that he had forty head of black cattle, an hundred goats, and an hundred sheep, upon a farm that he remembered let at five pounds a year, but for which he now paid twenty.  He told us some stories of their march into England.  At last he left us, and we went forward, winding among mountains, sometimes green and sometimes naked, commonly so steep as not easily to be climbed by the greatest vigour and activity:  our way was often crossed by little rivulets, and we were entertained with small streams trickling from the rocks, which after heavy rains must be tremendous torrents.

About noon we came to a small glen, so they call a valley, which compared with other places appeared rich and fertile; here our guides desired us to stop, that the horses might graze, for the journey was very laborious, and no more grass would be found.  We made no difficulty of compliance, and I sat down to take notes on a green bank, with a small stream running at my feet, in the midst of savage solitude, with mountains before me, and on either hand covered with heath.  I looked around me, and wondered that I was not more affected, but the mind is not at all times equally ready to be put in motion; if my mistress and master and Queeny had been there we should have produced some reflections among us, either poetical or philosophical, for though solitude be the nurse of woe, conversation is often the parent of remarks and discoveries.

In about an hour we remounted, and pursued our journey.  The lake by which we had travelled for some time ended in a river, which we passed by a bridge, and came to another glen, with a collection of huts, called Auknashealds; the huts were generally built of clods of earth, held together by the intertexture of vegetable fibres, of which earth there are great levels in Scotland which they call mosses.  Moss in Scotland is bog in Ireland, and moss-trooper is bog-trotter:  there was, however, one hut built of loose stones, piled up with great thickness into a strong though not solid wall.  From this house we obtained some great pails of milk, and having brought bread with us, were very liberally regaled.  The inhabitants, a very coarse tribe, ignorant of any language but Erse, gathered so fast about us, that if we had not had Highlanders with us, they might have caused more alarm than pleasure; they are called the Clan of Macrae.

We had been told that nothing gratified the Highlanders so much as snuff and tobacco, and had accordingly stored ourselves with both at Fort Augustus.  Boswell opened his treasure, and gave them each a piece of tobacco roll.  We had more bread than we could eat for the present, and were more liberal than provident.  Boswell cut it in slices, and gave them an opportunity of tasting wheaten bread for the first time.  I then got some halfpence for a shilling, and made up the deficiencies of Boswell’s distribution, who had given some money among the children.  We then directed that the mistress of the stone house