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A    HUNDRED    YEARS    IN    THE 
HIGHLANDS 


\ 


^r  cr-^^Ht:  fc  cc  i^iP^ci 


r.ONDONHnWAHX)  JVRKOLD  . 


A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

IN 

THE  HIGHLANDS 


BY 

OSGOOD   HANBURY   MACKENZIE 

OF  INVEREWE 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS 


SECOND  IMPRESSION 


LONDON 
EDWARD    ARNOLD 

1921 

[A  a  rights  reservti] 


m  N3 


UNIVERSriY  OF  CALIFORMA 
SAINXA  iiARBARA 


MY  DAUGHTER 

MAIRI  T.  NIC  COINNICH 

(MRS.  ROBERT  HANBURY) 

WHO   LOVES   THE   GAELIC    AND   KEEPS   TO   OUR   SIMPLE   HIGHLAND 

WAYS,   AND   FOR   WHOSE   STRONG,   UNCHANGING   LOVE 

I   AM   FOB  EVER   GRATEFUL 


MAIK'I.T.  XIC  COIXXICH  — MIv'S.  R()i;i;iv'T    iiAM'.rm- 


PREFACE 

My  uncle,  Dr.  John  Mackenzie,  having  left  behind  him 
ten  manuscript  volumes  of  Highland  Memories,  covering 
the  period  1803  to  1860,  and  I,  who  inherited  these 
manuscripts,  having  reached  the  age  of  seventy-nine, 
it  has  occurred  to  me  that  I  might  make  a  book  of 
reminiscences  which  would  give  pleasure  to  those  who 
reverence  ancient  customs  and  love  the  West  Coast 
Highlands. 

I  make  no  pretence  to  the  art  of  the  writing  man. 
The  reader  must  be  kind  enough  to  imagine  that  he  is 
sitting  on  the  opposite  side  of  a  peat  fire  listening  to  the 
leisurely  memories  of  one  who  has  lived  a  great  number 
of  years,  observant  of  the  customs  of  his  neighbours, 
attentive  to  things  of  the  passing  moment,  and  who 
finds  an  increasing  pleasure,  after  a  life  of  the  open 
air,  in  dwelling  on  the  times  that  are  gone. 

If  my  book  should  give  pleasure  to  its  readers,  I 
shall  be  glad ;  if  it  should  do  anything  to  deepen  affection 
and  give  them  reverence  for  the  noblest  memories  of 
our  Scottish  past,  I  shall  be  humbly  grateful. 


OSGOOD  HANBURY  MACKENZIE. 


TOURNAIG,   POOLEWK, 

March,  1921. 


VIl 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 

PARENTAGE 


PAGES 


Birth  in  Brittany — Curious  coincidences — My  father's  death 
and  burial — An  eventful  voyage — Highland  stage-coach 
in  winter — The  Gairloch  property — Annual  migrations — 
Incidents  on  the  journey — The  old  inn — Milkers  and  their 
cows — Pandemonium — Tigh  Dige,  the  old  home    -  1-16 


CHAPTER  II 

FAMILY   HISTORY 

Our  Gairloch  ancestor — Threat  by  Lews  Macleods — Murder  of 
kinsman's  two  boys — Retribution — Slaughter  of  the 
Macleods — Treachery  to  the  Mackenzies — Fight  on  the 
ship — An  unpopular  clan — Personal  beauty  of  the 
Macleods — The  forty-five — The  family  bard — Search  for 
Prince  Charlie — The  secret  chamber         -  -  17-28 


CHAPTER  III 

CHILDHOOD 

Potato  blight — Relief  work  at  Gairloch — The  Loch  Maree  road 
— I  cut  the  first  sod — The  first  wheeled  vehicle — Transport 
before  the  days  of  roads — My  mother's  love  for  Gaelic — 
Schools  in  the  parish — My  mother  as  parish  doctor — 
Early  recollections — My  grandmother  as  housekeeper — 
Old-time  customs  and  habits — Climatic  changes — Straw- 
berries in  June — Disa])pearance  of  wild  bee  -  29-48 

ix 


X  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  IV 

BOYHOOD 

PAGES 

Amusements — Nesting  on  Loch  Maree — Pine  marten  and  the 
gulls — Trout-fishing — My  uncle's  adventure  on  the  hill — 
Fox-hunter's  eerie  experience — Eagles'  nests — The  shep- 
herd's ruse — Stormy  petrels  in  Longa — Otter-hunting — 
Polecats  —  My  education  —  Successful  young  man  — 
Highland  lairds  and  the  Gaelic — Family  affection — My 
grand-uncles — Kidnapping  recruits  for  the  Army — Kerrys- 
dale  garden  -  _  _  _  _  49-62 

CHAPTER  V 

YOUTH 

My  first  gun — Game  in  the  old  days — Introduction  of  rabbits 
into  the  Highlands — Abundance  of  vermin — Martens  as 
robbers  of  gardens — -The  sheep-killer :  a  unique  experience 
— Stories  of  the  wild-cat — Simple  shooting — Expeditions 
to  the  Shiant  Islands — Sea-fishing — Boatloads  of  puffins — 
Netting  rock-pigeons — Tour  in  Normandy — Visit  to  1851 
Exhibition  -  -  -  -  -  63-73 

CHAPTER  VI 

VOYAGE   TO   ST.    KILDA 

We  set  out — Our  vessel — At  Lochmaddy — The  Sound  of  Harris 
— Countess  of  Dunmore's  school — At  Rodal — Tossing  on 
the  ocean — Arrival  at  St.  Kilda — Difficulties  of  landing 
— Description  of  the  island — Primitive  houses — The 
church — A  healthy  people — The  fulmar  and  the  puffin — 
Solan-geese — Return  voyage — Typical  South  Harris  house 
—What  I  saw  in  the  "  black  house  "       -  -  74-97 

CHAPTER  VII 

THE   LEWS 

My  olaest  story — A  Stornoway  whale-hunt — My  first  visit  to 
Lews  Castle — Plentiful  sport — Salmon-fishing  on  the  Ewe 
— Netting  in  my  uncle's  time — Kate  Archy  and  her 
chickens — More  expeditions — Lawsuit  with  Seaforth — 
Foolish  and  expensive  litigation    -  -  -  98-112 


CONTENTS  xi 

CHAPTER  VIII 

EARLY   SPORTING   DAYS 

PAGES 

Trip  to  Germany — A  quick  return — Shooting  over  Inverewe — 
My  first  dog — On  the  hill— The  pointers — Dogs  versus 
badger — Breeding  setters — My  friend  "  Fan  " — A  wonder- 
ful hunter — Shooting  experiences — Increased  sporting 
area — Big  bags — A  wandering  quail — A  ptarmigan  at  sea- 
level — Late  Dr.  Warre's  best  day's  sport — Flock  of 
strange  grouse — Some  curious  shots — Swan-shooting      113-127 

CHAPTER   IX 

DEER-STALKING 

Our  guns — Deer  asleep— A  monster  royal  stag — In  a  corrie — 
A  ten-pointer — A  difficult  journey — Wounded  deer — 
Gill  the  lurcher — A  "  grand  beast  " — Fox  versus  roebuck 
— The  poachers — Cave  robber — Modern  stalkers — Donald 
the  gillie — Drowning  the  deer       -  -  -  128-141 

CHAPTER  X 

DEER-STALKING — Continued. 

A  cheap  licence — Start  for  the  forest — The  shepherd's  bothy — 
Almost  unbearable — The  two  stags — Present  to  the 
laird — Ceremony  at  the  big  house — An  eccentric  laird — 
His  ideas  about  a  kilt — My  biggest  stag — Cornish  tenant's 
disgust — Watson  and  the  eagles — Two  and  a  half  brace 
before  breakfast — Vermin-killing — Mystery  of  the  heronry 
—A  handy  drug      -  -  -  -  142-153 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE    FIONN    LOCH 

Description  of  Loch — A  snake  story — Eyrie  of  white-tailed 
eagles — Expedition  for  eggs — The  Osprey's  Loch — Goose- 
ander's  nest — Extinct  birds — A  hare  drive — Ptarmigan 
and  grouse — Wild  cats  and  otters — My  tame  otter — 
Amazing  fishing  records     -  -  -  -  154-168 


sdi  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  XII 

EEMINISCENCES 

PAGES 

My  grandfather — His  dress  and  habits — Highland  hospitality 
— Shooting  with  flint-locks — Dinner  at  Tigh  Dige — 
Training  of  landlords — Loyalty  of  the  people — -Stories  of 
hard  times  -----  169-183 

CHAPTER  XIII 

AGRICULTURE 

The  runrig  system — Caschrom  and  croman — The  modern  crofter 
— Modes  of  cultivation — Sea-ware  for  the  land — Cultiva- 
ting enclosures — Cattle,  sheep,  and  goats — A  hard- 
working people        -  -  -  -  .  184-191 

CHAPTER  XIV 

CHURCH   AND   STATE 

The  disruption — Old-time  Communion — People  gather  from 
all  quarters — "  The  Bed  of  the  White  Cow  " — Congre- 
gation of  three  thousand — Preachers'  warnings — Sabbath 
observance — The  Parish  Manse — Minister  and  his  glebe — 
Minister's  wig  in  the  cream — Funerals — Copious  supplies  of 
whisky — Coffin  left  behind — A  jovial  outing — A  great 
funeral — Parliamentary  elections — How  votes  were 
secured 192-211 


CHAPTER  XV 

SMUGGLING   AND   SHEEP-STEALING 

Drinking  habits — The  Rover's  Bride — Justice  of  the  Peace's 
qualms  of  conscience — Attitude  of  the  clergy — The 
gangers  and  the  people — Smuggling  stories — Sheep- 
stealing  stories         -----  212-222 


CONTENTS 


Xlll 


CHAPTER  XVI 


LOCAL  SUPERSTITIONS 


rAGES 


Limatics — The  Holy  Island  cure — Heuk  Donald  at  Tain — 
Inverness  judge  and  "  the  calf  " — Dingwall's  doctor's 
encounter  with  Jock — Witches — Curing  the  cows — The 
cure  for  epilepsy — Apparitions — Fairies  and  kelpies — 
Draining  the  Beiste  Loch — The  laird's  revenge   -  223-237 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE    FAMOUS    GAIRLOCH   PIPERS 


238-244 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE   INVEREWE   POLICIES 


245-257 


CHAPTER  XIX 

VANISHING  BIRDS 


258-262 


CHAPTER  XX 

PEAT 


263-272 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


PORTRAIT  OF  THE  AUTHOR      -  -  -  - 

MAIRI  T.  NIC  COINNICH  (MRS.  ROBERT  HANBURY)  - 
THE  OLD  GAIRLOCH  MANSION  HOUSE — AN  TIGH  DIGE 
JOHN   MACKENZIE  OF  EILEANACH 


FronCtqvMM 

FACISO   PAJB 

vi 

-  U 

.       36 


FIONN   LOCH  WITH  ISLAND  WHERE   THE   EAGLES   RAIDED  THE 

HERONRY  .-.-..      150 


INVEREWE   HOUSE 


232 


A  HUNDRED  YEARS  IN  THE 
HIGHLANDS 

CHAPTER   I 
PAEENTAGE 

I  WAS  born  on  the  13tli  of  May,  1842,  at  the  Chateau 
de  Talhouet,  not  far  from  the  little  town  of  Quimperle, 
in  the  Morbihan,  Brittany.  It  seems  I  was  destined  from 
the  very  beginning  to  pass  through  life  in  the  atmosphere 
of  the  Gulf  Stream  and  among  the  Celts,  for  my  dear 
mother  told  me  the  servants  in  the  chateau  all  spoke 
Breton  among  themselves,  and  were  like  west-coast 
Highlanders  in  every  way,  except  that  they  had  the 
fear  of  wolves  added  to  that  of  ghosts  and  goblins  when 
they  had  to  go  out  at  night  and  pass  through  the  Forest 
de  Barbebleue  which  surrounded  the  chateau. 

As  I  left  France  when  I  was  only  just  a  year  old,  I 
cannot  tell  much  about  our  life  in  Brittany,  except  that 
the  family  consisted  of  my  father.  Sir  Francis  Mackenzie, 
fifth  baronet  and  twelfth  laird  of  Gairloch;  my  mother, 
Mary  Hanbury,  or  Mackenzie;  and  my  two  half-brothers 
— Kenneth,  who  became  the  sixth  baronet  and  thir- 
teenth laird,  and  Francis,  who  was  just  a  year  younger, 
the  boys  being  respectively  ten  and  nine  years  of  age. 
There  were  in  the  household  a  young  French  tutor  and 

1 


2  A  HUNDKED  YEARS 

a  Scottish  maid,  and  my  father  had  brought  an  Aber- 
deenshire salmon- fisher  with  him,  with  the  usual  appli- 
ances, such  as  nets,  etc.,  for  the  capture  of  the  salmon 
in  the  River  Elle.  But  though  there  were,  and  doubtless 
are,  salmon  in  that  river,  I  do  not  think  the  fishing 
enterprise  proved  much  of  a  success. 

My  mother  told  me  that  immediately  after  my  birth 
I  was  taken  in  charge  by  the  accoucheuse,  a  Madame  Le 
Blanc,  but  during  the  first  night  my  mother's  sharp 
ears  thought  they  heard  some  small  cries  from  a  distant 
room.  So,  not  thinking  for  a  moment  of  herself  and  the 
danger  to  her  life,  she  sprang  out  of  her  bed  and  made 
straight  for  our  room,  where  she  found  Madame  Le 
Blanc  sound  asleep  and  no  one  attending  to  her  precious 
son,  whom  she  snatched  up  in  her  arms  and  carried  back 
to  her  bed;  no  one  else  was  allowed  to  have  charge  of 
him  from  that  day  forward. 

Although  my  father  had  a  big  extent  of  chasse  to 
shoot  over,  there  was  no  game  to  speak  of,  and  the  bags 
consisted  chiefly  of  squirrels,  which  it  was  the  fashion 
there  to  eat,  and  of  which  pies  were  made  until  the 
Breton  cook  struck  against  preparing  them,  declaring 
they  reminded  her  of  skinned  babies  !  The  food  in  those 
days  was  very  poor  in  Brittany,  and  the  peasants  sub- 
sisted chiefly  on  porridge  made  of  hie  noir  (buck- wheat). 
Often,  to  get  decent  rolls  and  bread,  my  father  had  to 
drive  to  the  town  of  L'Orient,  a  good  many  miles 
away. 

I  was  registered  in  Brittany  by  the  name  of  Hector, 
after  my  paternal  grandfather.  Sir  Hector,  but  after- 
wards my  father,  recollecting  that  the  eldest  son  of  my 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  3 

Uncle  Jolin  Mackenzie  was  called  Hector,  thought  two 
of  the  same  name  in  the  family  might  be  confusing,  so, 
when  we  reached  England  and  I  was  christened,  the 
name  of  Osgood  was  given  me,  after  my  maternal 
grandfather,  Osgood  Hanbury,  of  Holfield  Grange, 
Essex,  and  also  after  my  cousin,  who  was  my  godfather. 
The  eldest  sons  of  these  Hanburys  were  always  called 
Osgood  from  1730,  when  John  Hanbury,  son  of  Charles 
and  Grace  Hanbury,  of  Pontymoil  and  other  estates 
in  Monmouthshire,  married  Anne,  daughter  and  heiress 
of  Henry  Osgood,  of  Holfield  Grange,  who  held  3,392 
acres  of  land  in  the  parish  of  Coggeshall.  I  have  always 
rather  regretted  that  my  original  name  of  Hector  was 
not  adhered  to,  as  our  family  has,  since  about  1400, 
been  known  as  Clan  Eachainn  Ghearloch  (children  of 
Hector  of  Gairloch),  and  Eachainn  I\IacCoinnich  would 
have  been  so  much  more  appropriate  when  writing  my 
signature  in  Gaelic. 

My  readers  may  wonder  at  my  writing  anjrthing 
about  a  place  which  I  could  not  possibly  have  viewed 
with  intelligent  eyes  when  I  left  it,  but  I  renewed 
acquaintance  with  it  many  years  later.  When  I  was 
about  thirty  my  mother  and  I  made  a  tour  through 
Normandy  and  Brittany,  one  of  the  chief  aims  of  which 
was  to  visit  my  birthplace.  I  remember  we  arrived  at 
Quimperle  on  a  Saturday  evening,  and  I  soon  found  out 
that  the  following  day  there  was  to  be  a  religious  festival, 
what  they  called  in  Brittany  a  "  Pardon,"  finishing  up 
in  the  evening  with  unlimited  music  and  dancing  in  the 
Grande  Place  of  the  town.  Thousands  of  peasants  had 
come  in  from  the  surrounding  country,  many  of  the  older 


4  A  HUNDEED  YEARS 

men  in  the  native  costume — their  nether  garments  being 
like  the  most  voluminous  of  knickerbockers — and  the 
women  with  their  wonderful  coiffes.  Dancing  was  in 
full  swing  to  the  music  of  thebiniou,the  Breton  bagpipes, 
and  the  music  and  dancing  were  certainly  first-cousins 
to  our  Highland  bagpipe  music  and  reels. 

After  a  struggle  I  managed  to  make  my  way  through 
the  crowd  to  the  side  of  the  old  piper,  and  during  the 
short  intervals  between  the  dances  I  carried  on  a  brisk 
conversation  with  him  in  French  on  the  subject  of 
bagpipes.  I  informed  him  that  we  had  nearly  the  same 
kind  of  pipes  in  the  North  of  Scotland,  and  that  we  also 
spoke  an  ancient  language  related  to  the  Breton.  He 
suddenly  brightened  up  and  became  quite  excited. 
Talking  of  J^cosse,  he  said,  reminded  him  of  days  long 
gone  by,  when  he  was  a  lad,  and  there  was  a  Monsieur 
Ecossais  living  in  the  Chateau  de  Talhouet  not  far  away, 
a  big  gentleman  with  reddish  hair  and  whiskers. 
Whilst  monsieur  was  there,  a  baby  son  was  born  and  a 
dance  was  given,  for  which  he  was  hired  as  musician. 
My  mother  could  well  remember  that  dance  being 
given  and  the  hiring  of  the  piper,  and  here  was  the 
very  man  who  had  played  all  night  in  honour  of  my 
birth  ! 

Another  curious  coincidence  I  must  mention  here  in 
connection  with  the  Chateau  de  Talhouet,  which  was  in 
olden  times  the  seat  of  a  great  Breton  nobleman,  the 
Marquis  de  Talhouet.  About  two  years  ago,  during  the 
late  war,  when  Lochewe  was  a  naval  base,  a  French 
warship  came  in,  and  as  none  of  the  naval  officers  stationed 
at  Aultbea  happened  to  be  very  fluent  in  French  and 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  5 

tlie  French  officers  were  said  not  to  be  very  good  at 
English,  I  was  asked  to  entertain  half  a  dozen  of  them 
at  luncheon.  It  turned  out  that  the  mother  of  one  of 
these  officers  was  then  actually  owner  of  the  Chateau  de 
Talhouet  and  was  residing  in  it ! 

On  the  Monday  after  the  gay  scene  in  the  Grande  Place 
of  Quimperle,  my  mother  and  I  drove  out  to  the  chateau 
that  she  might  show  me  the  very  room  in  which  I  was 
born;  but  though  the  then  o^ner,  whose  name  was,  I 
think,  the  Comte  de  Richemond,  was  most  kind  and 
hospitable,  he  had  so  much  improved  and  altered  the 
chateau  that  my  mother  could  hardly  make  sure  of  the 
actual  room  where  I  first  saw  the  light.  One  thing,  how- 
ever, she  did  recognise,  which  she  had  often  described  to 
me,  and  that  was  a  magnificent  specimen  of  the  tulip-tree 
which  grew  on  the  lawn.  How  well  do  I  remember  the 
dinner  in  the  inn  at  Quimperle,  where  everything  was 
very  old-fashioned,  and  where  the  host  sat  at  the  head 
and  the  hostess  at  the  foot  of  the  table.  There  was  great 
excitement  over  something  unusual  which  had  occurred 
that  morning — namely,  the  catching  by  the  Gendarmes  of 
a  young  priest  poaching  the  river,  with  a  fresh-run 
salmon  in  his  possession.  The  ladies  all  took  the  side 
of  the  priest,  whilst  most  of  the  men  supported  the 
authorities.  The  salmon  was  to  be  sold  by  public 
auction,  and  the  ladies  all  swore  solemnly  that  none  of 
them  would  bid  at  the  sale,  as  it  was  monstrous  that 
their  Father  Confessor  should  be  deprived  of  the  fish 
which  he  had  captured  so  cleverly. 

When  my  father  and  his  family  left  Brittany,  we 
stayed  a  short  time  in  Jersey,  but  all  I  can  remember 


6  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

to  have  heard  of  the  visit  to  that  charming  island  was 
that  I  there  first  showed  a  love  of  music,  which  has 
continued  all  through  my  life.  I  was  told  that  when  a 
brass  band  played  I  almost  jumped  out  of  my  mother's 
arms.  A  friend  of  my  father,  a  Colonel  Lecouteur,  gave 
a  dinner,  and  the  dessert  consisted  of  pears  only,  there 
being  thirty  dishes,  each  containing  a  different  variety. 
So  it  seems  that  their  culture  was  pretty  well  advanced 
even  as  far  back  as  1842. 

And  now  my  memory  of  the  events  that  happened  for 
a  couple  of  years  is  more  or  less  vague,  and  I  can  depend 
only  on  what  I  was  told  by  others.  Soon  after  our 
arrival  in  England  my  father  became  very  ill,  and, 
according  to  the  stupid  practice  of  doctors  in  those  days, 
he  was  bled  in  the  arm,  erysipelas  set  in,  and  he  died  in 
the  course  of  a  few  days.  His  remains  were  taken  north 
by  sea,  from  London  to  Invergorden,  by  my  mother 
and  her  brother  and  sister,  to  be  buried  in  the  family 
burying-place  in  the  old  ruined  Priory  of  Beauly.  I  was 
just  a  year  old  when  this  calamity  happened,  and  conse- 
quently can  remember  nothing  of  the  voyage  north  or 
anything  else  for  some  time  after.  But  subsequent 
voyages  of  a  like  kind  when  I  was  four  or  five  years  old 
made  impressions  on  me  which  have  never  been  for- 
gotten. How  well  I  remember,  as  though  it  were  only 
yesterday,  a  horrible  voyage  from  Invergordon  to  London 
in  a  kind  of  paddle-boat,  which  lasted  nine  whole  days ! 
We  called  at  every  small  port  along  the  Banffshire  and 
Aberdeenshire  coasts  for  dead  meat  for  the  London 
market.  Stacks  of  it  were  piled  up  on  the  deck,  and 
consisted  chiefly  of  dead  pigs.    By  way  of  amusing  me. 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  7 

our  butler,  Sim  Eachainn  (Simon  Hector),  cut  off  many 
of  the  black  and  white  tails  and  presented  them  to  me 
as  toys  !  Then  we  were  stuck  for  some  days  in  a  dense 
fog  at  the  mouth  of  the  Thames.  It  was  a  never-to-be- 
forgotten  voyage,  though  it  was  not  as  long  as  a  voyage 
my  uncle  took  as  a  young  man,  when  he  was  seventeen 
days  in  a  smack  sailing  between  London  and  Inverness, 
and  even  then  he  never  reached  it,  but  had  to  disem- 
bark at  Findhorn. 

