Inverness to Anoch (August 30-31).
At Inverness Johnson bade farewell to post-chaises, which had brought him in comfort all the way from London. "This day," writes Boswell, "we were: to begin our equitation, as I said; for I would needs make a word too. We might have taken a chaise to Fort Augustus, but had we not hired horses at Inverness we should not have found them afterwards. We had three horses for Dr. Johnson, myself, and Joseph, and one which carried our portmanteaus, and two Highlanders who walked along with us." They took but little baggage, and soon found the advantage of their moderation "in climbing crags and treading bogs. How often," continues Johnson. "a man that has pleased himself at home with his own resolution, will in the hour of darkness and fatigue be content to leave behind him everything but himself."
DUNGARDIE, A VITRIFIED FORT NEAR FOYERS. After leaving the Fort they were "to enter upon a country upon which perhaps no wheel had ever rolled." In the Commercial Map of Scotland, published by J. Knox in 1784, there is not a single road marked in any one of the Hebrides. After long wanderings, and the lapse of almost seven weeks, "Johnson's heart was cheered by the sight of a road marked with cart-wheels as on the mainland, a thing which we had not seen for a long time. It gave us a pleasure similar to that which a traveller feels when, whilst wandering on what he fears is a desert island, he perceives the print of human feet." It was in pleasant weather that they began their ride. "The day though bright was not hot. On the left were high and steep rocks
