The shores of Caithness and of Sutherland, and of many of the islets in the Highland seas, likewise exhibit many wonderful specimens of the fantastic architecture of the ocean; but pre-eminent above all in grandeur and renown is Fingal’s Cave. Sir Walter Scott, who twice visited this celebrated grotto (in 1810 and 1814), pronounced it above all description sublime. ‘The stupendous columns and side-walls, the depth and strength of the ocean with which the cavern is filled, the variety of tints formed by stalactites dropping and petrifying between the pillars, and resembling a sort of chasing of yellow or cream-coloured marble, filling the interstices of the roof—the corresponding variety below, where the ocean rolls over a red, and in some places a violet-coloured rock, the basis of the basaltic pillars—the dreadful noise of those august billows, so well corresponding with the grandeur of the scene—are all circumstances elsewhere unparalleled.’ In the Azure Cave of Capri, the Mediterranean possesses a marine grotto rivalling Fingal’s Cave in celebrity, and no less wonderful in its peculiar style of beauty. As the roof of its narrow entrance rises only a few feet above the level of the sea, it is probable that no human eye had ever been delighted with its charms before 1826, when it was accidentally discovered by two Prussian artists who were swimming in the neighbourhood. After passing the low portal the cave widens to grand proportions, 125 feet long and 145 feet broad, and except a small landing-place on a projecting rock at the further end, its precipitous walls are on all sides bathed by the influx of the waters, which, in that sea, are so clear that the smallest objects may be distinctly seen on the bottom of the deep basin, the most beautiful bathing-place a mermaid might wish for. All the light that enters the grotto must first penetrate the whole depth of the waters before it can be reflected into the cave, and it thus acquires so blue a tinge, from the large body of clear water through which it has passed, that the walls of the cavern are illumined by a radiance of the purest azure. Had Byron known of the existence of this magic cave, Childe Harold would surely have devoted some of his most brilliant stanzas to its praise. In many other parts of the Mediterranean the limestone rocks that fringe its shores have been worn into magnificent caverns, less singular, indeed, than the fairy grot of Capri, but still of rare and wonderful beauty. Such, among others, is the Antro di Nettuno, in the island of Sardinia, about twelve miles from the small seaport of Alghero.[14] Footnote 14: ‘The Sea and its Living Wonders,’ 3rd edit. p. 49.