On  our  return  journey  north  my  mother  wished  to 
go  by  land,  but  it  was,  if  possible,  even  less  successful. 
I  cannot  remember  how  we  got  to  Perth,  but  from  there 
we  travelled  by  the  Highland  stage-coach.  It  was 
mid-winter,  and  we  managed  to  get  as  far  as  Blair 
Atholl,  when  a  violent  snowstorm  started,  and  a  few 
miles  beyond  the  village  the  coach  was  suddenly  brought 
to  a  standstill  by  trees  being  blown  across  the  road 
both  in  front  and  behind  us.  A  runner  was  despatched 
for  a  squad  of  men  with  saws  and  axes,  but  the  blizzard 
was  so  severe  that  by  the  time  help  came  the  coach 
could  not  be  moved  on  account  of  the  depth  of  the  snow, 
and  we  got  back  to  Blair  Inn  by  the  help  of  a  very  high- 
wheeled  dog-cart.  How  well  I  remember  being  lifted 
by  our  faithful  Simon  and  carried  in  his  arms  to  the  trap  ! 
After  being  kept  prisoners  at  Blair  for  several  days,  we 
managed  to  get  back  to  Perth,  whence  we  got  to  Aberdeen 
by  the  newly  opened  railway,  and  from  there  to  Inverness 
by  steamboat .  Thus  the  land  j  ourney  was  not  altogether 
a  success,  and  we  had  to  fall  back  upon  the  sea  after  all 
to  get  us  north. 

My  father  in  his  will  had  appointed  my  mother  and 


8  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

Thomas  Mackenzie,  the  laird  of  Ord,  as  trustees  for  the 
Gairloch  property  during  my  elder  half-brother's 
minority,  and  my  father's  brother,  John  Mackenzie, 
M.D.,  of  Eileanach,  was  to  be  factor  on  the  estate.  For 
the  first  six  months  or  year  after  my  father's  death  my 
mother  resided  at  Conon  House,  near  the  county  town  of 
Dingwall,  which  was  the  east  coast  residence  of  the 
Gairloch  family.  The  Conon  property  was  a  com- 
paratively small  one,  with  a  small  population,  whereas 
Gairloch  consisted  of  some  170,000  acres  and  a  large 
crofter  population  of  several  thousand  souls;  so  my 
mother  felt  it  her  duty  to  remove  there  and  make  it  her 
permanent  home.  It  was  not  very  easy  getting  from 
Conon  to  Gairloch  in  those  days,  for,  though  a  road  had 
been  made  from  Dingwall  to  Kenlochewe,  or  rather  two 
miles  farther  on  to  Rudha  n'Fhamhair  (the  Giant's 
Point),  at  the  upper  end  of  Loch  Maree,  there  was  still 
no  road  for  some  twelve  miles  along  the  loch-side,  and 
often  it  was  stormy  and  the  loch  difficult  to  navigate  in 
small  rowing-boats. 

But  Gairloch  was  far  more  difficult  of  access  in  the 
days  of  my  grandfather  and  my  uncles.  I  shall  now 
quote  from  what  my  uncle  says  regarding  the  annual 
migrations  to  and  from  Gairloch.  In  those  days  the 
larger  tenants  had,  if  required,  to  provide  several  days' 
labour  by  men  and  horses  for  the  journey.  My  uncle 
writes:  "  My  eyes  and  ears  quite  deceived  me  if  those 
called  out  on  these  migration  duties  did  not  consider  it 
real  good  fun,  considering  the  amount  of  food  and  drink 
which  was  always  at  their  command."  A  troop  of 
men  and  some  thirty  ponies  came  from  Gairloch,  and 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  9 

would  arrive,  say,  on  a  Tuesday  night,  and  all  Wednesday 
a  big  lot  of  ponies,  hobbled  and  crook-saddled,  was 
strewed  over  our  lawns  at  Conon,  with  a  number  of  men 
and  women  helpers  hard  at  work  packing.  Everything 
had  to  go  west — flour,  groceries,  linen,  plate,  boys  and 
babies,  and  I  have  heard  that  my  father  was  carried  to 
Gairloch  on  pony-back  in  a  kind  of  cradle  when  he  was 
only  a  few  weeks  old.  The  plan  usually  followed  was 
to  start  the  mob  of  men  and  ponies  about  four  o'clock 
on  the  Thursday  afternoon  for  the  little  inn  at  Scatwell 
at  the  foot  of  Strathconon;  and  as  there  was  a  road  of 
a  kind  thus  far  and  no  farther,  the  old  yellow  family 
coach  carried  "  the  quality  "  {i.e.,  the  gentry)  there 
before  dark. 

There  were  several  great  difficulties  in  those  days. 
One  was  the  crossing  of  the  various  fords  over  the  rivers, 
and  the  next  was  keeping  dry  all  the  precious  things 
contained  on  the  pack-saddles,  including  the  babies. 
The  great  waterproofer.  Mackintosh,  was  unborn  and 
rubber  was  still  unknown,  so  they  just  had  to  do  their 
best  with  bits  of  sheep-skins  and  deer-skins,  which  were 
not  very  effective  in  a  south-westerly  gale,  with  rain  such 
as  one  is  apt  to  catch  along  Druima  Dubh  Achadh  na 
Sine,  the  Black  Eidge  of  Storm  Field,  as  Achnasheen  is 
very  properly  called  in  Gaelic. 

Next  morning  the  start  was  made  at  six  o'clock  right 
up  Strathconon  and  across  the  high  beallach  (pass) 
into  Strath  Bran,  and  on  and  on  till  Kenlochewe  was 
reached,  which  ended  the  second  day  at  about  seven 
o'clock  at  night.  I  have  been  told  that  my  grandfather 
was  always  met  at  the  top  of  Glendochart,  where  one  first 


10  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

comes  in  sight  of  the  loch,  by  the  whole  male  population 
of  Kenlochewe,  every  man  with  his  flat  blue  bonnet 
under  his  arm,  and  they  followed  the  laird's  cavalcade 
bareheaded  till  it  crossed  the  river  to  the  inn.  The  old 
inn  in  those  days  was  on  what  we  should  now  call  the 
wrong  side  of  the  river,  and  the  crossing  was  often  a  great 
difficulty.  Sometimes  the  children  were  carried  over 
by  men  on  stilts,  which  was  thought  great  fun  by  them. 
The  welcome  at  the  inn  my  uncle  described  as  "  grand.** 
The  poor  landlady  was  twice  widowed,  both  her  husbands 
having  been  drowned  in  trying  to  get  people  across  this 
wild  river  on  horseback  when  it  was  in  flood.  My  uncle 
fancied  that  what  made  the  widow  sufler  most  was 
perhaps  the  fact  that  neither  husband  was  ever  found, 
both  being  at  the  bottom  of  Loch  Maree,  and  that  she 
had  not  had  the  great  relief  and  even  "  pleasure  "  of 
burying  each  of  them  with  unlimited  whisky,  according 
to  custom  !  I  can  well  remember  one  of  her  sons.  He 
was  by  far  the  most  skilful  carpenter  in  our  part  of  the 
country,  and  was  always  known  as  Eachainn  na  Banos- 
dair  (Hector  of  the  Hostess).  My  uncle  says  that  if 
ever  the  Gairloch  family  had  a  devotee  it  was  Banosdair 
Ceann-Loch-Iubh  (the  hostess  of  Kenlochewe),  and  he 
believed  she  would  cheerfully  have  gone  to  the 
gallows  if  she  were  quite  sure  that  would  please  the 
laird. 

The  following  morning  the  party  had  only  two  miles 
to  go  to  Rudha  n'Fhamhair  (Giant's  Point),  where  the 
family  and  all  the  precious  goods  and  chattels  were 
stowed  away  in  a  small  fleet  of  boats  and  rowed  or 
sailed  some  ten  or  twelve  miles  down  the  loch  to  Slata- 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  11 

dale,  where  the  then  comparatively  new  narrow  bit  of 
road,  more  or  less  adapted  to  wheels,  ran  from  this  bay 
of  Loch  Maree  to  the  old  mansion  of  Tigh  Dige  nam 
gorm  Leac,  which,  as  my  uncle  says,  "  was  looked  upon 
by  us  Gairlochs  as  the  most  perfect  spot  on  God's  earth/' 
For  the  sake  of  the  boys  a  halt  was  always  made  at  one 
of  the  twenty-five  islands  in  the  loch  for  a  good  hunt  for 
gulls'  eggs,  but  in  truth  it  did  not  require  much  hunting, 
for  my  uncle  says  he  and  his  brothers  could  hardly  keep 
from  treading  on  the  eggs,  the  nests  were  so  plentiful 
among  the  heather  and  juniper.  I  can  remember  them 
equally  numerous  till  I  was  about  fifty  years  old,  when 
the  lesser  black-backed  gulls  very  gradually  began  to 
go  back  and  back  in  numbers,  until,  alas  !  they  are  now 
all  but  extinct. 

I  shall  give  my  readers  my  uncle's  description  of  the 
arrival  of  the  cavalcade  on  the  Saturday  evening  at  the 
old  home,  the  most  perfect  wild  Highland  glen  any  lover 
of  country  scenery  could  wish  to  see.  No  sheep,  he 
says,  had  ever  set  hoof  in  it;  only  cattle  were  allowed 
to  bite  a  blade  of  grass  there ;  and  the  consequence  was 
that  the  braes  and  wooded  hillocks  were  a  perfect  jungle 
of  primroses  and  bluebells  and  honeysuckle  and  all  sorts 
of  orchids,  including  Habenarias  and  the  now  quite 
extinct  Epipactis,  which  then  whitened  the  ground, 
and  which  my  uncle  says  he  used  to  send  as  rare  specimens 
to  southern  museums.  May  I  remark  here  that  in  the 
course  of  my  long  life  in  the  parish  of  Gairloch  I  have 
only  twice  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  the  Epipactis 
ensifolia — once  near  the  Bank  of  Scotland  at  Gairloch 
about  thirty  years  ago,  and  one  other  specimen  on  the 


12  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

edge  of  the  stream  of  the  Ewe  fifty  yards  above  the 
boathouse  at  Inveran.  I  found  plenty  of  them  in  the 
woods  of  the  Pyrenees. 

My  uncle  continues :  "  Having  arrived  at  long  last 
at  the  end  of  our  three  days'  journey,  we  boys  wanted 
but  little  rocking  ere  we  were  asleep  in  our  hammocks. 
Next  morning  (Sunday)  before  six,  all  who  were  new 
to  the  place  called  out  '  Goodness  gracious,  what's  the 
matter,  and  what's  all  this  awful  noise  about  V  for  sixty 
cows  and  sixty  calves  were  all  bellowing  their  hardest 
after  having  been  separated  for  the  twelve  hours  of  the 
night.  They  were  within  eighty  yards  of  the  chateau, 
and,  assisted  by  some  twenty  herds  and  milkers  screaming 
and  howling,  they  made  uproar  enough  to  alarm  any 
stranger  just  waking  from  sleep,  who  expected  a  quiet, 
solemn  west-coast  Sabbath  morning.  This  was  a  twice 
a  day  arrangement.  Eventually  the  grass  in  the  Baile 
Mor  Glen  was  eaten  pretty  bare,  and  then  the  whole  lot 
of  them  went  off  to  the  shieling  of  Airidh  na  Cloiche 
(Shieling  of  the  Stone)  for  the  summer. 

"  There  was  a  dyke  about  one  hundred  yards  long 
between  the  entrance-gates  at  the  bottom  of  the  lawn 
and  the  AUt  Glas  burn  which  kept  the  cows  and  calves 
separate,  to  the  great  indignation  of  both  parties,  who 
bellowed  out  their  minds  pretty  plainly.  Domhnall 
Donn  (Brown  Donald),  the  head  cowman,  brought  his 
wailing  friends  the  cows  to  the  Vv^est  side  of  the  wall, 
and  his  subordinates  brought  the  calves  from  their 
woody  bedrooms  where  they  had  passed  the  night  on  the 
east  side.  And  then  began  an  uproar  of  *  Are  you  there, 
my  darling  V    *  Oh   yes,   mother   dear,   wild   for   my 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  13 

breakfast/  Then  the  troupe  of  milkmaids  entered 
among  the  mob  of  bawling  cows  by  one  of  the  small 
calf -gates  in  the  wall.  They  carried  their  pails  and 
three-legged  little  stools  and  huarachs  (hobbles)  of 
strong  hair  rope,  with  a  loop  at  one  end  and  a  large 
button  on  the  other.  The  button  was  always  made  of 
rowan-tree  wood,  so  that  milk-loving  fairies  might  never 
dare  to  keep  from  the  pail  the  milk  of  a  cow  whose  hind- 
legs  were  buarachf 

"  All  was  soon  ready  to  begin.  A  young  helper  stood 
at  each  gate  with  a  rowan  switch  to  flick  back  the  over- 
anxious calves  till  old  Domhnall  sang  out,  looking  at  a 
cow  a  dairymaid  was  ready  to  milk,  named,  perhaps, 
Busdubh  (Black  Muzzle),  '  Let  in  Busdubh's  calf,'  who 
was  quite  ready  at  the  wicket.  Though  to  our  eyes  the 
sixty  black  calves  were  all  alike,  the  helpers  switched 
away  all  but  young  Busdubh,  who  sprang  through  the 
wicket;  after  a  moment's  dashing  at  the  wrong  cow  by 
mistake,  and  being  quickly  horned  away,  there  was 
Busdubh  Junior  opposite  to  its  mother's  milker  sucking 
away  like  mad  for  its  supply,  while  the  milkmaid  milked 
like  mad  also,  to  get  her  share  of  it.  The  calf,  I  suspect, 
often  got  the  lesser  half,  for  the  dairy  people  liked  to 
boast  of  their  heaps  of  butter  and  cheese,  leaving  the 
credit  or  discredit  of  the  yearly  drove  of  young  market 
cattle  to  Domhnall  and  his  subordinates.  I  have  seen 
young  Busdubh  getting  slaps  in  the  face  from  its  enemy 
the  milker,  who  thought  she  was  getting  less  than  her 
share  of  the  spoil;  and  then  calfy  was  dragged  to  the 
wicket  and  thrust  out,  and  perhaps  Smeorach's 
(Thrush's)  calf  halloaed  for  next.    This  uproar  lasted 


14  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

from  six  till  nine,  when  justice  having  been  dispensed  to 
all  concerned,  Donald  and  company  drove  the  cows  away 
to  their  pastures,  and  the  junior  helpers  removed  the 
very  discontented  calves  to  their  quarters  till  near  6  p.m., 
when  the  same  operation  was  repeated. 

"  And  then  the  procession  of  milkmaids  stepped  away 
to  the  dairy,  which  was  a  projecting  wing  of  the  Tigh 
Dige  and  is  now  part  of  the  garden,  carrying  the  milk 
in  small  casks  open  at  the  top  with  a  pole  through  the 
rope-handle  of  the  cask,  the  two  milkers  having  the 
pole  ends  on  their  shoulders.  And  now  as  to  the  dairy. 
No  finery  of  china  or  glass  or  even  coarse  earthenware 
was  ever  seen  in  those  days;  instead  of  these,  there  were 
very  many  flat,  shallow,  wooden  dishes  and  a  multitude 
of  churns  and  casks  and  kegs,  needing  great  cleansing, 
otherwise  the  milk  would  have  gone  bad.  And  big 
boilers  being  also  unknown,  how  was  the  disinfecting 
done,  and  how  was  hot  water  produced  ?  Few  modern 
folk  would  ever  guess.  Well,  the  empty  wooden  dishes 
of  every  shape  and  size  were  placed  on  the  stone 
floor,  and  after  being  first  rinsed  out  with  cold  water 
and  scrubbed  with  little  heather  brushes,  they  were 
filled  up  again,  and  red  hot  dornagan  (stones  as  large  as  a 
man's  fist),  chosen  from  the  seashore  and  thoroughly 
polished  by  the  waves  of  centuries,  which  had  been  placed 
by  the  hundred  in  a  huge  glowing  furnace  of  peat,  were 
gripped  by  long  and  strong  pairs  of  tongs  and  dropped 
into  the  vessels.  Three  or  four  red-hot  stones  would 
make  the  cold  water  boil  instantly  right  over,  and  the 
work  was  then  accomplished.  But  oh,  the  time  it  took, 
and  the  amount  of  good  Gaelic  that  had  to  be  expended. 


The  Oi.i)  Gaiki.och  Mansion  House 
AX    TIGH    UIGE  (The  Moat  House) 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  15 

and  more  or  less  wasted,  before  the  great  dairy  could  be 
finally  locked  till  evening  came  round  again  \" 

In  my  grandfather's  day  no  colour  was  considered 
right  for  Highland  cattle  but  black.  The  great  thing 
then  was  to  have  a  fold  of  black  cows.  No  one  would 
look  at  the  reds  and  yellows  and  cream  and  duns,  which 
are  all  the  rage  nowadays.  Though  the  blacks  have 
since  become  unpopular,  I  have  been  told  by  the  very 
best  old  judges  of  Highland  cattle  that  there  is  nothing 
to  beat  the  blacks  for  hardiness,  and  that  the  new  strains 
of  fancy-coloured  cattle  are  much  softer,  and  have  not 
the  same  constitutions. 

The  Tigh  Dige  (pronounced  Ty  digue),  or  Moat  House, 
was  so  called  because  the  original  house  belonging  to  us, 
which  was  down  in  the  hollow  below  the  present  mansion, 
was  surrounded  by  a  moat  and  a  drawbridge.  The 
first  Sir  Alexander,  my  grandfather's  grandfather,  the 
Tighearna  Crubach  (the  Lame  Laird),  finding  it  in- 
convenient, started  building  the  present  house  about 
1738,  and  as  it  was  the  very  first  instance  in  all  the 
country  round  of  a  slated  house,  the  old  name  Tigh 
Dige  was  continued,  with  the  addition  given  to  it  of  nam 
gorm  Leac  (of  the  Blue  Slabs) .  I  believe  iron  nails  were 
used .  But  I  remember  the  late  Dowager  Lady  Middleton 
telling  me  that  when  they  bought  Applecross  and  had 
to  take  off  a  part  of  the  old  roof  of  the  house  they  found 
that  the  original  slates  had  been  fixed  to  the  sarking 
with  pegs  of  heather  root.  She  had  been  told  that  a 
man  had  been  employed  a  whole  summer  making  heather 
pegs  with  his  knife,  right  up  in  Corry  Attadale,  in  the 


16    A  HUNDEED  YEARS  IN  THE  HIGHLANDS 

heart  of  the  Applecross  deer  forest.     This  shows  the 
difficulty  of  getting  nails  in  those  days  ! 

It  was  long  after  this  that  some  English  tourists,  finding 
the  lovely  Baile  Mor  Glen  peculiarly  rich  in  wild -flowers, 
proposed  to  my  ancestor  that  it  should  be  named 
Flowerdale  !  I  am  thankful  to  say  I  have  never  once 
in  the  course  of  my  whole  long  life  heard  the  house 
called  otherwise  in  Gaelic  than  the  Tigh  Dige  and  the 
place  am  Baile  Mor  (the  Great  Town  or  Home).  The 
cause  of  the  flowers  being  so  plentiful  in  the  good  old 
times  was  that  neither  my  grandfather  nor  his  forbears 
would  ever  hear  of  a  sheep  coming  near  the  place,  except 
on  a  rope  to  the  slaughter-house.  The  stock  consisted 
of  sixty  Highland  milk  cows  and  their  sixty  calves, 
besides  all  their  followers  of  different  ages.  These  were 
continually  shifted  from  place  to  place,  and  this  gave 
the  plants  and  bulbs  a  chance  of  growing.  I  never  saw 
the  black  cattle  on  the  Baile  Mor  home  farm,  but  my 
mother,  who  was  married  some  years  before  I  was  born, 
saw  the  whole  system  in  full  swing,  and  has  often  told 
me  all  about  it. 


CHAPTER  II 
FAMILY  HISTORY 

Some  of  my  readers  interested  in  genealogy  may  be  glad 
to  know  something  of  our  Gairloch  ancestor,  Eachainn 
Ruadh  (Red  Hector) .    Since  his  day  we  have  been  known 
as  Clan  Eachainn  Ghearloch  (sons  of  Hector  of  Gairloch) . 
Hector  was  the  second  son  of  Alexander  the  sixth  of 
Kintail;  so  that  we  were  not  by  any  means  what  would 
be  called  "  upstarts  "  even  in  a.d.  1400.     Hector  Roy's 
mother  was  a  daughter  of  the  famous  Ruairidh  MacAlain 
of  Moidart  and  Clanranald,  whose  wife  was  a  grand- 
daughter of  the  first  Lord  of  the  Isles  by  his  wife  Lady 
Margaret  Stewart,  daughter  of  King  Robert  II.    Hector 
Roy  also  had  royal  blood  in  him  on  his  father's  side  as 
well  as  on  that  of  his  mother;   for  his  grandfather, 
Murdo  the  fifth  of  Kintail,  married  Finguala,  daughter 
of  Malcolm  Macleod,  third  of  Harris  and  Dun  vegan,  whose 
wife  was  Martha,  daughter  of  Donald  Stewart,  Earl  of 
Mar,  nephew  of  King  Robert  the  Bruce.    The  Gairlochs 
also  have  Norwegian  blood  in  their  veins,  as  Tormod 
Macleod,  second  of  Harris  and  Dun  vegan,  and  father 
of  Malcolm,  was  a  grandson  of  Olave  the  Black,  the 
last  of  the  Norwegian  Kings  who  o^\Tied  the  Isle  of 
Man,  and  who  died  about  1237. 

