12 THE FERNS OF SUTHERLAND AND ROSS. 



into a deep, dark, green pool — a forest of sea-weed; there, again, the rocks 

 retire from each other, and the sea runs up for a good many yards, and 

 forms a beautiful hay, with a cave at its head, for example, the cave of Smoo. 

 At times would I lean over a precipice, and watch the sea rolling, and 

 tossing, and boiling, and foaming, and moaning among the broken, huddled, 

 charred rocks a hundred feet below, with the White Sea Mews, like the ghosts 

 of drowned men, hovering over the abyss — now light green, now deep green, 

 now blue, now a mass of white foam, now green again, with a thin broken 

 covering of foam — and uttering their mournful cries, as if chiding the hungry 

 waters for snatching so many from the bosoms of their happy families; 

 with farther out to sea a Cormorant, now sitting as if in an easy chair 

 on the wavy ridges, as they chased in each other to dash themselves against 

 the opposing rocks; now diving below, and rising far from where it sunk; and 

 now and then the Rock Pigeon flying past with the speed of the wind. 

 After enjoying my fill of the grandeur of the scene, I would scramble away 

 among the rocks, and down almost to the water's edge, in search of caves. 

 Here is one. All around the rocks are black, as if burned, some lying 

 loose, some lying flat, others standing perpendicular; here a large hollow 

 worn out by the action of the water, and there, round a jutting rock, 

 gapes the cave, like some monster. In I crept, and groped about among 

 water-worn stones, round large smoothed pieces of projecting rock, now 

 standing erect, now tumbling, now stooping into some black corner. But 

 here is another narrow opening. Is this another farther in? Let us 

 look. I am seated squat on the slippery rock, peering into a dark, deep 

 recess, with scarcely a ray of light penetrating. Shall I enter? A strange 

 sort of feeling sets upon me, a feeling, I suppose, experienced by most 

 people on entering places of a like kind. I crawled in, and, lo! a mag- 

 nificent dome of about thirty feet high, with a large piece of white quartz 

 shining in the apex. I heard nothing save the dull dead dash of the 

 Atlantic wave, wasting its fury on the rocks outside, and felt only the 

 tremor of the rocks, as the heavy billows broke over them, and a cold, 

 damp chill I never before experienced began to creep over me. I satisfied 

 myself with looking, and left full of wonder and awe. But the Cave of 

 Smoo surpasses all the others. The rocks round it cannot be less than 

 two hundred feet in height. The cave itself is said to be eighty feet 

 high, and is of a circular form. On the east side is a fine natural arch, 

 and on the west is a long, dark passage, lightened by a large opening 

 in the roof, through which passage a mountain stream runs, that tumbles 

 through another opening further inland, on the opposite side of the road 

 that leads from Tongue. On the surrounding rocks, and within the cave, 

 grow Scolopendrium vulgare, Asplcnium trichomanes, A. ruta-muraria, 

 and Cystopteris fragilis. 



