of which instances occur in Martin, to make invaders imagine
an island better guarded. Mr. Donald M'Queen, justly in my opinion,
supposed the crosses which form the inner circle to be the church's
land-marks.

The south end of the island is much covered with large stones or rocky
strata. The laird has enclosed and planted part of it with firs, and he
shewed me a considerable space marked out for additional plantations.

_Dun Can_ is a mountain three computed miles from the laird's house. The
ascent to it is by consecutive risings, if that expression may be used
when vallies intervene, so that there is but a short rise at once; but
it is certainly very high above the sea. The palm of altitude is
disputed for by the people of Rasay and those of Sky; the former
contending for Dun Can, the latter for the mountains in Sky, over
against it. We went up the east side of Dun Can pretty easily. It is
mostly rocks all around, the points of which hem the summit of it.
Sailors, to whom it was a good object as they pass along, call it
Rasay's cap. Before we reached this mountain, we passed by two lakes. Of
the first, Malcolm told me a strange fabulous tradition. He said, there
was a wild beast in it, a sea horse, which came and devoured a man's
daughter; upon which the man lighted a great fire, and had a sow roasted
at it, the smell of which attracted the monster. In the fire was put a
spit. The man lay concealed behind a low wall of loose stones, and he
had an avenue formed for the monster, with two rows of large flat
stones, which extended from the fire over the summit of the hill, till
it reached the side of the loch. The monster came, and the man with the
red-hot spit destroyed it. Malcolm shewed me the little hiding-place,
and the rows of stones. He did not laugh when he told this story. I
recollect having seen in the _Scots Magazine_, several years ago, a poem
upon a similar tale, perhaps the same, translated from the Erse, or
Irish, called _Albin and the Daughter of Mey_.

There is a large tract of land, possessed as a common, in Rasay. They
have no regulations as to the number of cattle. Every man puts upon it
as many as he chooses. From Dun Can northward, till you reach the other
end of the island, there is much good natural pasture unincumbered by
stones. We passed over a spot, which is appropriated for the exercising
ground. In 1745, a hundred fighting men were reviewed here, as Malcolm
told me, who was one of the office