IN VEEN ESS. So'.) 



perience. are apt to produce headache on the part of the 

 performer, so I promise you a glass of whisky. 



"Just before Christinas I paid a visit to the Black Isle 

 in Ross-shire. On returning home I started at six in the 

 morning, in an open dog-cart, the wind high and piercing. 

 I was half frozen before I got down to Kessock Ferry, 

 opposite Inverness. Instead of crossing it, as usual, in 

 ten minutes, we were beat back, and took more than half- 

 an-hour. I had then to walk against the wind (a boy 

 carrying my bag a good (to me i ad) mile and a half, up 

 to Inverness. I tried to wear a respirator, but didn't 

 know how, and thought it impeded my breathing At all 

 events, I got very asthmatic, with discomfort from pain in 

 chest and side, and had to stop ever and anon, and crawl 

 like a snail even when under way. All the other people, 

 men, women, and children, were running like roe-deer to 

 catch the train ! For me such ' Excursion ' I felt, as Lord 

 Jeffrey said, : would never do ; ' so I gave up the attempt, 

 and was more than ten minutes past my time. However, 

 this had no worse effect than that I finally got to Edin- 

 burgh next day to supper instead of to dinner, as I would 

 have done had I not missed the morning train. I am sure 

 you would have commiserated your Uncle James, had you 

 seen him exhausted and breathless, leaning against a 

 buttress, near Inverness, and heaving heavily, even like a 

 stranded porpoise left alone upon the shallow sands/' 



