J^ INVERNESS. 387 



came on, somewhat suddenly, a disagreeable rain, ac- 

 companied by a strong head wind, and the latter three- 

 fourths of the passage were barely endurable in con- 

 sequence. 



' I wished Mr Mackenzie to show me the house in 

 which you were born. But he could show me only the 

 place it had once occupied. The house itself had dis- 

 appeared and a fashionable hotel rises on its site. 

 Tristram Shandy made a pilgrimage once to the gate of 

 a French city to drop a tear over the tomb of two faithful 

 lovers, but on reaching the gate found no tomb to shed 

 it over. And here was I, romantically seeking my wife's 

 birth-place in a spick-span, fresh-coloured building with 

 bottles of spirits in the lower windows and obsequious 

 waiters at every door. And now, dearest, good-bye. It 

 is past eleven, and I start for the west at five. Ere 

 going to bed, however, I shall read your letter once 

 more/ 



' Steamboat, Thursday evening. 



' I rose this morning before four, and looked out on 

 the weather in despair. The rain fell thick and fast, 

 and the whole heavens seemed as if cloaked in grey felt. 

 In a wonderfully short time, however, the rain lightened, 

 and such a slice of the newly-risen sun as you might 

 clip off with a pair of scissors appeared through a 

 narrow slit in the east, reddening Craig-Phadrig with a 

 faint flush of vermilion. In an hour after it was a fine 

 morning, and the steamer set off with the prospect of an 

 agreeable voyage. 



' Having spared you hitherto, I must inflict upon 

 you a very few sentences of geology. The features of 

 the very fine scenery around Inverness wear all a geolo- 

 gical impress. The ridge of the Leys extending from 

 the east side of the moor of Culloden to the shores of 



