e fairest and greatest objects
of nature, that we feel it would be far beyond our powers to give
anything like an adequate idea of the beauty and the grandeur that for
ever kept unfolding themselves around our summer voyagings in calm or
storm. Who can say that he knows a thousandth part of the wonders of
"the marine" between the Mull of Cantire and Cape Wrath? He may have
gathered many an extensive shore--threaded many a mazy multitude of
isles--sailed up many a spacious bay--and cast anchor at the head of
many a haven land-locked so as no more to seem to belong to the sea--yet
other voyagers shall speak to him of innumerable sights which he has
never witnessed; and they who are most conversant with those coasts,
best know how much they have left and must leave for ever unexplored.

Look now only at the Linnhe Loch--how it gladdens Argyll! Without it and
the Sound of Mull how sad would be the shadows of Morvern! Eclipsed the
splendours of Lorn! Ascend one of the heights of Appin, and as the waves
roll in light, you will see how the mountains are beautified by the sea.
There is a majestic rolling onwards there that belongs to no
land-loch--only to the world of waves. There is no nobler image of
ordered power than the tide, whether in flow or in ebb; and on all now
it is felt to be beneficent, coming and going daily, to enrich and
adorn. Or in fancy will you embark, and let the Amethyst bound away "at
her own sweet will," accordant with yours, till she reach the distant
and long-desired loch.

"Loch-Sunart! who, when tides and tempests roar,
Comes in among these mountains from the main,
'Twixt wooded Ardnamurchan's rocky cape
And Ardmore's shingly beach of hissing spray;
And while his thunders bid the sound of Mull
Be dumb, sweeps onwards past a hundred bays
Hill-shelter'd from the wrath that foams along
The mad mid-channel,--All as quiet they
As little separate worlds of summer dreams,--
And by storm-loving birds attended up
The mountain-hollow, white in their career
As are the breaking billows, spurns the Isles
Of craggy Carnich, and green Oronsay
Drench'd in that sea-horn shower o'er tree-tops driven,
And ivied stones of what was once a tower,
Now hardly known from rocks--and gathering might
In the long reach between Dungallan caves
And point of Arderinis ever fair
With her Elysian groves, bursts through that strait
Into another amp