Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.”
LANDING PLACE.
Boswell had counted “fifteen different waterfalls near the house in the space of about a quarter of a mile.” “They succeeded one another so fast,” said Johnson, “that as one ceased to be heard another began.” This one thing was wanting on that beautiful afternoon which we spent in this delightful spot. The voice of the cascades was still. There were no waterfalls streaming down the lofty hills. One indeed we found by following the course of a river up a fine glen, but owing to the long drought its roar had sunk into a murmur.
VIEWS AT TALISKER.
COLONEL MACLEOD OF TALISKER.
Johnson’s host, Colonel Macleod, was the good kinsman who had befriended the young Laird in the troubles which he encountered on his succession to the property.
“He had,” writes Boswell, “been bred to physic, had a tincture of scholarship in his conversation, which pleased Dr. Johnson, and he had some very good books; and being a colonel in the Dutch service, he and his lady, in consequence of having lived abroad, had introduced the ease and politeness of the continent into this rude region.”
Pennant, writing in the year 1774, thus describes these Scotch regiments in the Dutch service: