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frequent the rock in incredible numbers. The discharge of a fowling 

 piece as we sailed round the rock before landing, startled myriads of 

 these and other sea-birds, which literally darkened the air as they 

 took flight ; although successive repetitions of the experiment were 

 less and less successful in alarming them. The bare shelves and 

 ledges of the rock were whitened on all sides, except at the landing- 

 place, with birds watching their callow young or hatching their eggs ; 

 and in these circumstances they allowed themselves to be approach- 

 ed without evincing any symptoms of uneasiness, unless when certain 

 of the more adventurous of the party poked their fingers into their 

 open bills. The solan goose, the black and white gull, the kittiwake, 

 the puffin or Tammy-norrie, the falcon, the eider-duck and the cormo- 

 rant, with a few other birds, divide the tenantry of the rock with about 

 two dozen sheep, which yield to gourmands the celebrated Bass 

 mutton. 



The Bass was for many generations the property of an ancient fa- 

 mily named Lauder of the Bass, but was purchased by government in 

 1671, and converted into a state prison for the Covenanters under the 

 reign of Charles II. ; which purpose it continued to serve till the revo- 

 lution. It held out against the new tlynasty at that period, and was 

 signalised as being the last place in Great Britain which yielded to 

 William III. In 1701 the fortifications were demolished, and in 1706 

 the Bass was granted by the Crown to Sir Hew Dalrymple, then Pre- 

 sident of the Court of Session, in the possession of whose descendants 

 it has hitherto continued. The fort and the prison-house are now un- 

 roofed. An old chapel is alone distinguishable by the niches for the 

 fonts, which would appear to assign it an origin prior to the reforma- 

 tion. The early history of the place is buried in obscurity, but it has 

 acquired an interest from its associations with the martyr-memories of 

 the Covenanters, which none who revere their characters and princi- 

 ples " would willingly let die." It is surely no unfit application of 

 Dr. Johnson's well-known sentiment on visiting lona, to say, that the 

 man is little to be envied whose piety, and whose patriotism too, would 

 not grow warmer amidst the ruins of the Bass. 



On regaining the shore, we directed our steps during a beautiful 

 sunset towards Tantallan Castle, gathering on the way specimens of 

 Scabiosa Columbaria. This magnificent and venerable ruin covers a 

 bluff'headland about three miles from North Berwick, and overlooks the 

 German Ocean, by which it is surrounded on three sides, the fourth 

 having been protected by a double ditch and powerful out-works. 

 The external structure is nearly entire, the walls being of prodigious 



