A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland

A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland is Samuel Johnson's account of a journey to the Hebrides, or Western Islands of Scotland, that he had desired to make so long that he scarcely remembers how the wish arose. The writer says that, in the Autumn of the year 1773, he was induced to undertake the journey by finding in Mr. Boswell a companion, whose acuteness would help his inquiry. On the eighteenth of August the travellers left Edinburgh, a city too well known to admit description, and directed their course northward, along the eastern coast of Scotland.

The writer says the Lowlands of Scotland had once undoubtedly an equal portion of woods with other countries, but that he believes few regions have been denuded like this. The travellers paid four shillings for ferrying the chaise over the Firth of Tay. The travellers came at evening to Lochbuy, where they found a true Highland Laird, rough and haughty, and tenacious of his dignity.