uted the false relations of
travellers, where there is no imaginable motive to deceive. They trusted
to memory, what cannot be trusted safely but to the eye, and told by
guess what a few hours before they had known with certainty. Thus it was
that Wheeler and Spon described with irreconcilable contrariety things
which they surveyed together, and which both undoubtedly designed to show
as they saw them.

When we had satisfied our curiosity in the cave, so far as our penury of
light permitted us, we clambered again to our boat, and proceeded along
the coast of Mull to a headland, called Atun, remarkable for the columnar
form of the rocks, which rise in a series of pilasters, with a degree of
regularity, which Sir Allan thinks not less worthy of curiosity than the
shore of Staffa.

Not long after we came to another range of black rocks, which had the
appearance of broken pilasters, set one behind another to a great depth.
This place was chosen by Sir Allan for our dinner. We were easily
accommodated with seats, for the stones were of all heights, and
refreshed ourselves and our boatmen, who could have no other rest till we
were at Icolmkill.

The evening was now approaching, and we were yet at a considerable
distance from the end of our expedition. We could therefore stop no more
to make remarks in the way, but set forward with some degree of
eagerness. The day soon failed us, and the moon presented a very solemn
and pleasing scene. The sky was clear, so that the eye commanded a wide
circle: the sea was neither still nor turbulent: the wind neither silent
nor loud. We were never far from one coast or another, on which, if the
weather had become violent, we could have found shelter, and therefore
contemplated at ease the region through which we glided in the
tranquillity of the night, and saw now a rock and now an island grow
gradually conspicuous and gradually obscure. I committed the fault which
I have just been censuring, in neglecting, as we passed, to note the
series of this placid navigation.

We were very near an Island, called Nun's Island, perhaps from an ancient
convent. Here is said to have been dug the stone that was used in the
buildings of Icolmkill. Whether it is now inhabited we could not stay to
inquire.

At last we came to Icolmkill, but found no convenience for landing. Our
boat could not be forced very near the dry ground, and our Highlanders
carried us over the water.

We were now tre