LETTER TO FINLAY. 101 



taken together would form as bulky a volume as the 

 one on which they are written), but I have only beside 

 me at present the opinion expressed by Leigh Hunt 

 (the friend and coadjutor of Byron, you know), and the 

 notice of a literary paper, The Spectator. These I make 

 up in the parcel. 



1 Where, think you, am I now ? On the grassy 

 summit of McEarquhar's Bed. It is evening, and the 

 precipices throw their cold dark shadows athwart the 

 beach. But the red light of the sun is still resting on 

 the higher foliage of the hill above ; and the opposite 

 land, so blue and dim, stretches along the horizon, with 

 all its speck-like dwellings shimmering to the light like 

 pearls. Not a feature of the scene has changed since 

 we last gazed on it together. What seem the same 

 waves are still fretting against the same pebbles ; and 

 yonder spring, at which we have so often filled our 

 pitcher, comes gushing from the bank with the same 

 volume, and tosses up and down the same little jet of 

 sand that it did eighteen years ago. But where are all 

 our old companions, Einlay ? Lying widely scattered 

 in solitary graves ! David Ross lies in the sea. John 

 Man died in a foreign hospital, Lay field in Berlin, 

 McGlashan in England, Walter Williamson in North 

 America. And here am I, though still in the vigour of 

 early manhood, the oldest of all the group. Who could 

 have told these poor fellows, when they last met in the 

 cave yonder, that " Eternity should have so soon in- 

 quired of them what Time had been doing ? " 



' ftegard, my dear Einlay, my Scenes and Legends as 

 a long letter from Cromarty. Do write me a little news- 

 paper. Tell me something of your mode of life. Give 

 me some idea of a Jamaica landscape. What are your 

 politics ? What your creed ? What have you been 



