Transcribed from the 1775 edition with the corrections noted in the1785 errata , email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
I had desired to visit the Hebrides, or Western Islands of Scotland,so long, that I scarcely remember how the wish was originally excited;and was in the Autumn of the year 1773 induced to undertake the journey,by finding in Mr. Boswell a companion, whose acuteness would help myinquiry, and whose gaiety of conversation and civility of manners aresufficient to counteract the inconveniences of travel, in countriesless hospitable than we have passed.
On the eighteenth of August we left Edinburgh, a city too well knownto admit description, and directed our course northward, along the easterncoast of Scotland, accompanied the first day by another gentleman, whocould stay with us only long enough to shew us how much we lost at separation.
As we crossed the Frith of Forth, our curiosity was attracted byInch Keith, a small island, which neither of my companions had evervisited, though, lying within their view, it had all their lives solicitedtheir notice. Here, by climbing with some difficulty over shatteredcrags, we made the first experiment of unfrequented coasts. InchKeith is nothing more than a rock covered with a thin layer of earth,not wholly bare of grass, and very fertile of thistles. A smallherd of cows grazes annually upon it in the summer. It seems neverto have afforded to man or beast a permanent habitation.
We found only the ruins of a small fort, not so injured by time butthat it might be easily restored to its former state. It seemsnever to have been intended as a place of strength, nor was built toendure a siege, but merely to afford cover to a few soldiers, who perhapshad the charge of a battery, or were stationed to give signals of approachingdanger. There is therefore no provision of water within the walls,though the spring is so near, that it might have been easily enclosed. One of the stones had this inscription: ‘Maria Reg. 1564.’ It has probably been neglected from the time that the whole island hadthe same king.
We left this little island with our thoughts employed awhile on thedifferent appearance that it would have made, if it had been placedat the same distance from London, with the same facility of approach;with what emulation of price a few rocky acres would have been purchased,and with what expensive industry they would have been cultivated andadorned.
When we landed, we found our chaise ready, and passed through Kinghorn,Kirkaldy, and Cowpar, places not unlike the small or straggling market-townsin those parts of England where commerce and manufactures have not yetproduced opulence.
Though we were yet in the most populous part of Scotland, and atso small a distance from the capital, we met few passengers.
The roads are neither rough nor dirty; and it affords a southernstranger a new kind of pleasure to travel so commodiously without theinterruption of toll-gates. Where the bottom is rocky, as it seemscommonly to be in Scotland, a smooth way is made indeed with great labour,but it never wants repairs; and in those parts where adventitious materialsare necessary, the ground once consolidated is rarely broken; for theinland commerce is not great, nor are heavy commodities often transportedotherwise than by water. The carriages in common use are smallcarts, drawn each by one little horse; and a man seems to derive somedegree of dignity and importance from the reputation of possessing atwo-horse cart.
At an hour somewhat late we came to St. Andrews, a city once archiepiscopal;where that university still subsists in which philosophy was formerlytaught by Buchanan, whose name has as fair