224 JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



till he reached seventy. He was compelled to desist only 

 by increasing age and growing infirmity, but not before 

 he had acquired an unusually extensive and practical 

 acquaintance with the flora of his native land, and had 

 completed his herbarium. In this way, he traversed a 

 great part of Scotland, visiting most places between Banff 

 and the Border, on to Glasgow in the west. He never 

 went into Ayr or Galloway, or into the Highlands beyond 

 Ben Macdhui and Banffshire, which were his utmost limits 

 to the north. 



Many were the scenes he saw, strange the adventures 

 he had, and curious the company he was often obliged 

 to keep, in this uncommon style of studying science. 

 These he delighted, like a wandering sailor from foreign 

 lands, to recount to his wondering friends, but chiefly to 

 his intimates, with humorous picturesqueness and laughing 

 glee. Some of these reminiscences I have been able to 

 rescue, but the greater part are now for ever gone with 

 their hero. 



His observations on men, places, and things were by 

 no means commonplace, as, with such a seer, they could 

 hardly be. Even in his eighty-seventh year, when I talked 

 with him of the places he had visited, these possessed 

 surprising brevity, point and vividness for a man so aged, 

 after his faculties had very greatly failed. A few of them 

 may not be uninteresting as further interpreting their 

 remarkable author. 



In Glasgow, he "saw a heap o' things," mentioning 

 specially the active Broomielaw, the bridges over the 

 Clyde, and a visit he paid to a weaving factory. There 

 he was greatly taken with " Anderson's great harness 



