In the Hebrides. 319 



another obstacle came in the way. My wife took 

 coffee, and the coffee-pots were not yet unpacked. 

 But a jug was at once suggested as a capital coffee- 

 pot All difficulties were now overcome. My wife 

 and the hostess got into conversation about Peebles. 

 My wife's father belonged to Manor, and though it 

 did not appear that the landlady and the Alston 

 family could count kin, none the less she and my wife 

 were soon the greatest of friends." 



An interesting old engraving of the " Black Dwarfs 

 House," as it was before any sacrilegious hand had 

 tampered with it, is still in Mr. Robertson's possession, 

 a trophy of the pilgrimage to Manor, and a memorial 

 of the risk they so narrowly escaped of being homeless 

 wanderers for the night in Peebles. 



Soon after returning from this excursion, they set 

 out for a tour in the Hebrides, where the small dredge 

 was found very serviceable even in deep water. They 

 visited Skye, and there., from some hauls with the 

 dredge in Portree Bay, at depths beween fourteen and 

 eighteen fathoms, " the gathering of foraminifera was 

 very rich, numbering above a hundred species, and 

 mostly all being in fine condition." Some of these 

 were new to Britain, and not many years earlier had 

 been reckoned among the prizes of the Porcupine 

 and Challenger expeditions. 



Upon landing at Stornoway, in Lewis, the travellers 

 noticed that the garden walks of some of the houses 

 were laid with one species of shell, Donax vittatus. 

 As this mollusk, though common enough in the south 

 of England, happens to be very rare at Cumbrae, 

 Robertson had a strong desire to see where these 



