a strict search, the Mac-Leods went on board their gallies, after doing what mischief they could, concluding the inhabitants had left the isle, and betaken themselves to the Long Island, or some of Clan-Ronald's other possessions. But next morning they espied from the vessels a man upon the island, and immediately landing again, they traced his retreat by the marks of his footsteps, a light snow being unhappily on the ground. Mac-Leod then surrounded the cavern, summoned the subterranean garrison, and demanded that the individuals who had offended him should be delivered up to him. This "was peremptorily refused. The chieftain then caused his people to divert the course of a rill of water, which, falling over the entrance of the cave, would have prevented his purposed vengeance. He then kindled at the entrance of the cavern a huge fire, composed of turf and fern, and maintained it with unrelenting assiduity, until all within were destroyed by suffocation. The date of this dreadful deed must have been recent, if one may judge from the fresh appearance of those reliques. I brought off, in spite of the prejudice of our sailors, a skull from among the numerous specimens of mortality which the cavern afforded. Before reimbarking we visited another cave, opening to the sea, but of a character entirely different, being a large open vault as high as that of a cathedral, and running back a great way into the rock at the same height. The height and width of the opening gives ample light to the whole. Here, after 1745, when the catholic priests were scarcely tolerated,

the priest of Eigg used to perform the Roman catholic service, most of the islanders being of that persuasion. A huge ledge of rocks rising about half way up one side of the vault, served for altar and pulpit; and the appearance of a priest and highland congregation in such an extraordinary place of worship, might have engaged the pencil of Salvator."

Note VI.

the group of islets gay

That guard famed Staffa round.—St. X. p. 141.

It would be unpardonable to detain the reader upon a won-. der so often described, and yet so incapable of being understood by description. This palace of Neptune is even grander upon a second than the first view. The stupendous columns which form the sides of the cave, the depth and strength of the tide which rolls its deep and heavy swell up to the extremity of the vault-the variety of tints formed by white, crimson, and yellow stalactites, or petrifactions, which occupy the vacancies between the base of the broken pillars which form the roof, and intersect them with a rich, curious, and variegated chasing, occupying each interstice-the corresponding variety below water, where the ocean rolls over a dark-red or violet-coloured rock, from which, as from a base, the basaltic columns arise--the tremendous noise of the swelling tide, mingling with the deep-toned echoes of the vault,-are cir cumstances elsewhere unparalleled,

Nothing can be more interesting than the varied appearance of the little archipelago of islets, of which Staffa is the most remarkable. This group, called in Gaelic Tresharnish, affords a thousand varied views to the voyager, as they appear in different positions with reference to his course. The variety of their shape contributes much to the beauty of these effects.

Note VII.

Scenes sung by him who sings no more !—St. XI. p. 143, The ballad, entitled " Macphail of Colonsay, and the Mermaid of Corrievrekin," was composed by John Leyden, from a tradition which he found while making a tour through the Hebrides about 1801, soon before his fatal departure for India, where, after having made farther progress in oriental literature than any man of letters who had embraced these studies, he died a martyr to his zeal for knowledge, in the island of Java, immediately after the landing of our forces near Batavia, n September, 1811.

Note VIII.

Up Tarbat's western lake they bore,

Then dragg'd their bark the isthmus o'er-St. XII. p. 144. The peninsula of Cantire is joined to South Knapdale by a very narrow isthmus, formed by the western and eastern Loch of Tarbat. These two salt-water lakes, or bays, encroach so far upon the land, and the extremities come so

near to each other, that there is not above a mile of land to divide them.

"It is not long," says Pennant, " since vessels of nine or ten tons were drawn by horses out of the west loch into that of the east, to avoid the dangers of the Mull of Cantyre, so dreaded and so little known was the navigation round that promontory. It is the opinion of many, that these little isthmuses, so frequently styled Tarbat in North Britain, took their name from the above circumstance; Tarruing, signifying to draw, and Bata, a boat. This too might be called, by way of pre-eminence, the Tarbat, from a very singular cir cumstance related by Torfœus. When Magnus, the barefooted King of Norway, obtained from Donald-bane of Scotland the cession of the western isles, or all those places that could be surrounded in a boat, he added to them the peninsula of Cantyre by this fraud: he placed himself in the stern of a boat, held the rudder, was drawn over this narrow track, and by this species of navigation wrested the country from his brother monarch."-PENNANT'S Scotland, London, 1790, p. 190.

But that Bruce also made this passage, although at a period two or three years later than in the poem, appears from the evidence of Barbour, who mentions also the effect produced upon the minds of the highlanders, from the prophecies current amongst them :

"But to King Robert will we gang,
That we have left unspoken of lang.

When he had convoyed to the sea
His brother Edward, and his menyie,
And other men of great noblay,
To Tarbat they held their way,

In galleys ordained for their fare,
But them worth' draw their ships there,
And a mile was betwixt the seas,
And that was lompnyt 2 all with trees.
The king his ships there gert3 draw
And for the wind couth+ stoutly blaw
Upon their back, as they would ga,
He gert men rops and masts ta,
And set them in the ships high,

And sail to the tops tye;

And gert men gang thereby drawing.

The wind them help'd that was blowing,

So that, in little space,

Their fleet all over drawn was.

And when they that in the isles were,
Heard tell how the king had there,
Gart his ships with sails go
Out over betwixt Tarbat two,
They were abaysit❝ so utterly.
For they wist, through old prophecy,
That he that should gar7 ships so
Betwixt the seas with sails go,

Should win the isles so till hand,

That none with strength should him withstand.

Therefore they come all to the king.

Was none withstood his bidding,

8

Owtakyn Johne of Lorne alane.

But well soon after was he taen ;