IN VILLAGE BAT. 5 



The sight was sublime. In front of us loomed 

 the gigantic rock, with its summit buried in white 

 mists, and its base surrounded by a fringe of foam 

 left by the broken billows. 



As we passed Eock Lavenish the ship got the 

 full benefit of wind and tide on her port, and, 

 in consequence, rolled fearfully. Her decks were 

 often at such an acute angle that the sailors them- 

 selves were obliged to hold on to whatsoever stable 

 article lay within reach. No sooner, however, had 

 we got inside Village Bay than the sea became 

 almost as smooth as a mill-pond, and everybody 

 was on deck, gazing intently at the weird scene. 

 The sombre grandeur of the place was as awe- 

 inspiring as the most dreadful page in Dante or 

 Milton, and required the pencil of a Dore to do 

 justice to its sublimity. The booming of the tide 

 in the caves that run beneath the Doon sounded 

 like the growl of chained monsters that had made 

 a meal of the men and women who had once lived 

 in the straggling line of primitive-looking dwellings 

 standing at the foot of steep Conagher without a 

 sign of life near them. 



During the spring a bottle had been picked up 

 somewhere amongst the Western Isles with a letter 

 in it, purporting to have been sent from St. Kilda, 

 with the information that a Spanish ship had 

 been lost there during the winter, and that sixteen 

 rescued sailors were waiting to be taken off. A 

 couple of Glasgow pressmen had accompanied us, 

 and endured all sorts of hardships and discomforts 

 that the dull work- a- day world might enjoy reading 

 of the adventures and hairbreadth escapes of the 

 survivors. I observed them wistfully scanning the 

 shore in search of some evidence of the castaways, 

 and felt genuinely sorry for their disappointment 



