Scotland/Scots > Black's picturesque tourist of Scotland

ARGYLESHIRE, ETC.
At the head of Loch-na-Keal rises the group of mountains
that forms the district of Torosay ; visible, from its great
elevation, throughout all the western isles of Scotland,
and the fertile parent of the rains and storms which seem
to have erected their throne in this cloudy and dreary region.
Ben More, the highest of this group, is 3178 feet in height,
while that of Ben-y-chat is about 2200 ; and this latter may
without much error be assumed as the* average elevation of
the remainder of the mountainous division. These moun¬
tains gradually subside on the north and east into the low
land near Arcs, and into the flat shores which skirt the Sound
of Mull from that place to Duart; while to the south they
descend to the sloping shores of Loch Scriden.
Nine miles from Staffa is the celebrated island of
IONA,
the antiquarian and historical celebrity of which, and its
accessibility from Oban during the summer months, render it
an object of perpetual attraction. Added to this, the descrip¬
tions of Cordiner, Pennant, and Johnson, have made its his¬
tory nearly as familiar as its name ; giving it, in fact, an
importance to which it possesses no claims, either from the
antiquity or extent, the beauty or curiosity, of its architectural
remains. In any other situation, the remains of Iona might
have been consigned to neglect and oblivion ; but connected
as they are with an age distinguished for the ferocity of its
manners and its independence of regular government, standing
a solitary monument of religion and literature, such as reli¬
gion and literature then were, the mind imperceptibly recurs
to the time when this island was the “ light of the western
world,” “ a gem in the ocean ; ” and is led to contemplate
with veneration its silent and ruined structures. Even at a
distance, the aspect of the cathedral, insignificant as its
dimensions are, produces a strong feeling of delight in him,
who, long coasting the rugged and barren rocks of Mull, or
buffeted by turbulent waves, beholds its tower first rising out
of the deep ; giving to this desolate region an air of civiliza¬
tion, and recalling the consciousness of that human society,
which, presenting elsewhere no visible traces, seems to