writer himself gets afraid of ghosts, and fervently prays
for the period when he shall be again chatting with the reader on a
shady seat, under his own paragraph and his own pear-tree.

Oh! for our admirable friend Mr Smith of Jordanhill's matchless cutter,
to glide through among the glittering archipelago! But we must be
contented with a somewhat clumsy four-oared barge, wide and deep enough
for a cattle ferry-boat. This morning's sunrise found us at the mouth of
the Goblin's Cave on Loch Katrine, and among Lomond's lovely isles shall
sunset leave us among the last glimmer of the softened gold. To which of
all those lovely isles shall we drift before the wind on the small
heaving and breaking waves? To Inch-Murrin, where the fallow-deer
repose--or to the yew-shaded Inch-Caillach, the cemetery of
Clan-Alpin--the Holy Isle of Nuns? One hushing afternoon hour may yet be
ours on the waters--another of the slowly-walking twilight--that time
which the gazing spirit is too wrapt to measure, while "sinks the
Day-star in the ocean's bed"--and so on to midnight, the reign of
silence and shadow, the resplendent Diana with her hair-halo, and all
her star-nymphs, rejoicing round their Queen. Let the names of all
objects be forgotten--and imagination roam over the works of nature, as
if they lay in their primeval majesty, without one trace of man's
dominion. Slow-sailing Heron, that cloudlike seekest thy nest on yonder
lofty mass of pines--to us thy flight seems the very symbol of a long
lone life of peace. As thou foldest thy wide wings on the topmost bough,
beneath thee tower the unguarded Ruins, where many generations sleep.
Onwards thou floatest like a dream, nor changest thy gradually
descending course for the Eagle, that, far above thy line of travel,
comes rushing unwearied from his prey in distant Isles of the sea. The
Osprey! off--off--to Inch-Loning--or the dark cliffs of Glenfalloch,
many leagues away, which he will reach almost like a thought! Close your
eyes but for a moment--and when you look again, where is the
Cloud-Cleaver now? Gone in the sunshine, and haply seated in his eyrie
on Ben Lomond's head.

But amidst all this splendour and magnificence, our eyes are drawn
against our will, and by a sort of sad fascination which we cannot
resist, along the glittering and dancing waves, towards the melancholy
shores of Inch-Cruin, the Island of the Afflicted. Beautiful is it by
nature, with its bays, and fields, and wood