

LISMORE. GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 9.61 



LISMORE.' 



4 



THIS island is situated in the bay of Oban, at the 

 mouth of the Linnhe Loch, being about eight miles in 

 length, and seldom exceeding one in breadth ; thus form- 

 ing a long narrow ridge. Its surface is uneven and beset 

 with abrupt projecting rocks ; which being sometimes 

 covered with verdure, put on the appearance of small 

 hills interrupting the general level. These rocks and 

 stony hillocks are in many places so abundant as to pre- 

 vent the use of the plough, thus condemning to pasturage 

 many tracts of the most fertile land which the western 

 coast affords.t This fertility arises from the nature of 

 its soil, the rocks which form 'the island being almost 

 entirely calcareous. 



Lismore presents but little to amuse or interest the 

 general traveller. The forms of the ground are not pictu- 

 resque, while the total absence of wood gives it that air 

 of bleakness and sterility which, to the painter's eye, is 

 never compensated by flowery meadows or fertile fields. 

 The cliffs are too low and too little varied to admit of 

 those combinations of maritime scenery which are suffi- 

 ciently common throughout the Western islands to render 

 the absence of other modifications of picturesque beauty 

 less perceptible. If however it is deficient in this respect, 

 it presents to the artist a station whence he may survey 

 the almost unexampled magnificence of the bay of Oban, 

 and the ranges of mountains which bound it on all sicles. 

 To the eastward, the summits of Cruachan and the hills 

 of Appin, extend in a continued and intricate chain to 

 Ben Nevis, while the rugged and brown land of Morven 

 constitutes the boundary to the north; the mountains 



* See the general Map. 

 t Hence its name ; Lios more, the great garden. 



