Fingal’s Cave

Yesterday we visited Staffa and Iona. The former is one of the most extraordinary places I ever beheld. It exceeded, in my mind, every description I had heard of it, the appearance of the cavern, composed entirely of basaltic pillars as high as the roof of a cathedral, and the running deep into the rock, eternally swept by a deep and swelling sea, and paved as it were with ruddy marble, baffles all description.

After dinner, the weather being somewhat cleared, sailed for Staffa, and took boat. The surf running heavy up between the island and the adjacent rock, we landed at a creek near the Cormorant’s cave. The mist now returned so thick as to hide all view of Iona.

The haze and dullness of the atmosphere seem to render it dubious if we can proceed, as we intended, to Staffa to-day — for mist among these islands is rather unpleasant.