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a half miles from this, on the left, are seen the ruins of Castle Urquhart, often noticed in the annals of the earlier Scottish monarchs, and which was the last to surrender to Edward the First. Further notice of this fine ruin will be found in our Thirteenth Tour. Glen Urquhart, which recedes behind the castle, is a beautiful Highland vale, containing many gentlemen's seats; and, at the mouth of the glen, there is a good inn called Drumnadrochet. Glen Urquhart chiefly belongs to the Earl of Seafield. At the Ferry of Bona, eight and a half miles from Drumnadrochet, the steamer enters Loch Dochfour by a narrow channel about a quarter of a mile in length. At Lochend the steamer again enters the canal, and proceeds to Muirton, where it descends by four locks to the capacious basin of the canal, at the end of which there is another lock, opening from the Beauly Firth.

The Caledonian Canal was finally opened in October 1822. The whole distance from the Atlantic to the German Ocean is sixty and a half miles, of which thirty-seven and a half are through natural sheets of water, and twenty-three cut as a canal. The present depth of water is fifteen feet, but it is proposed to deepen it to twenty feet, according to the original plan; also to increase the efficiency of the works, and to place steam-tugs on the lakes. These improvements having been suggested to the Lords of the Treasury by Sir Edward Parry, and Mr. Walker, engineer, are now in course of progress. The estimated expense of the operations is £200,000, towards which the sum of £105,000 has already been voted by Parliament. A contract has been entered into for the execution of the engineering works, amounting to £136,000, which will occupy a period of three years from their commencement in October 1843. The passage of the navigation from sea to sea is necessarily interrupted during their progress; but parts of the canal are kept open, and made available for the local

Dim-seen, through rising mists and ceaseless showers,
The hoary cavern, wide-surrounding, lowers;
Still through the gap the struggling river toils,

And still below the horrid caldron boils."

traffic. The lakes are still traversed by the Glasgow

steamers.

For a description of Inverness, we refer to the Thirteenth Tour.

ELEVENTH TOUR.

STAFFA AND IONA.

TOURISTS wishing to proceed to Staffa usually leave Glasgow in a steamboat for Oban, where, in the summer and autumn months, a vessel is kept for the accommodation of strangers wishing to visit this far-famed spot.

After leaving Oban, the steamer passes Kerrera, a narrow rugged island, forming a natural breakwater to the bay of Oban. It was here that Alexander II. died on his expedition in 1249, and here Haco, king of Norway, met the island chieftains, who assisted him in his ill-fated descent on the coasts of Scotland. Upon the south point of the island are the ruins of the Danish fort, Gylen. The boat now approaches Lismore,* a fertile island about nine miles in length and two in breadth. In ancient times it was the residence of the bishops of Argyle, who were frequently styled "Episcopi Lismorienses." Leaving Lismore on the right, the steamer enters the Sound of Mull, and passes the Lady Rock, visible only at low water, on which Maclean of Duart exposed his wife, a daughter of the second Earl of Argyle, intending that she should be swept away by the returning tide; but she was fortunately rescued by some of her father's people, who were passing in a boat. Maclean gave out that she had died suddenly, and was allowed to go through the ceremonial of a mock

*Leosmore, that is, "the Great Garden."

funeral, but was shortly afterwards put to death by the relations of his injured wife. This incident has been made the subject of one of Joanna Baillie's dramas-the "Family Legend." On the brink of a high cliff, on the shore of Mull, is Duart Castle, formerly the seat of the chief of the warlike and powerful clan of the Macleans. The steamer now sails along through a narrow but deep channel. On the left are the bold and mountainous shores of Mull, on the right those of that district of Argyleshire called Morven, successively indented by deep salt water lochs running up many miles inland. To the south-eastward, arise a prodigious range of mountains, among which Ben Cruachan is preeminent, and to the north-east is the no less huge and picturesque range of the Ardnamurchan Hills. Many ruinous castles, situated generally upon cliffs overhanging the ocean, add interest to the scene. In fine weather, a grander and more impressive scene, both from its natural beauties, and associations with ancient history and tradition, can hardly be imagined. When the weather is rough, the passage is both difficult and dangerous, from the narrowness of the channel, and in part from the numerous inland lakes, out of which sally forth a number of conflicting and thwarting tides, making the navigation perilous to open boats. The sudden flaws and gusts of wind which issue, without a moment's warning, from the mountain glens, are equally formidable; so that, in unsettled weather, a stranger, if not much accustomed to the sea, may sometimes add to the other sublime sensations excited by the scene, that feeling of dignity which arises from a sense of danger.* Opposite to Duart, on the coast of Morven, are the ruins of Ardtornish Castle, the scene of the opening canto of the

