A SUMMER RAMBLE AMONG THE HEBRIDES. 15 



and a heavy swell from the sea. I would fain have approach- 

 ed nearer the precipices of Ardnamurchan, to trace along 

 their inaccessible fronts the strange reticulations of trap 

 figured by Macculloch ; but prudence and the skipper forbade 

 our trusting even the docile little Betsey on one of the most 

 formidable lee shores in Scotland, in winds so light and vari- 

 able, and with the swell so high. We could hear the deep 

 roar of the surf for miles, and see its undulating strip of 

 white nickering under stack and cliff The scenery here 

 seems rich in legendary association. At one tack we bore 

 into Bloody Bay, on the Mull coast, the scene of a naval 

 battle between two island chiefs ; at another, we approached, 

 on the mainland, a cave inaccessible save from the sea, long 

 the haunt of a ruthless Highland pirate. Ere we rounded 

 the headland of Ardnamurchan, the slant light of evening 

 was gleaming athwart the green acclivities of Mull, barring 

 them with long horizontal lines of shadow, where the trap 

 terraces rise step beyond step, in the characteristic stair-like 

 arrangement to which the rock owes its name ; and the sun 

 set as we were bearing down in one long tack on the Small 

 Isles. We passed the Isle of Muck, with its one low hill ; 

 saw the pyramidal mountains of Rum looming tall in the off- 

 ing ; and then, running along the Isle of Eigg, with its co- 

 lossal Scuir rising between us and the sky, as if it were a 

 piece of Babylonian wall, or of the great wall of China, only 

 vastly larger, set down on the ridge of a mountain, we enter- 

 ed the channel which separates the island from one of its de- 

 pendencies, Eilean Chaisteil, and cast anchor in the tideway 

 about fifty yards from the rocks. We were now at home, 

 the only home which the proprietor of the island permits to 

 the islanders' minister ; and, after getting warm and comfort- 

 able over the stove and a cup of tea, we did what all sensible 

 men do in their own homes when the night wears late, got 

 into bed. 



