50 THE CRUISE OF THE BETSEY ; OR, 



second could be seen, and a third from the second, till, last 

 of all, the emphatically holy point of the island, the burial- 

 place of the old Culdee, came full in view. The unsteady 

 devotion, that journeyed, fancy-bound, along the heights, to 

 gloat over a dead man's bones, had its clue to carry it on in 

 a straight line. Its trail was on the ground ; it glided snake- 

 like from cross to cross, in quest of dust ; and, without its 

 finger-posts to guide it, would have wandered devious. It is 

 surely a better devotion that, instead of thus creeping over 

 the earth to a mouldy sepulchre, can at once launch into the 

 sky, secure of finding Him who arose from one. In less than 

 an hour we were descending on the Bay of Laig, a semicir- 

 cular indentation of the coast about a mile in length, and, 

 where it opens to the main sea, nearly two miles in breadth ; 

 with the noble island of Rum rising high in front, like some 

 vast breakwater ; and a meniscus of comparatively level land, 

 walled in behind by a semicircular rampart of continuous 

 precipice, sweeping round its shores. There are few finer 

 scenes in the Hebrides than that furnished by this island bay 

 and its picturesque accompaniments, none that break more 

 unexpectedly on the traveller who descends upon it from the 

 east ; and rarely has it been seen to greater advantage than 

 on the delicate day, so soft, and yet so sunshiny and clear, on 

 which I paid it my first visit. 



The island of Bum, with its abrupt sea-wall of rock, and its 

 steep-pointed hills, that attain, immediately over the sea, an 

 elevation of more than two thousand feet, loomed bold and high 

 in the offing, some five miles away, but apparently much nearer. 

 The four tall summits of the island rose clear against the 

 sky, like a group of pyramids ; its lower slopes and precipices, 

 variegated and relieved by graceful alternations of light and 

 shadow, and resting on their blue basement of sea, stood out 

 with equal distinctness ; but the entire middle space from end 

 to end was hidden in a long horizontal stratum of gray cloud, 



