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EXCURSIONS TO BUTE AND CUMBRAE. 75 
“From the pier we went through the village and along the old 
road that leads through the north end of the Suidhe Plantation. 
The Suidhe (seat) is a trap eminence rising to 517 feet, and 
from its summit a magnificent view is to be obtained of the 
surrounding district, of water, of island, and of mountain. 
“ Reaching the main road we turned south by Lubas, and when 
near Dunagoil farmhouse went down a farm road to Dunagoil 
Bay. Bosses of trap rock are numerous in this district, and on 
the top of one of them is situated dum ma gotl, that is, ‘the 
stronghold of the stranger.’ Its north and north-east sides are 
defended by the vertical walls of the trap, but its south-west side 
having sloped towards the firth has had a vitrified wall formed 
along the edge of its summit. What remains of this wall is seen 
to be soldered firmly together into a slag-like mass not unlike 
what the inside of an old lime kiln represents. But the enemy 
has been here, and a large part of the wall has been thrown down; 
masses of it lying on the slope already referred to. The top of 
the rock has probably been divided into two compartments, the 
south-east one having also been defended by a vitrified wall, and 
as this is the weakest part (the rock here sloping gently to the 
south-east) it would be absolutely necessary that the defences here 
should be of the very strongest kind. It is also likely that the 
rest of the fort should have been defended even from ‘wind and 
weather’ by some kind of wall, but whatever it may have been 
composed of, it has entirely disappeared. 
** As to how the vitrification in old fort walls was produced there 
have been several opinions, some people even going the length of 
thinking that it was quite accidentally produced by the frequent 
lighting of beacon fires; but in some I have seen the vitrification 
has clearly been a matter of design, and Dunagoil is of the 
number. 
“Having viewed from the top of the old fort the rough-and-tumble 
country to the south-east, a bit of trap land, and seascape, which 
for irregularity of outline it would be difficult to match elsewhere, 
we proceeded southwards along the coast for about a mile to 
Wamh Phadrich. This is a cave situated about forty vertical feet 
above sea-level, hollowed in a bed of. volcanic ash and excavated 
by the waves, probably during the forty feet raised-beach period. 
We proceeded to examine its contents, and soon found a few 
