tries. The consequence of a bad season is here not scarcity, but
emptiness; and they whose plenty, was barely a supply of natural and
present need, when that slender stock fails, must perish with hunger.

All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries,
he may learn to improve his own, and if fortune carries him to worse, he
may learn to enjoy it.

Mr. Boswell's curiosity strongly impelled him to survey Iona, or
Icolmkil, which was to the early ages the great school of Theology, and
is supposed to have been the place of sepulture for the ancient kings. I,
though less eager, did not oppose him.

That we might perform this expedition, it was necessary to traverse a
great part of Mull. We passed a day at Dr. Maclean's, and could have
been well contented to stay longer. But Col provided us horses, and we
pursued our journey. This was a day of inconvenience, for the country is
very rough, and my horse was but little. We travelled many hours through
a tract, black and barren, in which, however, there were the reliques of
humanity; for we found a ruined chapel in our way.

It is natural, in traversing this gloom of desolation, to inquire,
whether something may not be done to give nature a more cheerful face,
and whether those hills and moors that afford heath cannot with a little
care and labour bear something better? The first thought that occurs is
to cover them with trees, for that in many of these naked regions trees
will grow, is evident, because stumps and roots are yet remaining; and
the speculatist hastily proceeds to censure that negligence and laziness
that has omitted for so long a time so easy an improvement.

To drop seeds into the ground, and attend their growth, requires little
labour and no skill. He who remembers that all the woods, by which the
wants of man have been supplied from the Deluge till now, were self-sown,
will not easily be persuaded to think all the art and preparation
necessary, which the Georgick writers prescribe to planters. Trees
certainly have covered the earth with very little culture. They wave
their tops among the rocks of Norway, and might thrive as well in the
Highlands and Hebrides.

But there is a frightful interval between the seed and timber. He that
calculates the growth of trees, has the unwelcome remembrance of the
shortness of life driven hard upon him. He knows that he is doing what
will never benefit himself; and when he rejoices to s