��THE BULLKRS OF BUCHAN.

��ture between dignity and submission," had in vain pleaded for

mercy.'

From Slains Castle our travellers drove a short distance along

the coast to the famous Bullers of Huchan -"a sight," writes

Johnson, "which no man can see with indifference, who has either

sense of danger or delight in rarity." Boswell describes the spot as :

"A circular basin ol large extent, surrounded with tremendous rocks. On the quarter next the sea, there is a high arch in the rock, which the force of the tempest has driven out. This place is called

�� ���fiucliatfs Jiitl/er, or the

Bnl/er of Jhicltan, and the

country people call it the

Pot. Mr. Boyd said it

was so called from the

French bouloir? It may

be more simply traced

from boiler in our own

language. We walked

round this monstrous

cauldron. In some places

the rock is very narrow ;

and on each side there is

a sea deep enough for a

man-of-war to ride in ; so that it is somewhat horrid to move along. However,

there is earth and grass upon the rock, and a kind of road marked out by the print

of feet; so that one makes it out pretty safely : yet it alarmed me to see Dr. Johnson

striding irregularly along."

As the weather was calm they took a boat and rowed through the archway into the cauldron. " It was a place," writes Johnson,

��THE BULLERS OF BUCHAN.

��1 Walpole's Letters, ii. 38.

" Boitilloirc. According to Dr. Murray the word is connected with "the Swedish Iniller, a noise, roar. But," he adds, "the influence of boil is manifest." I remember when I visited

��the place in my youth I heard it also called Lord Errol's Punch-bowl. The tale was told that a former earl had made a seizure in it of a smuggling ship laden with spirits, and had had the kegs emptied into the water.

�� �