Went down to Huntly Burn, and dawdled about while waiting for the carriage to bring me back.  Mr. Bruce and Colonel Ferguson pottered away about Persia and India, and I fell asleep by the fireside.  Here is a fine spate of work—­a day diddled away, and nothing to show for it!  I must write letters now, there is nothing else for it.  But—­yaw—­yaw—­I must take a nap first.  I had a letter from Jem Ballantyne, plague on him! full of remonstrance, deep and solemn, upon the carelessness of Bonaparte.  The rogue is right too.  But as to correcting my style to the

    “Jemmy jemmy linkum feedle”

tune of what is called fine writing, I’ll be d——­d if I do.  Drew L12 in favour of Charles for his Irish jaunt; same time exhorted him to make himself as expensive to Walter, in the way of eating and drinking, as he could.  Mr. and Mrs. Impey arrived to dinner.

September 7.—­Mr. Bruce, the bastinadoed, left us this morning promising wine from Shiraz and arms from India.  From our joint observation he must be a half-caste, probably half an Arab.  He told us of his having been taken by pirates in the Arabian Gulf, and having received two thousand bastinadoes on the soles of his feet, after which he was buried in a heap of dung by way of cure.  Though the matter was certainly serious enough to the sufferer, yet it excited our suppressed, or scarce suppressed, mirth.  Alas! let never traveller tell any distress which borders on the ludicrous if he desires to excite the sympathy of the audience.

Another thing he mentioned was the mode of seasoning timber for shipbuilding in the Arabian Gulf.  They bury it in the sand within water-mark, and leave it exposed to the flux and reflux of the tide for six months at least, but often for twelve or eighteen.  The tendency to vegetation which produces the dry-rot is thus prevented effectually, and the ships built of this wood last for twenty years.

We drove to Ashestiel in the morning, after I had written a good task, or nearly so (nay, I lie, it wanted half a page), and passed a pleasant day.  Terry read Bobadil in the evening, which he has, I think, improved.

September 8.—­I have rubbed up, by collation with Mr. Impey, Sir Frederick Adam’s idea of the Greeks.  He deeply regrets the present war as premature, undertaken before knowledge and rational education had extended themselves sufficiently.  The neighbourhood of the Ionian Islands was fast producing civilisation; and as knowledge is power, it is clear that the example of Europeans, and the opportunities of education thereby afforded, must soon have given them an immense superiority over the Turk.  This premature war has thrown all back into a state of barbarism.  It was precipitated by the agents of Russia.  Sir Frederick spoke most highly of Byron, the soundness of his views, the respect in which he was held—­his just ideas of the Grecian cause and character, and the practical and rational wishes