not old; of a pleasing person, and elegant behaviour.  She told me, that she thought herself honoured by my visit; and, I am sure, that whatever regard she bestowed on me was liberally repaid.  “If thou likest her opinions, thou wilt praise her virtue.”  She was carried to London, but dismissed without a trial, and came down with Malcolm Macleod, against whom sufficient evidence could not be procured.  She and her husband are poor, and are going to try their fortune in America: 

  “Sic rerum volvitur orbis.”

At Kingsburgh we were very liberally feasted, and I slept in the bed in which the prince reposed in his distress; the sheets which he used were never put to any meaner offices, but were wrapped up by the lady of the house, and at last, according to her desire, were laid round her in her grave.  These are not whigs.

On the 13th, travelling partly on horseback, where we could not row, and partly on foot, where we could not ride, we came to Dunvegan, which I have described already.  Here, though poor Macleod had been left by his grandfather overwhelmed with debts, we had another exhibition of feudal hospitality.  There were two stags in the house, and venison came to the table every day in its various forms.  Macleod, besides his estate in Skie, larger, I suppose, than some English counties, is proprietor of nine inhabited isles; and, of his islands uninhabited, I doubt if he very exactly knows the number.  I told him that he was a mighty monarch.  Such dominions fill an Englishman with envious wonder; but, when he surveys the naked mountains, and treads the quaking moor, and wanders over the wild regions of gloomy barrenness, his wonder may continue, but his envy ceases.  The unprofitableness of these vast domains can be conceived only by the means of positive instances.  The heir of Col, an island not far distant, has lately told me, how wealthy he should be, if he could let Rum, another of his islands, for twopence halfpenny an acre; and Macleod has an estate, which the surveyor reports to contain eighty thousand acres, rented at six hundred pounds a year.

While we were at Dunvegan, the wind was high, and the rain violent, so that we were not able to put forth a boat to fish in the sea, or to visit the adjacent islands, which may be seen from the house; but we filled up the time, as we could, sometimes by talk, sometimes by reading.  I have never wanted books in the isle of Skie.

We were invited one day by the laird and lady of Muck, one of the western islands, two miles long, and three quarters of a mile high.  He has half his island in his own culture, and upon the other half live one hundred and fifty dependants, who not only live upon the product, but export corn sufficient for the payment of their rent.

Lady Macleod has a son and four daughters; they have lived long in England, and have the language and manners of English ladies.  We lived with them very easily.  The hospitality of this remote region is like that of the golden age.  We have found ourselves treated, at every house, as if we came to confer a benefit.