SEPTEMBER 349 



McLeans. A more impressive or desolate resting-place for the 

 bones of a departed family can scarcely be imagined, overlooking 

 as it does the waters of Crossapol Bay, across which the winds 

 moan without ceasing. No church or building is near it, the 

 tomb, a stone enclosure of about twenty feet square, in the midst 

 of which stands a sarcophagus, being the only trace of man's 

 handiwork upon all the sweep of plain and bents. When I was 

 here before the iron gate had rotted from its hinges and the 

 cattle herded within the walls ; but on learning of this Colonel 

 Lome Stewart, the present Laird of Coll, caused it to be replaced, 

 with the result that, at the risk of impalement, my companion had 

 great difficulty in clambering into the place — a feat which I did not 

 attempt. On the wall of the tomb facing the gateway is a marble 

 slab, which is so rapidly decaying and becoming illegible that I 

 transcribe its inscription here. It runs : 



THE LATTER CEMETERY OF THE FAMILY BEING NEARLY OVER 



WHELMED BY SAND BLOWING, THIS WAS ERECTED, AND 



THE REMAINS OF HIS FAMILY AND ANCESTORS REMOVED 



TO IT BY ALEXANDER MCLEAN OF COLL, UPON THE 



OCCASION OF THE LAMENTED DEATH OF HIS BELOVED 



COMPANION, CATHARINA CAMERON, THE BEAUTY OF WHOSE 



PERSON WAS ONLY SURPASSED BY THE VIRTUES AND 



AMIABLE DISPOSITION OF HER MIND. 



OBT. CLIFTON lO FEB. l8o2, AE. 46. 



This is the first time that ever I remember seeing the personal 

 appearance of the deceased alluded to upon a monument. I 

 wonder how in those days, when there were neither railways nor 

 steamboats, her husband contrived to convey the body of the 

 beautiful Catharina Cameron from Clifton to Coll. I am told, 

 however — for a piece of gossip of the sort lasts for a long time 

 here — that while the tomb was building, and the bones of the old 

 McLeans were being moved into it, her body lay for a year in a 

 packing-case in some shed at the harbour without any one suspect- 

 ins; what the fatal box contained. 



