MRS. MURRAY’S GUIDE TO THE WESTERN HIGHLANDS, &e. 
the burn, which rises to an enormous height 
after violent rains. 
«* At last, on turning a promontory of 
rock, I saw my long wished fur goal, Penny- 
eross-house. I had no letter of introduction, 
nor was I known to the family ; but I de- 
pended on the character of the inhabitants of 
the country, and rode up to the door of the 
mansion as boldly as my exhausted strength 
would permit. J enquired if Mrs. M*Lean 
wasat home. She appeared, and I thus be- 
spoke her charity Madam, ‘my name is 
Marray. Tama stranger, and in my way to 
Mr. Campbell’s, the minister; but I am so 
fatigued with a ride of ten hours through 
Glenmore, that I cannot proceed: will you 
have the goodness to give ime shelter for this 
night? ‘Madam, your being a stranger-is a 
sufficient reason for me to pay you every at- 
tention in my power ; I beg you will come 
in.” 
¥ 
_ The next morning Mrs. Murray took 
leave of her hospitable friends, with 
.Many thanks, and proceeded to Mr. 
Campbeli’s. This journey proved ex- 
tremely wet, and at the completion of it 
she was drenched with rain: nor was 
this the only unpleasant event in the tour; 
for the road between Penny-cross and 
- Bunnesain, is more dangerous for a horse 
‘than any track she had before entered. 
The following singular occurrence, re- 
lated asa fact, might be dramatised with 
very powerful effect by a skilful writer. 
* Tn former times one of the M‘Leans of 
Duart, whose castle (now in ruins) stands on 
a promontory in Mull, in nearly an opposite 
direction to the Lady’s Rock, married a sister 
of Argyle. ‘The lady was handsome and 
amiable, but unhappily she was barren. In 
those days it was a high crime in the eye of 
a husband, when his wife bore him no chil- 
dren. Duart hated his hapless lady for that 
cause, and determined on her destruction. 
To accomplish it with ease, and, as be ima- 
fined, safe from detection, he ordered ru{Hians 
to convey her secretly to the bare rock, near 
Lismore, and there leave her to perish at 
high tide. The deed was executed to Duart’s 
wish, and the lady left on the rock, watching 
the rolling tide rising to overwhelm her.— 
When she had given herself up fora lost 
being, and expected in a very short time to be 
washed from the rock by the waves, she for- 
tunately perceived a yessel sailing down the 
sound ve Mall, in the direction of the rock 
on which she was sitting. [very effort in 
her power was exerted, and every signal in 
Rer possession was, displaved, to atiract the 
notice of the people in the vessel. At length 
ata her, and drew near the rock. 
ie made herself known, and related, that it 
Ree 
405 
1 
was by the order of her barbarous husband 
she was left on the rock, and thus reduced 
to the wretched state in which they found 
her. The mariners, ever a generous race, 
took compassion on her, received her on 
board their vessel, and conveyed her safely to 
her brother at Inverary. 
‘© M‘Lean Duart made a grand mock fu- 
neral, for his much-loved, much-lamented 
lady, whom he announced to havedied sud- 
denly. He wrote disconsolate letters to her 
relations, particularly to Argyle; and, after 
a decent time, went to Inverary in deep 
mourning, where, with the greatest shew of 
grief, he lamented to his brother-in-law the 
irreparable loss he had systained. Argyle 
said little, but sent for his sister, whose un- 
expected appearance in life and health, proved 
an electric shock to her tender husband.— 
Argyle was a mild and amiable man, and 
took no other reyenge of M©M‘Lean, but com- 
manding him to depart instantly; at the 
saine time advising him to be cautions not to 
meet his brother Donald; who would certain- 
ly take away his life, for having intended to 
destroy that of his sister. Sir Donald Camp- 
bell did meet him many years afterwards, in 
a street at Edinburgh, and there stabbed him 
for his crime towards his sister, when 
M‘Lean was eighty years of age.” 
The succeeding narrativeof Mrs. Mur- 
ray’s* voyage to Staffa, and the descrip- 
tion of the island, cannot fail to interest 
every class of readers ; and, we presume, 
the extent of the extracts will not satiate 
or fatigue the mind. She left Torloisk 
in a very small boat, having four rowers, 
and some proyisions in the head of it; 
also, a young man as an interpreter.— 
Thus provided, she launched on the At- 
Jantic Ocean. ‘The tide and weather 
were favourable, and the voyage proved 
extremely pleasant. At about half-a- 
mile distant from Staffa, it appeared a 
very common-looking rough island, or 
rather a huge rock, with perpendicular 
cliffs to the summit, rising high above 
the ocean. “ I began to think,” says 
Mrs Murray, “ I had ventured on the 
Atlantic for a curiosity much exaggerat- 
ed by my adventurous predecessors ; but 
as I drew nearer to the north point of 
the island, I soon saw, what cannot be 
described to be clearly understood by 
any but those who have had, like me, 
the happiness of beholding Staffa. 
«© In the Highlands, local names are very 
expressive of shape or situation. 
«« Why Staffa is thus called I cannot say, 
unless there is any word in the Danish Jan- 
* This tourist says, in another part of her volume, that she was the ninth «¢ female stran- 
ger who had yentured to Staffa; but none of them had goue valiantly alone as I did.” 
Dd 3 