Gairloch  belonged  to  the  Macleods  in  the  earlier  part 
of  1400.    When  Hector  Roy  was  a  young  man  it  was 

17  2 


18  A  HUNDEED  YEAKS 

owned  by  his  brother-in-law,  who  had  married  Alexander 
the  sixth  of  Kintail's  daughter.  Allan  Macleod  of 
Gairloch  married  as  his  second  wife  a  daughter  of  Macleod 
of  the  Lews.  The  Lews  Macleods  were  also  otherwise 
nearly  connected  with  Allan  of  Gairloch.  Well,  it  seems 
that  two  brothers  of  Macleod  of  the  Lews  had  sworn 
an  oath  that  no  one  with  a  drop  of  Mackenzie  blood  in 
him  should  ever  succeed  to  Gairloch,  and  crossing  from 
the  Lews  they  landed  at  Gairloch.  Allan  Macleod, 
perhaps  from  having  heard  some  whispers  of  the  ideas 
of  his  relatives,  had  placed  his  family  for  safety  on  a 
small  crannog  or  artificial  island  stronghold  in  Loch 
Tollie,  along  which  the  road  from  Gairloch  to  Poole  we 
runs,  which  must  have  been  an  uncomfortable  residence 
for  a  wife  with  her  own  young  daughter  and  her  three 
stepsons. 

It  seems  that  these  Macleods,  the  day  after  their 
landing,  got  word  of  the  fact  that  Allan  had  left  the 
island  that  morning,  and  had  gone  to  fish  on  the  Ewe. 
They  found  him  asleep  on  the  river-bank  at  Cnoc  na 
michomhairle  (the  Mound  or  Knoll  of  Bad  Advice),  and 
at  once  made  him  *'  short  by  the  head,'"  which  was 
the  term  then  in  use  for  beheading.  Retracing  their 
steps  to  the  island,  they  managed  to  get  ferried  across  to 
it,  and,  informing  the  unfortunate  widow  of  what  they 
had  done  to  her  husband,  they  tore  the  two  boys  from 
her  knees — the  third  boy  was  fortunately  absent — 
carried  them  along  to  a  small  glen  through  which  the 
Poole  we  road  now  passes,  and  at  a  spot  called  Meall 
bhadaidh  na  Thaisg  (the  Rock  of  the  Place  of  Burial) 
stabbed  them  both  to  the  heart  with  their  dirks.    Their 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  19 

stepmother  managed,  througli  the  strategy  of  one  of  her 
husband's  retainers,  to  secure  the  blood-stained  shirts  of 
the  boys,  and  sent  them  to  their  grandfather,  Alexander 
the  sixth,  either  at  Brahan  Castle  or  Eileandonan,  and 
Alexander  at  once  despatched  his  son  (our  ance^or 
Hector  Roy)  with  the  shirts  along  with  him,  as  evidence 
of  the  atrocious  deed,  to  report  the  matter  in  Edinburgh. 
His  Majesty,  on  hearing  of  the  crime,  granted  Hector  a 
commission  of  fire  and  sword  against  the  Macleods, 
and  gave  him  a  Crown  Charter  of  the  lands  of  Gairloch 
in  his  own  favour,  dated  1494:.  The  two  murderers 
were  soon  afterwards  slain  near  South  Earadale.  But 
it  took  Eachainn  Ruadh  some  years  with  his  small  army 
of  Kintail  men  before  he  could  drive  the  Macleods  out 
of  their  stronghold  of  >>the  Dun,  or  fort,  on  the  rocky 
peninsula  not  far  from  the  present  Gairloch  Parish 
Church,  and  he  had  many  a  tussle  with  them.  For 
instance,  one  morning  he  had  reason  to  believe  that  some 
of  the  head-men  of  the  Macleods  in  the  Dun  were  to 
try  to  find  their  way  to  the  south  round  the  head  of  the 
small  bay  of  Ceann  t-Sail,  so,  hiding  himself  behind  a 
rock  which  jutted  out  on  the  shore  just  below  the 
present  Gairloch  Bank,  he  waylaid  them.  The  Macleods, 
not  having  any  suspicion  that  the  enemy  was  anywhere 
in  the  vicinity,  came  along  singly,  and  as  each  one 
passed  he  rushed  at  him,  stabbed  him  with  his  dirk, 
and  dragged  his  body  behind  the  rock,  and  was  quite 
ready  for  the  next.  So  his  "  bag  "  was  three  Macleods 
before  breakfast,  and  thus  he  avenged  the  deaths  of 
his  two  little  nephews. 

But  peace  by  no  means  came  at  once,  for  the  Macleods 


20  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

made  various  attempts  to  regain  Gairloch,  as  will  be 
seen  from  the  following  story  taken  from  the  "  History 
of  the  Mackenzies  ":  "A  considerable  number  of  the 
younger  Macleods  who  were  banished  from  Gairloch 
were  invited  by  their  chief  to  pass  Hogmanay  night 
in  the  castle  of  Dun  vegan.    In  the  kitchen  shere  was 
an  old  woman  known  as  Mor  Bhan  (Fair  Sarah),  who 
was  usually  occupied  in  carding  wool,  and  generally 
supposed  to  be  a  witch.    After  dinner  the  men  began 
to  drink,  and  when  they  had  passed  some  time  in  this 
occupation  they  sent  to  the  kitchen  for  Mor  Bhan. 
She  at  once  joined  them  in  the  great  hall,  and  having 
drunk  one  or  two  glasses  along  with  them,  she  remarked 
that  it  was  a  very  poor  thing  for  the  Macleods  to  be 
deprived  of  their  own  lands  of  Gairloch  and  to  have 
to  live  in  comparative  poverty  in  Raasay  and  the  Isle 
of  Skye.    '  But,"  she  said  to  them,  '  prepare  yourselves 
and  start  to-morrow  for  Gairloch,  sailing  in  the  black 
hirlinn  (war-boat),  and  you  shall  regain  it,  and  I  shall 
be  a  witness  of  your  success  when  you  return.'    The  men 
trusted  her,  believing  she  had  the  power  of  divination. 
In  the  morning  they  set  sail  for  Gairloch.    The  black 
galley  was  full  of  the  Macleods.    It  was  evening  when 
they  entered  the  loch.    They  were  afraid  to  land  on 
the  mainland,  for  they  remembered  the  descendants  of 
Domhnall    Greannach    (Rough    Donald,    a    celebrated 
Macrae)  were  still  there,  and  they  knew  the  prowess 
of  these  Kintail  men  only  too  well.    The  Macleods, 
therefore,  turned  to  the  south  side  of  the  loch  and  fastened 
their  hirlinn  to  the  Fraoch  Eilean  (Heather  Island)  in 
the  sheltered  bay  beside  Leac  nan  Saighead  (Slab  of  the 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  21 

Arrows),  between  Shieldaig  and  Badachro.  Here  they 
decided  to  wait  till  morning,  and  then  disembark  and 
walk  round  the  head  of  the  loch.  But  all  their  move- 
ments had  been  well  and  carefully  watched.  Domhnall 
Odhar  Maclain  Leith  and  his  brother  Iain,  the  celebrated 
Macrae  archers,  recognised  the  hirlinn  of  the  Macleods 
and  determined  to  oppose  their  landing.  They  walked 
round  the  head  of  the  loch  by  Shieldaig,  and  posted 
themselves  before  daylight  behind  the  Leac,  a  projecting 
rock  overlooking  the  Fraoch  Eilean.  The  steps  on 
which  they  stood  at  the  back  of  the  rock  are  still  pointed 
out.  Domhnall  Odhar,  being  of  small  stature,  took  the 
higher  of  the  two  ledges  and  Iain  took  the  lower. 
Standing  on  these,  they  crouched  down  behind  the  rock, 
completely  sheltered  from  the  enemy,  but  commanding 
a  full  view  of  the  island,  while  they  were  quite  invisible 
to  the  Macleods  on  the  island. 

"  As  soon  as  the  day  dawned  the  two  Macraes  directed 
their  arrows  on  the  strangers,  of  whom  a  number  were 
killed  before  their  comrades  were  even  aware  of  the 
direction  from  which  the  messenger  of  death  came. 
The  Macleods  endeavoured  to  answer  their  arrows,  but, 
not  being  able  to  see  the  foe,  their  efforts  were  of  no 
effect.  In  the  heat  of  the  fight  one  of  the  Macleods 
climbed  up  the  mast  of  the  hirlinn  to  discover  the 
position  of  the  enemy.  Iain  Odhar,  perceiving  this, 
took  deadly  aim  at  him  when  near  the  top  of  the  mast. 
*  Oh,'  says  Donald,  addressing  John,  '  you  have  sent 
a  pin  through  his  broth.'  The  slaughter  continued,  and 
the  remainder  of  the  Macleods  hurried  aboard  their 
hirlinn.    Cutting  the   rope,   they  turned  their   heads 


22  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

seawards.  By  this  time  only  two  of  their  number  were 
left  alive.  In  their  hurry  to  escape  they  left  all  the 
bodies  of  their  slain  companions  unburied  on  the  island  ! 
A  rumour  of  the  arrival  of  the  Macleods  had  during  the 
night  spread  through  the  district,  and  other  warriors, 
such  as  Fionnlaidh  Dubh  na  Saigheada  and  Fear 
Shieldaig,  were  soon  at  the  scene  of  action,  but  all  they 
had  to  do  on  their  arrival  was  to  assist  in  the  burial  of 
the  dead  Macleods.  Pits  were  dug,  into  each  of  which 
a  number  of  bodies  were  thrown,  and  mounds  were 
raised  over  them  which  remain  to  this  day,  as  anyone 
landing  on  the  island  may  observe." 

Almost  the  last  fight  with  the  Macleods  was  when 
Murdoch  Mackenzie,  second  surviving  son  of  John  Roy 
Mackenzie,  fourth  of  Gairloch,  accompanied  by  Alexander 
Bayne,  heir-apparent  of  TuUoch,  and  several  brave  men 
from  Gairloch,  sailed  to  the  Isle  of  Skye  in  a  vessel  loaded 
with  wine  and  provisions.  It  is  said  by  some  that  Mur- 
doch's intention  was  to  secure  in  marriage  the  daughter 
and  heir  of  line  of  Domhnall  Dubh  MacRuairidh 
(Donald  Macleod).  It  is  the  unbroken  tradition  in 
Gairloch  that  John  Macleod  was  a  prisoner  there,  and 
was  unmarried,  and  easily  secured  where  he  was.  In  the 
event  of  this  marriage  taking  place — failing  issue  by 
John,  then  in  the  power  of  John  Roy — the  ancient  rights 
of  the  Macleods  would  revert  to  the  Gairloch  family 
and  a  troublesome  dispute  would  be  finally  settled. 
Whatever  the  real  object  of  the  trip  to  Skye,  it  proved 
disastrous.  The  ship  found  its  way,  whether  inten- 
tionally on  the  part  of  the  crew  or  forced  by  a  great 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  23 

storm,  to  the  sheltered  bay  of  Kirkton  of  Raasay, 
opposite  the  present  mansion-house,  where  young 
MacGillechallum  of  Kaasay  at  the  time  resided .  Anchor 
was  cast,  and  young  Kaasay,  hearing  that  Murdoch 
Mackenzie  of  Gairloch  was  on  board,  discussed  the 
situation  with  his  friend  MacGillechallum  Mor  Mac- 
Dhomhnaill  Mhic  Neill,  who  persuaded  him  to  visit  the 
ship  as  a  friend  and  secure  Mackenzie's  person  by 
stratagem,  with  a  view  to  getting  him  afterwards 
exchanged  for  his  own  relative,  John  MacAilain  Mhic 
Ruairidh,  then  prisoner  in  Gairloch.  Acting  on  this 
advice,  young  Raasay,  with  MacGillechallum  Mor  and 
twelve  of  their  men,  started  for  the  ship,  leaving  word 
with  his  bastard  brother,  Murdoch,  to  get  ready  all  the 
men  he  could  to  go  to  their  assistance  in  small  boats  as 
soon  as  the  alarm  was  given. 

Mackenzie  received  his  visitors  in  the  most  hospitable 
and  imsuspecting  manner,  and  supplied  them  with  as 
much  wine  and  other  viands  as  they  could  consume. 
Four  of  his  men,  however,  feeling  somewhat  suspicious 
and  fearing  the  worst,  abstained  from  drinking. 
Alexander  Bayne  of  Tulloch  and  the  remainder  of 
Murdoch's  men  partook  of  the  good  cheer  to  excess,  and 
ultimately  became  so  drunk  that  they  had  to  retire 
below  deck.  Mackenzie,  who  sat  between  Raasay  and 
MacGillechallum  Mor,  had  not  the  slightest  suspicion, 
when  Macleod,  seeing  Murdoch  alone,  jumped  up,  turned 
suddenly  round,  and  told  him  that  he  must  become  his 
prisoner.  Mackenzie  of  Gairloch  instantly  started  to 
his  feet  in  a  violent  passion,  laid  hold  of  Raasay  by  the 
waist,   and  threw  him  down,   exclaiming,   "  I  would 


24  A  HUNDEED  YEARS 

scorn  to  be  your  prisoner  !"    One  of  Raasay's  followers, 
seeing  his  young  chief  treated  thus,  stabbed  Murdoch 
through  the  body  with  his  dirk.    Mackenzie,  finding 
himself  wounded,  stepped  back  to  draw  his  sword,  and 
his  foot  coming  against  some  obstruction  he  stumbled 
over  it  and  fell  into  the  sea.    Those  on  shore,  observing 
the  row,  came  out  in  their  small  boats,  and  seeing 
Mackenzie,  who  was  a  dexterous  swimmer,  manfully 
making  for  Sconsar  on  the  opposite  shore  in  Skye, 
they  pelted  him  with  stones,  smashed  in  his  head, 
and  drowned  him.    The  few  of  his  men  who  kept  sober, 
seeing  their  leader  thus  perish,  resolved  to  sell  their 
lives  dearly,  and,  fighting  like  heroes,  they  killed  the 
young  laird  of    Raasay,  along    with  MacGillechallum 
Mor,  author  of  all  the  mischief,  and   his   two   sons. 
Young     Bayne    of    Tulloch    and    his    six    inebriated 
attendants,     who    had    followed    him    down    below, 
hearing  the   uproar  overhead,  attempted  to  come  on 
deck,  but  they  were  killed  by  the  Macleods  as  they 
presented  themselves   through  the  hole.    But   not  a 
soul  of  the  Raasay  men  escaped  alive  from  the  swords  of 
the  sober  four,  who  were  ably  assisted  by  the  ship's  crew. 
Eventually  matters  became  a  little  more  peaceful, 
and  we  Mackenzies  got  Gairloch,  which  has  never  yet 
been  bought  or  sold  !     I  have  occasion  very  frequently 
to  pass  the  little  island  in  Loch  Tollie  and  the  spot 
where  Hector  Roy  slew  the  Macleods.    And  though  I 
have  been  passing  there  now  for  over  seventy  years,  I 
never  do  so  without  realising  that  but  for  the  tragedy 
of  the  island  in  Loch  Tollie,  we  should  never  have  been 
Mackenzies  of  Gairloch,  my  nephew  would  not  be  Sir 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  25 

Kenneth  Mackenzie,  seventh  baronet  of  Gairloch  and 
thirteenth  in  direct  succession  to  Hector  Roy,  and  I 
should  not  be  at  Inverewe  ! 

I  may  mention  that  for  many  generations  the  few 
Macleods  left  in  the  district  were  naturally  very  un- 
popular in  the  parish,  even  as  late  as  my  grandfather 
Sir  Hector's  time.  If  he  asked  a  question  as  to  the  name 
of  a  man,  and  the  man  happened  unluckily  to  be  a 
Macleod,  the  answer  to  my  grandfather  was  certain  to 
be  apologetic,  and  as  follows :  "  Le  hhur  cead  Shir 
Eachainn  se  Leodach  a  th-ann  "  {"  By  your  leave,  Sir 
Hector,  it  is  a  Macleod  that  is  in  him  ").  There  is  one 
thing,  however,  I  must  add  in  favour  of  the  Macleods. 
My  dear  mother  and  I  often  remarked  about  the  few 
scattered  remnants  of  that  clan  among  our  crofter 
population,  that  they  were  distinguished  by  a  very 
superior  personal  beauty .  Often  on  our  making  enquiries 
regarding  a  specially  handsome  family  of  Mackenzies 
or  some  other  clan,  it  would  turn  out  that  the  mother  or 
grandmother  had  been  a  Macleod.  Another  thing  we 
noticed  was  the  similarity  of  the  type  of  face  of  our 
crofter  Macleods  to  our  friends  the  Dunvegan  and 
other  Skye  Macleods.  They  are  usually  tall,  with  pale, 
oval  faces,  blue  eyes,  and  specially  fine  aquiline  noses, 
never  with  flat  and  broad  faces,  with  sandy  hair,  snub 
noses,  and  red  cheeks,  such  as  are  to  be  found  in  other 
clans. 

And  now  I  ought  perhaps  to  say  something  about  what 
Gairloch  did  in  the  '45.  Well,  I  fear  I  can  tell  very  little 
except  that  my  grandfather's  grandfather.  Sir  Alexander, 


26  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

the  second  baronet,  called  the  Tighearna  Crubach  on 
account  of  his  being  lame,  did  not  turn  out  as  did  many 
of  his  clan,  and  although  a  good  many  Gairloch,  Poolewe, 
and  Kenlochewe  men  were  at  the  battle  of  Culloden, 
they  were  followers  of  the  laird  of  Torridon  and  other 
smaller  lairds,  and  were  not  led  there  by  my  ancestor, 
who  succeeded  to  Gairloch  on  his  coming  of  age  in  1721, 
and  therefore  must  have  been  about  forty -six  and  in  his 
prime  at  the  time  of  Culloden.  He  had  hardly  finished 
the  building  of  his  mansion,  the  new  Tigh  Dige,  and 
was  doubtless  proud  of  having  accomplished  the  great 
feat  of  covering  it  with  leacan  gorma  (blue  slabs),  and 
could  not  be  bothered  with  such  dangerous  politics  at 
the  time.  Sir  Alexander  was  a  great  improver  of  his 
property,  and  was  in  all  respects  a  careful  and  good  man 
of  business,  and,  after  Culloden,  when  John  Mackenzie 
of  Meddat  applied  to  him  in  favour  of  Lord  Macleod, 
son  of  the  Earl  of  Cromartie  who  took  so  prominent  a 
part  in  the  rising  of  1745  and  was  in  very  tightened 
circumstances,  Sir  Alexander  replied  in  a  letter  dated 
May,  1749,  in  the  following  somewhat  unsympathetic 
terms :  "  Sir, — I  am  favoured  with  your  letter,  and  am 
extremely  sorry  Lord  Cromartie 's  circumstances  should 
obliege  him  to  solicit  the  aide  of  small  gentlemen.  I 
much  raither  he  hade  dyed  sword  in  hand  even  where 
he  was  ingag'd  then  be  necessitate  to  act  such  a  pairt. 
I  have  the  honour  to  be  nearly  related  to  him,  and  to 
have  been  his  companion,  but  will  not  supply  him  at  this 
time,  for  which  I  believe  I  can  give  you  the  best  reason 
in  the  world,  and  the  only  one  possible  for  me  to  give, 
and  that  is  that  I  cannot.*' 


^ 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  27 

My  uncle,  however,  refers  in  his  Notes  to  the  '45 
period  in  Gairloch,  and  tells  a  story  of  his  great-grand- 
father as  related  by  the  family  bard,  Alasdair  Buidhe 
Maciamhair  (Yellow  Sandy  Mclver).  I  shall  quote 
from  my  uncle's  Notes  about  the  bard: 

"  This  reminds  me  that  one  of  our  summer  evening's 
amusements  was  getting  the  bard  to  the  dining-room 
after  dinner,  where,  well  dined  below  stairs  and  primed 
by  a  bumper  of  port  wine,  he  would  stand  up,  and  with 
really  grand  action  and  eloquence,  give  us  poem  after 
poem  of  Ossian  in  Gaelic,  word  for  word,  exactly  as 
translated  by  Macpherson  not  long  before  then,  and 
stupidly  believed  by  many  to  be  Macpherson's  own 
composition,  though  had  Alasdair  heard  anyone  hinting 
such  nonsense,  his  stick  would  soon  have  made  the  heretic 
sensible  !  Alasdair  could  not  read  or  write  and  only 
understood  Gaelic,  and  these  poems  came  down  to  him 
through  generations  numberless  as  repeated  by  his 
ancestors  round  their  winter  evening  fires;  and  I  have 
known  persons  as  uneducated,  who  could  not  only 
repeat  from  memory  interesting  poems  like  Ossian, 
but  could  work  out  uninteresting  complicated  sums  in 
arithmetic.  Alasdair  related  as  follows:  '  Behind  the 
western  Tigh  Dige  rose  a  mass  of  rock  covered  with 
wood,  with  a  charming  grassy  level  top  about  one 
thousand  feet  above  the  sea,  which  in  the  sheltered 
woody  bay  flowed  within  a  thousand  yards  of  the  old 
chateau.'  Alasdair  told  us  that  in  1745,  when  men-of- 
war  were  searching  everywhere  for  Prince  Charlie,  one 
of  them  came  into  the  bay,  and  the  Captain  sent  word 
to  our  ancestor  to  come  on  board.    The  latter,  who  really 


28    A  HUNDRED  YEARS  IN  THE  HIGHLANDS 

had  not  been  at  Culloden,  although  some  of  his  people 
had,  thought  he  was  quite  as  well  ashore  among  his 
friends,  so  sent  his  compliments  to  his  inviter,  regretting 
he  could  not  accept  his  invitation,  as  he  had  friends  to 
dine  with  him  on  the  top  of  Creag  a  Chait  (the  Cat's  Rock), 
where  he  hoped  the  Captain  would  join  them.  The 
reply  was  a  broadside  against  the  Tigh  Dige  as  the  ship 
sailed  off,  and  I  can  remember  seeing  one  of  the  cannon- 
balls  sticking  half  out  of  the  house  gable  next  to  the  sea, 
apparently  an  18-pound  shot.  Had  it  hit  a  few  feet  lower 
it  might  have  broken  into  a  recess  in  the  thickness  of 
the  gable,  the  admittance  to  which  was  by  raising  the 
floor  of  a  wall-press  in  the  room  above,  although  this 
had  been  forgotten  till  masons  cutting  an  opening  for  a 
gable  door  to  the  kitchen  broke  into  the  recess,  where 
many  swords  and  guns  were  found.  Then  it  was 
recollected  that  Eraser  of  Foyers  was  long  concealed 
by  our  ancestor,  and  of  course  in  this  black  hole.'' 


