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Rh the lofty hills. One indeed we found by following the course of a river up a fine glen, but owing to the long drought its roar had sunk into a murmur.

Johnson's host, Colonel Macleod, was the good kinsman who had befriended the young Laird in the troubles which he encountered on his succession to the property.

Pennant, writing in the year 1774, thus describes these Scotch regiments in the Dutch service:

In the war which broke out between England and Holland in 1781, this curious system, which had survived the great naval battles between the two countries in the seventeenth century, at last came to an end. In the Gentlemen's Magazine for December, 1782, we read, that on the first of that month:

Colonel Macleod, if he was still living, lost, of course, his command. At the time of our travellers' visit he was on leave of absence, which had been extended for some years, says Johnson, "in this time of universal peace." The knowledge which he had gained in Holland he turned to good account in Skye. He both drained the land which lay at the foot of the mountains round Talisker, and made a good garden. 'He had been," says Knox, "an observer of Dutch improvements. He carried off in proper channels the waters of two rivers which often deluged the bottom. He divided the whole valley by deep and sometimes wide ditches into a number of square fields and meadows. He now enjoys the