The Mail-Boat 



easily forget. Constantly swept by heavy seas even on the 

 bridge we were every moment drenched with spray the 

 plucky boat forged ahead surely and steadily. At times the 

 sky would show patches of watery greenish blue, and even 

 a feeble sun would occasionally light up the rocky outline of 

 the Isle of Coll. But with the momentary ceasing of the rain 

 the sea ran even yet higher, and, to add to the force of the 

 gale, a strong, spring tide was running dead against the 

 storm. Once, as we passed by Loch nan Ceall, Ben More 

 stood out for a moment, clad in unrelieved white and with 

 driving mists swirling past its cone-shaped summit. Past 

 the group of the Treshnish Isles, with the outlying members 

 of the islands bearing the full strength of the Atlantic rollers, 

 and we should have been well in sight of our destination ; 

 but the mist was so thick that no land could be made 

 out, and now even the skipper who knows these rock- 

 strewn waters as very few can do seemed not without 

 anxiety. 



After a while the mist lifted a little, and before us lay the 

 turbulent waters of the creek known as Gott Bay, with its 

 dangerous sunken rocks through which we must thread our 

 way to the pier. Once into the bay the wind blew to us from 

 the land, and as even a strong wind from this quarter is 

 favourable to a landing, I expected to be able to be put 

 ashore, the gale notwithstanding. But I had not realised the 

 power of the wind. 



Though our arrival had been watched by a small crowd 

 in the shelter of the pier, and although the skipper brought 

 his ship to within thirty yards and less of the pier itself, the 

 gale was such that no one on the shore could stand on the 

 exposed portion of the pier to throw out a rope, and we were 

 obliged to steam out to sea once more, our object unaccom- 

 plished. 



We now set our course for the Isle of Coll, and for this 

 run we had a fair wind and sea, so that in spite of some very 

 heavy rolling, I think we must have covered the distance in 



107 



