CHAPTER ) Vill 
ENCHANTED CAVERNS 
LONG the bolder coast-line of this island, where 
the cliffs, without being very high, are steep and 
frowning, there are some remarkable caves, which I to- 
day visited with Mr. Hoseason, in his boat—he having 
sailed over from Yell Island. To me, at least, they 
seemed remarkable, principally by reason of the various 
and vivid colours which the rock perforated by them 
begins to display as soon as their entrance is passed. 
This rock, as elsewhere in the Shetlands, is sediment- 
ary, but broken here and there with veins of quartz, 
often of considerable thickness, which seem to have 
been shot up in a molten state and to have afterwards 
cooled—“ seem,” I say, for I have no proper know- 
ledge as to their geological formation. This quartz, 
which when exposed to the light of day is white or 
whitish, is here of a deep rust-red, and this, dis- 
tributed in long zigzag lines or meanderings, is 
sufficiently striking, but nothing compared to the 
much brighter reds, the lakes, and brilliant greens with 
which the interior of the cavern is, as it were, 
painted; so that the whole effect, lit up by the candles 
which we used as torches, resembled, in a surprising 
_ and quite unexpected way, those highly coloured and 
very artificial-looking representations of natural 
scenery which one sees on the stage—in pantomimes 
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