196 THE BIRDS OF ION A AND MULL. 



WALK THEOUGH GLENMOEE. 



1853. — November. — This trip was in October, towards the 

 latter end, when the weather began to break up. It was a 

 delightful sunny day that I started about noon from Bunessan, 

 with my knapsack and plaid, with the intention of walking across 

 Mull At five, had dinner at the little inn at Kinloch, egad ain 

 agus potat (herrings and potatoes), and a drap o' the craytur ; 

 then off again, and when the grey dusk of night was beginning 

 to creep o'er the mountains, I passed under the foot of giant Ben 

 M6r, and entered the gloomy black gorge of Glenmore, the great 

 glen of Mull. It now became intensely dark, so I sat down to 

 wait for the moon to rise. Not a sound was to be heard in this 

 desolate region, except the tinkling of the mountain rills, and the 

 soft sighing of the night wind as it stole round the slopes of the 

 hill and across the moor, though so gently as scarcely to shake 

 the heather-bells or to make the white cotton moss bend its head. 

 Presently the full moon rose up into the clear blue frosty sky, 

 high above the mountain peaks, which were silvered in her beams. 

 The winding river and chain of lakelets far down at the bottom 

 of the glen glistened with her rays, and even the road itself 

 looked like a river of light curling along the mountain side. I 

 walked for several hours under this radiant moon till I came, 

 at about eleven o'clock, to a place called Ardjura, a wooded glen, 

 through the bottom of which runs a broad river. Here I was 

 suddenly startled by hearing an extraordinary noise, like that of 

 a person in the agonies of death, which seemed to proceed from 



