1 2 THE CRUISE OF THE BETSEY ; OR, 



splendidly toasted, to give substantiality and relish to our 

 tea. The little rude forecastle, a considerably smaller apart- 

 ment than the cabin, was all a-glow with the bright fire in 

 the coppers, itself invisible : we could see the chain-cable 

 dangling from the hatchway to the floor, and John Stewart's 

 companion, a powerful-looking, handsome young man, with 

 broad bare breast, and in his shirt sleeves, squatted full in 

 front of the blaze, like the household goblin described by 

 Milton, or the " Christmas Present" of Dickens. Mr Elder 

 left us for the steamer, in which he prosecuted his voyage 

 next morning to Skye ; and we tumbled in, each to his narrow 

 bed, comfortable enough sort of resting-places, though not 

 over soft ; and slept so soundly, that we failed to mark Mr 

 Elder's return for a few seconds, a little after daybreak I 

 found at my bedside, when I awoke, a fragment of rock which 

 he had brought from the shore, charged with Liasic fossils ; 

 and a note he had written, to say that the deposit to which 

 it belonged occurred in the trap immediately above the vil- 

 lage-mill ; and further, to call my attention to a house near 

 the middle of the village, built of a mouldering red sand- 

 stone which had been found in situ in digging the founda- 

 tions. I had but little time for the work of exploration in 

 Mull, and the information thus kindly rendered enabled me 

 to economize it. 



The village of Tobermory resembles that of Oban. A 

 quiet bay has its secure island-breakwater in front ; a line of 

 tall, well-built houses, not in the least rural in their aspect, 

 but that seem rather as if they had been transported from 

 the centre of some stately city entire and at once, sweeps 

 round its inner inflection like a bent bow ; and an amphi- 

 theatre of mingled rock and wood rises behind. With all its 

 beauty, however, there hangs about the village an air of me- 

 lancholy. Like some of the other western-coast villages, it 

 seems not to have grown piecemeal, as a village ought, but 



