A NIGHT ON GUILLIAM. 247 



frith, which was varied in every direction by unequal 

 stripes and patches of a dead calmness. The bay of 

 Cromarty, burnished by the rays of the declining sun, 

 until it glowed like a sheet of molten fire, lay behind, 

 winding in all its beauty beneath purple hills and jut- 

 ting headlands ; while before stretched the wide extent 

 of the Moray Frith, speckled with fleets of boats which 

 had lately left their several ports, and were now all sail- 

 ing in one direction. The point to which they were 

 bound was the bank of Guilliam, which, seen from 

 betwixt the Sutors, seemed to verge on the faint blue 

 line of the horizon ; and the fleets which had already 

 arrived on it, had to the naked eye the appearance of a 

 little rough-edged cloud resting on the water. As we 

 advanced, this cloud of boats grew larger and darker; 

 and soon after sunset, when the bank was scarcely a 

 mile distant, it assumed the appearance of a thick leaf- 

 less wood covering a low brown island. 



' The tide, before we left the shore, had risen high 

 on the beach, and was now beginning to recede. Aware 

 of this, we lowered sail several hundred yards to the 

 south of the fishing ground, and after determining the 

 point from whence the course of the current would drift 

 us direct over 'the bank, we took down the mast, cleared 

 the hinder part of the boat, and began to cast out the 

 nets. Before the Inlaw appeared in the line of the 

 Gaelic chapel (the landmark by which the southernmost 

 extremity of Guilliam is ascertained) the whole drift was 

 thrown overboard, and made fast to the swing. Night 

 came on. The sky assumed a dead and leaden hue. A 

 low dull mist roughened the outline of the distant hills, 

 and in some places blotted them out from the landscape. 

 The faint breeze that had hitherto scarcely been felt, now 

 roughened the water, which was of a dark blue colour 



