CHAPTER XIV 



THE ARGYLLSHIRE COAST AND ITS ISLANDS 



A WIDE county is Argyll, and one of many contrasts. 

 On the one hand, Dunoon, its capital, is not more, one 

 "might say, than a stone's throw from the great city of 

 Glasgow, and, on the other, most of its coast line and all its 

 islands are wild, hardly accessible, and peopled with a Gaelic- 

 speaking race. At its northern boundary — Loch Shiel — one is 

 in the very heart of the Western Highlands, and the great 

 hills rise up, tier upon tier, from the blue waters of the 

 Atlantic. One sees from here, of a clear June morning, the 

 jagged Cuchulain Hills rise steeply from the Isle of Skye, 

 the conical hills about Knoydart, and those of Loch Nevis; 

 while out to sea are the mountainous island of Rhum, and — 

 nearer at hand — Eigg, the home of many birds. 



Argyll is a county of many islands. To this shire there 

 belong Islay, within easy view of the north Irish coast — I 

 have seen, of a winter's morning, from Malin Head, Islay's 

 hills rise snow-capped from the blue Atlantic — and Jura, with 

 its three conical and conspicuous hills which seem to attract 

 to themselves more mist-clouds than any other mountains of 

 the West. Then again, northward of Jura, there lies the 

 large and fertile Isle of Mull. "Muile nam mor bheann " is 

 its Gaelic name, and it is a land of mountain and corrie 

 except for its westernmost peninsula, known as "the Ross," 

 which stretches away from Carsaig to the Sound of lona, and 

 though heather clad, is comparatively level. Supreme among 

 the Mull hills is Ben Mor, which rises from the waters of 

 Loch Scridain and Loch nan Ceall to a height of just under 

 3,200 feet. In the corries of Ben Mor is fine grazing, so 



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