IN THE SOUND OF MULL
The Mull Hills—from Kerrera.
Next morning (Tuesday) finds us in the Sound of Mull, one of the most beautiful and romantic of Highland seas. The lighthouse full astern stands on the point of the island of Lismore, anciently the seat of the Bishops of Argyll, and still more famous as the home of its Dean, James Macgregor, who, in the sixteenth century, made a valuable collection of poems in Gaelic and English, well known as the ‘Book of the Dean of Lismore.’ The picturesque ruin at the entrance to the Sound, on the eastmost point of Mull, is Duart Castle, the home of the Macleans. Not far off is the ‘Lady Rock,’ which disappears at high-water, and on which one of the Macleans once left his wife, intending that she should perish when the tide rose and covered the rock. She was Ellen of Lorne, a sister of the Earl of Argyll. One of her brothers rescued her, and afterwards slew Maclean. Such stories are common in these regions: they cling, like the ivy, to every ruined tower. These traditions of lawlessness and vengeance formed the greater part of the education of the people.
Lismore Lighthouse.
By and by we pass on the right Ardtornish Castle, a stronghold of the Lords of the Isles, and memorable as the site of the opening of Scott’s poem:—
‘Thy rugged halls, Ardtornish! rung,
And the dark seas, thy towers that lave,