134 Life of Audiihon. 



'■'■ December 21. Went to Dalmahoy, to the Earl of 

 Morton's seat, eight miles from Edinburgh. The count- 

 ess kindly received me, and introduced me to the earl, a 

 small slender man, tottering on his feet and weaker than 

 a newly-hatched partridge. He welcomed me with tears 

 in his eyes. The countess is about forty, not handsome, 

 but fine-looking, fair, fresh-complexioned, dark flashing 

 eyes, superior intellect and cultivation. She was dressed 

 in a rich crimson silk, and her mother in heavy black 

 satin. 



" My bedroom was a superb parlor with yellow furni- 

 ture and yellow hangings. After completing my toilet, 

 dinner is announced, and I enter the dining-room, where 

 the servants in livery attend, and one in plain clothes 

 hands about the plates in a napkin, so that his hand may 

 not touch them. In the morning I visited the stables, 

 and saw four splendid Abyssinian horses with tails reach- 

 ing to the ground. I saw in the aviary the falcon-hawks 

 used of old for hunting with, and which were to be 

 brought to the house in order that I might have an op- 

 portunity of witnessing their evolutions and flight. The 

 hawks were brought with bells and hoods and perched on 

 gloved hands as in the days of chivalry. The countess 

 wrote her name in my subscription-book, and offered to 

 pay the price in advance. 



'■'■ Dece7nber 31. Dined with Captain Basil Hall, and 

 met Francis Jeffrey and Mr. M'CuUoch, the distinguished 

 writer on political economy, a plain, simple, and amiable 

 man. Jeffrey is a little man, with a serious face and dig- 

 nified air. He looks both shrewd and cunning, and talks 

 with so much volubility he is rather displeasing. In the 

 course of the evening Jeffrey seemed to discover that if 

 he was Jeffrey I was Audubon." 



