atmosphere of the other there
was warmth, and, after a sort, comfort; and on one memorable day of
trouble the islanders had deemed it the preferable sheltering place of
the two. And there survived mouldering skeletons and a frightful
tradition, to tell the history of their choice. Places of refuge of
these very opposite kinds, said the minister, continuing his allegory,
are not peculiar to your island; never was there a day or a place of
trial in which they did not advance their opposite claims: they are
advancing them even now all over the world. The one kind you find
described by one great prophet as low-lying "refuges of lies," over
which the desolating "scourge must pass," and which the destroying
"waters must overflow;" while the true character of the other may be
learned from another great prophet, who was never weary of celebrating
his "rock and his fortress." "Wit succeeds more from being happily
addressed," says Goldsmith, "than even from its native poignancy." If
my friend's allegory does not please quite as well in print and in
English as it did when delivered _viva voce_ in Gaelic, it should be
remembered that it was addressed to an out-door congregation, whose
minds were filled with the consequences of the Disruption,--that the
bones of _Uamh Fraingh_ lay within a few hundred yards of them,--and
that the Scuir, with the sun shining bright on its summit, rose tall in
the background, scarce a mile away.

On Monday I spent several hours in reexploring the Lias of Lucy Bay and
its neighborhood, and then walked on to Kyle-Akin, where I parted from
my friend Mr. Swanson, and took boat for Loch Carron. The greater part
of the following day was spent in crossing the country to the east coast
in the mail-gig, through long dreary glens, and a fierce storm of wind
and rain. In the lower portion of the valley occupied by the river
Carron, I saw at least two fine groups of moraines. One of these, about
a mile and a half above the parish manse, marks the place where a
glacier, that had once descended from a hollow amid the northern range
of hills, had furrowed up the gravel and earth before it in long ridges,
which we find running nearly parallel to the road; the other group,
which lies higher up the valley, and seems of considerably greater
extent, indicates where one of those river-like glaciers that fill up
long hollows, and impel their irresistible flood downwards, slow as the
hour-hand of a time-piece, had terminate