Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

270 LOCH BERNE RA.
longer difficult to navig-ate, our own difficulties were not
over, as we had still to find our vessel. The men soon dis-
covered, at a distance, a mast which they supposed to be
the true one ; and although I knew that to be impossible, I
thought it good policy to yield, that I might fully esta-
blish a superiority not yet quite secured, but of which I
had already experienced the value. It proved a kelp
sloop at anchor in the Kyles Flota, about six miles from
our own anchorage. They now confessed that they
knew not where it lay or how to find it, and the helm,
of course, was again submitted to the landsman. Re-
solved to complete the triumph, that the important ques-
tion of pilotage might for ever be set at rest, I stood
boldly over to what they considered a continuous range
of main land, knowing that there was a very narrow en-
trance between the two Berneras, and that this range
consisted of these islands. I must own, however, that I
began to hesitate when I saw a long wall of high rocky
cliffs, extending for miles on each hand, not many hun-
dred yards off, with a heavy sea breaking against it.
But it was not a time to look alarmed, as the men cried
out that we were on a lee shore, and should be lost ; and
having watched the land diligently, so as to be certain
that the division of the islands could not be far off, I
stood in with a full sail right against the cliff, when, at
the very moment they began to vociferate that it was
necessary to " lower away" and take to the oars to pull
offshore, the sides of two high rocks receded, and we
ran directly into a narrow opening resembling the en-
trance of a street, the most extraordinary of all the ex-
traordinary places that I ever saw on these strange
coasts. Hurra ! for the Sassanach, was the cry, when we
found ourselves in smooth water, and saw our own mast
rocking beneath a lofty cliff, with the long pennant
streaminar to th^ breeze.