illiam III.? Further on we see the stones still remaining of what were
once houses in which lived and loved fair women and brave men. One
sickens now as we read the story of that atrocious massacre. A little
more on our right is a rocky knoll, from which, it is said, the signal
pistol-shot was fired. Happily, such atrocities are now out of date, but
the blot remains to sully the fair fame of our great Protestant hero, and
to stain to all eternity the memories of such men as Argyll and Stairs.
Independently of the massacre, the spot is well worthy of a visit. There
is no more rocky and weird a glen in all Scotland, and when the sun is
hidden the aspect of the place is sombre in the extreme, and the further
you advance the more does it become such. The larch and fir disappear
from the sides of the hills, the river Coe dashes angrily and noisily at
their feet, and before us is the waterfall which, here they tell us, was
Ossian's shower-bath. Close by, Ossian himself is reported to have been
born, and what more natural than that he should thus have utilised the
stream? On the south is the mountain of Malmor, and to the north is the
celebrated Car Fion, or the hill of Fingal. I gather a thistle as a
souvenir of the place. Of course it is a Scotch thistle, therefore to be
honoured, but for the credit of my native land, I must say it is a pigmy
to such as I have seen within a dozen miles of St. Paul's. As a Saxon, I
am especially interested in the horned sheep in these parts, which at
first sight naturally you take for goats; with the Highland cattle,
though by no means the fine specimens you see at the Agricultural Hall,
and with the exquisite aroma (when taken in moderation) of the Ben Nevis
"mountain dew." Returning, we pass the entrance to the Caledonian
Canal--called by the natives the cana_w_l--along which we were to have
made our way to Nairn; but the _Elena_ scorns the narrow confines of the
canal, and claims to be a free rover of the sea.

CHAPTER V.
OFF MULL.

As I sit musing in the dining-saloon of the _Elena_, it occurs to me that
a Scotchman is bound to be a better educated man than an Englishman; for
these simple reasons--in the first place, he does not drink beer--and
beer is fatal to the intellect, inasmuch as it magnifies and fattens the
body; and secondly, because the climate compels him to lead the life of a
student. In the south, we Englishmen have fine weather. In this world
everythi