A Highland odysse

In August 1773, Dr Samuel Johnson and James Boswell embarked on their 83-day, 800-mile journey through the Scottish Highlands

- MARTYN BAGULEY

SCOTLAND, 1773. In the sparsely roaded northern 'Highlands' the countryside is wild and romantic but devoid of many of the luxuries of life. Extensive felling of the native Scots pine forests has left most of the hills covered with heather. The population is sparse. People mostly live in scattered small farms. They resent having been disarmed, and stopped by an act of an English Parliament from wearing tartan on pain of six months' imprisonment or banishment to the colonies. The clan system has been banned but, with the rule of law far from established, clan chieftains continue to have authority. Whisky is being distilled in countless illicit secret stills. In central Scotland some 57,000 people, rich and poor, struggle to live in the tall, disease-ridden tenements, cobbled streets and stinking, narrow wynds of Edinburgh's Old Town. Here, at its heart, lies Boyd's Inn, terminus for stagecoaches.

It was at Boyd's, on the evening of 14 August 1773, that two close friends met to have a meal together: the elegant 32-year-old lawyer and Scottish Laird of Auchinleck James Boswell, and the corpulent, 63-year-old, internationally renowned English lexicographer, essayist and novelist Doctor Samuel Johnson. They were unlikely friends. Apart from the disparity in their ages, Johnson had irritating mannerisms consistent with Tourette's syndrome and was on record as having said 'The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England'. Their first meeting in London 11 years previously hadn't gone well. Johnson was pompous and abrupt, but the young lawyer had kept his temper and a week later paid a second visit to the man he greatly admired. It was the beginning of an enduring friendship.