The Royal yacht then glided down Loch Fyne, whose waters sparkled in the mellow sunshine, the Queen watching, with keen enjoyment, the long swathes of golden light that fell athwart the mighty shoulders of the mountains. Lochgilphead, the Sound of Jura, and Staffa were all reached in turn, and, the weather being fine, they ran into Fingal’s Cave in the Royal barge, with the Royal standard floating at the stern. “On me,” observes Prince Albert, “the cave produced a most romantic impression, on the ladies a very eerie and uncomfortable one.” The Queen writes:--“At three we anchored close before Staffa, and immediately got into the barge, with Charles, the children, and the rest of our people, and rowed towards the cave. As we rounded the point, the wonderful basaltic formation came into sight.... It (the cave) looked almost awful as we entered, and the barge heaved up and down on the swell of the sea.... It was the first time the British standard, with a Queen of Great Britain and her husband and children, had ever entered Fingal’s Cave.” Next day rain confined the Queen to her cabin, but in the afternoon she was able to come on deck and see Loch Linnhe, Loch Eil, and the entrance to Loch Leven. At Fort William the yacht anchored, and Prince Albert, with the Prince of Leiningen, went up the grim and gloomy Pass of Glencoe, haunted by the wraiths of the massacred Macdonalds. When they returned the Queen landed from the yacht. In a drenching Scotch mist she was enthusiastically welcomed by a vast gathering of clansmen in characteristic tartans, and wearing their tribal badges, who turned out to receive her. By a rough and dreary road the Royal tourists drove through the mist to their destination--the lonely shooting-lodge of Ardverikie, by the wildly-beautiful but desolate shores of Loch Laggan. Ardverikie belonged to Lord Henry Bentinck, but at the time of the Queen’s visit it was let to Lord Abercorn: its great charm lay in its being, as the Prince said, a most “un-come-at-able” place, and here the Royal family, despite the atrocious weather, enjoyed a pleasant time of freedom and peace. Lord Grey and Lord Palmerston visited them in turn, and with both the Prince talked gravely on foreign politics--with the latter more especially, on impending troubles in Italy.