OF SUTHERLAND AND CAITHNESS. 
39 
interrupted by upright veins of trap, wliicli form lovely little sandy 
coves for landing-places. A gradual slope leads upwards and 
westwards to the cliff edges, covered for a considerable space with 
short grass growing on sand, and producing sweet sheep-grazing 
and mushrooms. The cliff face occupies fully three-fourths of the 
circumference, low at the south and north-east ; and, rising boldly 
and rapidly towards the west, culminates in a magnificent precipice 
of 620 feet in height. The sandy coves and trap dykes occupy the 
other fourth part of its coast-line. A flock of sheep is kept on the 
island, the grazing of which belongs to Mr. M'lver, the Duke of 
Sutherland's factor at Scourie, and he used not infrequently to lose 
some of them, which, falling over the cliffs, were dashed to pieces 
on the rocks below, or drowned in the sea. 
On the north side of Handa is a remarkable stack of rock, in- 
accessible, with flatfish or sloping top, populated by a colony of 
great black-backed gulls, razorbills, guillemots, etc. Opposite is a 
deep scar or goe in the cliff face, down which a man can easily 
descend, populated by a large colony of puffins, which nestle 
amidst the grass slopes and loose masses of stones and debris. To 
the west of this is a projecting peninsula of cliff, over which, in 
certain winds, streams of rock-birds hurry up to their nesting- 
places on the stack. Further west the cliff rises rapidly in 
altitude, till, facing west, it reaches 620 feet in height; here the 
peregrine falcon breeds, and, till of late years, the white-tailed 
eagle reared her young. This is one of the grandest cliffs in 
Britain, and though hardly, perhaps, comparing in height with Foula 
in Shetland, Mingulay in the Hebrides, or St. Kilda, it comes little 
short of these in grandeur. 
A little to the south of the culminating point of Handa, where 
the cliff dips suddenly to about 450 feet of elevation, there is a 
vast creux or pit, about 40 x 50 feet in surface area, being nearly 
perfectly square, unfenced when we last saw it, and penetrating 
perpendicularly the solid rock down to the sea-level, where it is 
connected with a deep inlet of the Western Ocean by an equila- 
teral-sided tunnel.^ This curious place is haunted by kittiwakes, 
^ The entrance to this is shown in our plate of Handa. 
