The Land of the Hills and the Glens; Wild Life in Iona and the Inner Hebrides - Seton Paul Gordon

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1920 edition. Excerpt: ...that guard this small isolated rock from the waters of the Atlantic. The steamer which is to make the relief at the two storm-swept lighthouses of Skerryvore and Dubh Hirteach, lying not so many miles apart, but both of them far out at sea, lies at anchor in the Sound of Iona, rising and falling gently on the swell. Thick drizzling rain is falling, and the day is long of breaking. It is still dusk as anchor is weighed, and the boat slips out through the sound, heading nor'-westward in the teeth of the wind, and making for the lighthouse built on the wild rock of Skerryvore (Sgeir Mhor, the Big Rock) twenty-five miles distant. Ahead, the sky is thick with mist and rain, and soon the view of the land is lost. Nothing meets the eye save an expanse of storm-tossed waters. Sunken rocks--the Torrans--lie about us, and from time to time cascades of spray shoot up into the air, where the Atlantic swell meets the reefs. A wild part of the coast is this, and many a ship has found her doom on these rocks. Our vessel is powerfully built, as she must needs be in order to withstand the storms of winter, but the headseas are slowing her down. One sees many birds on these waters of solitude. Solan geese fly past, making their way hither and thither in search of fish. The flight of the solan is a thing of immense power, so that even the gulls themselves seem puny and feeble in comparison; but then the solan is essentially a being of the sea, and rarely indeed does he fly over even the narrowest strip of land. Farther out from the shore, fulmar petrels cross the bows, their flight strong and free, and excelling that of the gulls. Seldom is it that they move their wings, speeding and glancing with soaring flight above the waves, their wings held out...