Thus the Bailie's philosophy has not proved in fault. There is an advantage in being the last comers, if it is merely that our fellow-tourists have taken themselves out of our way. Only the harsh vituperations of our boatmen make dissonance with Nature, as, their long poles driven hard now against one side and now the other of the cave, they strive to keep the boat in middle position, and save a collision with the rocks. And even this discord is soon overborne. "Sing!" cried the gude-wife at my elbow, as we passed under the great archway, and her plastic soul, alive as readily to the spirit of praise as to that of fear, caught the inspiration of the place; "all of you, sing!"
There was an earnestness, a fervor, in this woman, which made her every word and thought contagious; and as either she, or some neighbor of hers who shared her emotion and purpose, struck the key-note, voice after voice joined in, until there swelled up from our little boat the almost universal song,—no common trivial melody,—not even a national air,—such would have been sacrilege,—but a grand old song of praise, one of those literal versions of the Psalmist familiar to the ear and lip of every kirk-loving Scot. And so, as the singing chorus went sailing up that broad aisle, heart and voice united in a spontaneous liturgy, an act of devout adoration, which seemed the only fit response to the spirit that whispered to our souls, "Praise ye the Lord!"
The psalm ended, our boat with most of its passengers retraces its course and is rowed back to the steamer,—the Bailie and I, however, having first disembarked and clambered up to the rough gallery, with a view of imitating the parties who are pursuing their explorations on foot. This gallery, or causeway, which runs along the eastern side of the cave, is about two feet in width, and consists of the bases of broken pillars, whose dark purple hexagons, cemented together by crystallizations or a white calcareous deposit, form a rough mosaic flooring. The inequality of its surface, and the fact that the stones are worn smooth and slippery by the action of the sea, render it a very precarious pathway; and as soon as we have proceeded far enough to gratify our curiosity and obtain satisfactory points of view, we are content to abandon the enterprise of penetrating to the remotest depths, preferring to reserve our time for a ramble over the exterior surface of the island.
Emerging from the cavern and skirting its eastern side, we still find ourselves stepping from hexagon to hexagon over a massive bed of refuse material, and gazing upward at the columnar wall on our left which upholds the table-land of the island. No traveller, however ignorant or inappreciative of science, can fail to realize the immense interest which these evidences of some great natural convulsion must possess for the geologist; and a knowledge of the recent geological discoveries in this and other of the Western Islands is not needed to impress us with the conviction that treasures of truth are beneath and around us everywhere, waiting to be revealed. But we have not the key, nor can we pause to pick the lock.
Passing on, then, in our ignorance, but not without an awe of things unknown, we recognize as within the scope of our comprehension two broken pillars so lodged as to constitute the seat and back of a rude chair, which has received the name of Fingal's Chair, and beyond this the Clamshell Cave, so called from the curved form of the mass of basaltic pillars at its entrance; and at length we attain a point where, by scaling a rough staircase constructed for the convenience of tourists, we gain the grassy summit of the island. So perpendicular is the cliff at every point, that, these green slopes once reached, the previous singularity of formation and wildness of scenery at once give place to the pastoral. Rocks, columns, caves, and cliffs are all hid from our view; we have gained Nature's upper story, and around us is a perfect calm. Not even the steamer which brought us hither is visible, so effectually do the bold precipices conceal every near thing in their shadow. The great cavern through which ocean surges with a ceaseless swell lies far beneath us, and no echo of its roar reaches this spot. A few sheep are nibbling the short grass; the golden star-flowers and the pink heather plumes at our feet are the lineal descendants, for aught we can conceive, of star-flowers and heather plumes that flourished here a thousand years ago,—so undisturbed a possession has Nature had In this realm of hers for ages. No change, improvement, growth, has added to or taken from Staffa. Storm-washed in winter, flower-crowned in summer, its history is forever the same. Sitting here among the heather tufts, and looking off on the limitless blue sea and the neighboring islands, it is not hard to dream one's self away into by-gone centuries, to imagine Bruce and his faithful islesmen sailing past as they go forth to rouse the clans, or, diving deeper into legendary days, to picture Fingal himself and his warlike allies bending their white sails towards the ocean-palace that still claims him as its traditionary king.
"O Ossian, Carril, and Ullin! you know of heroes that are no more. Give us the song of other years. Raise, ye bards of other times, raise high the praise of heroes; that my son! may settle on their fame."
"Soon shall my voice be heard no more, and my footsteps cease to be seen," was the prophetic cry of the "first of a thousand heroes," as he learned from "Ullin, the bard of song" that his young son Ryno was "with the awful forms of his fathers." But "the bards will tell of Fingal's name, the stones will talk of me," was the consolatory thought of him, who, grown old in fame, had a foreshadowing of the glory which would hang round his memory, when he exclaimed, "But before I go hence, one beam of fame shall rise, I will remain renowned; the departure of my soul shall be a stream of light."
And who among ancient heroes could better deserve to have his memory embalmed than he whom an honorable foe thus eulogized?—"Blest be thy soul, thou king of shells! In peace thou art the gale of spring; in war, the mountain storm." And what touching interest to us of later times hangs round this legendary champion of the right, when we listen to his mingled strain of triumph, lament, and justification!—"When will Fingal cease to fight? I was born in the midst of battles, and my steps must move in blood to the tomb, But my hand did not injure the weak, my steel did not touch the feeble in arms. I behold thy tempests, O Morven! which will overturn my halls, when my children are dead in battle, and none remains to dwell in Selma. Then will the feeble come, but they will not know my tomb. My renown is only in song, My deeds shall be as a dream to future times!"
Yes, a dream,—and we are the dreamers. The songs of the bards are ringing in our ears, and though no stone marks the tomb of Fingal, the stones talk of him; the great basaltic columns are his memorial pillars, and the sea yet sounds his dirge as its wailing echo sweeps mournfully through Fingal's Cave.
But hark! The bell of the Pioneer is rousing us with the cry, "Wake up, ye dreamers! Come back from the clouds, ye visionaries!" The time for Staffa is up, and the steamer, like a cackling hen who is eager to call her brood together, commences a system of coaxing, warning, and threat, which soon results in the converging of her passengers from every quarter of the island. Most of them are by this time rambling over its upper surface, and all make for the rough stairway where the comparative difficulties of the "ascensus" and "descensus" are in complete contradiction to classical authority: the former having been accomplished with ease, while the latter proves a terrific experience. There is truly something maternal about the Pioneer; for here, as at every other point of difficulty on our excursion, faithful guides are stationed and strong hands outstretched for our assistance. Still it is with a plunge,—half a nightmare and half a miracle,—that we, who are among the earliest to make the experiment, arrive safely at the bottom, and, stepping on board a boat, regain the steamer, where we sit at our leisure and laugh at the absurd figure made by later comers as they scramble down the cliff: Sir Thomas even forgetting his dignity in the difficulties of the operation, and the interjectional phrases of her Ladyship, as she now and then comes to a hopeless stand-still, tickling our ears at the distance where we sit watching them.