Hebrid. Tour to This evening he disputed the truth of what is said, as to the people of St. Kilda catching cold whenever strangers come1. "How can there," said he, "be a physical effect without a physical cause?" He added, laughing, "the arrival of a ship full of strangers would kill them; for, if one stranger gives them one cold, two strangers must give them two colds; and so in proportion." I wondered to hear him ridicule this, as he had praised M'Aulay for putting it in his book; saying, that it was manly in him to tell a fact, however strange, if he himself believed it. He said, the evidence was not adequate to the improbability of the thing; that if a physician, rather disposed to be incredulous, should go to St. Kilda, and report the fact, then he would begin to look about him. They said, it was annually proved by Macleod's steward, on whose arrival all the inhabitants caught cold. He jocularly remarked, "the steward always comes to demand something from them; and so they fall a coughing. I suppose the people in Sky all take a (naming a certain person) comes." They said, he came only in summer. JOHNSON. "That is out of tenderness to you. Bad weather and he, at the same time, would be too much." cold when Sunday, 3d October.-Joseph reported that the wind was still against us. Dr. Johnson said, “A wind, or not a wind? that is the question;" for he can amuse himself at times with a little play of words, or rather sentences. I remember when he turned his cup at Aberbrothick, where we drank tea, he muttered, Claudite jam rivos, pueri. I must again and again apologize to fastidious readers, for recording such minute particulars. They prove the scru [See ante, p. 53, an, at least, ingenious solution of this enigma.-ED.] 2 [Sir Alexander Macdonald.-ED.] pulous fidelity of my Journal. Dr. Johnson said it Tour to was a very exact picture of a portion of his life. While we were chatting in the indolent style of men who were to stay here all this day at least, we were suddenly roused at being told that the wind was fair, that a little fleet of herring-busses was passing by for Mull, and that Mr. Simpson's vessel was about to sail. Hugh M'Donald, the skipper, came to us, and was impatient that we should get ready, which we soon did. Dr. Johnson, with composure and solemnity, repeated the observation of Epictetus, that, "as man has the voyage of death before him, -whatever may be his employment, he should be ready at the master's call; and an old man should never be far from the shore, lest he should not be able to get himself ready." He rode, and I and the other gentlemen walked, about an English mile to the shore, where the vessel lay. Dr. Johnson said he should never forget Sky, and returned thanks for all civilities. We were carried to the vessel in a small boat which she had, and we set sail very briskly about one o'clock. I was much pleased with the motion for many hours. Dr. Johnson grew sick, and retired under cover, as it rained a good deal. I kept above, that I might have fresh air, and finding myself not affected by the motion of the vessel, I exulted in being a stout seaman, while Dr. Johnson was quite in a state of annihilation. But I was soon humbled; for after imagining that I could go with ease to America or the East Indies, I became very sick, but kept above board, though it rained hard. As we had been detained so long in Sky by bad weather, we gave up the scheme that Col had planned for us of visiting several islands, and contented ourselves with the prospect of seeing Mull, and Icolmkill and Inchkenneth, which lie near to it. Hebrid. Tour to Hebrid. Mr. Simpson was sanguine in his hopes for awhile, the wind being fair for us. He said he would land us at Icolmkill that night. But when the wind failed, it was resolved we should make for the Sound of Mull, and land in the harbour of Tobermorie. We kept near the five herring vessels for some time; but afterwards four of them got before us, and one little wherry fell behind us. When we got in full view of the point of Ardnamurchan, the wind changed, and was directly against our getting into the Sound. We were then obliged to tack, and get forward in that tedious manner. As we advanced, the storm grew greater, and the sea very rough. Col then began to talk of making for Egg, or Canna, or his own island. Our skipper said, he would get us into the Sound. Having struggled for this a good while in vain, he said, he would push forward till we were near the land of Mull, where we might cast anchor, and lie till the morning; for although, before this, there had been a good moon, and I had pretty distinctly seen not only the land of Mull, but up the Sound, and the country of Morven as at one end of it, the night was now grown very dark. Our crew consisted of one M'Donald, our skipper, and two sailors, one of whom had but one eye; Mr. Simpson himself, Col, and Hugh M'Donald his servant, all