A SUMMER RAMBLE AMONG THE HEBRIDES. 103 



in which the botanist finds a few rare plants, and which were 

 dimpled, as I passed them this morning, with countless eddies, 

 formed by myriads of small quick glancing trout, that seemed 

 busily engaged in fly-catching. The rock appears but rarely, 

 all is moss, marsh, and pool ; but in a few localities on the 

 hill-sides, where some stream has cut into the slope, and disin- 

 tegrated the softer shales, the shepherd finds shells of strange 

 form strewed along the water-courses, or bleaching white among 

 the heath. The valley, evidently 'a dangerous one to the 

 night traveller, from its bogs and its tarns, is said to be 

 haunted by a spirit peculiar to itself, a mischievous, eccen- 

 tric, grotesque creature, not unworthy, from the monstrosity 

 of its form, of being associated with the old monsters of the 

 Lias. Luidag for so the goblin is called has but one leg, 

 terminating, like an ancient satyr's, in a cloven foot ; but it 

 is furnished with two arms, bearing hard fists at the end of 

 them, with which it has been known to strike the benighted 

 traveller in the face, or to tumble him over into some dark 

 pool. The spectre may be seen at the close of evening hop- 

 ping vigorously among the distant bogs, like a felt ball on its 

 electric platform ; and when the mist lies thick in the hol- 

 lows, an occasional glimpse may be caught of it even by day. 

 But when I passed the way there was no fog : the light, though 

 softened by a thin film of cloud, fell equally over the heath, 

 revealing hill and hollow ; and I was unlucky enough not to 

 see this goblin of the Liasic valley. 



A deep indentation of the coast, which forms the bay of 

 Broadford, corresponds with the hollow of the valley. It is 

 simply a portion of the valley itself occupied by the sea j and 

 we find the Lias, from its lower to its upper beds, exposed in 

 unbroken series along the beach. In the middle of the open- 

 ing lies the green level island of Pabba, altogether composed 

 of this formation, and which, differing, in consequence, both 

 in outline and colour, from every neighbouring island and 



