Her husband, Sir Alexander,
is also remembered with great regard. We were told that every week a
hogshead of claret was drunk at his table.
This was another day of wind and rain; but good cheer and good society
helped to beguile the time. I felt myself comfortable enough in the
afternoon. I then thought that my last night's riot was no more than
such a social excess as may happen without much moral blame; and
recollected that some physicians maintained, that a fever produced by it
was, upon the whole, good for health: so different are our reflections
on the same subject, at different periods; and such the excuses with
which we palliate what we know to be wrong.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 27.
Mr. Donald M'Leod, our original guide, who had parted from us at
Dunvegan, joined us again to-day. The weather was still so bad that we
could not travel. I found a closet here, with a good many books, beside
those that were lying about. Dr. Johnson told me, he found a library in
his room at Talisker; and observed, that it was one of the remarkable
things of Sky, that there were so many books in it.
Though we had here great abundance of provisions, it is remarkable that
Corrichatachin has literally no garden: not even a turnip, a carrot, or
a cabbage. After dinner, we talked of the crooked spade used in Sky,
already described, and they maintained that it was better than the usual
garden-spade, and that there was an art in tossing it, by which those
who were accustomed to it could work very easily with it.
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