ds.
Along these shores and waters one generation after another of kilted
fighting men, savage as red Indians, raided and burned and slew in
feuds whose memories are crowded with tragedy and romance. Near where
Mull is washed by the Atlantic and the Sound opens toward the
thoroughfares of the deep-sea shipping is the pleasant town of
Tobermory, which in the Gaelic means Mary's Well. The bay that it
faces is singularly beautiful, almost landlocked, and of a depth
sufficient to shelter a fleet.

Into this Bay of Tobermory there sailed one day a great galleon of
Spain, belonging to that mighty Armada which had been shattered and
driven in frantic flight by English seamen with hearts of oak under
Drake, Hawkins, Howard, Seymour, and Martin Frobisher, names to make
the blood beat faster even now. The year was 1588, in the reign of
Elizabeth, long, long, ago. This fugitive galleon, aforetime so tall
and stately and ornate, was racked and leaking, her painted sails in
tatters, her Spanish sailors sick, weary, starved, after escaping from
the English Channel and faring far northward around the stormy Orkneys.
Many of her sister ships had crashed ashore on the Irish coast while
the surviving remnant of this magnificent flotilla wallowed forlornly
home. Seeking provisions, repairs, respite from the terrors of the
implacable ocean the galleon _Florencia_ dropped anchor in Tobermory
Bay, and there she laid her bones.

With her, it is said, was lost a great store of treasure in gold and
plate, and ever since 1641, for more than two and a half centuries, the
search for these riches has been carried on at intervals. More than
likely, if you should go in one of Donald MacBrayne's steamers through
the Sound of Mull next summer, and a delightful excursion it is, you
would find an up-to-date suction dredge and a corps of divers, employed
by the latest syndicate to finance the treasure hunt, ransacking the
mud of Tobermory Bay in the hope of finding the Spanish gold of the
_Florencia_. Many thousands have been vainly spent in the quest, but
the lure of lost treasure has a fascination of its own, and after all
the failure of Scotch and English seekers, American enterprise and
capital have now taken hold of this romantic task.

With the history of the _Florencia_ galleon and her treasure is
intimately interwoven the stirring chronicle of the deeds of the
MacLeans of Mull and the MacDonalds of Islay and Skye. Out of the
echoing pas