POST SCRIP T.

WHE

I

HEN I fat down to write to you, had no thought of making two letters of Mrs. Benlow's history; but various fubjects have grown fo faft under my pen, in order to give you what I principally intended, feveral ufeful informations, and thereby, so small a part of that lady's story hath been related, that I am obliged to refer you to another epiftle for the principal events, and moft extraordinary tranfactions in her life. You shall have it when I have breathed a little, and the notes or illuftrations mentioned in the first letter.

As to the promised description of the Green Iland, its curiofities, and monuments of antiquity, I have thrown them into this Postscript, that they may not be in our way: And have added an account of a neighbouring rock, called Scalpa; where I faw fome people and things that to me feemed very extraordinary. There was a little wrinkled, rumpled, old woman there, that will charm I have not elfe-where feen any thing

you.

in age that comes up to the old woman of Scalpa.

These descriptions, and accounts of other things in the letter, we confess, have little relation to the thing you asked for, the life of Mrs. Benlow, and to tell you the truth of the cafe, when I complyed with your requeft, I determined, for the fake of faving myself some labor, to make my epiftle to you one of several letters, that are to form a fupplement to an itinerary I am giving the laft hand to; but cannot finish as I would so soon as some people expect it; and therefore throw out my supplement first, to fatisfy feveral friends to whom I am under obligations.

This being known, you cannot wonder, that whatever belongs to my defign, and compleats the scheme I went on, when I began to travel over Great Britain in the year 1729, and to that purpofe departed from London the day after the tryal of my intimat acquaintance, the unhappy Tom Woolfton; you cannot wonder at its being taken into the letters I write you. You must expect to have accounts of men and things, and books and places, converfations, occurrences, and fome antiquities; every thing that was not ftale or trivial, which came in my way in that part of my journey that led me to an acquaintance and connection with Mrs. Benlow. The

Dd 3

The Green Ifland, the

of the

country.

The plan of my Journal was every thing new and curious: What had not been obferved by other people. Among the rules layd down in my note-book, there was this concluding memorandum: Even love and laughter, a country-dance, and a drinkingbout, are to be articles, if they are uncommon, and accord with good manners.

The Green Island on which we landed, appearance and faw Mrs. Harcourt and the ladies her companions, lies eleven leagues and a half to the fouth-west of St. Kilda, and is four miles and three quarters in its greatest length, and four and a half in its greatest breadth, as hath been found upon a late furvey. It is walled round with rocks, excepting one narrow opening to the north, which is an entrance to a fmall bay, and these vaft rocks rife so high from the furface of the water, and above the land they inclofe fo far, that it looks without like a mountain of stone, and within the ground is finely sheltered from the furf of the fea. On On every fide there are many perils by rocks under water. There is a very dangerous one without the mouth of the entry, on the right hand. We had like to have been wrecked on it, tho' the weather was quite calm. Upon this account Mr. Hanmer keeps his fhip in one of the beft neighbouring harbours, and uses an In

dian Praw, or flying boat (a), in failing from and to this ifland, Mrs. Harcourt did the fame.

(a) This kind of boat is four foot broad, and twenty fix foot long, and by its extraordinary make, and one very large, light and thin fail, without any oars, will run fixteen miles an hour, tho the best made Englifh pinnace with two fails can hardly make fix. The Praw fkims over the funken rocks, and flys in fafety upon the most furious billows. It feems very terrible at that time to a stranger to the thing, but the greatest danger is its overfetting, and this may always be prevented by a careful management, either by placing two men on the windward outlayer, when the wind blows hard; or, which is far better, by two long poles at each end of the veffel, on which are faftened curve pieces of wood, every one as long as the canoe, which bow to the water, and are united, oppofite to oppofite, by a heavy piece of timber.

In fuch a machine as this I ventured once with a gentleman in the fummer-time, from the coaft of Norway, to a high latitude in Weft Greenland. We had very rough feas by the way, and coafted where no ship could go. You will find a little curious Account of this voyage in my next letter,when it comes to my turn to tell my ftory, according to the agreement made, you remember, on board ship, in the firft letter, that every one of the company fhould relate the most surprising adventure or tranfaction they happened to be engaged in. They all told their ftorys, and at laft an opportu nity offered, as you will find hereafter, that gave the ladys a right to call upon me for my hiftory of fome wonderful thing I had been concerned in, and immediately began a very strange narration, relative to what happened to me in that frozen end of the world, and a history of a beauty, one of the natives of that wild defolate place.

μεσείον.

When you land, you behold a most delightful rural scene. Sweetly careless and natural the landskip appears, which ever way we turn our eyes, and has a caft of wildness in it, that ftrikes the Mind with a fine variety of beautiful images. The vallies and the falling waters are beyond whatever the painter and the poet have invented, and on every hill the fole hand of nature hath planted groves of perpetual verdure.

On the fide of one of thofe fine hills, in a charming affemblage of garden and forest, in the most beautiful confufion by art difpofed, Mrs. Harcourt lived. Her houfe was not intended for a feat or grand manfion, but to be, like Pliny's Laurentinum, a little Villa Moufeion, a plane convenient retreat for the delights of reading and contemplation; comprehending what that wife and elegant Roman calls Gratiam Villa, that is, a useful and pleafing difpofition of the house and gardens, and opportunitatem loci et littoris Spatium, which relate to the fituation and points of view. No fituation can be more ftill and charming than this is, and from the house and the garden you fee the ocean in several viftas, and are entertained with the changing fpectacle it is continually exhibiting. It is, in fhort, by united beauties, an enchanting place. Its receffes are for ever charming,

amidst