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Rh Johnson of having visited Iona, "without looking at Staffa, which lay in sight, with that indifference to natural objects, either of taste or scientific curiosity, which characterised him." As they sailed along, "Sir Allan, anxious for the honour of Mull, was still talking of its woods, and pointing them out to Dr. Johnson, as appearing at a distance on the skirts of that island. 'Sir,' he answered, 'I saw at Tobermory what they called a wood, which I unluckily took for heath. If you show me what I shall take for furze, it will be something.'"

They dined at "a cluster of rocks, black and horrid," near to which was a public-house where they had hoped to procure some rum or brandy for the boatmen; "but unfortunately a funeral a few days before had exhausted all their store." Smollett in his Humphry Clinker, tells how a Highland gentleman, at his grandmother's funeral, "seemed to think it a disparagement to his family that not above a hundred gallons of whisky had been drunk upon such a solemn occasion." The rest of this day's voyage Johnson thus finely described in one of his letters: "We then entered the boat again; the night came upon us: the wind rose; the sea swelled. We passed by several little islands in the silent solemnity of faint moonshine, seeing little, and hearing only the wind and the water. At last we reached the island; the venerable seat of ancient sanctity, where secret piety reposed, and where fallen greatness was reposited." Boswell adds that as they "sailed along by moonlight in a sea somewhat rough, and often between black and gloomy rocks, Dr. Johnson said, 'If this be not roving among the Hebrides nothing is.'"

Iona, which of old belonged to the Macleanes, in their recent embarassments had been sold to the Duke of Argyle. Though