ring, mangling,--for
amputating limbs at a bite, and laying open bulky bodies with a crunch;
but I could find no such evidence in the human jaw, with its three
inoffensive looking grinders, that the animal it had belonged to,--far
more ruthless and cruel than reptile-fish, crocodiles, or sharks,--was
of such a nature that it could destroy creatures of even its own kind by
hundreds at a time, when not in the least incited by hunger, and with no
ultimate intention of eating them. Man must surely have become an
immensely worse animal than his teeth show him to have been designed
for; his teeth give no real evidence regarding his real character. Who,
for instance, could gather from the dentology of the M'Leods the passage
in their history to which the cave of Frances bears evidence?

We quitted the cave, with its stagnant damp atmosphere and its mouldy
unwholesome smells, to breathe the fresh sea-air on the beach without.
Its story, as recorded by Sir Walter in his "Tales of a Grandfather,"
and by Mr. Wilson, in his "Voyage," must be familiar to the reader; and
I learned from my friend, versant in all the various island traditions
regarding it, that the less I inquired into its history on the spot, the
more was I likely to feel satisfied that I knew something about it.
There seem to have been no chroniclers, in this part of the Hebrides, in
the rude age of the unglazed pipkin and the copper needle; and many
years seem to have elapsed ere the story of their hapless possessors was
committed to writing; and so we find it existing in various and somewhat
conflicting editions. "Some hundred years ago," says Mr. Wilson, "a few
of the M'Leods landed in Eigg from Skye, where, having greatly
misconducted themselves, the Eiggites strapped them to their own boats,
which they sent adrift into the ocean. They were, however, rescued by
some clansmen; and, soon after, a strong body of the M'Leods set sail
from Skye, to revenge themselves on Eigg. The natives of the latter
island feeling they were not of sufficient force to offer resistance,
went and hid themselves (men, women, and children) in this secret cave,
which is narrow, but of great subterranean length, with an exceedingly
small entrance. It opens from the broken face of a steep bank along the
shore; and, as the whole coast is cavernous, their particular retreat
would have been sought for in vain by strangers. So the Skye-men,
finding the island uninhabited, presumed the natives ha