CHAP. XXXIV.

A Thunder-Storm.-Drive to Broadford.-The Admiralty Surveyor.Rain again. Miserable Hovels.-Roofs used as Manure.-Deer.Loch Ainort.-Broadford. - Scene of Boswell's Drinking Bout. Grave of Scandinavian Pythoness.-A Skye Terrier.-Kyle-Akin.—A Rough Ferry.-Drive to Balmacarra. Loch Carron. - Reraig.— Comfortable Inn.

WE had a rattling thunder-storm last night. A thunderstorm in rainy Skye preceded by no sultry weather, but on the contrary by cold and high winds, here was a meteorological phenomenon! The morning broke angrily; gusts of wind screamed through the house, and breached the doors with a force that no fastening which they possessed was proof against. What matter; let it blow and rain! I have seen the Cuchullins-aye, seen them well —and were it ever so fine I must linger no longer here.

At noon the mail car arrived from Portree; and, making myself and portmanteau as waterproof as possible, I took my seat beside a gentleman on the lee side of the car, and we started. My travelling companion was Captain Wood, to whom we are indebted for the only authentic chart of the coasts of Skye, of which I

have made great use. He told me that the survey of the shores of this storm-vexed island was a most arduous task, involving great time, labour, and even danger. Frequently he had to wait for weeks to obtain peeps of the mountain peaks, in order to make his triangulations, and often his surveying ship has been blown out of the Sounds into places of great peril. Indeed, it seems to me that this labour, so different to a survey carried on in summer seas, should, like service in the Arctic regions, be remunerated by double pay.

We had not driven far before the rain descended in blinding showers, which continued with but little intermission through the day. Our road lay along the slopes of the hills dipping into Loch Sligachan. Near the entrance of the loch are some score of dwellings which, until I saw human beings emerging from them, I did not imagine for a moment were built to shelter humanity. The walls, constructed of uncemented stones, were scarcely six feet high, and they were unprovided with windows or chimneys. The roofs consisted of rough thatch, which, when saturated with soot, is removed, and serves as manure. Little patches of blighted oats and potatoes surround the huts, but so unpropitious is the climate, that these crops rarely arrive at maturity. Indeed, it would be difficult to conceive a harder struggle with nature than these poor people have to submit to for bare existence. Captain Wood,

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who has had many opportunities of seeing them, assured me that their condition is most miserable. Who would not wish to hear of these poor peasants being removed to a more genial soil, though it were across the Atlantic?

The distance from Sligachan to Broadford in a straight line cannot be more than twelve miles; but by the road, so numerous are the windings and hills, it exceeds eighteen miles. In fine weather this must be a very interesting drive; and the ascents are so steep, that you have many opportunities of walking and seeing the everchanging views. These, alas, were so dimmed by mist, that it was not easy to appreciate their beauty; but even under this unfavourable medium, as we wound through the folds of the mountains we obtained grand peeps of the Cuchullins piercing the mist clouds. The drive was also frequently varied by our coming upon herds of deer at the mouths of the corries near the seashore, to which they were attracted by the succulent salt herbage growing in those localities.

Between Loch Ainort and Broadford the road skirts the Sound of Scalpa, passing along the slopes of Beinnna-Cailleach, which are fringed with indigenous birch and mantled with numerous varieties of fern. We arrived at Broadford at three o'clock, and were allowed an hour to dry ourselves, or rather to make the attempt, before a large fire in the kitchen, drinking meanwhile

excellent toddy; so excellent, indeed, that if that upon which Boswell got drunk when he and Johnson were the guests of the Laird of Corrichatachin, it must be admitted that he had at all events the temptation of good liquor. Corrichatachin House is in ruins, but the memory of its hospitalities survives. Bozzy, you will remember, admits that when Dr. Johnson had gone to bed, he and three others drank four bowls of punch. Two of the party then retired, but Bozzy and the other kept it up until five in the morning, by which time it is to be presumed they were as drunk as they could well desire. day with a terrific headache, and at one o'clock Johnson burst in upon him, exclaiming, "What, drunk yet!" "His tone of voice," says the great man's Umbra, 66 was not that of severe reproach, so I was relieved a little." "Sir," said I, "they kept me up." "No, you kept them up, you drunken dog." And do you not remember how penitent Boswell opened his Prayer Book, and how he read in the Epistle of the day-it was Sunday — "And be not drunk with wine, wherein there is excess.” "Some," remarks Boswell, "would have taken this as a divine interposition."

Boswell awoke, as was fitting, next

Broadford after Sligachan is a paradise. It is situated on the bight of a semicircular bay beneath a hill, on the summit of which there is a cairn, marking, according to tradition, the grave of a Scandinavian Pythoness

who gave instructions that she should be buried on the top of a hill in the current of the south-west wind, setting to Norway. The inn is very comfortable, and there is a group of neat houses with shops, to which the islanders east of Portree resort to supply their household wants, and hear how the great world of Scotland wags. A shop where useful commodities and gossip are retailed must be a great boon to the Skye peasant. "It turns," said Dr. Johnson, "the balance of existence between good and evil. For to live in perpetual want of little things is a state not indeed of torture, but of constant vexation. I have in Skye had some difficulty to find ink for a letter; and if a woman breaks her needle, the work is at a stop."

We renewed our journey with steaming clothes, but warmed and greatly benefited by the toddy. The road between Broadford and Kyle-Akin runs parallel to the shore, but does not present many features of interest. We had driven about a couple of miles when I missed Captain Wood's dog, a Skye terrier, which had travelled with us from Sligachan. It was a charming little animal of the true breed, now very rare in the island. I expressed my apprehension that it might be lost. The Captain, however, had no such fear. The dog, he said, was known all over Skye, and was frequently in the habit of staying behind, when it would wait for the next mail car, in which it always got a lift;