CHAP. Xv. ] ROCKS OF CROMARTY. 125 
ance. I was much pleased on the whole with my day’s excur- 
sion—the beautiful scenery of the rocks, with the harbour of 
Cromarty, and the distant hills of Ross-shire and Inverness-shire, 
forming altogether as magnificent and varied a view as I have 
ever seen. 
On an excursion along these same rocks I was once nearly 
drowned. I had just killed a pigeon that had dropped in the 
water in a recess between the rocks. We rowed in after it, 
and just as I was leaning over the bow of the boat to pick it up, 
a rolling swell of the sea lifted the boat nearly upright, grating 
her keel on the edge of the rock. I was hoisted with the bow 
of the boat into the air, and holding on looked round to see 
what had happened, the day being perfectly calm ; the boatmen 
were pale with fright as we appeared for a moment balanced 
between life and death, the chances rather in favour of the 
latter. The same wave, however, as it receded, took us twenty 
or thirty yards out to sea, and the men immediately rowed as 
hard as they could to get a good offing. The wave that had 
so nearly upset us was the forerunner of a heavy swell and wind 
from the east, which was coming on unobserved by us, for we 
had been wholly intent on our sport. I never could understand 
how our boat could have righted again after the position she 
was in for a few moments. The face of the rocks was too per- 
pendicular at the place to admit of our making good a landing 
had we been upset. Once away from the rocks we were safe 
enough, and rigging out a couple of strong lines with large 
white flies, we caught as many fish of different kinds as we 
could pull in during our way over to Cromarty. A large gull 
made two swoops at one of the flies, and had not a fish fore- 
stalled him, we should probably have hooked him also. I do 
not know a day’s sport more amusing than one along these rocks 
on a fine summer day, what with the variety of birds and the 
beauty and grandeur of the scenery, taking good.care, however, 
to avoid the rocks when there is the least wind or swell from the 
east or north, 
