xiv Sir William Jackson Hooker. 
the lower classes of them, most of whom took us for French 
spies, or, what is worse in their estimation, sheep-farmers. 
Daniel Forbes, who so often acted as our guide, was advised by 
some to conduct us by the worst way possible ; by others he 
was told that he might be better employed. Our lad heard 
some saying that we ought to be flogged and sent out of the 
country. They have not the least idea of persons travelling 
for mere curiosity, and could not be persuaded that we were not 
come to do them some ill.’ Crossing Sutherland and Cromarty, 
they went by Moida and Lairg to Skye, where they found the 
Eriocanlon , and to the remarkable and little- visited cave of 
Slock Altramins. Recrossing the Sound to Glenelg, they pro- 
ceeded to visit Sir George McKenzie at Coul,and Lord Seaforth 
at Brahan Castle, and again Mr. Brodie of Brodie, returning 
by Aviemore, Killiecrankie, and Edinburgh 1 * * to Norwich. 
The journey through the North of Scotland was performed 
mainly on horses or ponies, and the difficulties met with were 
such as can now be experienced only in the out-of-the-way 
parts of the globe. My father made copious pencil sketches 
and kept a journal, which he was vainly urged by his friends 
to publish. I have no idea what became of it. The only 
recorded botanical result of the journey was the discovery of 
a new Andreaea (A. nivalis , Hook.) on the summit of Ben 
Nevis ; which probably prompted the writing of his second 
published paper, ‘ Some Observations on the Genus Andreaea l 
read before the Linnean Society in May, 1810 (Linn. Trans., 
x. 381, tab. xxxi). 
In 1809 Sir Joseph Banks, hearing of an opportunity for 
a naturalist visiting Iceland, where he himself had been in 
1773, suggested my father’s taking advantage of it. This he 
did, and all the more eagerly from having as a boy read * Van 
Troil’s Letters on Iceland, 7 with a longing to visit the hot 
springs and volcanoes therein described. The opportunity 
was the dispatch of a vessel, the Margaret and Anne , with 
1 It was probably on this occasion that my father became one of the founders 
of the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh, the memoirs of which, commenced in 1808, 
were concluded in 1832, in six volumes. 
