PRINCE CHARLES' CAVE. 503 names of Trotternish, Vatternish, Grishinish, and Sleat, we shall furnish a few rapid notes to assist his progress. Those visiting Coruisk and Loch Scavaig from Portree, will reverse the route as previously given. Five miles to the eastward of Portree is the island of Raasay (the property of George Rainey, Esq.) (Population, 580.) The hill of Duncan (Duncean, the fortified head or summit), rises to an elevation of 1500 feet. Brochel Castle, the principal object of interest in Raasay, stands in a bay upon the eastern shore of the island. Its position has been well chosen, being accessible only by a precipitous pathway, winding upwards from the sea, and completely commanded by the battlements. The castle itself is small and dilapidated, but still consists of several storeys, composed of broken masses of masonry, tenaciously adhering to and not easily distinguished from the conglomerate with which they are intermingled. But in early ages it must have been a place of great strength when the almost irresistible engines of modern warfare were unknown. At the northern extremities of Raasay are the smaller islands of Flodda and Rona. Prince Charles's Cave, four miles from Portree, and close upon the water's edge, is " a piece of natural rock-work, moulded outwardly like a cathedral window, and large and lofty in the interior, though somewhat damp and dripping, except at the far end, where the flooring rises. Perhaps the outside is even more beautiful than the interior. The exuding lime-water which causes the growth of the stalactites* by which the interior is adorned, has hardened over the entrance into a variety of beautiful and graceful forms of a rich cream colour, intermingled with the lichen-covered rock, and interwreathed with long festoons of ivy leaves of the freshest green. Then there are slender columnar flutings, and elegant depending points, forming Gothic arches by their upward union, and seeming as pure as alabaster when seen in relief, and contrasted with the dark recess within. Elegantly waving ferns, and the broader coltsfoot, the rich though lowly mosses, the adhesive silvery lichens, and various wild-flowers, fill up * Most of these have been destroyed, so that the place is robbed of much of its interest. the many-chambered crevices both of the natural rock and the more fanciful incrustations which stream downwards from the loftier arches, and many of the roots and leaves and ivy stems are themselves incrusted over, and give an elegant floral form to what is otherwise now an indurated stony mass." This cavern, in which Prince Charles lay for a time concealed, is entered almost from the water by a few steep and rather difficult steps immediately beneath the drooping fretwork, so that the view outwards to those within is chiefly through the little natural arches. The shores of the Peninsula of Trotternish, which form the north-eastern portion of the island of Skye, are throughout bold and basaltic, throwing up immense ranges of columns perpendicularly from the sea, while the mountains behind are of the finest forms, strong and steadfast in their prevailing character, but with a singular and varied mixture of wild, almost fantastic, peaks and spires. At a distance they present an uninterrupted wall of high cliffs, rising in successive stages above each other-the mural face of each being surmounted by a green terrace, sometimes terminating in the sea, at others skirted by a slope of huge fragments interspersed with verdure. The Storr Rock* is seven miles from Portree, and a mile and a half from the shore, and will take at least three hours' walking. It is sometimes visited from Prince Charles's Cave, from which it is three miles distant. In this way the steep cliffs near the cave have to be clambered. According to the trigonometrical survey measurement, the top of the Storr Rock is 2348 feet above the level of the sea. The summit of the mountain is cut down in a vertical face four or five hundred feet in height; while the steep declivity below is covered with huge masses of detached rock-the more durable remains of the cliffs above now separated from that precipice, of which they once formed a part. These are combined in a variety of intricate groups; while their massy bulk and their squared and pinnacled outlines present vague forms of castles and towers, resembling, when dimly seen through the driving clouds, the combinations of an ideal and supernatural architecture. The most remarkable of these * It is well to devote a whole day to the Storr, although it and Quiraing may both be visited in one day by thoroughly good pedestrians, with the help of a vehicle either to or from Uig, as follows:-Engage a vehicle to be met at Uig at four or five o'clock in the afternoon, and walk or go by pony to Storr and Quiraing. To walk on foot or by pony from Portree to the Storr will take at least three hours, and from that over the moor to Quiraing four hours more, including stoppages. "Our party" (writes a correspondent) "left Portree with a guide for the Storr at half-past nine A. M. We reached the Storr about twelve o'clock; spent an hour admiring the prongs; started at one o'clock, and shewed the guide the way to Quiraing over the moor, which we reached about five o'clock; walked thence to Uig, six miles, whence we had a carriage back to Portree. We were assured by our landlord that it was impossible to do all this in one day, but we did it easily, and if we had started earlier, we might have done the whole in daylight.' The route may of course be taken the reverse way, by driving first by Uig and Quiraing to Steinscholl (pronounced Stenshal), and walking or taking pony the rest of the way by the Storr to Portree. In this way the chaise may be taken all the way to Uig and Steinscholl. which is two miles from The tourist will do well Guides may be got here for There is a very comfortable little inn at Steinscholl, Quiraing, and near the landing-place for Loch Staffin. to remain here if in any danger of being benighted. Quiraing, etc. rocks is 160 feet in height from the ground, and its form emulates at a distance the aspect of a spire, presenting from afar a sea-mark well known to mariners. The prospect from the top of the Storr is very extensive, and embraces the greater part of Skye, the mountains of Ross and Sutherland, the Hebrides and other islands. QUIRAING. This mountain, famous for the wonderful formation of its rocks, is about 1000 feet in height, sloping by a steep declivity towards the west, but presenting north-eastwards a face of rugged precipices, varied by huge columns of basalt and massy fragments of fluted rock. In other parts large concave sections, ribbed by fissures, form outlets in moist weather for numberless streamlets, which descend in lengthened silvery streaks. That part which is more particularly entitled to the name of Quiraing consists of a verdant platform, covered with an even turf 100 paces long by 60 broad, surrounded by, a series of gigantic columns of rock, rising up in lofty peaks, and which are, for the most part, inaccessible. On approaching the great inlet to the platform, the passage is much obstructed by heaps of stones and rubbish, washed down or fallen during the waste of ages. An isolated pyramidal cliff, called the Needle, stands guard to the right of the entrance. The traveller gains the top of the rugged pass, and is struck with wonder at the scene which presents itself. Instead of a dark and narrow cave he beholds the spacious opening spread before him, with the verdant platform in its centre, to which by a short descending path he may thread his way. He now beholds the rocks frowning aloft, and the rugged cliffs ranging themselves in circles around him. Rocky pyramids, like a bulwark, encompass the fairy plain on which he stands. All is felt to be a dreary solitude; yet there is a pleasing beauty in the silent repose. A view of the sea and district below is obtained in detached fragments, through the rugged clefts, between the surrounding pyramids.* * Tourists who may prefer visiting Quiraing by the carriage road instead of by the sea-coast path or by boat, can do so by taking a vehicle to Uig, a small |