The Armandale ferry on its way across the sound to Sleat peninsula on Skye. I climbed to the top of a small hill in very wet weather the afternoon of the first day in Mallaig. On my arrival at the summit, a general downpour commenced. I had left my umbrella in Edinburgh.

The same spot, looking inland. To a modern eye, these desolate mountains with their rocks, grasses, heathers, and perpetual clouds have a beauty all their own (albeit lost to my photos here). It wasn't until the mid 1700s that people began to think so, however. In his Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, Boswell noted this particular area's wild grandeur, becoming one of the first to see it as anything other than foreboding and dangerous to the traveler. He wrote from a vantage point across the water looking toward this headland:

"Armidale is situated on a pretty bay of the narrow sea, which flows between the main land of Scotland and the Isle of Sky. In front there is a grand prospect of the rude mountains of Moidart and Knoidart. Behind are hills gently rising and covered with a finer verdure than I expected to see in this climate, and the scene is enlivened by a number of little clear brooks." From Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, James Boswell, Sept. 2 entry.