第62章 INCH KENNETH(2)

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 Ihave just been censuring,in neglecting,as we passed,to note the series of this placid navigation.

We were very near an Island,called Nun's Island,perhaps from an ancient convent.Here is said to have been dug the stone that was used in the buildings of Icolmkill.Whether it is now inhabited we could not stay to inquire.

At last we came to Icolmkill,but found no convenience for landing.

Our boat could not be forced very near the dry ground,and our Highlanders carried us over the water.

We were now treading that illustrious Island,which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions,whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge,and the blessings of religion.To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible,if it were endeavoured,and would be foolish,if it were possible.Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses;whatever makes the past,the distant,or the future predominate over the present,advances us in the dignity of thinking beings.

Far from me and from my friends,be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom,bravery,or virtue.That man is little to be envied,whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon,or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona!