152 THE CRUISE OF THE BETSEY; OR, 



her keel ; and ere the dinner-hour we had passed through the 

 narrows of Kyle Akin. The village of this name was de- 

 signed by the late Lord M 'Donald for a great sea-port town ; 

 but it refused to grow ; and it has since become a gentleman 

 in a small way, and does nothing. It forms, however, a hand- 

 some group of houses, pleasantly situated on a flat green tongue 

 of land, on the Skye side, just within the opening of the Kyle; 

 and there rises on an eminence beyond it a fine old tower, 

 rent open, as if by an earthquake, from top to bottom, which 

 forms one of the most picturesque objects I have almost ever 

 seen in a landscape. There are bold hills all around, and 

 rocky islands, with the ceaseless rush of tides in front; while 

 the cloven tower, rising high over the shore, is seen, in thread- 

 ing the Kyles, whether from the south or north, relieved dark 

 against the sky, as the central object in the vista. We find 

 it thus described by the Messrs Anderson of Inverness, in 

 their excellent " Guide Book," by far the best companion 

 of the kind with which the traveller who sets himself to ex- 

 plore our Scottish Highlands can be provided. " Close to the 

 village of Kyle Akin are the ruins of an old square keep, 

 called Castle Muel or Maoil, the walls of which are of a re- 

 markable thickness. It is said to have been built by the 

 daughter of a Norwegian king, married to a Mackinnoii or 

 Macdonald, for the purpose of levying an impost on all ves- 

 sels passing the Kyles, excepting, says the tradition, those of 

 her own country. For the more certain exaction of this duty, 

 she is reported to have caused a strong chain to be stretched 

 across from shore to shore ; and the spot in the rocks to which 

 the terminal links were attached is still pointed out." It was 

 high time for us to be home. The dinner hour came ; but, 

 in meet illustration of the profound remark of Trotty : Yeck, 

 not the dinner. We had been in a cold Moderate dStricty. 

 whence there came no half-dozens of eggs, or whole dozens 

 of trout, or pailfuls of razor-fish, and in which hard cabin- 



