368 FIELD AND FERN. 



entirely. e ' More wool, a cross-bred bull (owner tries 

 to make him out a pure Shorthorn, but his man 

 won't have it), more lobsters, and brides and 

 bridegrooms" is our note as the day wears on. The 

 greatest pleasure is to lounge on deck with Hugh 

 Miller's " Cruise of the Betsy," and read through 

 his eyes, rather than our own, the outline of these 

 " fractured Caledonian Isles." There is the "one low 

 hill" of Muck ; the " pyramidal mountains of Rum, 

 grey in fog and sad in rain, in whose wild hollow the 

 withered female is seen before death in the twilight, 

 and washes a shroud in the stream" ; and Eigg, with 

 its " colossal ridge rising between us and the sky, 

 as a piece of the Babylonish wall or the great Wall of 

 China." 



The coffee-rooms at Oban look warm and cheery, 

 and, with the leader of the Parliamentary Bar among 

 the passengers, we are off again in the morning to- 

 wards the Crinan Canal, where the four-horse boat 

 stands ready, with its postillions in scarlet and velvet 

 caps. No mode of locomotion is like it, and we might 

 well be loath to get out at the first lock, and take a 

 long walk over the moss ; but Kilmartin Glen and 

 Poltalloch "atone for all." 



West Highlanders still hold a large portion of the 

 peat moss, but year by year their old domain de- 

 creases, and purple-tops are in the ascendant. 

 Twenty years ago, Mr. Malcolm adopted wedge 

 drains, but now only pipes and collars are used, 

 about eighteen feet apart. On moss land the drains 



