The good family at Corrichatachin said, they hoped to see us on our return.  We rode down to the shore; but Malcolm walked with graceful agility.

We got into Rasay’s carriage, which was a good strong open boat made in Norway.  The wind had now risen pretty high, and was against us; but we had four stout rowers, particularly a Macleod, a robust black-haired fellow, half naked, and bare-headed, something between a wild Indian and an English tar.  Dr. Johnson sat high, on the stern, like a magnificent Triton.  Malcolm sung an Erse song, the chorus of which was ’Hatyin foam foam eri’, with words of his own[486].  The tune resembled ’Owr the muir amang the heather’.  The boatmen and Mr. M’Queen chorused, and all went well.  At length Malcolm himself took an oar, and rowed vigorously.  We sailed along the coast of Scalpa, a rugged island, about four miles in length.  Dr. Johnson proposed that he and I should buy it, and found a good school, and an episcopal church, (Malcolm[487] said, he would come to it,) and have a printing-press, where he would print all the Erse that could be found.  Here I was strongly struck with our long projected scheme of visiting the Hebrides being realized[488].  I called to him, ‘We are contending with seas;’ which I think were the words of one of his letters to me[489].  ‘Not much,’ said he; and though the wind made the sea lash considerably upon us, he was not discomposed.  After we were out of the shelter of Scalpa, and in the sound between it and Rasay, which extended about a league, the wind made the sea very rough[490].  I did not like it.  JOHNSON.  ’This now is the Atlantick.  If I should tell at a tea table in London, that I have crossed the Atlantick in an open boat, how they’d shudder, and what a fool they’d think me to expose myself to such danger?’ He then repeated Horace’s ode,—­

     ’Otium Divos rogat in patenti
      Prensus Aegaeo——­[491]’

In the confusion and hurry of this boisterous sail, Dr. Johnson’s spurs, of which Joseph had charge, were carried over-board into the sea, and lost[492].  This was the first misfortune that had befallen us.  Dr. Johnson was a little angry at first, observing that ’there was something wild in letting a pair of spurs be carried into the sea out of a boat;’ but then he remarked, ’that, as Janes the naturalist had said upon losing his pocket-book, it was rather an inconvenience than a loss.’  He told us, he now recollected that he dreamt the night before, that he put his staff into a river, and chanced to let it go, and it was carried down the stream and lost.  ’So now you see, (said he,) that I have lost my spurs; and this story is better than many of those which we have concerning second sight and dreams.’  Mr. M’Queen said he did not believe the second sight; that he never met with any well attested instances; and if he should, he should impute them to chance; because all who pretend to that quality often fail in their predictions, though