It was high and strong. Sir
Allan victualled it for the day, and provided able rowers. We now
parted from the young Laird of Col, who had treated us with so much
kindness, and concluded his favours by consigning us to Sir Allan.
Here we had the last embrace of this amiable man, who, while these
pages were preparing to attest his virtues, perished in the passage
between Ulva and Inch Kenneth.
Sir Allan, to whom the whole region was well known, told us of a
very remarkable cave, to which he would show us the way. We had
been disappointed already by one cave, and were not much elevated
by the expectation of another.
It was yet better to see it, and we stopped at some rocks on the
coast of Mull. The mouth is fortified by vast fragments of stone,
over which we made our way, neither very nimbly, nor very securely.
The place, however, well repaid our trouble. The bottom, as far as
the flood rushes in, was encumbered with large pebbles, but as we
advanced was spread over with smooth sand. The breadth is about
forty-five feet: the roof rises in an arch, almost regular, to a
height which we could not measure; but I think it about thirty
feet.
This part of our curiosity was nearly frustrated; for though we
went to see a cave, and knew that caves are dark, we forgot to
carry tapers, and did not discover our omission till we were
wakened by our wants. Sir Allan then sent one of the boatmen into
the country, who soon returned with one little candle. We were
thus enabled to go forward, but could not venture far. Having
passed inward from the sea to a great depth, we found on the right
hand a narrow passage, perhaps not more than six feet wide,
obstructed by great stones, over which we climbed and came into a
second cave, in breadth twenty-five feet. The air in this
apartment was very warm, but not oppressive, nor loaded with
vapours. Our light showed no tokens of a feculent or corrupted
atmosphere. Here was a square stone, called, as we are told,
Fingal's Table.
If we had been provided with torches, we should have proceeded in
our search, though we had already gone as far as any former
adventurer, except some who are reported never to have returned;
and, measuring our way back, we found it more than a hundred and
sixty yards, the eleventh part of a mile.
Our measures were not critically exact, having been made with a
walking pole, such as it is convenient to carry in these rocky
countries, of which I guessed the length by standing against it.
In this there could be no great errour, nor do I much doubt but the
Highlander, whom we employed, reported the number right. More
nicety however is better, and no man should travel unprovided with
instruments for taking heights and distances.
There is yet another cause of errour not always easily surmounted,
though more dangerous to the veracity of itinerary narratives, than
imperfect mensuration. An observer deeply impressed by any
remarkable spectacle, does not suppose, that the traces will soon
vanish from his mind, and having commonly no great convenience for
writing, defers the description to a time of more leisure, and
better accommodation.
He who has not made the experiment, or who is not accustomed to
require rigorous accuracy from himself, will scarcely believe how
much a few hours take from certainty of knowledge, and distinctness
of imagery; how the succession of objects will be broken, how
separate parts will be confused, and how many particular features
and discriminations will be compressed and conglobated into one
gross and general idea.
To this dilatory notation must be imputed the false relations of
travellers, where there is no imaginable motive to deceive. They
trusted to memory, what cannot be trusted safely but to the eye,
and told by guess what a few hours before they had known with
certainty. Thus it was that Wheeler and Spon described with
irreconcilable contrariety things which they surveyed together, and
which both undoubtedly designed to show as they saw them.
When we had satisfied our curiosity in the cave, so far as our
penury of light permitted us, we clambered again to our boat, and
proceeded along the coast of Mull to a headland, called Atun,
remarkable for the columnar form of the rocks, which rise in a
series of pilasters, with a degree of regularity, which Sir Allan
thinks not less worthy of curiosity than the shore of Staffa.
Not long after we came to another range of black rocks, which had
the appearance of broken pilasters, set one behind another to a
great depth. This place was chosen by Sir Allan for our dinner.
We were easily accommodated with seats, for the stones were of all
heights, and refreshed ourselves and our boatmen, who could have no
other rest till we were at Icolmkill.
The evening was now approaching, and we were yet at a considerable
distance from the end of our expedition. We could therefore stop
no more to make remarks in the way, but set forward with some
degree of eagerness. The day soon failed us, and the moon
presented a very solemn and pleasing scene. The sky was clear, so
that the eye commanded a wide circle: the sea was neither still
nor turbulent: the wind neither silent nor loud. We were never
far from one coast or another, on which, if the weather had become
violent, we could have found shelter, and therefore contemplated at
ease the region through which we glided in the tranquillity of the
night, and saw now a rock and now an island grow gradually
conspicuous and gradually obscure. I committed the fault which I
have just been censuring, in neglecting, as we passed, to note the
series of this placid navigation.
