32 THE CRUISE OF THE BETSEY j OR, 



dies of rods than well-proportioned pillars. Few of them 

 exceed eighteen inches in diameter, and many of them fall 

 short of half a foot ; but, though lost in the general mass of 

 the Scuir as independent columns, when we view it at an 

 angle sufficiently large to take in its entire bulk, they yet im- 

 part to it that graceful linear effect which we see brought 

 out in tasteful pencil-sketches and good line-engravings. We 

 approached it this day from the shore in the direction in 

 which the eminence it stands upon assumes the pyramidal 

 form, and itself the tower-like outline. The acclivity is bar- 

 ren and stony, a true desert foreground, like those of Thebes 

 and Palmyra ; and the huge square shadow of the tower 

 stretched dark and cold athwart it. The sun shone out 

 clearly. One half the immense bulk before us, with its deli- 

 cate vertical lining, lay from top to bottom in deep shade, 

 massive and gray ; one half presented its many-sided columns 

 to the light, here and there gleaming with tints of extreme 

 brightness, where the pitch-stones presented their glassy 

 planes to the sun ; its general outline, whether pencilled by 

 the lighter or darker tints, stood out sharp and clear ; and a 

 stratum of white fleecy clouds floated slowly amid the deli- 

 cious blue behind it. But the minuter details I must re- 

 serve for my next chapter. One fact, however, anticipated 

 just a little out of its order, may heighten the interest of the 

 reader. There are massive buildings, bridges of noble span, 

 and harbours that abut far into the waves, founded on 

 wooden piles ; and this hugest of hill-forts we find founded 

 on wooden piles also. It is built on what a Scotch architect 

 would perhaps term a pHe-brander of the Pinites Eiggensis, 

 an ancient tree of the Oolite. The gigantic Scuir of Eigg 

 rests on the remains of a prostrate forest 