CHAPTER  III 

CHILDHOOD 

I  CANNOT  say  I  can  remember  my  first  coming  to 
Gairloch,  as  I  was  then  only  about  two  years  old,  but 
there  were  soon  to  be  very  trying  times  there,  during 
the  great  famine  caused  by  the  potato  blight.  I  have 
quite  clear  recollections  of  my  own  small  grievance  at 
being  made  to  eat  rice,  which  I  detested,  instead  of 
potatoes,  with  my  mutton  or  chicken  in  the  years 
1846-1848,  for  even  Uaislean  an  tigh  mhor  (the  gentry 
of  the  big  house)  could  not  get  enough  potatoes  to  eat 
in  those  hard  times.  Certainly  things  looked  very  black 
in  1846-1848  in  Ireland  and  the  West  of  Scotland, 
though,  but  for  the  potato  blight,  when  should  we  have 
got  roads  made  through  the  country  ?  My  mother 
never  left  Gairloch,  not  even  for  a  day,  for  three  long 
years  when  the  famine  was  at  its  height ! 

In  Ireland  a  very  stupid  system  was  started — namely, 
the  making  of  roads  beginning  nowhere  in  particular, 
and  ending,  perhaps,  at  a  rock  or  in  the  middle  of  a  bog. 
It  was  thought  that  working  at  an  object  which  could 
never  be  of  any  use  to  anyone  would  be  so  repugnant  to 
the  feelings  of  the  greater  portion  of  the  population  that 
only  the  dire  stress  of  actual  starvation  would  induce 
them  to  turn  out  for  the  sake  of  the  trifle  of  money,  or 

29 


30  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

one  or  two  pounds  of  maize  meal,  which  constituted 
then  the  daily  wage.  My  mother  was  totally  opposed 
to  this  ridiculous  plan  in  our  district,  and  also  against 
merely  giving  miserable  doles  of  meal,  which  were  barely 
sufi&cient  to  keep  the  population  alive.  Her  plan  was 
to  pay  all  the  able-bodied  men  a  sufficient  wage  in  money 
or  food  to  enable  them  to  do  good  work  themselves 
and  to  support  their  dependents.  So  with  the  help  of 
Government  and  begging  and  borrowing  (I  think) 
£10,000,  she  and  my  uncle  undertook  the  great  responsi- 
bility of  guaranteeing  that  no  one  would  be  allowed  to 
starve  on  the  property.  Thus  the  Loch  Maree  road 
was  started,  and  this  was  about  the  only  thing  which 
could  possibly  open  up  the  country. 

Both  my  half-brothers  were  absent  from  the  country 
at  the  time,  so  I,  as  a  small  boy,  had  the  great  honour 
conferred  on  me  of  cutting  the  first  turf  of  the  new  road. 
How  well  I  remember  it,  surrounded  by  a  huge  crowd, 
many  of  them  starving  Skye  men,  for  the  famine  was 
more  sore  in  Skye  and  the  islands  than  it  was  on  our 
part  of  the  mainland  !  I  remember  the  tiny  toy  spade 
and  the  desperate  exertions  I  had  to  make  to  cut  my 
small  bit  of  turf;  then  came  the  ringing  cheers  of  the 
assembled  multitude,  and  I  felt  myself  a  great  hero  ! 
I  must  have  driven  or  motored  past  that  place  thousands 
of  times  since  that  day,  but  I  never  do  so,  even  if  it  be 
pitch  dark,  without  thinking  of  the  cutting  of  the  first 
turf,  and  the  feeling  of  great  gratitude  to  the  Almighty 
for  His  having  put  into  the  hearts  of  my  mother  and 
uncle  the  strong  determination  to  carry  through  the 
great  work.    Nor  did  they  cease  with  the  finishing  of  the 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  31 

Loch  Maree  road,  but  went  on  witli  local  roads,  sucli  as 
from  Kerrysdale  to  Eed  Point,  Strath  to  Melvaig,  and 
Poolewe  to  Cove;  and  instead  of  the  little  narrow 
switchback  road  from  Slatadale  to  the  Tigh  Dige, 
an  almost  entirely  new  road  was  made  from  Loch  Maree 
to  Gairloch  through  the  Kerry  Glen.  After  the  good 
example  of  the  Gairloch  trustees,  other  neighbouring 
proprietors  followed  suit,  and  the  lairds  of  Gruinord 
and  Dundonnell  in  course  of  time  made  a  road  the  whole 
way  from  Poolewe,  via  Aultbea,  Gruinord,  and 
Dundonnell,  to  join  the  Garve  and  Ullapool  road  at 
Braemore.  This  gave  the  whole  of  the  coast-line  from 
the  mouth  of  Loch  Torridon  to  Loch  Broom  the  benefit 
of  more  or  less  good  highways,  which  are  all  now  county 
roads.  How  well  do  I  remember  the  first  wheeled 
vehicle,  a  carrier's  cart,  that  ever  came  to  Gairloch, 
and  the  excitement  it  caused  ! 

My  uncle  says :  "  There  being  no  need  of  wheels  in  a 
roadless  country  in  my  young  days,  we  had  only  sledges 
in  place  of  wheeled  carts,  all  made  by  our  grieve.  He 
took  two  birch-trees  of  the  most  suitable  bends  and  of 
them  made  the  two  shafts,  with  iron-work  to  suit  the 
harness  for  collar  straps.  The  ends  of  the  shafts  were 
sliced  away  with  an  adze  at  the  proper  angle  to  slide 
easily  and  smoothly  on  the  ground.  Two  planks, 
one  behind  the  horse  and  the  other  about  half-way  up 
the  shaft  ends,  were  securely  nailed  to  the  shafts,  and 
were  bored  with  holes  to  receive  four-foot-long  hazel 
rungs  to  form  the  front  and  back  of  the  cart  and  to  keep 
in  the  goods,  a  similar  plank  on  the  top  of  the  rungs 
making  the  front  and  rear  of  the  cart  surprisingly  stable 


32  A  HUNDKED  YEARS 

and  upright.  The  floor  was  made  of  planks,  and  these 
sledge  carts  did  all  that  was  needed  for  moving  peat, 
and  nearly  every  kind  of  crop.  Movable  boxes  planted 
on  the  sledge  floor  between  the  front  and  back  served  to 
carry  up  fish  from  the  shore  and  lime  and  manure,  and 
it  was  long  ere  my  father  Sir  Hector  paid  a  penny  a  year 
to  a  cartwright.  The  sledges  could  slide  where  wheeled 
carts  could  not  venture,  and  carried  corn  and  hay,  etc., 
famously." 

My  readers  will  perhaps  wonder  how  we  got  our 
letters  before  the  Loch  Maree  road  was  made.  Well, 
there  was  a  mail  packet,  a  small  sloop  which  ran  between 
Stornoway  and  Poolewe  and  carried  all  the  Lews  and 
Harris  letters  for  the  south,  and  which  was  supposed  to 
run  twice  a  week,  though,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  she  seldom 
did  it  even  once.  There  was  a  sort  of  post  office  at 
Poolewe,  to  which  the  Gairloch  and  Aultbea  letters 
(if  there  were  any)  found  their  way,  and  the  whole  lot 
was  put  into  a  small  home-made  leather  bag  which  Iain 
Mor  am  Posda  (Big  John  the  Post)  threw  on  his  shoulder. 
With  this  he  trudged,  I  might  say  climbed,  through  the 
awful  precipices  of  Creag  Thairbh  (the  BulFs  Rock) 
on  the  north  side  of  Loch  Maree,  passing  through 
Ardlair  and  Letterewe,  and  so  on  at  one  time  to  Ding- 
wall, but  latterly  only  to  Achnasheen.  Imagine  the 
letters  and  newspapers  for  the  parish  of  Gairloch  and 
Torridon  (part  of  Applecross),  with  about  6,000  souls, 
and  the  Lews,  with  a  population  of  nearly  30,000 
inhabitants,  all  being  carried  on  one  man's  back  in 
my  day ! 

The  only  possible  way  of  getting  baker's  bread  in 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  33 

those  days  was  by  the  packet  from  Stornoway,  and  a 
big  boy,  John  Grant,  came  over  to  us  at  Gairloch  with 
the  bread  and  the  letters  once  or  twice  a  week.  How 
well  I  can  remember  him  standing,  usually  dripping  wet, 
shivering  in  the  Tigh  Dige  kitchen,  while  the  cook  ex- 
pressed lively  indignation  because  the  bread-bag  was 
soaking  wet.  That  lad  served  me  as  a  man  very  faith- 
fully for  many  years  as  grieve  after  I  bought  Inverewe 
in  1862. 

Only  a  few  years  ago  a  party  of  us  went  from  Inverewe 
and  back  in  order  to  visit  the  Bull's  Rock.  In  more  than 
one  part  of  it  we  could  let  ourselves  down  and  pull 
ourselves  up  only  with  the  help  of  our  stalwart  stalker  ! 
On  one  occasion  a  Post  Office  overseer  from  London, 
who  was  being  sent  to  Stornoway,  and  was  following  Big 
John  on  foot,  fainted  en  route,  and  Big  John  managed 
to  carry  the  fat  official  on  the  top  of  the  mail-bag  for 
several  miles  till  he  reached  Ardlair. 

When  the  first  Sir  Alexander  built  the  Tigh  Dige  the 
timber  was  all  cut  in  the  natural  Scotch  fir  forest  of 
Glas  Leitir  (the  Grey  Slope)  on  the  shores  of  the  upper 
end  of  Loch  Maree,  and  boated  down  the  loch  to  Slata- 
dale,  and  from  there  dragged  by  innumerable  men  and 
ponies  for  seven  miles  over  that  wild  hill  that  separates 
Loch  Maree  from  the  sea  at  Gairloch.  There  was  not  a 
single  mark  of  a  saw  to  be  found  on  the  timbers  of  the 
roof  of  the  Tigh  Dige,  and  they  are  squared  only  by  the 
axe. 

I  spent  the  nine  years  of  my  childhood,  from  1844 
to  1853,  in  the  Tigh  Dige,  and  did  ever  boy  spend  a 
happier  nine  years  anywhere  ?     When  I  was  between 

3 


34  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

three  and  four,  my  dear  mother,  who  was  enthusiastic 
about  Gaelic,  started  me  with  a  little  nursemaid  who 
did  not  know  a  word  of  English,  Seonaid  nic  Mhaoilan 
(Janet  MacMillan).  Well  do  I  remember  her  first 
lesson.  She  took  me  to  a  looking-glass,  and,  turning 
the  glass  up  opposite  me,  she  said,  "  TJiainig  e  "  ("  He  is 
come  ''),  and  then,  reversing  it,  "  Dh'fhalbh  e  "  {"  He 
is  gone  ").  I  learnt  Gaelic  in  a  very  short  time.  My 
good  old  English  nurse,  Emma  Mills,  I  fear,  felt  very 
much  snubbed,  as  she  was  told  when  out  with  us  to 
sit  on  a  stone  and  merely  watch  us  two  playing  together, 
but  not  to  interfere.  Nurse  Emma's  favourite  walk 
was  to  what  she  was  pleased  to  call  the  "  Heagle  'Ouse  " 
(where  a  tame  eagle  was  kept),  and  she  did  not  at 
all  approve  of  my  calling  it  Tigh  na  h-Iolaire  (the 
Eagle  House),  which  was  much  prettier  and  more 
appropriate. 

My  mother  was  one  of  the  very  few  instances  of  a 
grown-up  person  learning  to  speak  Gaelic  quite  fluently, 
but  in  this  she  succeeded  thoroughly,  though  she  always 
retained  a  little  of  bias  na  heurla  (taste  of  the  English). 
She  started  going  regularly  to  church  when  she  under- 
stood only  the  one  word  agus  (and),  and  she  ended  by 
understanding  every  word  of  the  longest  and  most 
eloquent  sermons  preached  by  ministers  like  Dr. 
Kennedy  of  Dingwall  and  others  of  that  calibre.  How 
I  always  bless  my  mother  for  her  determination  that  she 
herself  and  her  two  stepsons  and  I  should  know  Gaelic  ! 
Life  for  me,  living  in  the  west  as  I  have  done,  would 
not  have  been  worth  living  without  Gaelic.  No  servant 
on  the  place,  inside  or  outside,  was  allowed  ever  to  speak 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  35 

English  to  the  young  gentlemen  under  pain  of  being 
dismissed.  Dinner  was  ordered  in  the  kitchen  in  Gaelic, 
and  all  meals  were  announced  by  the  butler  Sim 
Eachainn  in  Gaelic — "  Tha  am  hiadh  air  a  hJiord  le  hJiur 
cead  a  bhaintigJiearna  "  {"  The  food  is  on  the  table,  by 
your  leave,  my  lady  "),  so  the  whole  atmosphere  was 
thoroughly  Gaelic.  My  younger  brother  Francis,  who 
was  very  fluent  in  the  language,  did  not  lose  it  whilst 
for  some  years  in  the  Navy.  When  he  took  a  big  farm 
in  Orkney,  where  no  Gaelic  is  spoken  by  the  natives, 
he  had  so  many  Gairloch  workmen  there  with  him  that 
Gaelic  was  the  order  of  the  day ;  and  how  proud  he  was 
when  John  Mackenzie,  the  clachair  mor  (the  big  mason), 
and  his  three  stalwart  sons  were  able  to  beat  seven  of 
the  best  picked  Orkney  men  at  dry-stone  dyking  ! 
It  was  a  race  between  Gaelic  and  English,  and  Gaelic 
always  won  in  a  canter  !  At  the  death  of  my  elder 
brother.  Sir  Kenneth,  one  of  the  doctors  in  attendance, 
Dr.  Adam  of  Dingwall,  told  me  that  he  v/ent  out  of 
this  world  and  entered  his  eternal  rest  repeating  verse 
after  verse  of  the  Gaelic  Psalms,  which  had  been  taught 
him  by  my  mother  in  his  childhood. 

I  ought  to  mention  here  that  when  my  mother  took 
charge  of  the  property  there  was  only  the  one  parish 
school,  but  she  started  nine  or  ten,  and  her  rule  was  that 
no  child  should  be  taught  English  until  he  or  she  could 
read  simple  Gaelic  first.  What  a  success  her  schools  all 
were,  and  what  intelligent  scholars  they  produced  ! 
Not  long  ago  I  was  in  a  school  where  the  teacher  was 
an  Aberdeenshire  woman  and  the  infant  class  all 
Gaelic-speaking.    They  were  being  taught  a  little  story 


36  A  HUNDEED  YEAES 

about  a  dog  running  after  a  lamb.  How  could  the  poor 
teacher  instruct  intelligently  when  the  little  pupils 
did  not  understand  what  dog  and  lamb  meant  ?  I  had 
to  come  to  the  rescue  and  tell  them  that  dog  meant  cw, 
and  lamb  meant  imn.  Now,  this  sort  of  thing  would 
never  have  happened  in  my  good  mother's  day,  when 
all  teachers  were  bilingual. 

And  now  for  some  more  about  those  delightful  nine 
years  of  my  life  spent  in  the  old  Tigh  Dige.  The  house 
used  to  be  full  up  every  summer  and  autumn.  My  uncle, 
John  Mackenzie,  who  was  factor  for  the  estate,  with  his 
wife,  two  sons,  and  five  daughters,  were  often  there, 
and  lots  of  Hanbury  relations  from  the  south  also  came. 
We  were  such  a  merry  party.  On  one  or  two  occasions 
when  Gairloch  was  let  my  mother  and  I  resided  at 
Poolewe,  either  at  Pool  House  or  in  Inveran  Lodge, 
and  that  gave  me  the  opportunity  of  acquiring  a  wider 
knowledge  of  the  enormous  Gairloch  property  and  its 
population.  I  saw  comparatively  little  of  my  mother 
for  some  years  at  Gairloch,  owing  to  her  being  away  on 
horseback  from  Monday  morning  to  Saturday  night 
superintending  the  making  of  those  miles  of  road  I 
have  spoken  of.  She  was  also  engaged  in  abolishing  the 
old  runrig  system,  under  which  the  wretched  hovels 
of  some  five  hundred  crofters  had  been  built  in  clusters 
or  end  on  to  each  other  like  a  kind  of  street,  so  that 
when  typhus  or  smallpox  broke  out  there  was  no  escape. 
All  the  new  houses  had  to  be  built  each  one  in  the 
centre  of  the  four-acre  croft. 

There  had  never  been  a  doctor  in  Gairloch,  and  my 
mother  doctored  the  whole  parish  for  over  three  years — 


/-e^n-o^    <.^ C/z.c^i^^Tyi.ce' 


./^  (a^yea-nacA^. 


LONBOKiEnWAKD  ARH0L1). 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  37 

a  population  of  about  5,400.  She  was  most  successful, 
and  so  famous  did  she  become  that  on  one  occasion  they 
brought  a  good-sized  idiot,  carried  on  a  man's  back 
in  a  creel  from  Little  Loch  Broom,  to  be  healed,  such 
was  their  faith  in  her  !  But  after  the  doctor  arrived  her 
work  became  a  little  easier,  and  she  began  to  take  me 
constantly  with  her  on  her  riding  expeditions,  my  little 
Shetland  pony  carrying  me  everywhere.  I  then  started 
fishing,  both  on  sea  and  loch,  and  took  up  ornithology 
and  egg-collecting,  in  which  she  encouraged  me  in  every 
possible  way.  When  I  was  about  seven  and  knew  Gaelic 
perfectly,  she  sent  for  a  French  boy  of  twelve  from  a 
Protestant  orphanage  at  Arras  to  come  as  a  sort  of 
page,  and  to  go  out  with  me,  and  I  never  had  any  trouble 
in  learning  French,  which  seemed  to  come  to  me  quite 
naturally.  Edouard,  the  French  boy,  learnt  Gaelic  as 
quickly  as  I  learnt  French,  and  could  be  sent  all  over 
the  country  with  Gaelic  messages. 

How  different  from  nowadays  many  things  were  when 
I  first  remember  Gairloch  !  Such  a  thing  as  a  lamp  I 
never  saw  in  the  Tigh  Dige.  Only  candles  were  used; 
paraffin  was  quite  unknown  and  had  not  even  been  heard 
of;  and  the  black  houses  depended  for  light  chiefly  on 
the  roaring  fires  in  the  centre  of  the  room,  with,  perhaps, 
an  old  creel  or  barrel  stuck  in  the  roof  to  let  out  the 
smoke.  For  use  in  very  exceptional  cases  the  people 
had  tiny  tin  lamps  made  by  the  tinkers  and  fed  with  oil 
made  out  of  the  livers  of  fish  which  were  allowed  to  get 
rotten  before  they  were  boiled  down.  But  the  main 
lighting  at  night  was  done  by  having  a  big  heap  of 
carefully  prepared  bog-fir  sphnters  full    of    resin  all 


38  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

ready  in  a  corner,  and  a  small  boy  or  girl  did  nothing 
else  but  keep  these  burning  during  the  evening,  so  that 
the  women  could  see  to  card  and  spin  and  the  men  to 
make  their  herring-nets  by  hand.  I  do  not  remember 
hemp  being  grown,  as  it  was,  I  believe,  at  one  time  in 
special  sorts  of  enclosures  or  gardens,  and  prepared  and 
spun  for  the  making  of  the  herring-nets.  But  it  was 
common^  done  in  the  west.  I  do  not  think  they  grew 
flax  to  any  great  extent,  but  on  the  east  coast  they  grew 
it  quite  extensively,  and  all  the  Tigh  Dige  sheets  and 
damask  napkins  and  table-cloths  in  lovely  patterns 
were  spun  in  Conon  House,  our  east-coast  home,  and 
woven  in  Conon  village  ! 

I  shall  now  quote  from  my  uncle  to  show  what  a  good 
housekeeper  my  grandmother  was.  He  says:  "  I  doubt 
if  there  ever  was  a  much  better  housekeeper  than  my 
dear  mother,  or  more  busy  and  better  servants  than  in 
those  times.  They  cheerfully  put  hand  to  work,  the 
very  suggesting  of  which  would  startle  the  modern 
ladies  and  gentlemen  who  serve  us.  A  common  sight 
in  the  Conon  kitchen  after  dinner  was  four  or  five  women 
all  the  evening  busy  spinning  and  carding  flax  for 
napery,  or  putting  wicks  into  metal  candle  moulds  in 
frames  holding,  say,  a  dozen,  and  pouring  the  fearful- 
smelling  tallow  into  the  moulds.  In  those  days  I  seldom 
saw  any  candles  but  of  tallow  anywhere,  unless  in 
chandeliers  or  against  walls  where  they  could  not  easily 
be  snuffed;  so  my  wise  mother  made  heaps  of  as  good 
candles  as  she  could  buy  from  the  spare  suet  in  the  house. 
Then,  where  could  a  storeroom  be  seen  like  my  mother's 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  39 

at  Conon  ?  The  room  was  shelved  all  round  with 
movable  frames  for  holding  planks,  on  which  unimagin- 
able quantities  of  dried  preserved  edibles  reposed  till 
called  for.  There  were  jam-pots  by  the  hundred  of 
every  sort,  shelves  of  preserved  candied  apricots  and 
Magnum  Bonum  plums,  that  could  not  be  surpassed  in 
the  world ;  other  shelves  with  any  amount  of  biscuits  of 
all  sorts  of  materials,  once  liquid  enough  to  drop  on 
sheets  of  paper,  but  in  time  dried  to  about  two  inches 
across  and  half  an  inch  thick  for  dessert.  Smoked 
sheep  and  deer  tongues  were  also  there,  and  from  the  roof 
hung  strings  of  threaded  artichoke  bottoms,  dried,  I 
suppose,  for  putting  into  soups.  In  addition,  therc^ 
were  endless  curiosities  of  confectionery  brought  nortl 
by  Kitty's  talents  from  her  Edinburgh  cookery  school, 
while  quantities  of  dried  fruit,  ginger,  orange-peel, 
citron,  etc.,  from  North  Simpson  and  Graham  of  London 
must  have  made  my  dear  mother  safe-cased  in  armour 
against  any  unexpected  and  hungry  invader.  Then  every 
year  she  made  gooseberry  and  currant  wines,  balm  ditto, 
raspberry  vinegar,  spruce  and  ginger  beer.  I  remember 
they  were  celebrated,  and  liqueurs  numberless  included 
magnums  of  camomile  flowers  and  orange-peel  and 
gentian  root  bitters  for  old  women  with  indigestion 
pains." 

