where there are so few travellers, why should there
be robbers.

ABERDEEN

We came somewhat late to Aberdeen, and found the inn so full, that we had
some difficulty in obtaining admission, till Mr. Boswell made himself
known: His name overpowered all objection, and we found a very good house
and civil treatment.

I received the next day a very kind letter from Sir Alexander Gordon,
whom I had formerly known in London, and after a cessation of all
intercourse for near twenty years met here professor of physic in the
King's College. Such unexpected renewals of acquaintance may be numbered
among the most pleasing incidents of life.

The knowledge of one professor soon procured me the notice of the rest,
and I did not want any token of regard, being conducted wherever there
was any thing which I desired to see, and entertained at once with the
novelty of the place, and the kindness of communication.

To write of the cities of our own island with the solemnity of
geographical description, as if we had been cast upon a newly discovered
coast, has the appearance of very frivolous ostentation; yet as Scotland
is little known to the greater part of those who may read these
observations, it is not superfluous to relate, that under the name of
Aberdeen are comprised two towns standing about a mile distant from each
other, but governed, I think, by the same magistrates.

Old Aberdeen is the ancient episcopal city, in which are still to be seen
the remains of the cathedral. It has the appearance of a town in decay,
having been situated in times when commerce was yet unstudied, with very
little attention to the commodities of the harbour.

New Aberdeen has all the bustle of prosperous trade, and all the shew of
increasing opulence. It is built by the water-side. The houses are
large and lofty, and the streets spacious and clean. They build almost
wholly with the granite used in the new pavement of the streets of
London, which is well known not to want hardness, yet they shape it
easily. It is beautiful and must be very lasting.

What particular parts of commerce are chiefly exercised by the merchants
of Aberdeen, I have not inquired. The manufacture which forces itself
upon a stranger's eye is that of knit-stockings, on which the women of
the lower class are visibly employed.

In each of these towns there is a college, or in stricter language, an
university; for in both there are professors of the same parts