weather to keep us tolerably right. In the severer seasons, however, the
kedge is found inadequate, and the minister has to hoist sail and make
out for the open sea, as if served with a sudden summons of ejectment.

Among the various things brought aboard this morning, there was a pair
of island shoes for the minister's cabin use, that struck my fancy not a
little. They were all around of a deep madder red color, soles, welts
and uppers; and, though somewhat resembling in form the little yawl of
the Betsey, were sewed not unskilfully with thongs; and their peculiar
style of tie seemed of a kind suited to furnish with new idea a
fashionable shoemaker of the metropolis. They were altogether the
production of Eigg, from the skin out of which they had been cut, with
the lime that had prepared it for the tan, and the root by which the tan
had been furnished, down to the last on which they had been moulded, and
the artisan that had cast them off, a pair of finished shoes. There are
few trees, and, of course, no bark to spare, in the island; but the
islanders find a substitute in the astringent lobiferous root of the
_Tormentilla erecta_, which they dig out for the purpose among the
heath, at no inconsiderable expense of time and trouble. I was informed
by John Stewart, an adept in all the multifarious arts of the island,
from the tanning of leather and the tilling of land, to the building of
a house or the working of a ship, that the infusion of root had to be
thrice changed for every skin, and that it took a man nearly a day to
gather roots enough for a single infusion. I was further informed that
it was not unusual for the owner of a skin to give it to some neighbor
to tan, and that, the process finished, it was divided equally between
them, the time and trouble bestowed on it by the one being deemed
equivalent to the property held in it by the other. I wished to call a
pair of these primitive-looking shoes my own, and no sooner was the wish
expressed, than straightway one islander furnished me with leather, and
another set to work upon the shoes. When I came to speak of
remuneration, however, the islanders shook their heads. "No, no, not
from the _Witness_: there are not many that take our part, and the
_Witness_ does." I hold the shoes, therefore, as my first retainer,
determined, on all occasions of just quarrel, to make common cause with
the poor islanders.

The view from the anchoring ground presents some very striking