SOUND OF KERRERA. HACO. 95 



believed came from one of the dead who had left this sepulchre of kings to warn 

 him of his approaching dissolution. Some years ago, the following custom was 

 still in use at Dunstaffnage Castle : When a company of unexpected strangers 

 arrived an event by no means uncommon in the Highlands a flag-staff was 

 immediately erected on the battlements, with the expressive ensign of a table- 

 cloth affixed to it. This served as a signal to the tenants on certain lands 

 bordering the sea, to repair to the Castle with salmon, or any other fish then 

 in season ; while others, embracing the opportunity thus afforded of paying 

 their court to the laird, presented any thing else that was rare, or which they 

 thought might be acceptable. But at this period, luxury had not reached these 

 retired shoves ; the proprietors lived chiefly at home, subsisting on the produce 

 of their own lands and lakes, and exercising a princely hospitality. Campbell 

 of Dunstaffnage is now the liberal proprietor of this ancient " palace, fortress, 

 and shrine," 



" Whose walls once echoed to the battle-cry 

 Of haughty Lorn and from whose battlements, 

 Unfurled, the flag of Bruce has waved on high 

 The meteor-star of Scotland's liberty !" 



The Sound of Kerrera, so strikingly depicted in the engraving before us, is 

 one of the most romantic and variegated scenes in Scotland. The island abounds 

 in objects of natural curiosity, and affords the scientific traveller a wide field 

 of interesting investigation. The western part, which rises to a great elevation 

 above the sea, exhibits many appearances of volcanic origin. In the page of 

 history it is memorable as the place where, in 1249, Alexander II. breathed 

 his last. He had undertaken an expedition for the final reduction of the 

 Western Isles ; but his fleet, being overtaken by a tempest, sought shelter in 

 the horse-shoe anchorage a place of great safety in the Sound of Kerrera. 

 On the death of the king the enterprise was abandoned, and the troops returned 

 home with his body, which was afterwards entombed in the Abbey of Melrose. 

 Sailing from Norway some time afterwards, with the largest fleet that ever left 

 his country's ports, it was also at Kerrera that Haco, king of Denmark, met 

 the great body of the Highland chieftains, his vassals. By these he was accom- 

 panied in his disastrous attempt upon Ayrshire, where a tempest and the Scottish 

 host, headed by the grand steward of the kingdom, and encouraged by the 

 presence of their youthful sovereign son of the deceased monarch broke his 

 mighty power, and reduced the Hebrides to the Scottish sceptre. Haco, 

 worn out with fatigue, anxiety, and mortification at his defeat, died on his 

 way home at Kirkwall, in Orkney, in December 1263. The ruins of the Danish 



