228 CKUISES. 



church of that portion of the parish, and then it fell into 

 gradual disrepair, till most of the roof fell down. It is 

 now of no use except to the starlings, of which great 

 numbers were nestling in the main tower or perching on 

 the remains of the rafters. One of the more modern 

 monuments records that a certain Macleod married his 

 third wife in his seventy-fifth year, and was blessed with 

 nine children before his death, which took place in his 

 ninetieth j"ear. 



" The mountains in this northern part of Harris are of 

 great height, and with the bold rocky foreground and the 

 placid sea and their own broken gigantic summits, form 

 a noble landscape in the way of sterile grandeur. The 

 island is said to produce good pasture, and I suppose the 

 numerous little vales, or rather hollows, among the shel- 

 tered rocks are clothed with grass ; but the general aspect 

 of the whole, as seen from the sea, is as barren as any- 

 thing unscorched by fire. However, on a calm, sweet 

 summer evening, the hills lying in deep shadow, very 

 dark and solemn — above and between them in the western 

 distance a most gorgeous sky of crimson-coloured gold, 

 broad and rich below, and dying away towards the zenith 

 in fleecy specks of fire upon a ground of most transparent 

 blue — the whole reflected on the bosom of still waters — 

 the scene is one of almost unexampled beauty. The 

 pleasure is probably the greater from the contrast pre- 



