Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

308 NORTH RON A.
theology, and alchemists their own secrets, in the Greek
mytholog-y, and even in the very Revelations. Eustathius,
and Suidas after him, have determined, that the Golden
Fleece of Jason was a parchment book, disclosing the
art of making gold. The hieroglyphics have contained
every possible thing in rotation, till Dr. Young has at
length shown that they probably contain nothing. It is
the previous disease of the mind that makes its own food
in this case, and that discovers, even among the "arcana
arcanorum omnium arcanissima," precisely what it wishes.
But, enough of this.
Grieved that 1 cannot further elucidate the ancient his-
tory of North Rona, 1 must proceed to vulgar matters. In
the night, the tide had set us far to the northward, and as
the sun rose, land was discovered from the cross-trees.
By mid-day we were abreast of Rona ; and making an ob-
servation for its latitude, I found that it was about thirteen
miles to the north of the assigned place ; an amusing
illustration of the geographical pursuits of a nation which
had explored half the seas of the globe, and was then
engaged in hunting after northwest passages and Polar
basins. We found considerable diflaculty in landing;
the only landing place being the face of a rocky cliff,
fifty or sixty feet high, and there being a considerable
swell, with a smart breeze. But having been well
trained to this service in our geological pursuits, we at
length succeeded, at the risk of ourselves and our boat
also. If you doubt whether it requires some training, to
find yourself on the top of a swell at the summit of a
cliflT, and then, in an instant, again at its foot, then to
watch for some projecting rock on which you may jump
out, taking care to calculate the exact place and distance
of your own moving self and the point in question, you
may try.
The first objects we saw as we reached the surface of