A SUMMER RAMBLE AMONG THE HEBRIDES. 43 



ing state, than the days of the hill-fort Powerful fires would 

 have been required to render the exposed summit of the Scuir 

 at all comfortable ; there is a deep peat-moss in its immediate 

 neighbourhood, that would have furnished the necessary fuel ; 

 the wind must have often been sufficiently high on the sum- 

 mit to fan the embers into an intense white heat ; and if it 

 was heat but half as intense as that which was employed in 

 fusing into one mass the thick vitrified ramparts of Craig 

 Phadrig and Knock Ferril, on the east coast, it could scarce 

 have failed to anticipate the experiment of the Hon. Mr Knox 

 of Dublin, by converting some of the numerous pitchstone 

 fragments that lie scattered about, " into a light substance in 

 every respect resembling pumice." ^ 



It was now evening, and rarely have I witnessed a finer. 

 The sun had declined half-way adown the western sky, and 

 for many yards the shadow of the gigantic Scuir lay dark be- 

 neath us along the descending slope. All the rest of the 

 island, spread out at our feet as in a map, was basking in 

 yellow sunshine ; and with its one dark shadow thrown from 

 its one mountain-elevated wall of rock, it seemed some im- 

 mense fantastical dial, with its gnomon rising tall in the 

 midst. Far below, perched on the apex of the shadow, and 

 half lost in the line of the penumbra, we could see two in- 

 distinct specks of black, with a dim halo around each, specks 

 that elongated as we arose, and contracted as we sat, and 

 went gliding along the line as we walked. The shadows of 

 two gnats disporting on the edge of an ordinary gnomon would 

 have seemed vastly more important, in proportion, on the 

 figured plane of the dial, than these, our ghostly representa- 

 tives, did here. The sea, spangled in the wake of the sun 

 with quick glancing light, stretched out its blue plain around 

 us ; and we could see included in the wide prospect, on the 

 one hand, at once the hill-chains of Morven and Kintail, with 

 the many intervening lochs and bold jutting headlands that 



