Only the chief caves have names. On the south-east coast is the Clam Shell, or Scallop Cave. It is thirty feet high, eighteen feet wide, and about one hundred and thirty feet long, one side of it consisting of ridges of basalt which stand out like the ribs of a ship. Near by is the Rock of the Herdsmen, from a supposed likeness to a shepherd’s cap. The Isle of Columns can be fully seen only at low water. No human habitations were noted on the Island of Staffa by us, during our short stay. We got on board the steamer again and proceeded to Iona, that is, “_the_ island”; for Columkill, or the Island of Columba, from time unrecorded has had a fertile soil. This fertility, supposed to be in the dark ages miraculous, led probably to its early occupation. Iona’s history begins in the year 563 when St. Columba, from Ireland, landed on its shores with twelve apostles. By his life and work he rendered the place so rich in holy associations that to-day the hosts of divided Christendom, Roman Catholic, Protestant Episcopal, and Presbyterian, claim Iona as the cradle of their faith, and on different days--never together in holy union--visit the sacred isle. Sweethearts and wives must not meet. Which is which? Iona’s scenery was ever attractive, with its precipitous cliffs, its dazzling stretches of white shells and sand, its fertile fields, and its grassy hollows. Its natural charms drew visitors from afar and made those dwelling upon its acres content. Even before the name of Christ was uttered, it had been, as the Highlanders called it in their Gaelic tongue, the “Island of the Druids.” It was therefore famous, before it became the centre of Celtic Christianity, and the mother community, whose children were the depositories of the human spirit. From its numerous monastic houses, hundreds of alumni went out as missionaries to convert all northern Britain. In a word, the story of humanity in all the earth is told here. The strata of religions, the deposits of the human soul, are almost as discernible on Iona as are the layers of geology, or the floors of successive cities revealed by the spade, in Egypt or Palestine, in the terpen of Holland or the mounds of Babylon. Even the humorous side of religion is here discernible to sharp eyes. Some of the carvings in the choir stalls and chisellings of the marble aloft show the joker in stone. The demons are represented as having their fun--and this is equally true in the art of Buddhism in Japan and of mediævalism in Iona. The tower of the church of St. Mary, on this island, has one bit of sculpture representing an angel weighing souls in a pair of scales, one of which is kept down by a demon’s paw. It reminded us of Dr. Franklin’s Yankee characterization of the Dutchman’s trade with the Indians.