"Rarely human eye has known A scene so stern as that dread lake, With its dark ledge of barren stone. Seems that primeval earthquake's sway Hath rent a strange and shatter'd way Through the rude bosom of the hill, And that each naked precipice, Sable ravine, and dark abyss, Tells of the outrage still. The wildest glen, but this, can show Some touch of Nature's genial glow; On high Benmore green mosses grow, And heath-bells bud in deep Glencroe, And copse on Cruchan-Ben; But here--above, around, below, On mountain or in glen, Nor tree, nor shrub, nor plant, nor flower, Nor aught of vegetative power, The weary eye may ken; For all is rocks at random thrown, Black waves, bare crags, and banks of stone, As if were here denied The summer's sun, the spring's sweet dew, That clothe with many a varied hue The bleakest mountain-side." _Lord of the Isles_, iii. 14.] CHAPTER XXXII DIARY CONTINUED. -- CAVE OF EGG. -- IONA. -- STAFFA. -- DUNSTAFFNAGE. -- DUNLUCE CASTLE. -- GIANT'S CAUSEWAY. -- ISLE OF ARRAN, ETC. --DIARY CONCLUDED 1814 "_26th August, 1814._--At seven this morning were in the Sound which divides the Isle of Rum from that of Egg. Rum is rude, barren, and mountainous; Egg, although hilly and rocky, and traversed by one remarkable ridge called Scuir-Egg, has, in point of soil, a much more promising appearance. Southward of both lies Muick, or Muck, a low and fertile island, and though the least, yet probably the most valuable of the three. Caverns being still the order of the day, we man the boat and row along the shore of Egg, in quest of that which was the memorable scene of a horrid feudal vengeance. We had rounded more than half the island, admiring the entrance of many a bold natural cave which its rocks exhibit, but without finding that which we sought, until we procured a guide. This noted cave has a very narrow entrance, through which one can hardly creep on knees and hands. It rises steep and lofty within, and runs into the bowels of the rock to the depth of 255 measured feet. The height at the entrance may be about three feet, but rises to eighteen or twenty, and the breadth may vary in the same proportion. The rude and stony bottom of this cave is strewed with the bones of men, women, and children, being the sad relics of the ancient inhabitants of the island, 200 in number, who were slain on the following occasion: The Macdonalds of the Isle of Egg, a people dependent on Clanranald, had done some injury to the Laird of Macleod. The tradition of the isle says, that it was by a personal attack on the chieftain, in which his back was broken; but that of the other isles bears that the injury was offered to two or three of the Macleods, who, landing upon Egg and using some freedom with the young women, were seized by the islanders, bound hand and foot, and turned adrift in a boat,