“I shouldn’t like to be on shore there during an earthquake!” cried Dick. “A fellow would chance to have his head broken if those mountains should begin to tumble about.”
An artist who came here is said to have thrown away his pencil in despair; but it is still more difficult to give a description of the place in words. Having selected a spot for anchoring, with the help of a fisherman who acted as our pilot, we pulled on shore, and making our way over about four hundred yards of rock by the side of a small stream, we reached the dark fresh water Loch Coruisk, round which rose a circle of gigantic barren mountains of purple hue. On this side the sun was shining brightly, lighting up the pointed crags, while the other was thrown into the deepest shade.
“I shouldn’t like to find myself here in the evening, without knowing my way out!” exclaimed Dick. “I wonder how the clouds manage to get over those tall peaks.”
Dick might have wondered, for several of them are nearly three thousand feet in height; and on the topmost, called the Black Peak, probably no human foot has ever trod.
“Just give a shout, sir,” said the fisherman, who, having been on board a man-of-war in his youth, spoke English. As he uttered the words he gave a loud hail, the echo coming back with wonderful distinctness. We all followed his example, and it seemed as if a thousand people were all shouting together in chorus,—the sound at length dying away, apparently many a mile off. Dick then began to laugh, and immediately a laugh came back, which set us all laughing, and a curious chorus we had, till our jaws began to ache from over-exertion.
We then made our way out of this wild region, not sorry to get on board, and to dive down into the comfortable cabin of the Dolphin, where dinner was waiting us. Still, although everything was familiar round us in the confined space of the yacht’s cabin, so deeply impressed on my vision was the grand wild scene outside, that I could not help viewing it over the sides and back of the vessel, and I never for one moment lost the consciousness of where we were.
We remembered that it was at Coruisk that Bruce encountered Cormack Doil. Sir Walter Scott makes him say:
“A scene so wild, so rude as this,
Yet so sublime in barrenness,
Ne’er did my wandering footsteps press,
Where’er I happ’d to roam.”
At dawn next morning we left this wild bay, not without regret, though Dick declared that he felt much happier when he was once more on the open sea. We then sailed along the western coast of Skye, looking into many other places (which, if not so wild and grand, were highly picturesque), until we reached Dunvegan Loch; and making our way amid several small islands, we came to an anchor a short distance from the castle, and took to the boat. The castle stands on a rock projecting into the water, protected by a stream on one side and a moat on the other, and before conical shot were invented must have been a very strong place. Though it retains much of its ancient and imposing appearance, it is still in perfect repair, and is of great extent. It belongs to Macleod of Macleod, whose father and grandfather expended large sums in making it one of the most comfortable residences in the Western Highlands. On the side next the sea is a low wall, pierced with embrasures, while a handsome centre building is also surmounted by battlements. There are two towers, one of which the steward, who politely showed us over the castle, said was built in the ninth century, and the other was added in the thirteenth. Doctor Johnson paid this castle a visit, and was hospitably received by the laird.
We were shown the drinking-horn of Sir Roderick Macleod, an ancestor of the family, and the remains of a “fairy flag,” made of stout yellow silk, which used to be unfurled when the tide of battle was turning against the Macleods, and which always had the effect of again turning it in their favour.