CHAP. xxin. DICK'S LAST WALK. 403 



" A gentleman in Aberdeen wrote to me about the 

 Holy Grass. I put in a word for two grasses I wanted. 

 He sent me those two, and in return for them I sent 

 him fifty specimens of Caithness grass. 



"Another gentleman in London has asked me for 

 shells from our shores, and I have supplied him as far 

 as I could on condition of receiving grass for grass." 



Again he says (20th August 1866) : 



" I have not got many rambles this summer, and I 

 blame that as the cause of the weakness in my stomach. 

 I used to be such a great walker, and the change is 

 telling on me," 



Nine days after this letter was written, Dick took his 

 last walk. He had for some time been complaining of 

 his health. At first he thought that it was indigestion 

 that troubled him. " If I eat I choke," he says. Then 

 he complained of his want of breath. Indeed, few con- 

 stitutions could have stood the amount of toil, labour, 

 and privation, which he had endured during his long 

 course of inquiry into the fossils, plants, grasses, and 

 mosses, over the length and breadth of Caithness. He 

 had often walked from fifty to eighty miles between 

 one baking and another, with little more in his scrip 

 than a few pieces of biscuit. Youth can endure many 

 privations, but when a man becomes comparatively 

 old and Dick was now fifty-five he cannot evade 

 with impunity the requirements of nature. 



Dick took his last journey on the 29th of August 

 1866. He thus describes it : 



" A week ago I went to a quarry at noon to search 

 for a fossil, if I could possibly find such a thing. 



