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Rh A long drive down the steep pass brought us to the place which Boswell said was "a rich green valley, comparatively speaking." A little way beyond it lay the twenty huts which formed the village of Auchnasheal. "One of them," says Johnson, "was built of loose stones, piled up with great thickness into a strong, though not solid wall. From this house we obtained some great pails of milk, and having brought bread with us were very liberally regaled." The curious scene which they witnessed here is thus described by Boswell:—

"It was the best day the McCraas declared they had seen since the time of the old laird of Macleod." He, no doubt, had made a halt in their valley on his way to or from Skye. The snuff and tobacco must have won their hearts more even than the money. "Nothing," Johnson was told, "gratified the Highlanders so much." Knox recorded a few years later that "any stranger who cannot take a pinch of snuff or give one is looked upon with an evil eye." So uncommon was wheaten bread even a quarter of a century later, that Dr. Garnett, after leaving Inverary, tasted none till he reached Inverness. At present it can be had in most places, being brought by the steamers in large boxes from Glasgow, and transported inland in the country carts. The way in which the villagers had gathered round the travellers had startled even