My  dear  old  foreman  of  works,  Seoras  Kuairidh 
Cheannaiche  (George  of  Rory  Merchant),  who  was  at  the 
head  of  everything,  and  who  did  everything  for  me  at 
Inverewe  when  I  began  there  in  1862,  used  to  tell  me 
the  difficulty  there  was  in  his  grandfather's  and  even 
in  his  father's  day  in  getting  any  kind  of  planking  and 


40  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

nails  for  cofi&ns.  It  was  a  common  thing,  lie  said,  for 
a  man  going  to  Inverness  on  some  great  occasion  to 
bring  back  a  few  nails  for  bis  own  cofi&n,  so  that  they 
might  be  in  readiness  whenever  the  last  call  came.  The 
ordinary  way  of  interment  in  the  time  of  George's 
grandfather  was  to  have  the  dead  body  swathed  in  blue 
homespun,  carried  on  an  open  bier  to  the  graveyard, 
and  slid  down  into  the  grave.  His  grandfather  could 
remember  when,  if  one  lost  a  hook  when  trout-fishing, 
the  only  way  of  replacing  it  was  to  go  to  Ceard  an 
Oirthire,  the  old  tinker  at  Coast  (a  little  hamlet  on  the 
bay  of  Gruinord)  and  to  get  him  to  make  one,  and  to  tell 
him  to  be  sure  to  put  a  barb  on  it !  And  in  the  days 
of  old  Jane  Charles,  who  was  a  sort  of  connection  of  the 
Gairloch  family,  there  was  only  one  looking-glass  in  the 
district  other  than  in  the  Tigh  Dige,  and  the  girls  had 
to  arrange  their  hair  for  church  or  for  a  wedding  by 
looking  at  their  faces  in  a  pail  of  water  !  I  can  quite 
well  remember  when  not  a  sack  made  from  jute  was  to  be 
seen,  and  one  saw  the  big  sixteen  or  eighteen  feet  rowing- 
boats  on  fine  winter  days  arriving  from  the  outlying 
townships  at  the  mills  at  Strath  or  Boor  piled  up  with 
bags  of  oats  and  barley  (or  rather  bere),  all  in  sheep-skin 
bags,  with  a  certain  amount' of  wool  still  on  their  out- 
sides  to  remind  one  of  their  origin.  It  was  rare  then  to 
see  such  a  thing  as  a  hempen  rope.  Ropes  for  retaining 
the  thatch  on  the  cottages  were  called  seamanan  fraoich 
(heather  ropes)  and  made  of  heather.  Ropes  to  hold 
small  boats  were  generally  made  of  twisted  birch  twigs, 
while  the  very  best  ropes  for  all  other  purposes  were 
made  of  the  pounded  fibre  of  bog-fir  roots,  and  a  really 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  41 

well-made  ball  maitli  guithais  (a  good  fir  rope)  could 
hardly  be  beaten  by  the  best  modern  ropes. 

I  never  saw  a  wire  riddle  for  riddling  corn  or  meal  in 
the  old  days ;  they  were  all  made  of  stretched  sheep-skins 
with  holes  perforated  in  them  by  a  big  red-hot  needle. 
Trout  lines  were  made  of  white  or  other  horsehair,  and 
when  one  stabled  a  pony  at  an  inn,  it  always  ran  the  risk 
of  having  its  tail  stolen  !  Also,  the  only  spoons  in  the 
country  were  those  the  tinkers  made  from  sheep  and 
cow  horns  melted  down.  How  one  used  to  smell  the 
burning  horn  at  the  tinker  encampments  after  dark  ! 

Knives  and  forks  were  hardly  known  in  the  crofter 
houses,  and  everything  was  eaten  with  fingers  and 
thumbs.  Even  now  I  hear  them  say  herrings  and 
potatoes  never  taste  right  if  eaten  with  a  knife  and  fork. 
My  mother  was  one  day  visiting  some  poor  squatter 
families  who  in  those  days  resided  on  Longa  Island, 
and  one  woman  was  very  anxious  she  should  partake 
of  something.  My  mother  was  hungry,  for  she  never 
carried  luncheon  with  her  on  her  long  daily  expeditions 
from  early  morning  to  night,  trusting  to  her  chance 
of  getting  a  bowl  of  milk  and  a  bit  of  oatcake  or  barley 
scone  from  those  she  visited.  Well,  the  poor  woman 
confessed  to  having  no  meal  in  the  house  and  conse- 
quently no  bread;  all  she  had  was  a  pail  of  flounders 
just  off  the  hooks,  and  she  asked  if  the  bantighearna  (lady) 
would  condescend  to  partake  of  one  of  them.  My 
mother  said  she  would,  and  a  flounder  was  instantly 
put  in  a  pot.  When  it  was  boiled  the  woman  took  it 
out,  neatly  broke  it  in  two  or  three  pieces,  and  placed 
them  on  a  little  table  without  plate  or  cloth,  knife  or 


42  A  HUNDKED  YEARS 

fork.  My  mother  set  to  it  with  her  fingers,  and  after- 
wards declared  it  was  the  sweetest  fish  she  ever  tasted. 
When  she  finished  the  woman  brought  her  a  pail  of 
water  to  wash  her  hands  in. 

When  people  chanced  to  have  a  bit  of  meat  they 
could  not  make  what  we  should  call  broth,  because  they 
had  no  pot  barley  and  no  turnips  or  carrots,  onions  or 
cabbage,  to  put  in  it;  so  they  thickened  the  water  in 
which  the  meat  had  been  boiled  with  oatmeal,  and  this 
was  called  in  Gaelic  eanaraich  (broth).  It  was  placed 
in  the  middle  of  the  table,  and  everyone  helped  them- 
selves with  their  horn  spoons. 

Perhaps  a  few  of  my  readers  are  aware  that  almost 
within  my  own  recollection  the  blacksmiths  on  our 
west  coast  did  all  their  own  smithy  work  with  peat 
charcoal.  Coal  was  rarely  imported  before  1840,  and 
all  the  oak  had  been  cut  down,  turned  into  charcoal, 
and  used  by  Sir  George  Hay  in  his  small  furnaces  or 
bloomeries  towards  the  end  of  1500  and  the  early  years 
of  1600,  so  there  was  nothing  to  fall  back  on  but  peat 
charcoal,  which  I  have  always  been  told  was  quite  a  good 
substitute.  I  can  just  recollect  the  Gobha  Mor  (the 
Big  Blacksmith)  at  Poole  we.  He  was  the  last  smith 
who  used  it,  and  with  whom  died  the  knowledge  and 
skill  required  to  make  it. 

I  wonder  also  if  it  is  known  that  on  our  west  coast, 
before  tar  was  imported  from  Archangel,  the  inhabitants 
produced  their  own  tar.  When  the  late  Lord  Elphin- 
stone  bought  Coulin  in  Glen  Torridon  he  used  a  great 
deal  of  the  old  native  Scots  fir  in  the  building  of  the 
lodge.    One  day,  after  a  large  number  of  the  trees 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  43 

had  been  cut  down,  lie  and  I  started  counting  tlie  natural 
rings  on  the  stems  of  the  trees,  and  found  that  they 
averaged  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  old.  My 
attention  was  drawn  by  Lord  Elphinstone  to  the  fact 
that  nearly  every  one  of  the  trees  had  had  a  big  auger- 
hole  bored  into  it  just  above  the  ground-level.  He  was 
told  by  the  old  folk  in  the  neighbourhood  that  these 
holes  had  been  bored  by  the  Loch  Carron  people  to 
produce  tar  for  their  boats.  We  could  see  the  marks 
of  the  auger-holes  in  numbers  of  the  trees  that  were  still 
standing,  as  well  as  in  those  that  had  been  cut  down. 

What  far  happier  times  those  good  old  days  were  than 
these  we  are  living  in  now  !  Even  the  seasons  seemed 
more  "  seasonable  "  and  the  summers  far  hotter.  What 
an  abundance  of  cherries  there  was  at  Gairloch  even  in 
my  days  in  the  forties  and  fifties,  and  these  crops  were 
supposed  to  be  degenerate  in  comparison  with  the  grand 
fruity  years  of  the  twenties  !  There  were  about  four  or 
five  big  trees  of  red  early  cherries  and  one  of  black  late 
Guines,  and  never  did  they  seem  to  fail.  No  amount  of 
blackbirds,  ring-ouzels,  nor  any  number  of  boys  and 
girls,  seemed  to  have  the  slightest  effect  on  themx,  and 
they  never,  in  my  recollection,  failed  to  be  laden.  At 
long  last,  however,  they  had  to  give  in  to  old  age  and 
were  blown  down  one  by  one;  but  though  my  elder 
brother  took  great  trouble  to  plant  new  ones  of  specially 
good  varieties,  there  has  never,  I  believe,  been  another 
cherry  in  the  Baile  Mor  garden,  the  new  kinds  evident  1}^ 
failing  to  suit  the  soil  or  climate. 

I  now  quote  from  my  uncle  as  to  the  seasons  in  his 
day :   "  What  long,  hot  days  we  used  to  have  then 


44  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

compared  with  the  present  short,  lukewarm  ones,  that 
no  sooner  begin  than  they  end  disgracefully  !  Astron- 
omers tell  us  their  registers  show  that  the  present 
seasons  are  just  the  same  as  in,  say,  1812 — seventy  years 
ago.  What  stuff  and  nonsense  !  In  those  happier  times 
everybody  had  summer  as  well  as  winter  clothing. 
Who  dreams  of  such  extravagance  now  in  the  north  ? 
Not  a  soul  at  least  of  the  male  animals,  who  for  months 
in  summer  wore  nankeen  jackets  and  trousers;  I  was 
grown  up  ere  I  could  give  up  my  large  stock  of  Russian 
duck  summer  clothes.  How  a  clothier  nowadays  would 
stare  if  I  asked  for  a  suit  of  nankeen  or  duck  for  summer 
clothing  !  Well  do  I  remember  days  before  we  migrated 
to  the  west  in  May,  going  down  to  the  Conon  River  to 
bathe  with  my  brothers  and  dawdling  away  our  time 
naked,  making  mill  dams  or  dirt-pies  on  the  sandy  shore, 
and  on  putting  on  my  shirt  feeling  as  if  there  were  pins 
inside.  On  examination  there  were  several  big  water 
blisters  on  my  back,  needing  a  needle  to  empty  them, 
and  many  days  elapsed  before  they  were  healed  up. 
Whoever  nowadays  hears  of  such  blistering  sun  ?  Then 
in  our  Conon  garden,  the  extensive  walls  of  which  were 
covered  with  apricot,  peach,  and  nectarine  trees,  every 
year  there  were  loads  of  fine  and  well-ripened  fruit 
for  five  most  healthy  urchins  who  had  a  free  run  of  the 
garden  to  eat  up  as  fast  as  it  ripened.  And  where, 
in  that  garden,  or  now  in  my  own  still  warmer  garden, 
is  a  living,  growing  peach  or  nectarine  to  be  found  ? 
Every  one  dead  for  want  of  sun  to  ripen  the  wood  ere 
winter  killed  it.  In  our  Conon  garden  a  splendid 
filbert-tree,  perhaps  twenty-four  feet  high,  with  a  stem 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  45 

as  thick  as  my  body,  every  year  bore  bushels  of  as  fine 
full  filberts  as  were  ever  exhibited,  till  old  John  Fraser, 
ruined  by  having  a  vinery  put  up  for  him  about  sixty 
feet  north  of  the  filbert,  actually  cut  it  down  on  the  sly 
when  we  were  in  Gairloch,  from  an  idea  that  it  might 
possibly  shade  the  vinery  !  I  never  saw  my  father 
in  a  hurry  or  passion  or  heard  him  swear,  but  sure  I  am 
that  when  he  came  to  the  vacant  site  of  the  filbert,  friends 
would  have  avoided  listening  to  his  sotto  voce  comments 
on  that  day.  But  old  John,  perhaps,  was  only  looking 
forward  to  the  shocking  seasons  to  come,  when  money 
could  not  discover  a  ripe  common  hazel-nut.  There 
have  been  no  nuts  of  late  years  in  our  woods,  which 
used  regularly  to  produce  splendid  crops.  Hundreds 
of  sacks  of  nuts,  every  one  full  to  the  neck,  were  sent 
in  cartloads  to  the  Beauly  markets  and  to  every  town 
and  village;  the  nutcrackers  became  a  regular  nuisance, 
paving  every  street  and  road  and  room  with  shells  for 
months ;  the  whole  people  in  the  country  seemed  to  live 
with  their  pockets  full  of  nuts,  and  the  price  was 
fabulously  low.  What  utter  nonsense  to  talk  of  the 
temperature  now  being  what  it  was  seventy  years  ago  ! 
It  might  do  for  the  marines,  but  the  sailors  won't  listen 
to  it. 

"  We  used,  I  believe,  as  a  matter  of  duty  always  to 
be  settled  in  the  west  for  the  summer  before  the  4th  of 
June,  which  was  the  King's  birthday,  and  on  that  day 
we  never  failed  to  have  a  big  china  bowl  after  dinner 
with  a  pail  of  cream  that  "  wad  mak  a  cawnle  of  my 
fingers  "  to  wash  down  the  first  strawberries  of  the 
season.     Don't   I   remember  their  delicious   smell   in 


43  A  HUNDEED  YEARS 

the  house,  and  their  taste  too  !  North  CaroUnas  the 
gardener  called  them.  And  now  in  the  same  garden, 
but  certainly  not  the  same  climate,  no  strawberry  thinks 
itself  called  upon  to  ripen  until  a  month  later.  The  same 
temperature  as  seventy  years  ago  !  What  fools  we  must 
be  supposed  to  be  by  those  rascals  of  astronomers  ! 

"  And  we  always  had  a  few  cherries  to  serve  up  on 
the  4th  of  June  also  !  Was  there  ever  such  a  mass  of 
cherries  either  before  or  since  as  in  the  Tigh  Dige  garden, 
sheltered  from  every  cold  wind  and  held  up  to  the  sun 
by  all  that  could  be  desired  in  woods  and  mountains  ? 
And  were  there  ever  five  boys  and  a  tutor  better  able 
to  make  an  impression  on  the  cherry-trees  ?  Our  be- 
loved tutor  told  me  years  afterwards  of  one  thing  that 
was  a  weight  on  his  mind — namely,  that  having  dropped 
one  forenoon  999  cherry-stones  from  his  mouth  into 
his  fishing-bag,  he  was  suddenly  called  away  and  pre- 
vented finishing  his  thousand  at  one  go.  Our  old 
Nathaniel,  John  Eraser,  our  eastern  gardener,  having 
two  sons  at  Conon  with  the  same  turn  for  fruit  as  we 
had,  schemed  to  save  the  peaches  and  nectarines  he 
wanted  for  his  employer.  Every  night  before  stopping 
work  he  raked  nicely  all  the  soil  borders  ere  he  made 
himself  cosy  at  the  fireside  with  his  slippers  on  instead 
of  heavy  wet  shoes.  Yet  he  was  much  surprised  to  miss 
many  a  lovely  peach  he  was  sure  he  left  on  the  tree  the 
previous  evening.  And  lo  and  behold,  there  were  the 
thief's  footmarks  all  over  the  raked  border  !  So  he  out 
with  the  foot-rule  and  thought  he  would  soon  discover 
the  criminal.  But  the  mystery  deepened  when  he 
found  that  the  shoes  which  fitted  the  footmarks  on  the 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  47 

border  were  his  own.  It  never  occurred  to  the  old 
innocent  to  imagine  that  his  son  had  put  on  his  shoes 
while  he  was  at  tea,  and  thus  safely  supped  on  apricots 
and  peaches,  without  any  risk  of  the  footmarks  betraying 
the  thief." 

Before  bringing  to  an  end  this  talk  about  our  changed 
climate  I  shall  give  one  more  proof  of  it — viz.,  the 
almost  entire  disappearance  of  the  wild  bee. 

I  often  heard,  when  I  was  young,  that  in  the  Lews 
(whose  poetical  name  in  Gaelic  is  Eilean  an  Fhraoicb 
(the  Heather  Island)  bees  were  so  plentiful  in  the  olden 
times  that  the  boys  were  able  to  collect  large  quantities 
of  wild  honey,  which,  by  applying  heat  to  it,  was  run 
into  glass  bottles  and  sold  at  the  Stornoway  markets. 
Hunting  for  wild-bees'  nests  was  one  of  the  great  plays 
for  the  boys  in  the  autumns,  but  nowadays  this  amuse- 
ment is  never  thought  of.  Even  in  the  sixties  my  good 
and  faithful  grieve  John  Grant,  when  at  the  head  of  his 
squad  (long  before  mowing  machines  were  ever  thought 
of),  used  to  be  quite  annoyed  at  the  continual  hindrance 
to  the  scythe  work  through  men  stopping  to  raid  bees' 
nests  in  the  grass,  and  losing  time  in  eating  the  honey 
and  the  ceir  (bee-bread),  and  pretending  they  could  not 
go  back  to  their  work  owing  to  the  attacks  of  the  in- 
furiated bees  !  Nowadays,  even  if  one  by  any  chance 
comes  upon  a  wild-bees'  nest,  it  contains  little  or  nothing 
in  the  way  of  honey.  My  old  sheep  manager,  Alexander 
Cameron,  better  known  to  his  many  friends  as  the 
Tournaig  Bard  on  account  of  his  being  such  a  good 
Gaelic  poet  and  improvisatore,  owned  a  collie  dog  in 


48       A  HUNDRED  YEARS  IN  THE  HIGHLANDS 

the  sixties  which  learned  to  point  at  bees'  nests.  On 
one  occasion  when  he  was  taking  quite  a  short  turn  on 
one  of  his  beats  on  my  property  his  dog  found  thirty 
bees'  nests  for  him,  some  of  which  contained  quite  a 
saucerful  of  honey  and  bee-bread.  Nowadays  an 
egg-cup  would  hold  all  the  honey  one  could  find  in  a 
long  summer's  day. 

Cameron  tells  me  that,  as  a  young  boy,  before  he  left 
his  home,  there  was  an  island  in  Loch  bhad  a  chreamha 
(Lake  of  the  Clump  of  Garlic)  where  there  was  no 
necessity  for  hunting  for  bees'  nests,  as  the  whole  island 
seemed  under  bees,  the  nests  almost  touching  each  other 
in  the  moss  at  the  roots  of  tall  heather.  As  may  be 
imagined,  that  island  was  a  very  popular  resort  of 
the  Naast  boys.  My  stalker,  too,  informs  me  that 
his  home  at  Kernsary  used  to  be  quite  famous  for  its 
wild  bees,  but  they  finally  disappeared  just  nineteen 
years  ago. 

So  much  for  our  degenerate  climate  ! 


CHAPTER  IV 
BOYHOOD 

My  dear  mother  was  indefatigable  in  finding  amusements 
for  me  and  for  all  the  rest  of  the  young  people.  Collect- 
ing gulls' eggs  on  the  islands  of  Loch  Maree  was  a  favourite 
pastime.  We  went  on  many  an  expedition  in  May  and 
June,  and,  under  the  best  of  guides,  Seumas  Buidhe 
(Yellow  James),  the  weaver  at  Slatadale,  and  his  big 
apprentice,  we  used  to  get  from  150  to  200  eggs  in  an 
afternoon.  With  the  exception  of  perhaps  three  or 
four  pairs  of  herring  gulls  and  about  the  same  number 
of  the  greater  black  backs  (which  always  bred  singly 
on  isolated  rocks),  the  whole  gull  population  consisted 
of  thousands  of  lesser  black  backs,  which  are,  I  believe, 
our  only  migratory  gulls.  Now,  alas  !  they  are  all  but 
gone.  Before  my  time  the  great  breeding-place  of  the 
gulls  was  the  big  island  of  Eilean  Ruaridh  Mor  (Rory's 
Big  Island).  Then  the  gulls  suddenly  left,  the  popular 
belief  of  the  cause  of  their  desertion  being  that  some 
party  had  gone  birds '-nesting  on  a  Sunday  !  But  I 
believe  my  father  cleared  up  the  mystery ;  he  found  out 
that  a  shepherd  with  his  dog  had  landed  on  the  island  in 
the  winter  following  the  desertion  of  the  gulls,  and  that 
the  dog  had  caught  and  killed  a  big  pine  marten.  The 
animal  was  so  thin  as  to  be  little  more  than  a  skeleton ; 
it  had  evidently  driven  the  gulls  to  such  a  pitch  of 

49  4    . 


50  A  HUNDEED  YEARS 

exasperation  by  eating  their  eggs  and  young  ones  that 
at  last  they  had  suddenly  deserted  Eilean  Ruaridh  Mor 
and  made  for  Garbh  Eilean,  Eilean  Suthainn,  and  other 
smaller  islands  where  we  used  to  go.  It  is  interesting  to 
speculate  how  the  marten  got  to  the  island,  seeing  that 
Loch  Maree  never  freezes. 

How  certain  memories  stick  to  one  through  life  ! 
Never  shall  I  forget  one  birds '-nesting  expedition  when 
I  was  a  very  small  boy,  perhaps  about  six.  I  was 
wandering  alone  through  the  tangle  of  dwarf  trees  and 
tall  heather  intent  on  trying  to  get  more  eggs  than 
anyone  else  of  the  party,  and  had  managed  to  fill  every 
pocket  I  had,  besides  having  two  or  three  eggs  in  each 
little  hand.  Suddenly  I  slipped  among  the  rocks,  and 
my  reader  can  imagine  the  state  my  clothes  and  I  were 
in  when  I  rose  to  my  legs  ! 

