Page:Letters from England.djvu/122

 Terra Hyperborea

AM in the region known as Skye, in the Hebrides, on a large queer island among islands, on an island consisting of fjords, peat, rocks and summits; I collect coloured shells among bluish or sallow pebbles, and by a special favour of heaven I find even the excrement of the wild salmon which is the milch cow of the Gaelic water-nymphs. The slopes ooze like a drenched sponge, the heather bruach catches in my feet, but then, readers, can be seen the islands of Raasay and Scalpay, Rum and Eigg, and then can be seen the mountains with strange and ancient names, such as Beinn na-Cailich and Sgurr na-Banachdich and Leacan Nighean an-i-Siosalaich, or Druim nan Cleochd, while those bald domes yonder are called merely Blaven, quite simply Blaven. And this rivu-