LEWIS. GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 173 



A rocky shore with cliffs of unequal but moderate 

 height and of similar character, interrupted by some 

 sloping declivities, extends from here to Barvas ; whence 

 to Ness a low shore is seen with a gentle and often 

 alluvial slope, frequently terminating in a flat sandy beach. 

 The rocky cliffs which form the northernmost extremity, 

 commonly called the Butt of the Lewis, rise to the height 

 of sixty or eighty feet, and are continued with slight 

 exceptions as far as Kneep Head, where they are suc- 

 ceeded by low shores reaching, with the exception of the 

 Aird, to Stornoway, the capital of this western land. 

 At the Butt these cliffs are broken into rugged forms 

 of an aspect peculiarly savage, being at the same time 

 hollowed into innumerable caves into which the western 

 swell beats with almost incessant violence and noise. 

 Arches and pillars detached by the power of this turbulent 

 sea, form a series of objects from which a painter might 

 select detached parts with great effect ; but the whole is 

 unpleasing to a cultivated eye : there is too much of that 

 which, sparingly used, is conducive to the most powerful 

 effects in painting as in poetry. Near Stornoway a large 

 tract of sand occurs on the shore, from which a peninsula 

 called the Aird stretches towards the north-east, forming; 



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a low table land bounded chiefly by rocky cliffs. Loch 

 Stornoway offers nothing remarkable but the excellence 

 of its harbour, and from this to the Birken isles the coast 

 resembles the rocky shores already described ; displaying 

 one continuous and rugged face of gneiss. Loch 

 Luerbost, like Loch Bernera, consists of a deep in- 

 dentation sprinkled with islets, extending to within 

 a few miles of Loch Kenhulavig, the eastern extremity 

 of Loch Bernera, so as almost to intersect the land 

 in this direction; as it also does towards the head of 



breeze that did not reach the surface. There was a death-like silence 

 while the boat shot along under the dark rocks like an arrow : to a 

 poetical imagination it might have appeared under a supernatural in- 

 fluence : like the bark of Dante, angel-borne. 



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