In  June  and  July  our  expeditions  consisted  in  going 
to  one  of  the  best  trout  lochs  in  Scotland,  Loch  na 
h-Oidhche  (the  Night  Loch),  so  called  because  the  trout 
in  it  were  supposed  to  take  all  night  long.  Fly  was  never 
thought  of.  We  had  three  or  four  stiff  larch  rods  with 
rowan  tops,  string  for  lines,  and  a  hook  at  the  end  baited 
with  earth-worms.  Two  men  rowed  the  boat,  we 
trolled  the  lines  behind,  and  we  used  to  get  perhaps  from 
80  to  100  lovely  golden-yellow  trout,  from  half  a  pound 
to  a  pound  in  weight.  They  ran  rather  heavier  on  the 
Gorm  Lochanan  (Blue  Lakelets)  a  little  beyond  Loch 
na  h-Oidhche.  Sometimes  we  put  up  at  the  Poca 
buidhe  (Yellow  Bag)  bothy,  but  its  roof  in  those  days 
was  very  leaky,  and  there  was  little  to  be  gained  by 
being  under  its  protection. 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  51 

I  used  sometimes  to  long  to  pass  the  night  instead  in 
Uaimh  Bhraodaig,  a  spot  where  my  father  and  uncles 
had  spent  many  nights  when  deer-stalking,  and  where 
there  was  room  for  two  or  three  fellows  to  lie  down  close 
together.  Uaimh  is  Gaelic  for  "  cave,"  but  it  was 
hardly  a  cave :  it  was  only  a  sort  of  hole  under  a  gigantic 
fragment  of  rock  in  the  wildest  cairn  I  ever  saw,  with, 
perhaps,  the  exception  of  Carn  nan  Uaimhag,  at  the 
back  of  Beinn  Airidh  Charr.  I  shall  give  my  uncle's 
description  of  it: 

"  When  we  went  to  the  hill  for  deer,  expecting  to  be 
home  at  night,  after  an  early  breakfast,  we  never  dreamt 
of  taking  anything  but  a  heel  of  cheese  from  the  dairy 
with  some  thick  barley  scone,  a  favourite  bread  down- 
stairs, and  handy  as  never  crumbling  in  one's  pocket. 
But  it  happened  to  me  when  I  came  on  deer  late  at 
night,  as  I  have  often  done,  I  could  not  get  home  till 
next  day.  Once  night  fell  on  me  when  alone  ten  miles 
from  home  with  a  stag  and  hind  that  I  had  not  finished 
gralloching  ere  it  was  so  dark  that  I  could  hardly  see 
my  way  to  a  large  stone  called  Uaimh  Bhraodaig,  which 
gave  tolerable  protection  to  two  or  three  people  in  need 
from  the  rain  and  wind  in  those  hills.  I  managed, 
however,  and  on  my  way  startled  a  foolish  old  grouse, 
who,  not  caring  a  straw  for  me,  perched  on  a  great  stone 
so  nicely  between  me  and  the  evening  star  that  he  got 
a  little  round  hole  from  my  rifle  that  qualified  him  for 
supping  with  me,  when  skinned  hot  and  made  into  a 
spatch-cock  that  needed  no  sauce  to  be  enjoyed  ex- 
tremely, the  cheese  and  scone  having  disappeared  by 
midday .    My  friend  and  I  j  ust  reached  Uaimh  Bhraodaig 


52  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

in  time  to  gather  some  of  the  large  heather  sticks  found 
near  such  rough  ground,  and  with  my  flint  and  tinder 
box  (for  lucifers  were  a  pleasure  yet  to  come)  I  got  up 
a  little  fire  for  cooking  and  warming  my  wet  feet  before 
I  rolled  my  plaid  about  me  as  bed  and  bedding.  That 
reminds  me  that,  often  as  I  have  slept  on  the  hill  sound 
enough  till  cockcrow,  I  never  saw  anyone  who  could  sleep 
through  the  early  morning  chill,  even  though  dry  and 
stuffed  into  a  heap  of  dry  heather.  Uaimh  Bhraodaig 
was  half-way  up  the  eastern  shoulder  of  Beinn  an  Eoin 
(the  Bird  Mountain),  and  for,  say,  500  yards  all  round 
it  was  a  heap  of  great  stones  left  there  by  Noah,  bad 
enough  to  clamber  over  in  daylight,  but  detestable  in 
the  dark,  and  only  to  be  endured  in  preference  to  a 
long,  cold,  wet  night  on  the  open  hill.  I  had  roasted  and 
finished  my  much-admired  grouse,  and  had,  of  course, 
taken  off  my  wet  shoes — wet  leather  ensuring  cold  feet 
all  night,  whereas  even  with  wet  stockings,  if  I  stuffed 
my  feet  into  a  bundle  of  dry  heather  they  generally 
got  warm  enough  not  to  prevent  sleep.  I  was  just 
dozing,  lulled  by  the  croaking  of  some  ptarmigan  (their 
song  sounds  so  different  from  that  of  the  red  grouse  or 
black  game)  as  they  flew  from  the  hill-tops  in  the  evening 
to  sup  on  the  heather  they  can  only  get  lower  down. 
A  Yorkshire  farmer  who  had  been  sent  to  our  parts 
used  to  insist  that  gravel  must  be  their  food,  as  nothing 
else  was  within  their  reach  on  the  hill-tops  !  Suddenly 
I  heard  a  very  different  music  from  that  of  the  ptarmigan, 
evidently  the  voices  of  people,  some  of  whom  were  so 
out  of  temper  that  it  was  anything  but  psalmody  which 
in  the  dead  calm  night  floated  up  some  hundred  yards 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  53 

to  my  annoyed  ears  quite  clearly.  The  sweet  songsters 
of  the  hill  were  benighted  poachers  making  for  Uaimh 
Bhraodaig,  and  as  we  were  alone  and  preferred  having  no 
bed-fellows,  I  handled  my  rifle  and  went  outside.  I 
distinctly  heard  very  ugly  language  regarding  the  quality 
of  the  road  over  which  they  were  scrambling  and 
stumbling  much  more  than  they  liked  in  their  iron-shod 
shoes;  so,  making  my  voice  sound  as  unearthly  as 
possible,  I  groaned  out  loudly  in  Gaelic, '  Who  is  there  ? 
Wait  till  I  get  you."  There  was  instant  silence,  and  then 
such  a  scrimmage  and  capering  about  on  the  big  stones 
as  sent  me  back  to  my  bundle  of  heather  delighted  to 
be  left  with  no  comrades  but  the  ptarmigan  till  daylight. 
Years  after  I  learnt  that  two  lovers  of  venison  more 
than  of  law  had  been  out  on  a  private  stalk,  and  had 
a  miraculous  escape  from  Satan,  who  nearly  got  them 
on  the  hill  at  night  V 

I  myself  was  told  as  a  boy  a  terrible  story  connected 
with  Uaimh  Bhraodaig,  and  I  give  it  here  as  told  to  me. 
A  hrocair  (fox-hunter),  being  benighted  on  the  hill 
somewhere  near  the  upper  end  of  Beinn  an  Eoin,  thought 
the  only  thing  to  do  was  to  pass  the  night  in  Uaimh 
Bhraodaig.  Some  time  during  the  night  a  terrible 
apparition  appeared  to  him,  and  he  fled  before  it, 
accompanied  by  his  two  lethchoin  (lurchers),  and  ran  as 
never  man  ran  before.  Across  his  path  was  the  Garab- 
haig  River,  which  flows  into  Loch  Maree.  He  took  a 
flying  leap  across  one  of  its  chasms,  which  was  quite 
beyond  the  powers  of  any  ordinary  human  being,  and 
landed  on  the  other  side,  but  both  his  dogs,  which 
attempted  to  follow  him,  fell  into  the  river  and  were 


54  A  HUNDEED  YEARS 

drowned.  The  brocair  was  quite  a  young  man,  and  had 
not  a  grey  hair  in  his  head  when  he  entered  Uaimh 
Bhraodaig,  but  by  the  time  he  reached  the  first  house  in 
Talladale  his  head  was  as  white  as  driven  snow.  This 
story  was  believed  to  be  quite  true  by  everyone  when 
I  was  a  boy. 

Birds '-nesting  expeditions  were  also  made  to  the 
islands  of  Loch  Maree  after  ospreys'  eggs.  There  were 
two  eyries  there,  one  of  them  in  a  real  curiosity  of  a 
place — ^namely,  in  Eilean  Suthainn,  one  of  the  biggest 
of  the  islands  in  Loch  Maree.  There  is  a  small  loch, 
and  in  this  loch  (the  depth  of  which  is  about  double 
that  of  the  neighbouring  Loch  Maree),  there  is  an  island 
on  which  stood  one  big  Scots  fir.  In  it  was  the  ospreys' 
nest,  as  large  as  a  waggon-wheel,  with  three  eggs.  It 
was  lined  with  lumps  of  wool  and  bits  of  cow-dung, 
and  lying  at  the  foot  of  the  tree  I  found  a  dead 
mallard,  which  appeared  to  have  been  freshly  killed 
by  the  ospreys  !  There  was  another  fir-tree  where  they 
bred  on  a  promontory  nearly  opposite  Isle  Maree, 
from  which  I  got  two  eggs.  But,  alas  !  the  birds  have 
been  extinct  in  that  region  for  at  least  sixty-five 
years. 

There  were  expeditions  to  eagles'  nests  on  the  Creag 
Cheann  Dubh  (the  Black-headed  Rock)  in  Beinn  a  Bhric 
and  on  a  rock  opposite  the  Garbh  choire  of  Bathais 
Bheinn.  There,  wonderful  to  say,  we  were  able  to 
walk  into  the  nest.  We  were  too  late  for  the  eggs,  but 
we  found  two  good-sized  eaglets,  and  there  were  five 
whole  grouse,  quite  freshly  killed,  lying  near  them,  as 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  55 

beautifully  plucked  by  the  parent  eagles  as  any  well- 
trained  kitchen-maid  could  have  done. 

I  had  often  heard  that  shepherds  made  great  use  of 
eagles*  nests  to  fill  their  larders,  and  my  uncle  cor- 
roborates as  follows :  "  Eagles  sometimes  built  where 
not  even  a  rope-dancer  could  get  at  them — a  sad  case  for 
shepherds,  who  were  accused  of  concealing  the  where- 
abouts of  their  nests  when  in  accessible  places.  It  was 
said  that  they  tethered  the  eaglets  to  the  nest  long  after 
they  could  fly,  because  until  the  young  birds  left  the  nest 
the  parents  never  ceased  to  bring  quantities  of  all  sorts  of 
game  to  feed  them,  quite  half  of  which  was  said  to  go 
to  the  shepherds'  larder.  A  shepherd  admitted  to  me 
that  he  once  took  a  salmon  quite  fresh  out  of  a  white- 
tailed  eagle's  nest.  Fawns,  hares,  lambs,  and  grouse 
were  brought  in  heaps  to  the  nest  for  months — an  agree- 
able variety  at  the  shepherd's  daily  dinner  of  porridge 
and  potatoes  and  milk." 

We  also  made  expeditions  seawards  to  Eilean  Fuara 
and  the  Staca  Buidh  (Yellow  Stack).  My  pet  terrier 
Deantag  (Nettle)  was  the  first  in  my  time  to  discover 
the  stormy  petrels  nesting  in  large  numbers  in  the  cracks 
of  the  dry,  peaty  soil.  None  of  the  natives  had  been 
aware  of  this  fact,  because  the  petrels  when  breeding 
never  show  themselves  in  the  daytime.  Fuara  thus 
became  quite  famous  among  ornithologists,  but  of  later 
years  steam  drifters  have  been  in  the  habit  of  leaving 
their  herring-nets  stretched  out  on  the  island  for  days 
to  dry,  and  that  finished  the  poor  little  "  stormies," 
which,  like  so  many  other  birds,  have  disappeared. 

This  is  what  my  uncle  says  about  stormy  petrels  in 


56  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

Longa :  "On  Sundays  when  there  was  no  service  in 
Gairloch  Church  my  father  often  booked  us  boys  for  a 
sail  in  his  charming  thirty-foot-keel  barge  to  visit  some 
of  the  townships  round  the  coast  and  have  a  kindly 
word  with  the  people,  or  even  a  scold,  though  that  was 
rarely  needed.  Sometimes  we  landed  for  a  walk  on 
Longa  Island.  It  was  about  half  a  mile  in  diameter, 
all  glens  and  moor,  with  good  grass,  which  was  kept 
for  wintering  for  the  young  of  the  sixty  Tigh  Dige  cows, 
so  that  they  might  be  in  the  best  of  condition  when  ready 
for  market  the  following  year,  dressed  in  their  beautiful 
long,  shining  coats,  the  pride  of  Highland  cattle.  We 
often  came  home  with  faces  nicely  painted  with  blae- 
berry juice  and  also  crowberries,  for  that  most  coveted 
wild  fruit  grew  in  Longa.  When  it  was  found  out  that 
Longa  was  our  destination,  a  little  dog  was  often  put 
into  the  barge  to  help  us  to  discover  if  one  of  the  stormy 
petrels  ('  Mother  Carey's  Chicken '),  who  loved  wild 
Longa  as  a  breeding-place,  was  at  home  in  the  peat- 
holes  or  under  flat  stones,  which  were  generally  chosen 
by  *  Mrs.  Carey  '  as  a  waterproof  covering  for  her  wee 
white  egg  or  little  black,  tiny  pet.  Doggie  always  knew 
by  the  wild,  fishy  smell  whether  '  Mrs.  Carey  '  was  at 
home  or  not,  and  thus  saved  us  much  Sunday  digging 
in  our  endeavours  to  bring  her  to  Tigh  Dige  to  be  shown 
to  the  dear  mother.'* 

In  winter  and  early  spring,  when  there  were  no  birds' 
eggs  to  be  got,  my  mother  and  I  used  to  fish  vigorously. 
We  had  a  good  crew  always  ready,  and  setting  cod- 
lines  was  great  sport.    I  remember  that  on  a  certain 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  57 

fine  sunny  February  morning  the  long  lines  had  been  set 
as  usual  overnight  close  off  Longa  Island,  and  we  thought 
it  a  good  opportunity  to  try  for  otters.  There  was  a 
spring  tide,  and  big  George  Ross,  the  keeper,  with  his 
gun  and  terrier  formed  part  of  the  crew.  We  lifted 
our  lines,  and  our  small  fourteen-foot  row-boat  could 
hardly  contain  the  fish — sixty  full-sized  cod  and  two 
giant  haddocks.  Then  we  landed  and  tried  the  cairns 
along  the  shore  without  success,  so  we  began  cutting 
of!  the  cods'  heads  and  getting  rid  of  their  insides  to 
lighten  the  boat.  While  engaged  in  this  we  missed 
the  terrier,  Bodach  (Old  Man),  and  soon  we  heard  a 
faint  yelping  high  up  in  the  interior  of  the  island,  where 
he  had  discovered  otters.  We  followed  him,  and  the 
keeper,  leaning  down  and  peering  in,  thought  he  could 
see  the  eyes  of  an  otter  a  good  way  inside  the  cairn,  so 
he  let  of!  the  gun  into  the  hole  and  killed  it !  Imme- 
diately another  otter  bolted  and  made  across  the  heather 
for  the  sea.  Everyone  tore  downhill  after  it,  and  some- 
one giving  it  a  lucky  blow  with  a  stick,  it  was 
secured  before  reaching  the  water.  We  came  back 
with  a  nice  mixed  cargo. 

My  uncle  was  not  so  lucky.  He  says :  "  We  boys  had 
of!ers  out  for  young  otters  which  we  meant  to  train  to 
fish  for  us  at  command,  and  one  day,  to  our  great  delight, 
a  lad  brought  to  Tigh  Dige  a  creel  with  four  young  otters. 
They  were  the  size  of  kittens  a  month  old,  such  dear 
little  pets,  and  we  instantly  procured  a  tub  of  their 
native  element,  into  which  we  emptied  the  little  darlings. 
To  our  amazement,  they  yelled  and  strove  like  mad  to 
get  out  of  the  tub.    Then  came  old  Watson  the  keeper 


58  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

and  took  a  look  at  them,  and  lie  ruined  all  our  hopes  by 
quietly  telling  us  they  were  young  polecats  !" 

In  this  manner  the  days  and  the  years  passed  by  very 
happily.  Nor  was  my  education  being  neglected.  I 
was  always  being  taught  a  little,  first  by  my  old  nurse, 
and  afterwards  by  my  mother's  lady  companion,  who 
taught  me  English  and  Gaelic.  I  also  went  to  a  Gaelic 
Sunday-school  class  and  thoroughly  learnt  my  Gaelic 
Shorter  Catechism;  and  the  French  boy  read  French 
with  me  under  the  direction  of  my  mother.  It  was  not 
the  fashion  in  our  family  for  the  boys  to  be  sent  to 
school.  My  grandfather's  plan  was  to  have  tutors, 
who  spent  the  summers  and  autumns  with  the  boys  at 
Gairloch,  and  who  went  with  them  during  the  winter  to 
Edinburgh,  where  they  attended  classes.  None  of  my 
four  uncles  nor  my  father  was  ever  at  school,  and  it  was 
my  father's  special  wish  that  his  sons  should  be  brought 
up  in  the  same  manner. 

I  do  not  think  it  could  be  possible  for  any  two  young 
men  to  turn  out  greater  successes  than  my  two  half- 
brothers,  the  late  Sir  Kenneth  S.  Mackenzie  and  his 
brother.  Sir  Kenneth  was  far  and  away  the  most 
esteemed  man  in  the  county  of  Ross.  He  was  appointed 
Chairman  of  the  Commissioners  of  Supply  and  Con- 
vener of  the  County  Council,  was  at  the  head  of  every- 
thing that  was  good,  and,  like  his  grandfather,  was 
Lord-Lieutenant  of  the  County.  My  second  brother, 
Francis,  was  quite  as  great  a  man,  and  equally  beloved 
and  respected.  I  quite  agree  with  my  grandfather  and 
father  that  Eton  and  Harrow,  Oxford  and  Cambridge, 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  59 

do  not  by  any  means  produce  the  best  men  as  Highland 
proprietors;  such  training  just  turns  them  into  regular 
Sassenachs !  It  is  surely  better  that  a  Highlander 
should  be  something  a  little  different  from  an  English- 
man. When  they  are  sent  to  English  schools  as  small 
boys  of  eight  or  nine  years  old,  and  their  education  is 
continued  in  the  south,  they  lose  all  their  individuality. 
They  may  be  very  good,  but  they  have  nothing  Highland 
about  them  except  the  bits  of  tartan  they  sport,  which 
were  probably  manufactured  in  the  south  and  their 
kilts  tailored  in  London  !  My  uncle  writes  that  his 
father,  Sir  Hector,  nnd  his  wife,  the  hhantighearna  ruadh 
(the  auburn  lady)  as  she  was  always  called,  spoke 
Gaelic  to  each  other  as  often  as  they  did  English.  To- 
day my  daughter  and  I  do  the  same.  Why  should  the 
present  chiefs  and  lairds  call  themselves  Highland  if 
they  can't  speak  a  word  of  the  language  of  their  people 
and  country  ?  One  would  not  call  a  man  a  Boer  in 
South  Africa  if  he  could  not  speak  a  word  of  Dutch,  nor 
call  a  man  a  French-Canadian  if  he  could  not  converse 
in  the  French  of  his  country,  even  though  it  be  some- 
thing of  a  patois.  Then,  again,  many  of  the  lairds  are 
so  unpatriotic  as  to  have  forsaken  the  Church  of  their 
forefathers.  Instead  of  worshipping  with  their  tenantry 
and  their  servants  in  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  their 
neighbourhood,  they  motor  great  distances  to  some 
chapel  where  they  can  find  very  ritualistic  services  and 
probably  hear  only  a  very  poor  sermon. 

A  distinguished  lady  remarked  to  me  quite  lately 
that  the  three  best  educated  and  most  intelligent  and 
most  charming  men  she  had  ever  come  across  in  the 


60  A  HUNDKED  YEARS 

course  of  her  life  had  never  been  to  a  public  school; 
and  if  I  were  asked  who  was  all  round  the  most  intel- 
ligent and  best  educated  man  I  ever  came  across,  I 
should  say  it  was  my  uncle  John  Mackenzie.  He  also 
was  never  at  a  public  school. 

One  of  the  charms  of  the  good  old  times  in  the  High- 
lands was  the  strong  family  affection  shown  to  relatives, 
even  if  not  very  near  kin.  My  grandfather,  Sir  Hector, 
had  two  younger  half-brothers,  General  John  Mackenzie 
and  Captain  Kenneth  Mackenzie.  The  General  was 
known  as  *'  Fighting  Jack,'"  and  had  distinguished 
himself  in  the  Peninsular  War  and  fought  also  at  the 
Cape,  India,  Sicily  and  Malta,  while  the  Captain  was  in 
all  the  great  battles  of  his  time  in  India.  When  they 
were  disbanded  after  the  great  war  they  were  naturally 
drawn  to  the  homes  of  their  youth,  and  my  grandfather 
gave  the  younger  one,  Captain  Kenneth,  the  farm  of 
Kerry sdale,  A  Chathair  bheag  (the  Little  Throne  or 
Seat),  which  then  included  part  of  what  is  now  the 
Gairloch  deer-forest.  There  he  built  a  house  and  reared 
a  large  family  of  children  and  grandchildren,  and  thus 
he  resided  within  about  a  mile  of  the  Tigh  Dige  for,  I 
think,  about  seventy  years.  General  John  passed  a 
good  part  of  his  life  at  Eiverford,  and  at  Balavil  Farm, 
close  to  the  east-coast  family  mansion  of  Conon.  In 
these  modern  times  I  often  hear  the  horrid  and  unnatural 
assertion  that  it  is  disagreeable  having  one's  relatives 
all  round  one.    So  much  for  the  twentieth  century  ! 

How  I  loved  my  two  old  grand-uncles  !  They  were 
such  pattern  gentlemen  of  the  old  school.  The  General 
always  accosted  me  in  Gaelic  when  I  was  taken  to  see 
him  in  Inverness,  where  he  latterly  lived,  and  would  ask 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  61 

me  which  parts  of  Loch  Gairloch  were  fishing  best.  He 
said  his  heart  was  in  Gairloch,  and  a  common  saying  of 
his  was  that  he  would  rather  meet  a  dog  from  Gairloch 
than  the  grandest  gentleman  from  any  other  place.  I 
always  felt  it  a  feather  in  my  cap  having  known  so  well 
my  grand-uncle,  who  had  served  under  the  Earl  of 
Cromartie,  who  had  fought  at  Culloden  on  Prince 
Charlie's  side  !  General  John  raised  a  whole  company 
of  a  hundred  men  for  the  78th  Kegiment  of  Eoss-shire 
Highlanders,  every  man  of  them  from  the  Gairloch 
property,  and  he  died  in  1860,  aged  ninety-seven, 
honoured  and  beloved  by  everyone.  He  had  been  sent 
to  France  as  a  boy  and  spoke  French  like  a  Frenchman, 
and  his  good  Gaelic  was  a  great  help  to  him  among  his 
devoted  men  when  fighting  the  French  in  the  Peninsula. 
Speaking  of  his  manners,  my  mother  often  told  me  that 
when  living  at  Pviverford,  near  Conon,  he  used  to  look 
in  constantly  in  the  afternoons,  and,  after  a  chat,  when 
he  left  the  room  he  always  found  his  way  out  without 
turning  his  back  on  his  hostess. 

