When we got
near the island, or peninsula, of Innistrynich, with its dark green oaks
and pasture-laud of a brighter green in the sunshine, and gray rocks
coming down into the calm, dark water, it seemed to my northern taste
the realization of an earthly paradise. I have lived upon it since, and
unwillingly left it, and to this day I have the most passionate
affection for it, and often dream about it painfully or pleasurably, the
most painful dream of all being that it has been spoiled by the present
owner, which happily is quite the contrary of the truth.
I went to Oban on the top of the coach in the most brilliant weather
that ever is or can be, alternate sunshine and rain, with white clouds
of a dazzling brightness. Under this enchantment, the barren land of
Lorne seemed beautiful, and one forgot its poverty. For the first time,
I saw the waters of Loch Etive, then a pale blue, stretching far inland,
and the distant hills of Morven were, or seemed to be, of the purest
azure.
When my new friends had left me at Oban, I hired a sailing-boat and two
men for a voyage amongst the Western Isles; but as she was an open boat,
the men did not like the idea of risking our lives in her on the exposed
waters of the Atlantic, so the voyage was confined to the Sound of Mull,
and I crossed the island to its western shore on foot. That voyage left
permanent recollections of grand effects and wild scenery of the kind
afterwards described by William Black in his "Macleod of Dare.
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