62 Some ANCIENT CHAPELS OF KNAPDALE. 
Jura is steep and rocky, with fantastically outlined hills rising 
to a considerable height, separated by deep and narrow glens, 
with here and there a picturesque white sheiling on the hillside. 
South of Carsaig Bay, which runs inland to within half-a-mile 
of Tayvallich on Loch Sween, the hills gradually become lower, 
till the peninsula ends in the long, low, and very narrow pro- 
montary of bare rock—Rudha na Cille. 
About six o’clock in the evening we sighted the low 
irregular outline of Eilean Mor lying dim in the haze to the 
southward. 
We were now close to Keills Bay, into which we turned to: 
pay a visit to the chapel of Keills, which stands a quarter of a 
mile or so away, on the shore of Loch na Kille. 
Landing on the rocky shore, a short walk over the inter- 
vening hillocks brought us to the ruins. 
Keills chapel, which at a short distance away might easily 
be mistaken for a ruined sheiling, is a rude oblong building, 
externally 42 feet long and 21 feet wide. The walls and gables, 
though cracked here and there, are practically entire; the side 
walls being about 12 feet high, and the gables fairly steep in 
pitch. 
There are four windows, one in the north and two in the 
south wall, all flat topped, and one, which is circle-headed, in 
the middle of the east elevation. ‘The doorway is in the north 
wall, and, as is common in these small Keltic churches, the west 
wall is entirely blank. 
The floor of the chapel is covered with carved slabs, all 
comparatively modern, and surrounding the building is a small 
burial ground. 
The chapel at Keills is usually considered to have been 
dedicated to St. Carmaig, and in the New Statistical Account 
it is stated that “the whole district of Knapdale formed origi- 
nally one parish called Cil mhic O’Charmaig, the burying ground 
of the son of O’Carmaig. This O’Carmaig is said to have been 
an Irish saint, who founded the first church in Knapdale. 
T. S. Muir, however, in his book, “ Ecclesiological Notes. 
on some of the Islands of Scotland,’’ considers it to have been 
more probably dictated to St. Columba. 
A few paces away from the chapel stands on the hillside 
what is evidently a very ancient cross. I quote from T. S. 
hdos * 
ib 
