arning with which the more
cautious or timid emphasize every misstep or uncertain footing,--the
entire human murmur, fortunately for us, softened by distance, or
returned to our ears only in the mellowed form of an echo, so that we
are spared in some degree that mockery of mirth and discord, otherwise
so inevitable, and always so uncongenial to the spirit of the
place,--that tumult of voices, exclamations, and shouts so familiar to
the tourist, and which drew from Wordsworth, on occasion of his visit to
the spot, the half-bitter reflection,--

"We saw, but surely, in the motley crowd,
Not one of us has felt the far-famed-sight:
How _could_ we feel it, each the other's blight,
Hurried and hurrying, volatile and loud?"

Thus the Bailie's philosophy has not proved in fault. There is an
advantage in being the last comers, if it is merely that our
fellow-tourists have taken themselves out of our way. Only the harsh
vituperations of our boatmen make dissonance with Nature, as, their long
poles driven hard now against one side and now the other of the cave,
they strive to keep the boat in middle position, and save a collision
with the rocks. And even this discord is soon overborne. "Sing!" cried
the gude-wife at my elbow, as we passed under the great archway, and her
plastic soul, alive as readily to the spirit of praise as to that of
fear, caught the inspiration of the place; "all of you, sing!"

There was an earnestness, a fervor, in this woman, which made her every
word and thought contagious; and as either she, or some neighbor of hers
who shared her emotion and purpose, struck the key-note, voice after
voice joined in, until there swelled up from our little boat the almost
universal song,--no common trivial melody,--not even a national
air,--such would have been sacrilege,--but a grand old song of praise,
one of those literal versions of the Psalmist familiar to the ear and
lip of every kirk-loving Scot. And so, as the singing chorus went
sailing up that broad aisle, heart and voice united in a spontaneous
liturgy, an act of devout adoration, which seemed the only fit response
to the spirit that whispered to our souls, "Praise ye the Lord!"

The psalm ended, our boat with most of its passengers retraces its
course and is rowed back to the steamer,--the Bailie and I, however,
having first disembarked and clambered up to the rough gallery, with a
view of imitating the parties who are pursuing their explo