l overturn my halls, when my children are dead in battle, and none
remains to dwell in Selma. Then will the feeble come, but they will not
know my tomb. My renown is only in song, My deeds shall be as a dream to
future times!"

Yes, a dream,--and we are the dreamers. The songs of the bards are
ringing in our ears, and though no stone marks the tomb of Fingal, the
stones talk of him; the great basaltic columns are his memorial pillars,
and the sea yet sounds his dirge as its wailing echo sweeps mournfully
through Fingal's Cave.

But hark! The bell of the Pioneer is rousing us with the cry, "Wake up,
ye dreamers! Come back from the clouds, ye visionaries!" The time for
Staffa is up, and the steamer, like a cackling hen who is eager to call
her brood together, commences a system of coaxing, warning, and threat,
which soon results in the converging of her passengers from every
quarter of the island. Most of them are by this time rambling over its
upper surface, and all make for the rough stairway where the comparative
difficulties of the "ascensus" and "descensus" are in complete
contradiction to classical authority: the former having been
accomplished with ease, while the latter proves a terrific experience.
There is truly something maternal about the Pioneer; for here, as at
every other point of difficulty on our excursion, faithful guides are
stationed and strong hands outstretched for our assistance. Still it is
with a plunge,--half a nightmare and half a miracle,--that we, who are
among the earliest to make the experiment, arrive safely at the bottom,
and, stepping on board a boat, regain the steamer, where we sit at our
leisure and laugh at the absurd figure made by later comers as they
scramble down the cliff: Sir Thomas even forgetting his dignity in the
difficulties of the operation, and the interjectional phrases of her
Ladyship, as she now and then comes to a hopeless stand-still, tickling
our ears at the distance where we sit watching them.

Our entire party fairly on board, the Pioneer, now panting to be off,
sets her wheels in motion and starts on her further course, not,
however, without first skirting the base of the island and affording us,
as I have already intimated, one last view of Fingal's Cave, and that
the finest. It is an impressive circumstance, that at this moment the
attention of the tourist on the steamer's deck is divided between
Nature's great cathedral and man's early efforts in the same
d