WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 107 



nation to nation offering kindly guidance and warning. 

 So we have various colours in the night, the pale flashing 

 lighthouse we steer to, and two golden eyes from our galley 

 casting patches of light on deck, and on either side of us a 

 phosphorescent Milky Way with occasionally vivid flashes 

 as we turn over a wave in the smooth water. 



But it is to bed, to bed, for to-morrow we must be astir 

 early, to meet relatives in Tobermory, and anchor in its 

 circular bay, where we have so often anchored when we were 

 young and unspoiled, and Mull to Ardnamurchan in a dinghy 

 seemed a long way, and whaling was as a tale that is told. 



At four o'clock in the morning we pass Hyskeir Rocks, pass 

 them three cables to starboard. It is dark and hazy but their 

 light sweeps across our deck : soon the lights on Ardna- 

 murchan and Coll greet us ; and as sea and mountain and 

 air faintly separate, we pass the light on the point and pick 

 up Kilchoan, and then the Tobermory Light. 



Ardnamurchan shows a rugged, mountainous outline 

 against the morning sky, and to a stranger coming from the 

 sea, picking up the lights as he goes, it seems inhospitable. 

 But to the writer it recalls some similar mornings after 

 smoky town down south coming up for winter shooting. 

 What glens there are of birches for black game, corries for 

 deer, lochs for little brown trout and burns for sea-trout ! 

 My thanks to relatives for the free run we had when we were 

 young Ardnamurchan Point to Glen Borrodale, what a 

 playground ! North beyond the point and the hills above 

 Kilchoan we see the hills above Loch Aylort and the coast 

 of Morar, " Blessed Morar," perhaps the most beautiful spot 

 of the most beautiful country in the world. Where else do 

 you find stone pines, in deep heather growing right down 

 to a white coral strand, and glass-green sea-water. Then 

 Drimnin and Glen Morven appear west and south of Ardna- 

 murchan, full of memories of relations, of piping, singing, 

 hunting and sailing. 



The relatives, we presume, are all asleep now, so we won't 

 awake them, as we pass, with repeated blasts on our foghorn, 

 as we half thought of doing no, we will later rouse them up 

 with a Fiery Cross reply-paid telegram from Tobermory to 



