lue of money is
always the same, and so measures an unknown quantity by an uncertain
standard. It is competent enough when the markets of the same country,
at different times, and those times not too distant, are to be compared;
but of very little use for the purpose of making one nation acquainted
with the state of another. Provisions, though plentiful, are sold in
places of great pecuniary opulence for nominal prices, to which, however
scarce, where gold and silver are yet scarcer, they can never be raised.

In the Western Islands there is so little internal commerce, that hardly
any thing has a known or settled rate. The price of things brought in,
or carried out, is to be considered as that of a foreign market; and even
this there is some difficulty in discovering, because their denominations
of quantity are different from ours; and when there is ignorance on both
sides, no appeal can be made to a common measure.

This, however, is not the only impediment. The Scots, with a vigilance
of jealousy which never goes to sleep, always suspect that an Englishman
despises them for their poverty, and to convince him that they are not
less rich than their neighbours, are sure to tell him a price higher than
the true. When Lesley, two hundred years ago, related so punctiliously,
that a hundred hen eggs, new laid, were sold in the Islands for a peny,
he supposed that no inference could possibly follow, but that eggs were
in great abundance. Posterity has since grown wiser; and having learned,
that nominal and real value may differ, they now tell no such stories,
lest the foreigner should happen to collect, not that eggs are many, but
that pence are few.

Money and wealth have by the use of commercial language been so long
confounded, that they are commonly supposed to be the same; and this
prejudice has spread so widely in Scotland, that I know not whether I
found man or woman, whom I interrogated concerning payments of money,
that could surmount the illiberal desire of deceiving me, by representing
every thing as dearer than it is.

From Lochbuy we rode a very few miles to the side of Mull, which faces
Scotland, where, having taken leave of our kind protector, Sir Allan, we
embarked in a boat, in which the seat provided for our accommodation was
a heap of rough brushwood; and on the twenty-second of October reposed at
a tolerable inn on the main land.

On the next day we began our journey southwards. The weather was