have been vastly pleased with what I have seen, and will have a lot to tell geologists that is new. CAIRNISH, NORTH UIST, _11th July 1877_. This place is still further out of the world than Lochmaddy. We walked to it to-day accompanied by one of the Inland Revenue officers, a very good intelligent fellow, who is quite an antiquarian and takes an intelligent interest in geology. He knew of me quite well and had read my “great work.” The road lay for twelve miles through bogs, morasses, rocks, and lakes, and passed over as dreary a stretch of country as I ever set eyes on. The sky was cold grey, and the wind too was none of the kindest. Here we found a wretched inn, where we were waited on by a great hulking Heeland lassie with a back as broad as a barn door, and bare feet which haven’t been in a tub since the day she saw the light of this weary world. She is shy, the dear creature, and has not one word of English. When I ring for her with the bell that lies on the table, she looks into the room with a grin on her face. I want salt, so I take up a bit of the Australian meat and dab it on the side of the plate. She twigs at once what I want, makes a guttural sound, and in half-an-hour or so returns with a soap-dish full of dirty salt. However, she gives us good scones and not bad tea, and strong peat-reekie whisky. The landlord has been a soldier, I think, for he speaks of Hyderabad. Fancy a man coming from the sunny plains of India to this fearful howling wilderness. It would make a fine penal settlement. You see poor, ragged, dirty women bending under their creels of peat, and men digging the mosses as for dear life. It is hard living for them, poor devils. There is no shelter in the land, even the heather is low and stunted, and the wind howls in from the Atlantic with a long melancholy sough that is depressing in the extreme. No sportsman ever comes here, for there is nothing to shoot. It is said that there are fine trout in the lakes. It may be so; but the man who could fish such peaty holes and feel happy in the occupation, could only be an escaped convict or downright lunatic. The inn at Lochmaddy was snug, if the country was miserable. Here everything is in keeping.... Most of the houses are mere stone-and-mud huts with mud floors and heather roofs. Cattle enter them freely and mingle with the family. I was amused with an old man who came up to us and asked our friend the Inland Revenue man what we were doing. He took us for drovers come to buy cattle. When he heard that we had come to look at rocks and stones he said--“We were great fools, and must be very idle, and light in the head.” And indeed when I looked round the miserable dreary wilderness I was half inclined to agree with him. Who but a geologist would ever think of visiting such a land. Well, it won’t be my fault if I ever revisit the place. LOCH BOISDALE, _15th July 1877_.