Far out on the horizon lie Col and Tiree, low clouds in the line. "Col," I heard the professorial people—from Oberlin—speak the name. "Col! So that is Col!" they said to each other, "so that is Col off there!" "Col," I said to myself, "so that is Col." And we all became related through the great Doctor.
One is bound to Staffa, incidentally, on the way to Iona, and for the sake of Mendelssohn. Always afterward one is bound to Staffa because of itself. If only one could have Staffa for one's self. But there are always fellow travelers, there is no inn, no habitation here, not even a shepherd's shieling, visible from the water. There are a few sheep, a shepherd, and so there must be a shieling. To be marooned here—was it here Stevenson understudied for Bill Gunn, and "cheese, toasted mostly"?
The cave is truly wonderful, a superb cathedral nave, with dark basaltic columns lifted in marvelous regularity, and arches lifting over with groining the hand of God.
"Nature herself it seemed would raise
A minster to her Maker's praise."
The broken surfaces of the walls are in mosaic with green sea grasses and gleaming limpets, and the floor is a shifting thing of surging waves. The ocean thunders through the narrow gate as it has done since the time Staffa began, and since Mendelssohn, a mighty organ surge, like the "Overture to Fingal's Cave," and yet, more than that. To be here alone, to be the shepherd of Staffa, and come to this cathedral, with the might and mystery of the night about, and the winds and the sea making symphony—life will always hold many things in possibility, which cannot die!
From the top of Staffa, if one flees the passengers a moment, may be seen the islands lying about whose names are romance, Trehinish, and Inchkenneth on Mull and Skerryvore, "the noblest of all deep sea light," a mere speck on the far Atlantic—what vigils the man must have in the house of light built by Stevenson's father; and on to the far north and Skye; and to the near south and Iona.
"Where is Duncan's body?
Carried to Colme-kill,
The sacred storehouse of his predecessors,
And guardian of their bones."
Very definite was Shakespeare about these things. A more modern antiquarian would have doubted, and sent us wandering from pillar to post of royal burial places. But not the man who created what he declared. Icolmkill—Iona—certainly.
That such a little island could have had such a large history. It is so small a place, yet a beautiful island withal, and with its cathedral, now alas, "restored" and "reformed," and all its far sounding memories of Columba.
He came up from the South as we came down from the North, but his voyage was across the wide seas to unknown goals; while we have the advantage of having come after him to Iona. And yet, to Columba, valiant adventuring saint, Iona nor any other place was unknown goal. There was to him but one purpose in life, one goal. And he found it everywhere.