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Arran owes its unsophisticated state also in part to lying a little off the highway of travel. Strong-stomached voyagers may round the Mull of Cantyre, to be tossed upon Atlantic waves, and thus get a chance of seeing Ailsa Craig, “Paddy’s Milestone,” whose cliffs are in some respects finer than the much-visited Staffa. The gentle tourist takes an easier and straighter line to Oban. His boat threads the beautiful Kyles of Bute, then stands across to Tarbert, on the Isthmus of Cantyre, from the farther side of which goes the steamer to Islay. Up Loch Fyne is reached Ardrishaig, terminus of the big ark whose Oban-bound passengers are transferred to a smaller craft for the Crinan Canal cut, that brings them over to the island-studded and cliff-cornered sounds of the west coast. Well then for the land-lubber that he fares forward on one of Messrs. MacBrayne’s stout craft! To play the Viking here without experience were a perilous task, so thick-set are these waters with rocks and shallows, so tormented by sudden shifty squalls, so distracted by currents, eddies, and rushing tideways. But the steamer pants masterfully through the Dorus Mor, keeps clear of the Maelstrom of Corryvreckan, whose roar may be heard leagues off in calm weather, and steers safe along the islands of the Firth of Lorne, past the great slate quarries on Easdale, round the bridged island of Seil, and inside the dark heights of Kerrera, by a narrow sound to reach its port at Oban, whose once mighty strongholds are overshadowed by such an eruption of smart hotels and villas.