ocean, which you see through windows of thick plate-glass let into the walls.  At Thurso town I conversed with the local genius, Robert Dick, made of world-wide fame since by that kind-hearted and clear-minded author, Samuel Smiles, the said genius being a noted self-taught naturalist, who as a small baker struggled with poverty through life, to be inconsistently rewarded after death by a national monument; his fellow-townsmen let the living starve to deify him when dead.  Cervantes and his like have met the same fate elsewhere.  Leaving Thurso for the Hebrides, in company with no fewer than 700 Gaelic fishermen, we passed the magnificent cliffs of Cape Wrath in a pleasant calm,—­which next day when we had reached Stornoway turned to a furious storm:  had we encountered it with those 700 loading the deck it would infallibly have wrecked us,—­as it did many other vessels on that night.

Sir James Matheson was our great host at Stornoway, who treated me and mine with magnificent hospitality.  If I had wished to shoot a buck or to catch a salmon (the kilted gillie stood ready with his tackle), I might have done so and welcome; but there was no time to spare for anything but a visit to the prehistoric temple of Callanish, where the stones strangely enough are set in the form of a cross instead of the ordinary circle; and to a Pictish tower, and other antiquities,—­which I preferred to sport.

Sir James’s piper always wakes the guests a’mornings, parading round the terraces with his bagpipes, and after dinner, as usual at the feasts of Highland magnates, he marches round the table in kilt and flying tartans with his drone-like dirge or furious slogan,—­being rewarded on the spot with whisky from the chief.

Here I will cease my quick reminiscence of that pleasant northern travel, though I might recount many noticeable matters about Skye and its dolomite Cuchullins, Staffa, Iona, and Oban, where The MacDougal allowed us to see and handle (an unusual honour) the famous brooch of Lorne, the loss of which saved The Bruce’s life, when he broke away from his captor, the then MacDougal; leaving tartan and shoulder-brooch in his grasp.

CHAPTER XL.

LITERARY FRIENDS.

Among the many literary men and women of my acquaintance there are some (for it is not possible to enumerate all) of whom I should like to make some mention; and, place aux dames, let me speak of the ladies first.  In my boyhood I can recollect that astronomical wonder of womankind, Mrs. Mary Somerville, a great friend of my father’s; she seemed to me very quiet and thoughtful, and so little self-conscious as to be humbly unregardful of her genius and her fame.  Strangely enough I first met her in the same drawing-room in Grafton Street (she lived and died at Chelsea) where I acted a silent part years after in some private theatricals with Miss Granville (met during my American visit in her then phase of