ture between dignity and submission," had in vain pleaded for mercy.[1]
From Slains Castle our travellers drove a short distance along the coast to the famous Bullers of Buchan—"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:—
The Bullers of Buchan.
"A circular basin of 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 Buchan's Buller, or the Buller of Buchan, and the country people call it the Pot. Mr. Boyd said it was so called from the French bouloir.[2] 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,
- ↑ Walpole's Letters, ii. 38.
- ↑ Bouilloire. According to Dr. Murray the word is connected with "the Swedish buller, 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.
