South of this plain he would see a tract of low fertile land, extending along the eastern shore, and sloping gently towards the sea; and through the centre of it a stream issuing from some marshy ground which separates the level fields from the bold barren tract on the west, and extends from the foot of Dunii, and trickling through a small channel into the sea. On the south of this stream he would find the plain hounded on the west by a natural bulwark of rocky elevations, and between it and the sea he would probably find the ancient cemetery in which the founders of the Dalriadic colony and their successors, down to his own time, were buried; and farther south, on the shore, a little harbour, or landing-place, for persons crossing the channel from Mull. If he ascended Dunii, he would find that Iona formed the centre of an archipelago of islands. On the north he would see the lofty island of Rum and the low shores of Canna, and behind them the distant and striking forms of the Coollin Hills in Skye.[181] Looking west, the horizon would be bounded on the north-west by the island range consisting of the two islands of Coll and Tiree, and on the south-west the distant shores of Isla would be visible. Looking south over the low land of the Ross of Mull, the hills called the Paps of Jura would be very conspicuous, while the Garveloch islands, lying between it and Mull, are hidden by the intervening land. Below him, his eye would dwell on that part of the level fertile plain which extends from the foot of Dunii, where it is separated from the more northern plain by a line of rocky knolls, to the stream which flows from the marshy ground on the south. Here no object would arrest his gaze on the sloping plain save two isolated rocky hillocks on its highest level, and a large flat boulder stone between them and the sea, which must have travelled, in the glacial period of prehistoric times, across the channel from the opposite coast of Mull. This part of the plain would appear to him to present a favourable site for his monastery, while, by forming an artificial lake out of the marsh from which the stream flowed, he might increase its volume so as to enable it to turn a small mill, near which he would place a kiln for drying the grain, and a barn for storing it.[182] We may well suppose that Columba, when he first surveyed his newly acquired island and thus looked around him, would form the silent resolution that here he would place his central monastery, and that he would not rest till he had planted a Christian church in every island within sight.