It  was  such  a  joy  to  me  as  a  child  walking  over  to 
Kerrysdale  and  being  spoilt  there  with  the  kindness 
and  hospitality  of  old  Uncle  Kenneth  and  Aunty  Flora 
and  their  charming  daughters  and  grandchildren.  I 
remember  so  well  in  1861  or  1862,  when  I  was  about 
nineteen,  going  to  call  on  my  old  grand-uncle  Kenneth  at 
Kerrysdale,  he  being  then  past  ninety.  On  my  telHng 
him  that  I  was  thinking  of  buying  Inverewe,  he  brightened 
up,  and  told  me  that,  when  he  was  an  ensign  of  only 
fifteen,  one  of  the  first  jobs  he  had  to  do  after  getting 
his  commission  was  to  go  with  a  party  of  non-commis- 
sioned officers  and  men  to  get  recruits  from  Aird  House, 


62      A  HUNDRED  YEARS  IN  THE  HIGHLANDS 

the  home  of  the  laird  of  Gruinord.  The  lady  of  Gruinord, 
the  BantigJiearna  hhuidh  (the  Yellow  Lady),  was  at  the 
time  very  keen  to  get  a  commission  for  her  son.  This 
could  be  managed  if  she  provided  a  certain  number  of 
so-called  recruits,  so  she  turned  her  ground  ofHcers  into 
a  press-gang;  they  kidnapped  a  number  of  lads,  sons 
of  her  numerous  small  tenants,  and  these  she  had  safely 
confined  in  a  black  hole  under  the  Aird  House  staircase. 
It  has  always  been  said  that  she  greased  the  soles  of  the 
feet  of  these  lads  and  semi-roasted  them  opposite  the 
fire  until  they  were  so  tender  that  even  if  they  escaped 
from  the  black  hole,  they  could  not  go  far  !  And  it  was 
to  fetch  these  unfortunates  that  my  grand-uncle  was 
sent  as  a  boy  with  his  armed  force.  They  made  a  very 
early  start  from  Aird  House,  and  he  breakfasted  with  our 
relatives,  the  Lochend  Mackenzies,  at  Inverewe,  where 
they  then  lived  in  a  long,  low  house  thatched  with 
heather.  I  give  the  menu  of  his  breakfast,  which  he 
distinctly  remembered.  It  consisted  of  a  roast  leg  of 
mutton  and  a  big  wooden  bowl  of  raspberries  and  cream. 
And  he  finished  up  his  story  by  saying:  *'  And  if  you, 
Osgood,  make  a  garden  there,  I  guarantee  you  will  grow 
good  raspberries  in  it.'' 

We  were  not  very  expert  at  flowers  in  those  days  in  the 
Baile  Mor  garden,  but  Lios  na  cathracJia  hige  (the  Kerry s- 
dale  garden)  was  more  up  to  date,  my  grand-uncle  being, 
like  most  of  the  Gairlochs,  keen  on  flowers  and  trees. 
I  shall  always  remember  the  smell  of  Daphne  and  Ribes 
there,  and  the  big  clumps  of  Gladiolus  cardinalis,  which 
was  not  common  in  those  days,  and  the  lines  of  Christmas 
roses,  which  flourished  and  bloomed  in  winter  and  early 
spring  and  formed  edgings  to  the  garden  walks. 


CHAPTER  V 
YOUTH 

When  I  was  about  eight  years  of  age  a  tutor  was  got 
for  me,  and  I  had  one  with  me  from  then  till  I  was 
eleven,  when  I  left  Gairloch  for  Germany.  I  was  very 
keen  about  sport  of  every  kind,  and  one  day,  when  I  was 
about  nine,  my  mother  told  me  that  as  soon  as  I  could 
swim  twenty  yards  she  would  order  a  little  gun  for  me. 
I  quickly  learned  to  swim  at  the  lovely  big  sands  at 
Gairloch,  being  taught  by  two  or  three  girl  cousins  who 
were  expert  swimmers;  so  one  day  a  twenty  yards 
length  of  rope  was  bought,  each  end  was  held  by  a  very 
pretty  lassie,  and  after  a  fearful  struggle  I  accomplished 
my  task.  That  night  a  little  single-barrelled  muzzle- 
loader  weighing  only  three  pounds  was  ordered  from  a 
gun-maker  in  London.  Some  wise  folk  thought  my 
mother  was  making  a  great  mistake  by  letting  me  start 
shooting  so  early,  one  of  the  chief  reasons  brought  for- 
ward being  that  I  should  soon  become  quite  blase  and 
should  not  enjoy  sport  when  I  grew  up  to  manhood. 
But  all  these  prophecies  were  completely  falsified,  as  I 
was  the  keenest  of  sportsmen  all  my  life,  until  I  gave  up 
the  gun  when  I  was  over  seventy. 

Few  men  have  done  more  shooting  in  the  course  of  their 
lives  than  I  have.    Before  I  began  to  shoot  I  used  to 

love  to  go  out  with  our  old  butler,  Sim  Eachainn,  with  a 

63 


64  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

single-barrelled  flint  gun.  I  fancy  there  are  few  now 
living  who  can  remember  the  use  of  flint  guns,  but  I 
am  one  of  those  who  can,  and  this  special  gun  invariably 
misfired  when  some  rare  or  interesting  bird  was  shot  at. 
But  this  was  not  so  much  the  case,  I  fancy,  when  my 
grandfather  and  his  sons  all  shot  with  flint  "  Joe 
Mantons,''  because  their  flints  worked  better. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  what  there  was  to  shoot  in 
those  far-back  days  of  my  grandfather.  Well,  there  were 
grouse,  but  not  too  many,  my  father  and  his  brothers 
always  going  to  Leacaidh,  in  the  heights  of  Kenlochewe, 
which  was  the  best  grouse  ground  then .  There  was  nothing 
like  the  number  of  grouse  killed  in  the  parish  of  Gairloch 
in  those  days  as  in  the  seventies  and  eighties ;  and  there 
were  not  so  many  deer  either.  But  there  were  lots  of 
black  game  in  the  woods,  and  ptarmigan  on  the  high 
tops,  and  a  good  many  partridges;  and  though  there 
were  plenty  of  fine,  fat  brown  hares  all  round  the  crofter 
townships  and  wherever  there  was  cultivation,  there 
were  few  blue  hares  to  be  found  except  as  great  rarities 
on  the  summits  of  the  highest  hills.  As  for  rabbits, 
they  were  unknown  in  the  county  until  my  grand- 
father introduced  them  to  Conon  from  England.  I 
give  my  uncle's  account  of  this  introduction  of  the 
bunny : 

"  My  father,  alas  !  sent  for  rabbits  to  England.  In 
due  time  they  arrived,  having  finished  every  turnip 
with  which  they  had  started  and  seemingly  none  the 
worse  of  their  travels — the  darling  lovely  little  pets  ! 
Our  minds  were  distracted  wondering  how  best  we  could 
protect  them  from  the  nasty,  greedy  foxes.    We  carried 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  65 

the  hamper  to  some  sandy  banks  in  Dugarry,  and,  as  the 
rabbits  might  weary  if  left  to  dig  holes  for  themselves, 
busy  hands  and  spades  soon  built  up  twenty  or  thirty 
foot  refuges  of  turf,  like  six-inch  square  drains,  at  the 
end  of  which,  if  they  pleased,  they  might  in  due  time 
dig  holes  for  themselves.    To  our  great  joy,  the  dear 
little  innocents  every  morning  showed  plenty  of  new 
holes  dug,  so  that  they  soon  were  safe  from  their  enemies. 
In  a  very  short  time  we  found  troops  of  little  bunnies 
trotting  about,  so  that  one  or  two  were  shot  as  samples 
of  such  a  wise  investment  in  game .    This  took  place  over 
seventy  years  ago,  and  from  this  colony  the  whole  north 
is  now  swarming  with  the  pests.    And  yet  I  have  never 
heard  of  anyone,  planter,  farmer,  or  gardener,  who  has 
suggested  a  monument  to  my  father  for  conferring  such  a 
benefit  on  the  Highlands  \" 

There  was  so  much  vermin  in  those  days  that  the  so- 
called  gamekeepers  were  in  reality  only  game-killers,  and 
vermin  trappers  were  only  just  then  being  started.  In 
the  old  times  all  the  lairds  had  in  that  line  was  a  sealgair 
(hunter)  who  provided  their  big  houses  with  venison 
and  other  game ;  for,  until  my  father  and  uncles  started 
stalking,  not  a  Gairloch  laird  had  ever  troubled  himself 
to  kill  deer  either  for  sport  or  for  the  larder.  The  vermin 
consisted  of  all  kinds  of  beasts  and  birds,  a  good  many 
of  which  are  now  extinct .  The  fork-tailed  kites  swarmed, 
and  I  have  heard  that  the  first  massacre  of  them  that 
took  place  was  when  my  father  poisoned  with  strychnine 
the  dead  body  of  a  young  horse  which  had  been  killed 
by  falling  over  a  rock  on  Creag  a  Chait  (the  Cat's  Rock), 

5 


66  A  HUNDKED  YEAKS 

behind  tlie  Tigh  Dige.  The  last  kite  had  disappeared 
before  my  time.  There  were  plenty  of  pine-martens  and 
polecats  and  some  badgers  even  in  my  young  days. 
My  mother  used  to  have  an  average  of  forty  or  fifty 
skins  of  martens  brought  to  her  by  the  keepers  every 
year,  of  which  she  made  the  most  lovely  sable  capes  and 
coats  for  her  sisters  and  lady  friends.  The  pine  martens, 
the  polecats,  and  the  badgers  are  all  quite  extinct  with 
us  now,  but  they  were  all  still  in  existence  when  I  bought 
Inverewe. 

My  uncle  in  his  Notes  says  that  when  he  was  a  lad 
the  Magnum  Bonum  plums  were  being  raided  from  off 
the  south  wall  of  the  Tigh  Dige  garden,  and  to  try  and 
guard  them  the  gardener  covered  the  tree  with  several 
folds  of  herring-net.  On  the  following  morning  what 
did  my  uncle  see  struggling  in  the  net  but  a  big  marten, 
which  he  shot.  Its  inside  was  found  packed  full  of  the 
yellow  plums,  but  it  was  clever  enough  to  avoid  swallow- 
ing the  stones,  which  were  found  in  heaps  on  the  top  of 
the  wall. 

I  was  stalking  when  a  boy  of  sixteen  on  the  steep 
braes  above  Loch  Langabhat  in  the  deer  forest  of 
Morsgail,  in  the  Lews,  and  as  I  was  crawling  along  on 
my  hands  and  knees  I  saw  in  front  of  me,  jammed  up 
against  a  low  gravel  bank,  a  dead  sheep.  It  happened 
that  owing  to  the  formation  of  the  ground  my  keeper 
and  I  and  the  Morsgail  stalker  were  able  to  raise  ourselves 
to  standing  position  without  spoiling  the  stalk,  and  on 
turning  over  the  sheep  what  should  we  find  under  it  but 
a  large  marten  squashed  pretty  flat.  We  understood 
at  once  what  had  happened.    The  marten  had  pinned 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  67 

tlie  sheep  by  the  throat,  the  sheep  had  torn  downhill,  and 
just  as  it  was  on  the  point  of  giving  in  from  loss  of  blood 
had  jammed  itself  with  all  its  might  against  the  gravel 
bank.  Unfortunately  for  the  marten,  there  was  a  sharp 
stone  sticking  out  of  the  bank,  and  the  sheep,  with  more 
luck,  I  fancy,  than  good  management,  had  rammed  the 
marten,  about  the  region  of  the  heart,  against  this  stone 
and  so  had  its  revenge.  I  doubt  whether  anyone  else 
has  ever  had  such  an  experience. 

Before  finishing  my  marten  stories  I  shall  tell  what 
happened  at  Inverewe  about  the  forties.  Lambs  and 
sheep  were  being  killed,  and  the  fox-hunter  was  sent  for. 
Right  up  on  a  very  wild  part  of  the  property  in  Carn 
na  craoibhe  caorainn  (the  Cairn  of  the  Rowan-tree), 
near  the  Fionn  Loch,  the  hounds  had  several  times 
lost  the  scent  of  what  was  supposed  to  be  a  fox  at  the 
foot  of  an  enormous  perched  boulder  which  we  now 
call  Clach  mhor  nan  Taghan  (the  Great  Stone  of  the 
Martens).  To  look  at  the  boulder  one  would  imagine 
it  was  impossible  for  anything  but  a  bird  to  alight  on 
its  top,  but  a  pair  of  martens  had  managed  to  do  so 
by  making  tremendous  springs  from  the  ground  on  to  a 
slight  ledge  half-way  up  the  stone.  There  was  a  huge 
mass  of  peat  and  heather  on  the  top  of  the  boulder. 

Spades  having  been  sent  for,  the  martens  were  un- 
earthed, and,  as  they  sprang  from  the  diggers,  they 
and  their  young  ones  jumped  into  the  mouths  of  the 
fox-hounds  and  lurchers.  Thus  ended  the  martens  of 
"  Castle  Marten,"  as  a  friend  of  mine,  the  late  Dr.  Warre 
of  Eton  College,  christened  the  boulder.  Readers  will 
wonder  that  martens  would  kill  sheep.     I  was  once, 


68  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

however,  informed  by  a  very  intelligent  hrocair  (fox- 
hunter),  who  had  been  head  fox-hunter  for  the  whole 
county  of  Sutherland,  that  when  a  marten  started 
killing  sheep  it  was  worse  than  a  fox,  and  would  kill 
even  three-year-old  wedders. 

My  uncle  tells  of  a  fox-hunter's  pack  which  found  the 
scent  of  something  that  was  supposed  to  be  a  fox  on 
the  hillside  above  the  Tigh  Dige.  The  hounds  ran  the 
track  for  three  or  four  miles,  the  fox-hunter  and  his 
gillies  following  as  best  they  could,  until  the  pack  came 
to  a  dead  stop  on  the  shore  of  Loch  Tollie,  just  opposite 
the  small  island  where  the  awful  tragedy  connected  with 
our  family  in  the  days  of  the  Macleods  took  place. 
Thinking  it  was  a  fox  which  had  crossed  to  the  island,  the 
fox-hunter  swam  over,  followed  by  his  mongrel  pack, 
and  what  did  they  find  there  but  a  huge  wild-cat,  still 
dripping  wet,  and  its  six  kittens,  the  latter  hard  at 
work  eating  a  freshly  killed  grouse  which  their  mother 
had  brought  them.  They  needed  no  more  grouse  after 
that  interview  !  What  a  deal  of  thought  pussy  must 
have  given  to  the  matter  before  she  made  up  her  mind 
that  the  only  chance  of  saving  her  kittens  from  the 
detested  fox-hunter  was  to  keep  on  swimming  across 
Loch  Tollie,  until  they  were  old  enough  to  leave  the 
island. 

My  uncle  used  also  to  mention  the  case  of  a  ganger 
searching  for  a  sack  of  malt  or  the  copper  worm  of  a 
still  he  had  heard  was  hidden  in  the  Castle  Leod  Raven 
Rock  above  StrathpefTer.  He  poked  his  stick  into  a 
wild-cat's  nest  among  her  kittens,  and  in  a  second,  unable 
to  escape  past  him,  she  flew  at  him,  so  that  he  missed 


IN  THE  HIGHLAJ^DS  69 

his  footing,  fell  to  the  bottom  of  the  rock,  and  broke 
his  leg.  Had  not  some  tourists  visited  the  rock  two 
days  afterwards  he  would  have  lain  and  died  where 
he  fell. 

A  fox  was  lately  found  dead  and  quite  fresh  on  an 
island  in  one  of  the  lochs  on  my  own  property.  There 
was  no  doubt  that,  though  foxes  are  not  fond  of  water, 
this  one  had  made  the  island  his  home  during  the  daytime. 
On  his  way  back  after  a  night's  ramble  he  had  eaten  an 
egg  containing  strychnine,  and  had  only  just  managed 
to  swim  over  to  the  island  when  he  dropped  down  dead. 

I  soon  became  a  good  shot  with  my  little  gun,  though 
it  weighed  only  three  pounds,  and,  strange  to  say,  I 
started  on  snipe.  Of  course  I  could  not  kill  them  flying, 
but  to  help  me  there  came  a  very  severe  snowstorm 
and  hard  frost,  and  whilst  the  grown-ups  were  shooting 
woodcocks  in  the  coverts  my  tutor  and  I  went  snipe- 
shooting  at  the  few  streams  and  springs  which  were  still 
open.  I  had  very  good  eyes,  but  my  tutor's  eyes  were 
even  better,  and  he  could  generally  see  the  snipe  squatted 
among  the  dead  grass  and  bits  of  ice,  and  he  would  call 
out,  "  Shoot  two  inches  to  the  right  of  that  red  leaf," 
or  "  three  inches  to  the  left  of  that  black  stone,"  and 
as  soon  as  the  smoke  had  disappeared  (and  there  was 
a  lot  of  smoke  in  those  days  of  black  powder)  there  would 
be  a  dead  full-snipe  or  jack-snipe,  and  very  occasionally 
a  woodcock.  In  this  manner  I  got  fifty  or  sixty  snipe 
in  a  week,  which  I  was  proud  of  being  able  to  send  to 
friends  in  England.  Before  I  grew  old  enough  to  use 
a  big  double-barrelled  "  Dickson  "  I  did  perfect  wonders- 
with  my  little  three-pounder,  and  was  the  cause  of  the 


70  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

death  of  two  wild  swans  and  several  roe,  my  mother 
having  persuaded  Eley  to  make  me  little  half-charged 
wire  cartridges  loaded  with  BB  shot  and  slugs.  As  I 
grew  older  and  became  a  better  shot  I  was  given  a  small 
rifle,  and  ornithological  expeditions  of  several  days  were 
made  to  the  Shiant  Islands  in  a  smack  with  a  tent,  etc. 

Never  shall  I  forget  the  joy  of  those  trips  in  lovely  hot 
days  at  the  end  of  May  or  beginning  of  June.  The 
Shiant  Islands  are  in  the  Minch  about  thirty  miles  from 
Gairloch,  and  much  nearer  the  shores  of  the  Lews  and 
Harris.  They  were  a  revelation  to  us,  not  only  on  ac- 
count of  the  myriads  of  sea-birds  of  every  sort  and  kind 
on  them,  but  because  their  geological  formation  was  quite 
different  from  that  of  our  mainland  or  that  of  the  Long 
Island,  for  they  are  composed  of  trap  rock  and  are 
basaltic,  and  show  columns  like  Staff  a  and  the  Giant's 
Causeway. 

On  each  of  these  expeditions  to  the  Shiant,  before 
reaching  them  we  ran  into  Loch  Na  Shealg  (Loch  Shell) 
in  the  Lews,  and  landed  at  a  big  crofter  township  named 
Leumrabhaigh  (I  believe  the  Sassenachs  now  spell  it 
Lemmerway).  There  we  got  a  good  supply  of  herring, 
partly  for  our  own  consumption,  but  chiefly  for  bait 
for  our  long  lines,  which  the  crew  set  and  we  lifted,  in 
the  sort  of  horseshoe  bay  formed  by  the  three  islands, 
though  according  to  my  recollection  two  of  them  are 
joined  together  at  low  tide.  What  hauls  of  fish  we  got ! 
Often  there  were  cod  and  ling  and  huge  congers  on 
almost  every  hook ;  but  the  best  of  all  in  our  eyes  were 
the  Bradanan  leathan  (broad  salmon,  as  the  halibut  are 
called  in  Gaelic) .    It  is  a  rule  among  the  fishermen  that 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  71 

if  one  feels  something  extra  strong  on  a  long  line,  which 
might  be  a  halibut,  the  name  Bradan  leathan  or  halibut 
must  never  be  uttered  until  the  monster  is  safe  at  the 
bottom  of  the  boat,  otherwise  it  is  certain  to  escape  ! 

The  natives  of  Leumrabhaigh  told  us  they  made 
expeditions  to  the  Shiant  Islands  for  puffins,  and  brought 
back  boatloads  of  them  because  they  valued  the  feathers. 
They  also  enjoyed  big  pots  of  boiled  puffins  for  their 
dinners  as  a  welcome  change  from  the  usual  fish  diet. 
They  told  us  how  they  slaughter  the  puffins.  They 
choose  a  day  when  there  is  a  strong  breeze  blowing 
against  the  steep  braes  where  the  puffiins  breed,  and  the 
lads  then  lie  on  their  backs  on  these  nearly  perpendicular 
slopes  holding  the  butt-ends  of  their  fishing-rods.  These 
stiff  rods  would  be  about  nine  or  ten  feet  long.  Holding 
them  with  both  hands,  they  whack  at  the  puffins  as  they 
fly  past  them  quite  low  in  their  tens  of  thousands,  and 
whether  the  puffin  is  killed  outright  or  only  stunned  he 
rolls  down  the  hill  and  tumbles  on  the  shore  or  into  the 
sea,  where  the  rest  of  the  crew  are  kept  busily  employed 
gathering  them  into  the  boat. 

