of thefe harbours: at this the flood had advanced in the Esl
loch full three quarters ; in the other only one hour. According
to fome remarks Mr. James Watts, of Giafgow, favored me with
the fpring-tides in Eaft-Tarbat flow ten feet, fix inches ; in Will.
Tarbat, only four feet, fix inches, or, in very extraordinary tides.'
two feet higher. The tides in the Weft loch are rnoft irregular•
fometimes neither ebb nor flow ; at other times ebb and flow
twice in a tide, and the quantity of :the falfe ebb is about one
foot. The mean height o f the firth of Clyde is greater than that cf
Weft-Tarbat.
It is not very long fince veflels of nine or ten tuns were drawn!
by horfes out of the Weft loch into that of the Eaft, to avoid the
dangers of the Mull of Cantyre, fo dreaded and fo little known,
was the navigation round that promontory. It is the opinion]
of many that thefe little ifthmus’s, fo frequently ftyled 7‘ark\
in N . Britain, took their name from the above circumftance;]
Tar ruing fignifying to draw, and Bata, a boat. This too might]
be called, by way o f pre-eminence, the Tarbat, from a very fm-1
gular circumftance related by Torfaus *. When Magnus the]
barefooted, King o f Norway, obtained from Donald-bane of &/•
land the cefiion of the Weftern ifles, or all .thofe places rial
could be furrounded in a boat, he added to them the penind
fula of Cantyre by this fraud: he placed himfelf in the Hen
o f a boat, held the rudder, was drawn over this narrow trad,
and by this fpecies o f navigation wrefted the country from his
brother monarch,.
* Hiji. Oread. 73,
lo
N E B in, the morning into the fame eap.nfe a. before
I a nn Inch-Bui or the yellow ifle ; an entire rock, covered with
fe e Lichen farietims. Sail by M E I amufed the
t f feals. Hail a fmall fiibing-boat, in order to purchafe fome of
Itscarrro- am anfwered by the owner, that he would not fell any,
Ibut that part was at my fervice , a piece o f generofity of greater
Lerit as in this fcarce feafon the fubftance of the whole family
U p e n d e d on the good fortune of the day. Thus in thefe parts
ihofpitality is found even among the moft indigent.
I Moft of the morning was paffed in a dead calm : in the after-
Inoon fucceeded briflc gales, but from points not the moft favor-
t i l e , which occafioned frequent tacks, in fight of port : in one
■broke our top-fail yard. During thefe variations, of our courfe,
■had good opportunity of obferving the compofitiom o f the ifle
l o f Aran: a feries of vaft mountains, running in ndges acrofs
|the whole; their tops broken, ferrated, or fpinng; the fummit
of Goatfield rifing far above the reft, and the fides of all Hoping
■towards the water edge t a fcene, at this diftance, of favage
I Another calm within two miles o f land: take to the boat, and
■ approach Loch-Ranza, a fine bay, at the N. end of
The ifle o f A r r a n ,
I where I land in the evening. The approach was magnificent . a
»fine bay in front, about a mile deep, having a ruined caftle near I the lower end, on a low far projefting neck of land, that forms
an other.
J u n e 20.