and that I was so far from being that robust wise man who is sufficient for his own happiness.  I felt a kind of lethargy of indolence.  I did not exert myself to get Dr. Johnson to talk, that I might not have the labour of writing down his conversation.  He enquired here if there were any remains of the second sight[478].  Mr. M’Pherson, Minister of Slate, said, he was resolved not to believe it, because it was founded on no principle[479].  JOHNSON.  ’There are many things then, which we are sure are true, that you will not believe.  What principle is there, why a loadstone attracts iron? why an egg produces a chicken by heat? why a tree grows upwards, when the natural tendency of all things is downwards?  Sir, it depends upon the degree of evidence that you have.’  Young Mr. M’Kinnon mentioned one M’Kenzie, who is still alive, who had often fainted in his presence, and when he recovered, mentioned visions which had been presented to him.  He told Mr. M’Kinnon, that at such a place he should meet a funeral, and that such and such people would be the bearers, naming four; and three weeks afterwards he saw what M’Kenzie had predicted.  The naming the very spot in a country where a funeral comes a long way, and the very people as bearers, when there are so many out of whom a choice may be made, seems extraordinary.  We should have sent for M’Kenzie, had we not been informed that he could speak no English.  Besides, the facts were not related with sufficient accuracy.

Mrs. M’Kinnon, who is a daughter of old Kingsburgh, told us that her father was one day riding in Sky, and some women, who were at work in a field on the side of the road, said to him they had heard two taiscks, (that is, two voices of persons about to die[480],) and what was remarkable, one of them was an English taisck, which they never heard before.  When he returned, he at that very place met two funerals, and one of them was that of a woman who had come from the main land, and could speak only English.  This, she remarked, made a great impression upon her father.

How all the people here were lodged, I know not.  It was partly done by separating man and wife, and putting a number of men in one room, and of women in another.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8.