I was up early next morning. The sky was clear, the wind blowing on shore, and the bright, living, rejoicing sea came seething in on the rocky intricacies through which we slowly sailed. Skye was perfectly visible, the nearer shores dark and green; farther back the dim Cuchullins, standing in the clouds. Eig rose opposite, with its curiously-shaped sciur; Muck lay ahead. The _Clansman_ soon reached the open sea, and we began to feel the impulse of the Atlantic. By the time the passengers began to appear on deck the ship was lurching heavily along towards the far-stretching headland of Ardnamurchan. It was difficult to keep one's feet steady--more difficult to keep steady one's brain. Great glittering watery mounds came heaving on, to wash with unavailing foam the rocky coast; and amongst these the steamer rolled and tossed and groaned, its long dark pennon of smoke streaming with the impulse of the sea. The greater proportion of the passengers crawled amidships--beside the engines and the cook's quarters, which were redolent with the scent of herrings frying for a most unnecessary breakfast--for there the motion was least felt. To an unhappy landsman that morning the whole world seemed topsy-turvy. There was no straight line to be discovered anywhere; everything seemed to have changed places. Now you beheld the steersman against the sky on the crest of an airy acclivity, now one bulwark was buried in surge, now the other, and anon the sheep at the bows were brought out against a foamy cataract. But with all this turmoil and dancing and rolling, the _Clansman_ went swiftly on, and in due time we were off the Ardnamurchan lighthouse. Here we rolled and tossed in an unpleasant manner,--the smitten foam springing to the top of the rocks and falling back in snowy sheets,--and seemed to make but little progress. Gradually, however, the lighthouse began to draw slowly behind us, slowly we rounded the rocky buttress, slowly the dark shores of Mull drew out to sea, and in a quarter of an hour, with dripping decks and giddy brains, we had passed from the great bright heave and energy of the Atlantic to the quiet waters of Loch Sunart; and, sheltered by Mull, were steaming towards Tobermory.