272 RAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST. 



grave I would have visited, bad as the night was, had I met 

 any one who could have pointed it out to me. But ungrate- 

 ful Portsoy seemed to have forgotten poor Miss Bond, who, 

 in all her printed letters and little stories, so rarely forgot it. 

 Have any of my readers ever seen the work (in two slim 

 volumes), "Letters of a Tillage Governess," published in 1 81 4 

 by Elizabeth Bond, and dedicated to Sir Walter Scott ? If 

 not, and should they chance to see, as I lately did, a copy on 

 a stall (with uncut leaves, alas ! and selling dog cheap), they 

 might possibly do worse things than buy it.* 



With better weather I could have spent a day or two very 

 agreeably in Portsoy and its neighbourhood ; but the rain 

 dashed unceasingly, and made exploration under the cover of 

 the umbrella somewhat resemble that of a sea-bottom under 

 cover of the diving-bell. I could see but little at a time, and 

 the little imperfectly. Miss Bond, in her " Letters," refers, 

 in her light, pleasing style, to what in more favourable cir- 

 cumstances might be seen. " My troop of light infantry" 

 she says, "keeps me so well employed here during the day, 

 that the silence and repose of the evening is very delightful. 

 In fine weather I walk by the sea-side, and scramble among 

 the rugged rocks, many of which are inaccessible to human 

 feet, forming a fine retreat for foxes. These animals often 

 may be seen from the heights, sporting with their cubs in per- 

 fect safety. This day I went to see the works of an old vir- 

 tuoso^ who turns in marble, or rather granite [serpentine] all 

 kinds of chimney-piece ornaments, rings, ear-rings, &c. Se- 

 veral specimens of his work, which must have cost him a vast 

 deal of trouble, I thought very beautiful. It was in this 

 neighbourhood that the celebrated Ferguson spent so much 

 of his time. The globular stones on the gate of Durn are 

 still to be seen, on which he mapped out the figuring of the 



* A description of Miss Bond and of her " Letters," here referred to, i* 

 given in the fifth chapter of " My Schools and Schoolmasters." 



