LETTER IV. 
THROUGH THE SOUNDS—STORNAWAY—THE SETTING UP OE TEE 
PIGURE-HEAD—PITZ’s PORAY—OH WEED MAY THE BOATIE ROW, 
TEAT WINS THE BAIRNS’S BREAD—SIR PATRICK SPENS JOINS—- 
UP ANCHOR. 
Stornaway, Island of Lewis, Hebrides, 
June 9, 1856. 
We reached these Islands of the West the day before 
yesterday, after a fine run from Oban. 
I had intended taking Staffa and Iona on my way, 
but it came on so thick with heavy weather from the 
south-west, that to have landed on either island would 
have been out of the question. So we bore up under 
Mull at one in the morning, tore through the Sound 
at daylight, rounded Ardnamurchan under a double- 
reefed mainsail at two P.M., and shot into the Sound 
of Skye the same evening, leaving the hills of Moidart 
(one of whose “ seven men ” was an ancestor of your 
own), and the jaws of the hospitable Loch Hourn, 
reddening in the stormy sunset. 
