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"You see the beautiful town, with the Calton Hill, and the bay with the island of Inchkeith stretching out before you, and the Bass Rock quite in the distance, rising behind the coast.... The view when we gained the carriage hear Dunsappie Loch, quite a small lake, overhung by a crag, with the sea in the distance, is extremely pretty.... The air was delicious."
I had resolved not to raise my eyes again from my book, when a sudden exclamation from my father made me spring up, and I saw the steamer had left the shore, and was moving fast toward Inchkeith, the dark smoky wake that lingered behind it showing how far it had already gone from us, and warning us how soon it would be beyond the ken of our aching eyes.... The carriage was announced, and with a heavy heart and aching head, I drove to the theater.... The play was "Francis I.," for the first time.
Thus, the plan of the city and her suburbs is mapped out upon the ground of blackness, as when a child pricks a drawing full of pinholes and exposes it before a candle; not the darkest night of winter can conceal her high station and fanciful design; every evening in the year she proceeds to illuminate herself in honour of her own beauty; and as if to complete the scheme or rather as if some prodigal Pharaoh were beginning to extend to the adjacent sea and country half-way over to Fife, there is an outpost of light upon Inchkeith, and far to seaward, yet another on the May.
Molaise's holy isle guards Lamlash Bay, off Arran. The island retreats of the Bass, Inchkeith, May, and Inchcolm, in the Firth of Forth, are associated with the Irish saints Baldred, Adamnan, Adrian, and Columcille. St. Maccaldus, a native of Down, became bishop of the Isle of Man. Remarkable, too, is the fact that Irish monks sailed by way of the Faroe Islands to distant Iceland.
At the Isle of May and Inchkeith the quantity of sperm-oil consumed by the great lamp is equal to that burned by fourteen of the Argand lamps used in the Scotch lights.
His ailment was home-sickness; for though he had been a great voyager, it seemed he was loath to quit our bleak countryside for ever. "I used aye to think o' the first sight o' Inchkeith and the Lomond hills, and the smell o' herrings at the pier o' Leith. What says the Word?
Thus, the plan of the city and her suburbs is mapped out upon the ground of blackness, as when a child pricks a drawing full of pinholes and exposes it before a candle; not the darkest night of winter can conceal her high station and fanciful design; every evening in the year she proceeds to illuminate herself in honour of her own beauty; and as if to complete the scheme or rather as if some prodigal Pharaoh were beginning to extend to the adjacent sea and country half-way over to Fife, there is an outpost of light upon Inchkeith, and far to seaward, yet another on the May.
Crossing the Firth, after landing on Inchkeith, they arrived at St Andrews which had long been an object of interest to Johnson. They passed Leuchars, Dundee, and Aberbrothick.
Beyond all this, the suburbs run out to Leith; Leith camps on the seaside with her forests of masts; Leith roads are full of ships at anchor; the sun picks out the white pharos upon Inchkeith Island; the Firth extends on either hand from the Ferry to the May; the towns of Fifeshire sit, each in its bank of blowing smoke, along the opposite coast; and the hills enclose the view, except to the farthest east, where the haze of the horizon rests upon the open sea.
The hero is the celebrated Paul Jones, whom I well remember advancing above the island of Inchkeith, with three small vessels, to lay Leith under contribution.... The novel is a very clever one, and the sea-scenes and characters in particular are admirably drawn; and I advise you to read it as soon as possible. Still higher panegyric would not have been misbestowed in this instance, which illustrates Mr Prescott's remark, that Cooper's descriptions of inanimate nature, no less than of savage man, are alive with the breath of poetry 'Witness his infinitely various pictures of the ocean; or, still more, of the beautiful spirit that rides upon its bosom, the gallant ship. Though it is to The Pilot, pre-eminently, and The Waterwitch, in nearly an equal degree, that these remarks apply, there is many a passage in Cooper's later novels for example, The Two Admirals, Homeward Bound, Mark's Reef, Ashore and Afloat, and The Sea-Lions in which we recognise the same 'cunning' right hand which pencilled the Ariel, and its crew, the moody, mysterious pilot, and stalwart Long Tom Coffin.
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