Isle of Rum ('hill ridge'?) is eight miles long and eight miles wide at most, and covers an area of sixteen square miles. It is located 7.5 miles west of Point of Sleat on Skye. It is the largest of the Small Isles, and provides an impressive aspect: the pinnacles of the Cuillins of Rum rise to a height of over 2600 feet. The climate is quite wet, and the island was once forested. It is still home to a large herd of red deer, as well as wild goats and ponies, and a colony of Manx shearwaters, which numbers some 120,000. There are also otters, seals, and sea eagles

Rum was settled from earliest times, but there are few remains of significance. Rum was a property of the Clan Ranald branch of the MacDonalds, but passed to the MacLeans of Coll. The island supported a population of over 400, but in 1826 it was cleared of all folk who went to Nova Scotia-barring one family, and turned into one large sheep farm. In 1845 it was to be converted into a sporting estate, but it was sold in 1885 to John Bullough, a successful machinery manufacturer, and his son built the splendid Kinloch Castle. In 1957 the Nature Conservancy Council bought the island and it is now a nature reserve, and Kinloch Castle is run as a hotel.