oon Dr. Johnson said, 'it would require great resignation to
live in one of these islands.' BOSWELL. 'I don't know, Sir; I have felt
myself at times in a state of almost mere physical existence, satisfied
to eat, drink, and sleep, and walk about, and enjoy my own thoughts; and
I can figure a continuation of this.' JOHNSON. 'Ay, Sir; but if you were
shut up here, your own thoughts would torment you. You would think of
Edinburgh or London, and that you could not be there.'

We set out after dinner for _Breacacha_, the family seat of the Laird of
Col, accompanied by the young laird, who had now got a horse, and by the
younger Mr. M'Sweyn, whose wife had gone thither before us, to prepare
every thing for our reception, the laird and his family being absent at
Aberdeen. It is called _Breacacha_, or the Spotted Field, because in
summer it is enamelled with clover and daisies, as young Col told me. We
passed by a place where there is a very large stone, I may call it a
_rock_;--'a vast weight for Ajax[789].' The tradition is, that a giant
threw such another stone at his mistress, up to the top of a hill, at a
small distance; and that she in return, threw this mass down to
him[790]. It was all in sport.

'Malo me petit lasciva puella[791].'

As we advanced, we came to a large extent of plain ground. I had not
seen such a place for a long time. Col and I took a gallop upon it by
way of race. It was very refreshing to me, after having been so long
taking short steps in hilly countries. It was like stretching a man's
legs after being cramped in a short bed. We also passed close by a large
extent of sand-hills, near two miles square. Dr. Johnson said, 'he never
had the image before. It was horrible, if barrenness and danger could be
so.' I heard him, after we were in the house of _Breacacha_, repeating
to himself, as he walked about the room,

'And smother'd in the dusty whirlwind, dies[792].'

Probably he had been thinking of the whole of the simile in _Cato_, of
which that is the concluding line; the sandy desart had struck him so
strongly. The sand has of late been blown over a good deal of meadow,
and the people of the island say, that their fathers remembered much of
the space which is now covered with sand, to have been under
tillage[793]. Col's house is situated on a bay called _Breacacha_ Bay.
We found here a neat new-built gentleman's house, better than any we had
been in since we were at Lord Errol's. Dr. Jo