A SUMMER RAMBLE AMONG THE HEBRIDES. 49 





CHAPTER IY. 



THERE had been rain during the night ; and when I first got 

 on deck, a little after seven, a low stratum of mist, that com- 

 pletely enveloped the Scuir, and truncated both the eminence 

 on which it stands and the opposite height, stretched like a 

 ruler across the flat valley which indents so deeply the middle 

 of the island. But the fogs melted away as the morning 

 rose, and ere our breakfast was satisfactorily discussed, the 

 last thin wreath had disappeared from around the columned 

 front of the rock-tower of Eigg, and a powerful sun looked 

 down on moist slopes and dank hollows, from which there 

 arose in the calm a hazy vapour, that, while it softened the 

 lower features of the landscape, left the bold outline relieved 

 against a clear sky. Accompanied by our attendant of the 

 previous day, bearing bag and hammer, we set out a little 

 before eleven for the north-western side of the island, by a 

 road which winds along the central hollow. My friend 

 showed me as we went, that on the edge of an eminence, on 

 which the traveller journeying westwards catches the last 

 glimpse of the chapel of St Donan, there had once been a 

 rude cross erected, and another rude cross on an eminence 

 on which he catches the last glimpse of the first ; and that 

 there had thus been a chain of stations formed from sea to 

 sea, like the sights of a land-surveyor, from one of which a 



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