50 Some ANCIENT CHAPELS OF KNAPDALE. 
numerous in Argyllshire, but nowhere more frequent than in 
Knapdale. Of these the chapels of Cove and Islandmore seem 
to bear marks of greatest antiquity.’’ 
Of the chapel at Cove there is now very little remaining, 
and all window and door details have disappeared. Adjoining 
it there is, however, a curious little cave chapel with stone 
altar, a scratched cross, and a small font scooped out in the 
floor, and it is possible that in this we have the first church 
founded by St. Columba in Scotland. 
Whether Columba’s mission to Scotland was purely a 
religious one, or was connected with the disastrous defeat of 
the Scots of Dalriada by the Picts two years before, he at all 
events went first to the seat of the Daldriadic King, which at 
that period seems to have been on the west coast of Knapdale. 
As Skene remarks in his chapter on “ The Monastic Church in 
Iona ’’ :—“ The curious cave chapel at Cove on Loch Caolisport, 
which tradition says was Columba’s first church in Scotland, 
‘before he sailed to Iona, is probably connected with his resi- 
dence with King Conall.”’ 
That the ruins of the built chapel date from Columba’s time 
is, of course, quite improbable. ‘The first monastic buildings 
on Iona were of wood, and it was not until the ninth century 
that they were replaced by stone structures, so it is most unlikely 
that, with the exception of such rude uncemented stone buildings 
as the remains on the Isle of Saints (one of the Garvelloch Isles) 
and on North Rona, the early outlying Keltic churches were 
constructed of stone. Stone chapels would, however, likely 
replace the decaying wooden ones on the same sites, so it is 
probable that the present ruined Knapdale chapels mark the 
sites of still earlier erections. From the character of what 
little detail they possess these existing chapels probably date 
from the twelfth century. 
Of the three remaining chapels at Kilmory, Keills, and on 
Eilean Mor, that on Eilean Mor is unique, and is in much better 
preservation than the others. Owing to its great’ strength of 
construction, the most interesting portion of it has not been 
materially injured by the storms that during the eight centuries 
which have elapsed since its erection have swept over its site 
on the lonely little island in the Sound of Jura. 
Though, in the course of several small boat cruises in the 
