Where, as to shame the temples decked
By skill of earthly architect,
Nature herself, it seemed, would raise
A minster to her Maker’s praise!
Like the kindred scene of the Giant’s Causeway, this island is dedicated to the dim memory of Fingal, and has a reversible legend of the tricks played by a comic Scottish on an Irish giant, whose parts are exchanged in Paddy’s version of the story. Fingal’s Cave is entered by tourists when the weather allows; but sometimes they cannot even land, and in any case will be so pressed for time on their day-trip from Oban that one may quote to them Miss Gordon Cumming’s more leisurely taken view of a famous spectacle, which moved Scott’s friend Erskine to tears:
A wondrous fane indeed, with the perfect symmetry of its countless gigantic columns, and marvellous roof, formed (like the strange pavement outside, and like the gallery on which we stand) of the broken bases of hexagonal pillars, which fit together in faultless honeycomb. The colouring, too, is a marvel of beauty, for this basalt combines every tint of rarest marble that ever human skill brought together to decorate the costliest temple. Warm red and brown and richest maroon tones prevail, but the whole gleams with green and gold lichen and seaweed, while here and there a mosaic of pure white lime has filtered through, encrusting the pillars, which seem transformed to snowy alabaster. Ever and anon, the innermost depths of the great chancel gleam with a sudden flash, as the clear green wave comes swelling in, overflowing the causeway of broken pillars that forms so marvellous a pavement, and breaking in pure white foam, which shows more dazzling against the gloom of that sombre background, and casting trembling reflecting lights, which trickle and waver over every hidden crevice of roof, or clustered columns. Quick as thunder-roar follows the lightning-flash is that white gleam succeeded by a booming sound, louder than the thunder itself, yet mellow as the sweetest note of some huge organ, and wakening echoes deeper and more sonorous than ever throbbed through dim cathedral aisles;—echoes which linger and repeat themselves on every side, and are but hushed for one moment of awful silence while the exquisite green water recedes, only to rush back again with renewed force, re-awakening that thrillingly-solemn chorus, which, in ages long gone, earned for this cave its old Gaelic name of Uaimh Bhinn, “the melodious cavern.” Altogether it is a scene of which no words can convey the smallest idea, and as we pass suddenly from the glaring sunlight into that cool deep shade, and look down into the wondrous depths of that world of clear crystalline green, we cannot choose but believe that we have invaded the chosen home of some pure spirit of the sea—some dainty Undine, whose low musical notes we can almost think we discern, mingling with the voice of the waves.
STAFFA
Johnson did not take the trouble to turn aside to Staffa, which had been brought to notice about that time by Sir Joseph Banks; and there is reason for belief that the title “Fingal’s Cave” was imposed by this savant. But indeed the Doctor had passed unwittingly near other marvels of columnar basaltic formation, such as are found in many parts of the Hebrides, sometimes on a more enormous scale, if not so regularly finished as at Staffa. MacCulloch, who says much the same of Ulva, declares that had Staffa remained unknown, the caverned promontory of Duin, near Duntulm at the north-east corner of Skye, would have won like celebrity. Then all round the eastern side of this headland the same formation is continued, where Loch Staffin’s name proclaims its relationship with that “Isle of Columns,” and the “Kilt Rock” takes its title from a chequered display of many-coloured strata crossed by lines of grass, bearing up monstrous plaits and stripes of stone, red, brown, and yellow. The Shiant Isles between Skye and Lewis show another grand columnar façade rising out of the sea. The island of Eigg abounds in small ranges of basalt more or less exposed, all overshadowed by the mile-long organ-face of its Scuir, that at one point towers to a height of about 1300 feet, a more gigantic Giant’s Causeway piled up in tiers to the clouds, till often its head seems to hang in air, like an enchanted castle beleaguered at its base by glooms and mists, whirling forth from the fearsome peaks of Rum.
Skye has as many memories of Columba as if here had been the home of a saint whose name has been associated with more West Highland chapels and caves than there are modern churches in that wide diocese of his. Near Iona, Colonsay is named after him, as Oronsay from his companion Oran, the ruins of a monastery still visible on the latter, and the abbey on the former not yet forgotten. But one cannot enumerate all the remains of ancient piety scattered over the Hebrides, in most cases ill accessible to hasty curiosity. The chances of reaching and in rough weather of landing on those islands give consideration how cut off from the world they were before the days of Watt and Macadam, and under what difficulties the sturdy apostles carried on their work. Some out-of-the-way islands may still have to go without ordinances of the Church for months or years together. Some islets are garrisoned by a single family, or by the crew of a lighthouse, who in one case were swept away together by the cruel Atlantic waves, an accident proclaimed by the dying out of their lantern. There are parishes like that of the “Small Isles,” where the minister has to be sailor as well as divine; yet often his boat must turn back in sight of an expectant congregation. On the mainland, too, inlets and swollen rivers may make getting to church no matter of course. Norman Macleod tells of Morven, where his grandfather’s stipend began at £40 a year, that it contained 2000 souls scattered over 130 square miles with a seaboard of 100 miles, and not a road in the parish. I have known cases where people walked a dozen miles or so to church; I have had farther to go myself, but that was to a “chapel,” attendance at which, one fears, made excuse for a Sabbath drive. It is no wonder if Highlanders are found a little behindhand in theological fashions, while zealous for the faith as they understand it to have been once delivered to Presbyterian saints.