besides, some of the little shells that we
call buckies; I think periwinkle is the English name. Of these two I
made my whole diet, devouring them cold and raw as I found them; and
so hungry was I that at first they seemed to me delicious.

3. Perhaps they were out of season, or perhaps there was something
wrong in the sea about my island. But at least I had no sooner eaten
my first meal than I was seized with giddiness and retching, and lay
for a long time no better than dead. A second trial of the same food
(indeed, I had no other) did better with me and revived my strength.

4. But as long as I was on the island, I never knew what to expect
when I had eaten; sometimes all was well, and sometimes I was thrown
into a miserable sickness; nor could I ever distinguish what
particular fish it was that hurt me. All day it streamed rain; there
was no dry spot to be found; and when I lay down that night, between
two boulders that made a kind of roof, my feet were in a bog.

5. From a little up the hillside over the bay I could catch a sight of
the great ancient church and the roofs of the people's houses in Iona.
And on the other hand, over the low country of the Ross, I saw smoke
go up, morning and evening, as if from a homestead in a hollow of the
land.

6. I used to watch this smoke, when I was wet and cold and had my head
half-turned with loneliness, and think of the fireside and of the
company till my heart burned. Altogether, this sight I had of men's
homes and comfortable lives, although it put a point on my own
sufferings, yet it kept hope alive, and helped me to eat my raw
shellfish (which had soon grown to be a disgust), and saved me from
the sense of horror I had whenever I was quite alone with dead rocks,
and fowls, and the rain, and the cold sea.

7. Charles the Second declared a man could stay outdoors more days in
the year in the climate of England than in any other. That was very
like a king with a palace at his back and changes of dry clothes. But
he must have had better luck on his flight from Worcester than I had
on that miserable isle. It was the height of summer; yet it rained for
more than twenty-four hours, and did not clear until the afternoon of
the third day.

8. There is a pretty high rock on the north-west of Earraid, which
(because it had a flat top and overlooked the Sound) I was much in the
habit of frequenting; not that I ever stayed in one place, save when
asleep, my misery giving me no