Scotland/Scots > Black's picturesque tourist of Scotland

ARGYLESHIRE, ETC.
Rounding Ardnamurchan Point, we find ourselves moving
freely on the bosom of the Atlantic, and at the same moment,
if the weather be fine, there may be seen to the south, the
islands of Coll, Tiree, Treshinish ;* and to the north, Muck,
Eig, Rum, and the Cuchullin Hills of Skye, and, far to the
north-west, the faint outlines of South Hist and Barra. In fine
weather may also be seen the lighthouse, a granite column 150
feet in height, lately erected on Skerryvore Rock, at great
cost and hazard, by the Commissioners of the Northern Light¬
houses, from the design of Alan Stevenson, Esq., engineer to
the board.
The islands of Gometray, Ulva, and Colonsay are now passed
on the left, from the last of which the present Justice-General
of Scotland derives his title of Lord Colonsay :—
“ The shores of Mull on the eastward lay,
And Ulva dark and Colonsay,
And all the group of islets gay
That guard famed Stalfa round.
Then all unknown its columns rose,
Where dark and undisturbed repose,
The cormorant had found.
And the shy seal had quiet home,
And welter’d in that wondrous dome.
Where, as to shame the temples deck’d
By skill of earthly architect,
Nature herself, it seem’d, would raise
A Minster to her Maker’s praise!
Not for a meaner use ascend
Her columns, or her arches bend;
Nor of a theme less solemn tells
That mighty surge, that ebbs and swells,
And still, between each awful pause,
From the high vault an answer draws,
In varied tone prolong’d and high.
That mocks the organ’s melody.
* The Treshinish Isles, whose aspect from a distance is so singular, are disposed
in a ridge extending for five miles in a north-easterly direction, and in some degree
they form a breakwater toward the north-west for the island of Staffa and the hay of
Loch Tua in Mull. There are three principal islands besides some intervening rocks;
Caimburg, which indeed forms two distinct islands, Fladda, Linga, and Bach. They
appertain to the farm of Treshinish in Coll, but are uninhabited; and being covered
with rich grass, are used for pasturing black cattle. They are all surrounded, with
little exception, by perpendicular cliffs, reaching from twenty to forty feet in height,
or upwards; and are remarkable for the correspondence of their general appearance
with each other.