the professor of physick, at his house, and saw the king’s college.  Boswell was very angry, that the Aberdeen professors would not talk.  When I was at the English church, in Aberdeen, I happened to be espied by lady Di.  Middleton, whom I had sometime seen in London; she told what she had seen to Mr. Boyd, lord Errol’s brother, who wrote us an invitation to lord Errol’s house, called Slane’s castle We went thither on the next day, (24th of August,) and found a house, not old, except but one tower, built on the margin of the sea, upon a rock, scarce accessible from the sea; at one corner, a tower makes a perpendicular continuation of the lateral surface of the rock, so that it is impracticable to walk round; the house inclosed a square court, and on all sides within the court is a piazza, or gallery, two stories high.  We came in, as we were invited to dinner, and, after dinner, offered to go; but lady Errol sent us word by Mr. Boyd, that if we went before lord Errol came home, we must never be forgiven, and ordered out the coach to show us two curiosities.  We were first conducted, by Mr. Boyd, to Dunbuys, or the yellow rock.  Dunbuys is a rock, consisting of two protuberances, each, perhaps, one hundred yards round, joined together by a narrow neck, and separated from the land by a very narrow channel or gully.  These rocks are the haunts of seafowl, whose clang, though this is not their season, we heard at a distance.  The eggs and the young are gathered here, in great numbers, at the time of breeding.  There is a bird here, called a coot, which, though not much bigger than a duck, lays a larger egg than a goose.  We went then to see the Buller, or Bouilloir, of Buchan:  Buchan is the name of the district, and the Buller is a small creek, or gulf, into which the sea flows through an arch of the rock.  We walked round it, and saw it black, at a great depth.  It has its name from the violent ebullition of the water, when high winds or high tides drive it up the arch into the basin.  Walking a little farther, I spied some boats, and told my companions that we would go into the Buller and examine it.  There was no danger; all was calm; we went through the arch, and found ourselves in a narrow gulf, surrounded by craggy rocks, of height not stupendous, but, to a mediterranean visitor, uncommon.  On each side was a cave, of which the fisherman knew not the extent, in which smugglers hide their goods, and sometimes parties of pleasure take a dinner.  I am, &c.

XX.—­To MRS. THRALE.

Skie, September 6, 1773.

DEAREST MADAM,—­I am now looking on the sea, from a house of sir Alexander Macdonald, in the isle of Skie.  Little did I once think of seeing this region of obscurity, and little did you once expect a salutation from this verge of European life.  I have now the pleasure of going where nobody goes, and seeing what nobody sees.  Our design is to visit several of the smaller islands, and then pass over to the south-west of Scotland.