helped. Simpson said, he would willingly go for Col, if young Col or his servant would undertake to pilot us to a harbour; but, as the island is low land, it was dangerous to run upon it in the dark. Col and his servant appeared a little dubious. The scheme of running for Canna seemed then to be embraced; but Canna was ten leagues off, all out of our way; and they were afraid to attempt the harbour of Egg. All these different plans were successively in agitation. The old skipper still tried to make for safety. storm. Hebrid. the land of Mull; but then it was considered that Tour to there was no place there where we could anchor in Much time was lost in striving against the At last it became so rough, and threatened to be so much worse, that Col and his servant took more courage, and said they would undertake to hit one of the harbours in Col. "Then let us run for it in God's name," said the skipper; and instantly we turned towards it. The little wherry which had fallen behind us had hard work. The master [had] begged that, if we made for Col, we should put out a light to him. Accordingly one of the sailors waved a glowing peat for some time. The various difficulties that were started gave me a good deal of apprehension, from which I was relieved, when I found we were to run for a harbour before the wind. But my relief was but of short duration; for I soon heard that our sails were very bad, and were in danger of being torn in pieces, in which case we should be driven upon the rocky shore of Col. It was very dark, and there was a heavy and incessant rain. The sparks of the burning peat flew so much about, that I dreaded the vessel might take fire. Then, as Col was a sportsman, and had powder on board, I figured that we might be blown up. Simpson and he appeared a little frightened, which made me more so; and the perpetual talking, or rather shouting, which was carried on in Erse, alarmed me still more. A man is always suspicious of what is saying in an unknown tongue; and, if fear be his passion at the time, he grows more afraid. Our vessel often lay so much on one side, that I trembled lest she should be overset, and indeed they told me afterwards, that they had run her sometimes to within an inch of the water, so anxious were they to make what haste they could before the night should be worse. I now saw Hebrid. me Tour to what I never saw before, a prodigious sea, with imDillows coming upon a vessel, so as that it see.. hardly possible to escape. There was something grandly horrible in the sight. I am glad I have seen it once. Amidst all these terrifying circumstances, I endeavoured to compose my mind. It was not easy to do it; for all the stories that I had heard of the dangerous sailing among the Hebrides, which is proverbial, came full upon my recollection. When I thought of those who were dearest to me, and would suffer severely, should I be lost, I upbraided myself, as not having a sufficient cause for putting myself in such danger. Piety afforded me comfort; yet I was disturbed by the objections that have been made against a particular providence, and by the arguments of those who maintain that it is in vain to hope that the petitions of an individual, or even of congregations, can have any influence with the Deity; objections which have been often made, and which Dr. Hawkesworth' has lately revived, in his Preface to the Voyages to the South Seas; but Dr. Ogden's excellent doctrine on the efficacy of intercession prevailed. It was half an hour after eleven before we set our ["The general disapprobation with which the doctrines unhappily advanced by Hawkesworth in this preface were received deprived him," says the Biographical Dictionary, " of peace of mind and of life itself;" and Mrs. Piozzi says, (Anecdotes, p. 143) "Hawkesworth, the pious, the virtuous, and the wise, fell a lamented sacrifice to newspaper abuse;" and Mr. Malone, in a MS. note on that passage, in his copy of Piozzi's Anecdotes, (which Mr. Markland has been so good as to communicate to the Editor), states, that "after Hawkesworth had published Cooke's first voyage, he was attacked severely in the newspapers, by a writer who signed himself A Christian, for some tenets in that work, which so preyed on his spirits that he put an end to his life by a large dose of opium." There is reason, however, to hope that these accounts-both of the public indignation, and of Dr. Hawkesworth's consequent distress of mind—were exaggerated; for he was, between the publication of his preface in spring 1773, and his death in the November of the same year, elected a Director of the East India Company,—a distinction which, if the accounts beforementioned were true, it is not likely that he should have either solicited or obtained. One is anxious to believe that a life like Hawkesworth's, spent in advocating the interests of morality and religion, was not so miserably clouded at its very close.-ED.] |