Rudha na Jiuamha 



fident meadow pipits ulter their plaintive alarm cry as the 

 stranger crosses their nesting grounds. 



Years may pass, yet they set not their mark here ; world 

 wars may rage, so that the best of the life's blood of a 

 nation is spilled, and the earth may seem a saddened and 

 altered place, yet the spirit of war would scarcely pene- 

 trate to this wild and mist-laden land, and silence always 

 would reign here save for the rush of the gale, and the 

 deep note of the waves as they break on the rocks far 

 beneath. 



Tradition has it that in this wild spot fairies dwelt of 

 old. On one occasion a number of them went to assist 

 a crofter living near, in weaving and preparing cloth. 

 Having completed their task, they clamoured for more work. 

 In order to rid himself of his too willing assistants, the 

 crofter called out that their house was on fire. Immedi- 

 ately the fairies rushed out of the house in a body, nor 

 did they ever return. 



Even in the season of summer, mist often encircles the 

 Headland of the Caves for days on end, when the green 

 fields of lona and the heathery wastes of the Ross of Mull 

 are clear in the strong sunlight. On one such misty day, 

 late in September, I visited the Headland. Scarce a breath 

 of wind moved the surface of Loch Scridain as I pulled 

 out from the quiet anchorage. The course was parallel to 

 the shore and as near to it as safety would permit. Great 

 boulders, worn smooth by the power of the Atlantic, were 

 strewn along the sloping bank lying beneath the high cliffs, 

 so that walking here was a thing of painful slowness, and 

 it were better to use the sea as one's path. Where the shore 

 was smoother, and little bays of shingle lay half hidden, 

 there were strewn thickly at high-water mark many stems 

 of laminarian seaweeds, cast up by the winter storms and 

 now lying dried and shrivelled. Their value is nothing 

 here, for there is none to gather them. 



When within less than a mile of the Headland, the boat 

 103 



