ON THE COAST OF ARE AN 115 



beyond our sight ; yet we dissemble with our- 

 selves, and feign that we recognise its locality. 



What brilliant green star is that on our right ? 

 We are told it is the lighthouse on Holy Island, 

 off Lamlash. Then we catch the Pladda Light, 

 and part company with an Irish steamer which, 

 turning suddenly west, makes for the Mull of 

 Cantire and the North Channel. How strange 

 it looks, passing away into the vacancy of night, 

 its red cabin-lights apparently burning close to 

 the water ! 



About midnight we pass Ailsa Craig on the 

 east. A seaman tells us it is two miles away. 

 A more extraordinary apparition I have never 

 seen. We have no moon nor any stars ; and in 

 the dim light the great rock is neither what 

 Keats called it in prose ' A transparent tortoise 

 asleep upon the calm water ; ' nor what he 

 named it in his imperishable verse a * craggy 

 ocean -pyramid ' but something wilder than 

 these; a vast shapeless Incubus; black and 



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