Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

358 HA SAY,
wish it could. Even sapphires and diamonds might
have been but dull geology afterwards ;
and what a con-
trast was mine, " damnatus ad metalla," to black trap,
and wearisome gneiss, and gryphites and graywacke.
As if life was too full of pleasures, especial care is taken
that they shall neither be too many nor too durable ;
and
if there should be any risk of that, the tooth-ach, or
something else, comes in the way, or there is aloes on
the edge of the cup, or rixation and penitence at the
bottom, or a snake in the grass, or, what will answer the
purposes of all put together, the Ague. The Goddess
Perfica does her duties very ill in this world. None of
the whole thirty thousand seem to have deserved their
temples worse; and if the Poet had not thought so, he
would not have said " medio de fonte leporura," and
what follows. One thing, however, is clear, that he is
no very wise man who goes hunting after trap and gray-
wacke at the risk of his neck, when, as the Frenchman says,
" he might enjoy himself with the ladies in the parlour."
This is a dreary island, and it is about fourteen
miles in length and three in breadth ; while to the north
of it, there is a smaller appendage called Flodda, se-
parated by a narrow sound which is dry at half tide.
This passage has been carelessly laid down in the chart,
as fit for ships. It is not the only blunder which Mac-
kenzie has made. On another occasion, 1 had intended
to have taken my vessel through it. But I had learnt to
doubt this guide, and fortunately thought it would be a
safer attempt in the boat ; had I tried the ship, we should
have been embayed and lost. From the western shore,
which is low, but skirted by rocks, the land rises every
where, brown, rocky, and dreary, towards the east, where
it is bounded, for a great part, by high abrupt cliffs.
Dun Can hill, the highest point, is about 1500 feet in
height; and although that elevation is not a very con-