THE FERNS OP SUTHERLAND AND ROSS. 31 



the building to view tbe Cape. But what pen can describe it? It would 

 require one dipped "in hues of earthquake and eclipse." The Cape itself 

 rises perpendicularly from the water to the height of four hundred feet, 

 or thereabout, and runs away towards the east in rugged overhanging cliffs. 

 Towards the west it runs for a few yards with a slight curve) and then 

 juts out into a terrific cliff; from behind this runs outward to the sea a 

 low ridge of rocks, rising in height to sea-ward, till it reaches, to appearance, 

 the height of one hundred and fifty or two hundred feet, and affords 

 shelter to numbers of Gulls. Further to the westward, the coast is a 

 continuous line of high, rugged precipices. 



After lingering along on the top of the rocks till the chill of our wet 

 clothes warned us "to move on," we set our faces Durineward. If our 

 morning's journey had anything disagreeable in it, it was amply made up 

 for by the beauty of the afternoon. The storm had passed over, and 

 was succeeded by that calm sweetness common after a heavy breeze. The 

 air was balmy; the heavens were blue, streaked with cirrus, tinged with 

 gold towards the sinking sun; the Bees hummel past; the Curlew screamed; 

 the Plover sent forth his whistle; the Raven flew over our heads uttering 

 his dull croak; and now and then was borne on the gentle breeze the 

 sweet murmur of some streamlet, as it was flowing to its home in the 

 ocean. On one side rose up the hills in bold relief against 



"The summer heaven's delicious blue," 



all one sea of golden light, except "where fell the black shadow of some 

 hill. On the top of one sailed away the remnant of a cloud; there, over 

 some dark, deep hollow, hung a thin white vapour, fine as a bridal veil; 

 there again, like a necklace round some dark Eastern beauty, clung a 

 fringe of glittering mist round a "summit hoar." Before us lay the ocean, 

 broken in upon by high, bold headlands, some black, some white, some 

 sparkling in the sun, with the Orkney Islands looming far off on the 

 horizon. - All this, combined with the lonely desolation of the scene, tended 

 to soothe the mind, and lead away the thoughts to scenes of toil, and 

 trade, and competition, and villany, and misery, and wretchedness, both 

 the one and the other the effect of sin; and then far away into futurity, 

 on the speculation that the time would come when ocean's fury should 

 be tamed, and become the safe highway of nations,* and when those 

 wildernesses should be brought under the strong hand of cultivation, when, 

 in the words of the Prophet, "The wilderness and the solitary place shall 

 be glad, and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose/'f 



We trudged along happy as kings, examining the Fern treasures of 



* Do not our Lord's miracles of stilling the sea point to something like this? 

 t I am inclined to think that this will one day literally be fulfilled. 