*Notes to the Lord of the Isles. The following sonnet was composed by Wordsworth in the Sound of Mull:

"Tradition, be thou mute! Oblivion, throw
Thy veil in mercy o'er the records, hung

Round strath and mountain, stamp'd by the ancient tongue
On rock and ruin darkening as we go,-

Spots where a word, ghost-like, survives to show

What crimes from hate, or desperate love, have sprung:
From honour misconceived, or fancied wrong,

1

What feuds, not quench'd, but fed, by mutual woe.

"Lord of the Isles."

"The situation is wild and romantic in the highest degree, having on the one hand a high and precipitous chain of rocks overhanging the sea, and, on the other, the narrow entrance to the beautiful salt water lake, called Loch Aline, which is in many places finely fringed with copsewood. The ruins of Ardtornish are not now very considerable, consisting chiefly of the remains of an old keep or tower, with fragments of outward defences. But, in former days, it was a place of great consequence, being one of the principal strongholds which the Lords of the Isles, during the period of their stormy independence, possessed upon the mainland of Argyleshire." Above the castle of Ardtornish, is Ardtornish House, (Gregorson, Esq.) Another residence of the Island Kings next meets the eye in the Castle of Aros, in Mull, a powerful rock-built fortress, situated about half-way from either end of the Sound.* A short way beyond, on the Morven coast, is Killundine Castle. Holding on towards the head of the Sound, the steamer, seven miles beyond Aros, reaches Tobermory, (the well of our Lady St. Mary,) the only village of any note in Mull. It was founded in 1788, by the British Fishery Company, and is finely situated at the head of the inner recess of a well protected bay. In the immediate vicinity is Drumfin, the splendid mansion of Maclean of Coll. This romantic spot is well worthy the notice of the tourist. Quitting Tobermory, we enter Loch Sunart. Seven miles from Tobermory, on the Ardnamurchan coast, is the Castle of Mingarry, which

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Could gentleness be scorn'd by those fierce Men,

Who, to spread wide the reverence they claim'd

For patriarchal occupations, named

Yon towering Peaks, Shepherds of Etive Glen? ""†

From the village of Aros there is a road which leads across the island to Loch-na-Keal, and thence to Laggan Ulva, where there is a place of embarkation for Staffa and Iona.

In Gaelic, Buachaill Eite.

The ruins, which are tolerably entire, are surrounded by a very high wall, forming a kind of polygon, for the purpose of adapting itself to the projecting angles of a precipice overhanging the sea, on which the castle stands. It was anciently the residence of the Maclans, a clan of Macdonalds, descended from Ian or John, a grandson of Angus Og, Lord of the Isles. Rounding the point of Callioch, the last promontory of Mull, we find ourselves moving freely on the bosom of the Atlantic, and at the same moment, if the weather is fine, the islands of Mull, including the Trishnish Isles, Tiree, Coll, Muck, Eig, and Rum, burst on the view, and, far to the north-west, the faint outlines of South Uist and Barra. In fine weather the light-house lately erected on Skerryvore Rock may also be seen. is a granite column 150 feet in height, and has been erected at great cost and hazard, by the Commissioners of the Northern Light-houses, from the design of Alan Stevenson, Esq., engineer to the Board.

It

Staffa is about eight miles distant from the western coast of Mull. It is of an irregular oval shape, and about threefourths of a mile in length, by half a mile in breadth. The most elevated point is toward the south-west, where the rock attains an elevation of about 144 feet. The first cave approached is the Clam or Scallop-shell Cave, on one side of which the basaltic columns appear bent like the ribs of a ship, while the opposite wall is made up of the ends of horizontal columns, resembling the surface of a honeycomb. This cave is 30 feet in height, and 16 or 18 in breadth at the entrance, its length being 130 feet. Next occurs the noted rock Buachaille, or the Herdsman, a conoidal pile of columns about 30 feet high. From this spot the pillars extend in one continued colonnade along the whole face of the cliff to the entrance of Fingal's Cave, by far the most impressive and interesting object in the island. The best and most recent description of this far-famed cave, is contained in Mr. James Wilson's "Voyage round the Coasts of Scotland and the Isles." We therefore extract the following passage for the benefit of our readers, recommending the work itself to their attention, as the most interesting and comprehensive

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