AKEAN SIGHTS AND SCENES. 123 



require— nay, it has obtained, and more than once — a volume. 

 I could dwell upon the blue rock near Corry, and picture the 

 overhanging cliffs of the neighbourhood mantled o'er with ivy. 

 The visitor might enter some of the caves which have been 

 scooped out by the sea, or wander among the rock pools of the 

 indented shore, rich with treasures wherewith to feed the greedy 

 eye of the naturalist, and view the ladies, with kUted coats, doing 

 their daily lessons from Glaucus, collecting pretty shells, bottling 

 anemones, or gathering sea^weeds wherewith to ornament their 

 botanic albums. At last, after a long day's work of wandering 

 and climbing, we long for a quiet seat and a refreshing cup of 

 tea, and by and by, when the night shuts us out from active 

 labour, we hie us to our box bed, in order to stretch our wearied 

 limbs in Miss Macalister's well-lavendered sheets ; and, as we 

 are just attempting to coax the balmy goddess to close our eyes 

 with her soft fingers, we hear the landlady in her garret reading 

 her nightly chapter from a Gaelic Bible, with that droning 

 sound incidental to the West Highland voice. 



I have more than once after nightfall passed a quiet half-hour 

 at our cottage door inhaling the saline breath of the mighty sea. 

 The look-out at midnight is beautiful : the Cumbrae light 

 looks like a monitor telling us that even at that dread hour we 

 are watched over. On the opposite coast of Ayr a huge iron- 

 work throws a lurid glare upon the bosom of the sea, and 

 almost at my feet the restless waves play a mournful dirge on 

 the boulder-crowded beach. I could see along the water to 

 Holy Island, and almost feel the silence which at that moment 

 would render the cave of old Saint Molio a wondrous place for 

 holding a feast of the imagination, the viands brought forward 

 from a far-back time, and the island being again peopled 

 with the quaint races that had passed a brief span of life 

 upon its shores — who had been warmed by the same sun as had 

 that day shone upon me, and whose nights had been illumined 

 by the moon now shimmering its soft radiance upon the liquid 

 bosom of the glittering waters. 



