ury the dead. I am inclined
to believe, from the appearance of the place, that smoke could scarcely
have been the real agent of destruction; then, as now, it would have
taken a great deal of pure smoke to smother a Highlander. It may be
perhaps deemed more probable, that the huge fire of rafter and roof-tree
piled close against the opening, and rising high over it, would draw out
the oxygen within as its proper food, till at length all would be
exhausted; and life would go out for want of it, like the flame of a
candle under an upturned jar. Sir Walter refers the date of the event to
some time "about the close of the sixteenth century;" and the coin of
Queen Mary, mentioned by Mr. Wilson, points at a period at least not
much earlier; but the exact time of its occurrence is so uncertain, that
a Roman Catholic priest of the Hebrides, in lately showing his people
what a very bad thing Protestantism is, instanced, as a specimen of its
average morality, the affair of the cave. The _Protestant_ M'Leods of
Skye, he said, full of hatred in their hearts, had murdered, wholesale,
their wretched brethren, the _Protestant_ M'Donalds of Eigg, and sent
them off to perdition before their time.

Quitting the beach, we ascended the breezy hill-side on our way to the
Scuir,--an object so often and so well described, that it might be
perhaps prudent, instead of attempting one description more, to present
the reader with some of the already existing ones. "The Scuir of Eigg,"
says Professor Jamieson, in his 'Mineralogy of the Western Islands,' "is
perfectly mural, and extends for upwards of a mile and a half, and rises
to a height of several hundred feet. It is entirely columnar, and the
columns rise in successive ranges, until they reach the summit, where,
from their great height, they appear, when viewed from below,
diminutive. Staffa is an object of the greatest beauty and regularity;
the pillars are as distinct as if they had been reared by the hand of
art; but it has not the extent or sublimity of the Scuir of Eigg. The
one may be compared with the greatest exertions of human power; the
other is characteristic of the wildest and most inimitable works of
nature." "The height of this extraordinary object is considerable," says
M'Culloch, dashing off his sketch with a still bolder hand; "yet its
powerful effect arises rather from its peculiar form, and the commanding
elevation which it occupies, than from its positive altitude. Viewed in