Scotland/Scots > Black's picturesque tourist of Scotland

ARDTORNISH CASTLE—TOBERMORY.
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hanging 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 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. It was afterwards one of the prin¬
cipal residences of Maclean of Duart. The 'steamer next
passes on the right Loch Aline House (Sinclair, Esq. of Loch
Aline), and on the left Salen, in a bay of the same name,* the
property of Lord Strathallan. Arcs Castle, another residence
of the Island Kings, is a powerful rock-built fortress situated
on the leftward shore, about half way from either end of the
Sound. A short way beyond, on the Morven coast, is Killundine
Castle ; and on the right Drimnin House (Lady Gordon), where
there is a Roman Catholic chapel, built by the late Sir James
Gordon. The tourist now concludes the first stage of his pro¬
gress by entering the harbour of
Tobermory, “ the well of our Lady St. Mary”—[Inn : Mull
Hotel]—and the only village of any note in Mull. It was
founded in 1788 by the British Fishery Company, and is
situated at the head of the inner recess of a well-protected bay.
In the immediate vicinity is Aros House, the mansion of
Nairne, Esq.
Quitting Tobermory, we pass, on the right, the entrance to
Loch Sunart, and Ardnamurchan Point. Seven miles from
Tobermory, on the Ardnamurchan coast, is the castle of Min-
garry, which
“ sternly placed,
O’erawes the woodland and the waste.”
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 over¬
hanging 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.
* From this there is a road across the island to Loch-na-Keal, and thence to
Lagan Ulva, where there is a place of embarkation for Staffs and Iona.