UNCLE IN ENGLAND. 157 



leading distinctions, and we become able to 

 trace every new fact up to some general cause. 

 This, he says, may be called gaining a sort of 

 double knowledge at least, it is making know- 

 ledge doubly useful. 



2Qth. I send you a long extract from the last 

 of Hertford's Western Isle letters. He is now 

 at Edinburgh. 



" I have been at the island of St. Kilda ; the 

 passage to it was stormy and dangerous, which 

 kept us always on the look out. St. Kilda is so 

 remote and solitary, that I had expected to find 

 it more interesting than it is in fact,, for I had 

 hoped to find some peculiarities among the in- 

 habitants, in which I might trace the olden times. 

 Unfortunately the clergyman was absent, and as 

 the inhabitants have not learned to speak English, 

 we could not have any very satisfactory inter- 

 course with them. 



" They were a little alarmed at first, by the 

 sight of strangers, and fled in all directions $ but 

 they soon became calm, and treated us very hos- 

 pitably. They seemed to be a most innocent 

 contented set of people about a hundred all 

 together and \vere very comfortably dressed. 

 They use the quern, or hand-mill, as in all the 

 Hebrides, to grind their oatmeal, and to make 

 their snuff. Their usual snuff-box is a simple 

 cow's horn, stopped at the large end, and a small 



p 



