Among the islands in which he founded monasteries, the two most important are those termed by Adamnan ‘Ethica terra’ and ‘Insula Hinba,’ or ‘Hinbina:’ the former has been conclusively identified with the low-lying and fertile island of Tiree, the _Tireth_, or ‘land of corn,’ which lies about twenty miles to the north-west of Iona, and whose dim outline would be barely seen on the horizon were it not for the elevated promontory of Ceannavara at the south end of the island. The name Hinba or Hinbina seems to designate the group of islands called the Garveloch Isles, situated in the centre of the great channel which separates the island of Mull from the mainland of Lorn, and which were the _Imbach_, or ‘sea-surrounded.’ The most westerly of the four islands which constitute this group is termed Elachnave and _Eilean na Naomh_, or the Island of Saints. It is a grassy island rising to a considerable height, and has at the west side a small and sheltered bay, on the lower ground facing which are a fountain, called St. Columcille’s Well, and the foundations of what must have been a monastic establishment, near which are the remains of two beehive cells.[253] It is probable that on these two islands were founded the two earliest monasteries by Brendan before they were lost to the Scots of Dalriada by the defeat of the year 560, by which event they were probably swept away. In the year 565 Comgall of Bangor, who had come to the assistance of Columba on his first visit to King Brude, erected a monastery at a certain village in the land of Heth, or Tiree, where he is said in his Life to have abode some time; and that too was ruined by the Picts. We are told in his Life that, ‘one day when Comgall was working in the field, he put his white hood over his garment; and about the same time a number of heathen plunderers from the Picts came to that village to carry away everything that was there, whether man or beast. Accordingly when the heathen robbers came to Comgall, who was labouring in the field, and saw his white hood over his cape, thinking that this white hood was Comgall’s Deity, they were deterred from laying hands on him, for fear of his God. However, they carried off to their ship the brethren of Comgall and all their substance.’ The pirates are of course shipwrecked through the prayers of the Saint, and gave back their plunder; but afterwards Comgall was conducted back to Ireland by a company of holy men.[254] This took place during the interval of fourteen years between the defeat of the Dalriads in 560 and their re-establishment in 574; and during this period the islands around Iona, which had been occupied by the Scots and from which they were driven by the Picts, seem to have formed a sort of debateable ground with a mixed population of Scots and Picts, who carried on a kind of guerilla warfare with each other; and any Christian establishments which existed among them would form points of attack for the heathen Picts.