All the islands I mention (save Tiree) can be seen from the deck of the _Gael_ during the earlier part of the daily passage of that boat from Oban in the summer season. Tiree is off the main tourist track, but a few antiquarians are now finding it worth their while to go and dig there for relics of byegone civilisation. A friend of mine, a zealous and erudite F.S.A., has spent many a pleasant holiday in Tiree, and has come back with loaded trunks of valuable prehistoric remains. Certain artists go out to the island regularly in order to transfer to canvas some of Nature's most impressive aspects of cloud, wave, and crag. Nor let me forget the doughty members of the _Faith Mission_, who evangelise this and others of the outer isles, and sing such sweet melodies to the natives as would melt any "Wee Free" heart, let alone an ordinary heart of stone. Tiree has long been famous for its schools and for its intelligent inhabitants; as a consequence, the libraries have been enthusiastically welcomed in its townships, and are regarded by the teachers there as a new and valuable adjunct of education. I have often heard it said that Tiree produces more ministers than any other district, of like population, in the Celtic part of Scotland. The Duke of Argyll does not allow any licensed house on the island, but he has not as yet suppressed the _Fingal_ and the parcels post. Should His Grace ever unbend so far as to permit the temperance hotels to obtain the licence, learned men might flock in greater numbers to Tiree, and dazzle themselves and the world with further antiquarian finds.[3] Rum has not been dowered with a Paisley library, and I regret to say that the natives have the reputation of not keeping the Sunday with ostentatious strictness. Eigg, the little island contiguous, is a little heaven below. The missionary there well deserves a word of commendation: the island of Muck is under his spiritual supervision, and with a sandwich and a sermon in his pocket, he often sets sail, scorning gust and current, to preach to his parishioners in that tiny islet. [3] Coll is also a very interesting island for the antiquarian. It contains distinct traces of twenty-nine Hill-forts or Duns, so that there must have been lively times out there long ago. Some fine shells, beads, pins and pottery have been found in the prehistoric _kitchen-middens_. Before the Reformation the island was thickly peopled, and sites of old churches and deserted crofts are numerous. Coll has gone back in population; in 1901 it had 432 inhabitants; in 1755 the number of natives was 1,193. WINTER SAILING.