One of them, which we observed upon our
landing, made the first point of the semicircle. There are few of them
now remaining. A good way farther north, there is a row of buildings
about four feet high; they run from the shore on the east along the top
of a pretty high eminence, and so down to the shore on the west, in much
the same direction with the crosses. Rasay took them to be the marks for
the asylum; but Malcolm thought them to be false sentinels, a common
deception, of which instances occur in Martin, to make invaders imagine
an island better guarded. Mr. Donald M'Queen, justly in my opinion,
supposed the crosses which form the inner circle to be the church's
land-marks.
The south end of the island is much covered with large stones or rocky
strata. The laird has enclosed and planted part of it with firs, and he
shewed me a considerable space marked out for additional plantations.
_Dun Can_ is a mountain three computed miles from the laird's house. The
ascent to it is by consecutive risings, if that expression may be used
when vallies intervene, so that there is but a short rise at once; but
it is certainly very high above the sea. The palm of altitude is
disputed for by the people of Rasay and those of Sky; the former
contending for Dun Can, the latter for the mountains in Sky, over
against it. We went up the east side of Dun Can pretty easily.
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