were Scotch. But he nourished the prejudice the more as
giving an excellent pretext for many keen gibes. "Scotch learning," he
said, for example, "is like bread in a besieged town. Every man gets a
mouthful, but no man a bellyful." Once Strahan said in answer to some
abusive remarks, "Well, sir, God made Scotland." "Certainly," replied
Johnson, "but we must always remember that He made it for Scotchmen; and
comparisons are odious, Mr. Strahan, but God made hell."

Boswell, therefore, had reason to feel both triumph and alarm when he
induced the great man to accompany him in a Scotch tour. Boswell's
journal of the tour appeared soon after Johnson's death. Johnson himself
wrote an account of it, which is not without interest, though it is in
his dignified style, which does not condescend to Boswellian touches of
character. In 1773 the Scotch Highlands were still a little known
region, justifying a book descriptive of manners and customs, and
touching upon antiquities now the commonplaces of innumerable guide
books. Scott was still an infant, and the day of enthusiasm, real or
affected, for mountain scenery had not yet dawned. Neither of the
travellers, as Boswell remarks, cared much for "rural beauties." Johnson
says quaintly on the shores of Loch Ness, "It will very readily occur
that this uniformity of barrenness can afford very little amusement to
the traveller; that it is easy to sit at home and conceive rocks and
heath and waterfalls; and that these journeys are useless labours, which
neither impregnate the imagination nor enlarge the understanding." And
though he shortly afterwards sits down on a bank "such as a writer of
romance might have delighted to feign," and there conceived the thought
of his book, he does not seem to have felt much enthusiasm. He checked
Boswell for describing a hill as "immense," and told him that it was
only a "considerable protuberance." Indeed it is not surprising if he
sometimes grew weary in long rides upon Highland ponies, or if, when
weatherbound in a remote village in Skye, he declared that this was a
"waste of life."

On the whole, however, Johnson bore his fatigues well, preserved his
temper, and made sensible remarks upon men and things. The pair started
from Edinburgh in the middle of August, 1773; they went north along the
eastern coast, through St. Andrew's, Aberdeen, Banff, Fort George, and
Inverness. There they took to horses, rode to Glenelg, and took boat for
Skye, where