140 THE CRUISE OF THE BETSEY ; OB, 



the district of Knock and Isle Ornsay. The upper part of 

 the valley is bare and treeless, but not such its character 

 where it opens to the sea ; the hills are richly wooded ; and 

 cottages and corn-fields, with here and there a reach of the 

 lively little river, peep out from among the trees. A group 

 of tall roofless buildings, with a strong wall in front, form 

 the central point in the landscape : these are the dismantled 

 Berera Barracks, built, like the line of forts in the great 

 Caledonian Valley, Fort George, Fort Augustus, and Fort 

 William, to overawe the Highlands at a time when the 

 loyalty of the Highlander pointed to a king beyond the water ; 

 but all use for them has long gone by, and they now lie in 

 dreary ruin, mere sheltering places for the toad and the bat. 

 I found in a loose silt on the banks of the river, at some little 

 distance below tide-mark, a bed of shells and coral, which 

 might belong, I at first supposed, to some secondary forma- 

 tion, but which I ascertained, on examination, to be a mere 

 recent deposit, not so old by many centuries as our last raised 

 sea-beaches. There occurs in various localities on these west- 

 ern coasts, especially on the shores of the island of Pabba, a 

 sprig coral, considerably larger in size than any I have else- 

 where seen in Scotland ; and it was from its great abundance 

 in this bed of silt that I was at first led to deem the deposit 

 an ancient one. 



We weighed anchor about noon, and entered the opening 

 of Kyle Rhea. Vessel after vessel, to the number of eight 

 or ten in all, had been arriving in the course of the morning, 

 and dropping anchor, nearer the opening or farther away, 

 each according to its sailing ability, to await the turn of the 

 tide; and we now found ourselves one of the components of 

 a little fleet, with some five or six vessels sweeping up the 

 Kyle before us, and some three or four driving on behind. 

 Never, except perhaps in a Highland river big in flood, have 

 I seen such a tide. It danced and wheeled, and came boil- 