The  puffin-killing  reminded  me  of  the  way  I  used  to 
get  hauls  of  rock-pigeons  in  a  cave  at  night  on  the  wild 
rocky  coast  beyond  the  crofter  township  of  Mellon 
Charles,  and  actually  in  sight  of  the  Shiant  Islands. 
There  are  a  number  of  caves  which  used  to  be  well 
stocked  with  rock  pigeons  in  the  sixties  and  seventies, 
and  one  of  them  had  comparatively  smooth  sides  with 
a  square  mouth.  Just  before  dark  we  used  to  drive  the 
pigeons  from  the  other  caves  into  this  one,  which  we 
called  the  netting  cave,  and  then,  when  it  was  pitch 


72  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

dark,  a  herring-net  weighted  with  stones  at  the  bottom 
was  let  down  from  the  top  of  the  rocks  over  the  cave's 
mouth.    By  lifting  the  net  our  boat  glided  in.    We  were 
armed  with  two  short,  stiff  fishing-rods,  and  carried  a 
big  pot  of  burning  peats  and  splinters  of  resinous  bog-fir, 
which  lighted  up  the  cave.    To  make  the  pigeons  fly 
out  of  the  innermost  recesses,  we  flung  burning  peats 
from  time  to  time  in  as  far  as  we  could,  which  made  a 
fresh  batch  of  birds  fly  out  against  the  net.    Oh,  the 
excitement  of  it  as  we  whacked  away  at  them  flying 
round  and  round  the  big  cave  !     The  pigeons  had  a 
good  sporting  chance  of  escape,  for  the  net  could  never 
be  made  to  fit  the  inequalities  in  the  edge  of  the  cave, 
and  we  were  quite  contented  if  we  got  from  twenty  to 
twenty-five  birds.    To  add  to  the  excitement  there  were 
generally  several  shags   (cormorants)  roosting  in  the 
cave  besides  the  pigeons,  and  we  always  did  our  best  to 
get  them,  though  they  very  soon  found  out  that  their 
safety  consisted,  not  in  fluttering  up  against  the  net 
like  the  pigeons,  but  in  taking  a  header  into  the  water 
and  escaping  to  the  ocean  by  diving  under  the  net. 

In  1851  my  mother,  who  was  always  fond  of  showing 
me  everything,  planned  a  little  tour  in  Normandy, 
finishing  up  with  Paris,  and  this  was  a  real  joy.  It 
was  mostly  done  in  diligences ;  we  generally  had  the 
coupe,  while  Sim  Eachainn  (Simon  Hector),  the  butler, 
swore  at  the  beggars  in  Gaelic  from  the  banquette. 
What  an  amount  of  delicious  greengages  and  pears  I 
consumed  on  that  journey  !  The  only  drawback  to  the 
trip  was  the  remarks  of  rude  little  French  boys,  who, 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  73 

because  I  was  dressed  in  the  kilt,  mistook  me  for  a 
Cliiiiaman,  and  called  me  le  petit  CJimois.  What  a  lot 
of  good  that  trip  did  me,  and  how  it  opened  my  eyes  ! 
If  my  dear  mother  had  not  had  me  thoroughly  taught 
French  in  Gairloch  I  should  not  have  benefited  by  it 
half  so  much. 

That  summer  also  we  visited  the  first  great  Exhibition 
in  London.  How  well  I  remember  seeing  the  Duke  of 
Wellington  and  other  celebrities  !  I  thought  more  of 
the  Duke  than  of  any  of  the  others,  because  my  dear 
old  uncle,  the  General  (Fighting  Jack),  had  fought  and 
done  such  great  deeds  under  him  in  Spain. 


CHAPTER  VI 
VOYAGE  TO  ST.  KILDA 

My  next  experience  was  what  I  might  almost  call  "  The 
Voyage  to  St.  Kilda,"  for  so  it  seemed  to  me  as  a  boy. 
The  following  detailed  narrative  was  written  by  my  dear 
mother  on  our  return.  In  that  far-off  island  I  found 
what  to  me  were  quite  new  birds,  such  as  gannets, 
fulmars,  shearwaters,  fork-tailed  petrels  and  eider- 
ducks,  specimens  of  which  I  was  able  to  shoot  with  my 
own  little  gun. 

"  On  Monday,  the  30th  of  May,  1853  (having  had  all 
our  provisions  and  packages  prepared  on  the  Saturday), 
we  were  called  at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  with  the 
good  news  that  it  was  a  beautiful  day  for  our  start  to 
St.  Kilda.  Dressing  was  soon  accomplished,  and  off  we 
set  on  foot  for  the  quay,  about  half  a  mile  from  the 
Tigh  Dige.  The  weather  did  not  please  me  so  well  as 
it  did  my  housemaid,  for  I  found  on  looking  on  the  bay 
that  it  was  a  perfect  calm  with  a  sea  mist  over  the  Isle 
of  Skye;  so,  instead  of  getting  into  the  Jessie,  the 
vessel  we  had  hired  for  the  occasion,  we  continued  in 
the  smaller  rowing-boat,  proposing  that  Osgood  should 
shoot  and  amuse  himself  in  some  way.  We,  for  a 
wonder,  could  not  see  any  guillemots  or  cormorants,  and 
then  George  Ross,  the  keeper,  said  spearing  flounders 

74 


A  HUNDRED  YEARS  IN  THE  HIGHLANDS    75 

would  be  grand  sport,  so  to  shore  we  went  for  a  spear, 
and  in  about  an  hour  we  got  seventeen  fine  flat-fish, 
besides  a  large  cat-fish  or  '  father  lasher,*  and  also  a 
sea-devil,  both  frightful  in  the  extreme.  I  had  never 
seen  a  sea -devil  before,  and  when  the  spear  went  into  it 
it  turned  round  and  bit  the  spear,  leaving  the  distinct 
marks  of  its  teeth  on  the  steel  prongs.  We  also  found 
a  rock-pigeon's  nest  with  two  young  ones  in  it,  but  left 
them  till  they  should  grow  larger  and  be  fitter  to  leave 
their  nest. 

"  We  stopped  at  Little  Sand,  where  the  fish  were 
cleaned  and  some  of  them  sent  to  a  cottage  to  be  boiled, 
whilst  we  sat  on  the  rock,  and  along  with  the  excellent 
fish  came  fresh  oat-cakes  from  Iain  Buidhe's  wife. 
There  we  made  a  good  breakfast,  and  then  got  again 
into  the  small  boat  to  go  to  Longa  Island,  at  the  farthest 
end  of  which  I  had  ordered  the  Jessie  to  call  for  us. 
It  was  nearly  midday  before  we  went  on  board,  and  by 
that  time  a  nice  breeze  had  sprung  up  from  the  north- 
east. Our  crew  consisted  of  the  Skipper  Ali  Ban,  the 
Gillemor  (or  Alexander  Eraser),  and  Sandy  Longa 
(a  Maclean).  Besides  these  three,  I  had  engaged  two 
extra  hands,  Alexander  Macmillan  and  William  Grant, 
both  capital  fellows.  The  former  is  considered  the  best 
seaman  in  Gairloch,  and  neither  of  them  cared  what 
they  did  nor  how  much  they  worked  so  that  they  did  but 
please  us  and  add  to  our  comfort. 

"  Besides  the  five  seamen  and  myself,  Osgood  and 
his  tutor,  there  were  four  more  persons — namely,  George 
Ross,  the  keeper,  Simon  Eraser,  the  butler,  and  the  two 
hall-boys  Ali  and  Duncan — just  a  round  dozen  of  folks 


76  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

leaving  home  with  the  determination  to  be  delighted  with 
the  voyage  of  discovery.  I  am  at  least  sure  that  eleven 
of  them  were  joyous:  I  am  not  quite  so  sure  about  the 
captain.  I  think  he  was  too  anxious  for  our  safety 
and  satisfaction  to  be  quite  happy. 

"  We  went  sailing  along  the  Minch  nicely  for  a  while, 
but  the  breeze  lulled  at  four  or  five  o'clock,  and  by 
degrees  it  became  perfectly  calm.  We  were  then  within 
about  three  miles  of  Eilean  Trodda,  at  the  north  end  of 
Skye,  so  we  got  into  our  boat  and  rowed  to  it,  and  there 
Osgood  shot  away  at  some  puffins  and  guillemots. 
The  rocks  were  very  picturesque,  and  I  saw  several 
stacks  or  rocky  pillars  and  some  dark,  deep  chasms. 
After  remaining  about  an  hour,  we  saw  our  vessel  slowly 
rounding  the  island,  and,  thinking  it  time  to  join  her, 
we  rowed  to  meet  her.  There  was  a  swell,  but  no  wind. 
We  found  that  the  tutor  during  our  absence  had  not  been 
so  good  a  sailor  as  he  had  expected,  and  Osgood  im- 
mediately he  went  on  board  was  ill,  so  to  bed  we  went. 
To  those  who  may  wish  to  know  what  sort  of  beds  ours 
were  I  will  describe  them,  and  also  the  arrangement  of 
the  vessel. 

"  As  to  her  make,  she  was  neither  yacht  nor  clipper 
built,  but  a  good  ordinary -sized  sailing  smack.  She  had 
one  cabin  aft  with  two  small  berths.  These  I  gave  to 
the  tutor  and  the  keeper,  whilst  Osgood  and  I  had  two 
grand  beds,  with  mattresses,  blankets,  and  sheets,  made 
in  the  stern  end  of  the  hatchway  or  cargo-place,  and  a 
long  curtain  placed  across  to  make  our  bedrooms  snug. 
The  middle  of  the  hatchway  was  open  and  contained 
sundry  hampers,  boxes,  etc. — in  fact,  it  was  our  larder 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  77 

and  crockery-place  and  sort  of  general  receptacle  for 
waterproofs,  plaids,  guns,  ammunition.  Beyond  this 
open  space  was  another  curtain  concealing  the  sleeping 
apartment  of  Simon  and  the  boys,  and  occasionally 
William  Grant  and  Macmillan.  In  the  bow  was  the 
crew's  lodging-place. 

"  The  floor  of  our  bedroom  was  rather  uneven,  being 
merely  hay  placed  on  the  top  of  the  stone  ballast; 
but  once  in  bed  we  were  well  off — at  least,  whenever  the 
Jessie  behaved  herself,  but  when  she  pitched  and  tossed, 
as  she  did  on  the  following  Thursday,  then  Osgood 
and  I  neither  praised  the  bed  nor  anything  else. 

"  On  waking  on  Tuesday  morning  we  found  ourselves 
very  near  Lochmaddy  (the  Loch  of  the  Dogs),  there  being 
at  the  entrance  of  the  loch  two  rocks  that  bear  the  name 
of  "  The  Dogs  "  {na  madaidh).  We  sailed  to  the  head 
of  the  loch,  and  the  captain  went  ashore  to  try  and  get 
a  pilot,  a  Colin  Macleod,  who  was  highly  recommended. 
Unfortunately,  he  had  gone  seven  miles  from  home, 
and  thus  we  were  detained  five  hours  waiting  for  him. 
During  those  hours  we  went  on  shore.  The  appearance 
of  the  place,  which  is  not  at  all  pretty,  is  rendered 
strange  by  the  very  numerous  lochs,  many  of  which  are 
affected  by  the  tide.  We  went  to  see  a  small  steamer 
belonging  to  Lord  Hill,  the  shooting  tenant  of  Macleod^s 
country  in  Skye,  and  also  of  Lord  Macdonald's  North 
Uist  shooting.  He  resides  chiefly  at  Dun  vegan  Castle, 
but  occasionally  goes  over  to  Lochmaddy  in  his  steamer 
from  Monday  to  Saturday.  He  killed  a  great  many 
seals  last  season.  One  day  he  got  six.  We  also  visited 
a  small  school  where  the  children  read  English  and 


78  A  HUNDEED  YEARS 

translated  it  into  Gaelic  very  well.  Osgood  saw  a  strange 
bird,  black  with  some  white.  He  could  not  make  out 
whether  it  were  a  sort  of  tern  or  some  dark-coloured  gull. 
He  thought  it  more  resembled  the  former  species  than 
the  latter. 

"Towards  three  o'clock  .the  pilot  arrived.  The 
breeze,  that  had  been  very  fresh  and  favourable,  was 
lulling,  and  fell  almost  completely  soon  after  we  got 
out  of  Lochmaddy.  As  the  evening  advanced  we  got 
tired  of  the  Jessie,  as  she  was  rather  going  backwards, 
so  again  we  ordered  the  boat  and  four  rowers  and  away 
we  went  to  one  of  the  numerous  islands  that  bounded 
us  on  the  left.  There  were  scarcely  any  birds  there;  it 
was  not  sufficiently  steep  and  rocky.  Osgood  had  a 
bathe,  notwithstanding  that  the  shore  was  very  rough 
and  stony,  and  Deantag,  our  terrier,  discovered  the 
former  retreat  of  some  kind  of  petrel.  The  nest  we  got 
after  a  great  deal  of  tearing  up  of  clods,  but,  much  to 
our  sorrow,  there  were  no  eggs.  The  nest  was  fresh  and 
much  larger  than  the  nests  of  the  stormy  petrels — I 
should  think  about  twice  the  size — and  it  must  have 
been  that  of  a  shearwater.  Deantag  scratched  and 
whined  at  several  other  holes,  but  having  no  spade 
and  no  time  to  spare  (for  we  saw  the  vessel  retreating 
from  us)  we  were  obliged  to  leave  the  hidden  treasures 
untouched.  Our  men  did  not  spare  their  arms,  and 
by  dint  of  hard  rowing  we  gained  upon  and  at  length 
reached  the  Jessie,  which  the  current  was  fast  taking  back 
to  Lochmaddy,  and  there,  in  fact,  we  were  next  morning, 
much  to  our  annoyance.  At  the  turn  of  the  tide  the 
current  changed  and  helped  us  on  our  course  north- 


I 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  79 

wards  to  the  Sound  of  Harris,  and  after  going  at  the  pace 
of  a  snail  for  hours,  and  with  innumerable  tacks,  we 
reached  Bun  an  t-struidh  (the  Stream  End)  or  Ob  (the 
Pool),  three  miles  west  of  Rodal,  at  one  or  two  o'clock 
in  the  afternoon.  There  we  cast  anchor,  as  the  wind, 
north-west,  was  dead  against  us  and  it  was  beginning 
to  blow  very  hard.  We  saw  one  seal  in  the  water,  but 
not  near  enough  to  get  at  it. 

"  We  landed  on  Harris,  and  I  like  the  appearance  of 
the  country  much  better  than  that  of  North  Uist.  The 
hills  are  much  higher,  and  I  heard  that  the  country  was 
more  fertile.  The  here  gives  wonderful  returns,  they 
say — sometimes  twenty  or  twenty-five  fold.  Our 
sailors  got  in  fresh  water  for  the  vessel,  for  fear  we 
might  run  short  on  our  passage  to  the  '  back  of  beyond.' 
After  a  lounge  about  for  some  time  a  young  girl  addressed 
us  in  Gaelic,  and  asked  whether  we  should  like  to  go 
to  the  Ladies'  Flowering  Work  School,  so  Osgood  and 
I  set  off  with  her,  and  made  enquiries  as  we  went.  The 
school  was  established  by  the  Countess  of  Dunmore, 
whose  only  son,  the  proprietor,  is  a  minor  about  twelve 
years  of  age.  We  reached  the  school-house,  a  neat 
little  building,  in  about  twenty  minutes.  Nothing  mental 
is  taught  there,  only  the  embroidering  of  collars  and 
sleeves.  The  teacher  was  a  young  Irishwoman,  who 
mentioned  that  she  was  under  the  guidance  of  a  society 
of  ladies  for  the  promotion  of  fancy  work,  and  that  they 
had  offered  her  services  to  Lady  Dunmore,  but  that 
they  were  going  to  remove  her  next  year  so  that  other 
places  might  have  the  advantage  of  her  to  instruct  them, 
and  whichever  girl  she  recommended  to  Lady  Dunmore 


80  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

as  the  best  worker  would  be  appointed  to  supply  her 
place.  The  cleverest  hands  could  earn  two  or  three 
shillings  a  week  or  more  did  they  apply  themselves  en- 
tirely to  the  occupation.  They  were  working  for  a  shop 
at  Glasgow,  and  also  for  the  Countess,  who  had  sent 
them  nice  patterns  from  Paris.  There  were  not  more 
than  about  fifteen  girls  present  when  we  were  there. 
They  are  allowed  to  come  any  time  they  like  from 
6  a.m.  to  6  p.m. 

"  On  returning  to  our  people  I  proposed  to  go  to  see 
Rodal,  to  which  there  was  a  good  road.  After  some 
trouble  I  hired  a  pony  for  Osgood  and  myself  to  ride 
by  turns.  It  was  only  a  three-year-old,  and  had  never 
had  anything  on  but  a  rope  round  its  head,  and  perhaps 
creels  on  its  back.  It  did  not  look  remarkably  fresh, 
yet  it  managed  to  throw  William  Grant  over  its  head 
when  he  mounted  it  to  bring  it  to  us.  Notwithstanding 
this  freak,  we  determined  to  venture,  and  after  borrowing 
a  bridle  and  a  man's  saddle  from  a  person  who  kept  a 
little  inn  and  shop  together  by  the  roadside,  Osgood 
mounted  with  William  Grant  as  his  attendant.  He  is 
so  strong  and  active  and  so  devoted  to  Osgood  that  in 
his  charge  I  always  think  my  little  man  in  safety. 

"  As  we  approached  Rodal  the  scenery  became  very 
picturesque.  We  passed  through  a  gate  on  the  right 
hand,  and  on  rising  ground  was  a  long  extent  of  planta- 
tion containing  a  great  variety  of  trees,  apparently  about 
fifteen  or  twenty  years  of  age.  There  were  larch,  birch, 
beech,  oak,  elm,  alder,  and  ash.  The  whole  appearance 
of  the  grounds  was  that  of  the  approach  to  a  gentleman's 
seat,  but  in  reality  there  is  no  family  mansion  anywhere 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  81 

on  the  property.  I  had  heard  there  were  the  ruins  of 
an  old  cathedral,  and  I  saw  it  on  the  left  hand,  so,  having 
got  an  intelligent-looking  man  as  a  guide,  we  went  into 
the  burying-ground  which  surrounds  the  ruins.  The 
ground  is  high,  and  the  view  from  there  extremely 
pretty.  The  broken  edifice  contains  a  good  many 
monuments.  It  was  the  burial-place  of  some  of  the 
Macleod  chiefs  of  Skye  and  Harris  and  other  noted  folk 
of  the  days  long  gone  by.  There  were  some  very  curious 
figures  on  the  wall.  The  building  had  been,  unfortun- 
ately, nearly  destroyed  by  fire  years  ago. 

"  At  Rodal  there  is  a  quay  with  a  small  snug  harbour 
which  can  be  entered  from  two  directions,  but,  I  believe, 
not  at  low  tide .  We  returned  as  we  came.  The  evening 
was  fine,  but  the  wind  high.  Having  paid  for  the  use 
of  the  pony,  that  had  behaved  well,  and  got  some  milk 
we  wished  to  go  on  board,  but  on  account  of  the  tide 
being  out  our  boat  could  not  come  for  us,  so  we  were 
obliged  to  have  some  men  at  a  cottage  roused  up  (it 
was  past  10  p.m.),  and  they  ferried  us  across  a  sort  of 
inlet  that  was  in  our  way,  and  then  after  a  little  walk 
we  came  to  the  shore,  where  our  boat  was  waiting  us. 
On  our  talking  to  the  pilot,  he  said  the  tide  would  serve 
soon  after  break  of  day,  and  he  would  then  endeavour 
to  proceed.  Once  out  of  the  sound,  which  was  in  all 
eight  miles  in  length,  the  north  wind  would  not  be  so 
much  against  us,  for  as  soon  as  we  reached  the  open 
Atlantic  we  should  go  direct  west.  The  Sound  of  Harris 
is  considered  very  dangerous  for  the  navigation  of 
vessels.  It  is  full  of  rocks,  numbers  of  which  are 
sunken  at  a  short  distance  from  the  surface  of  the  water, 

6 


82  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

and,  again,  tlie  current  is  always  so  strong  during  a 
calm  that  there  is  great  difficulty  in  keeping  a  vessel 
off  these  dreaded  skerries. 

"  The  noise  of  the  pulling  up  of  the  anchor  soon 
wakened  me  in  the  morning,  and  I  quickly  found  out 
I  was  at  sea.  Poor  Osgood,  too,  was  not  happy.  As 
we  neared  the  ocean  our  vessel  pitched  and  tossed  even 
more  than  our  pilot  liked.  He  told  me  afterwards  he 
was  really  alarmed  for  our  safety;  but  the  Jessie  was  a 
gallant  barque,  and  she  bore  us  bravely,  notwithstanding 
that  the  rough  weather  and  the  great  swell  in  that  place 
tried  her  goodness.  I  kept  as  quiet  as  I  could  in  the 
hopes  of  Osgood's  sleeping  between  the  fits  of  coughing. 
Everyone  was  ill  except  the  sailors,  even  Simon  and  Ali 
and  Duncan,  who  had  all  scorned  the  idea  of  being  sea- 
sick.  We  had  a  wearisome  day  of  it.  Occasionally 
I  sent  for  one  of  my  favourite  sailors  and  asked  how 
matters  were  going  on.  One  of  William  Grant's 
replies,  translated  into  English,  was :  '  She  is  carrying 
full  sails  at  present,  my  lady,  so  there  is  no  fear  of  her.' 
There  were  as  heavy  seas  where  we  were  as  in  any  part 
of  the  Atlantic  between  here  and  America,  and  the 
passage  was  rendered  worse  by  these  strong  currents. 

"  At  seven  or  eight  in  the  evening  we  began  to  draw 
near  to  the  far-famed  St.  Kilda.  When  I  heard  that 
we  were  not  above  a  mile  from  shore,  I  begged  to  get  out 
in  the  boat,  as  the  wind  had  sunk,  but  I  was  told  that 
four  men  were  in  her,  rowing  away  with  all  their  might, 
trying  to  keep  the  vessel  from  driving  on  the  rocks  by 
the  force  of  the  current.  The  rest  of  our  crew  were 
toiling  at  two  enormous  sweeps  belonging  to  the  Jessie. 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  83 

Well,  I  waited  another  hour,  and  on  finding  that  instead 
of  being  nearer  we  were  fast  receding,  and  that  we  might 
now  have  the  boat,  as  we  had  (against  our  will)  gone 
out  of  the  little  bay  and  exchanged  its  steep  rugged  rocks 
for  the  wild  ocean,  I  told  Simon  to  put  clothes  on  Osgood 
in  some  sort  of  way  and  ordered  the  boat  to  the  gangway. 
Poor  child,  he  looked  most  wretched.  Putting  on  his 
and  my  own  swimming  belts,  we  somehow  or  other  got 
into  the  boat.  There  was  a  heavy  swell,  but  fortunately 
no  broken  waves.  I  was  not  much  alarmed,  and  said 
nothing  at  any  rate ;  but  the  tutor  and  others  who  were 
left  on  the  Jessie  watched  us  a  little  while,  and  then  we 
sank  so  low  that  they  could  not  see  us  at  all,  and  were 
half  afraid  we  had  been  swamped.  But  we  had  been 
more  mercifully  dealt  with,  and  landed  at  length  quite 
safely  and  comfortably  on  the  shore  of  this  wonderfully 
striking,  picturesque  island. 

"  I  had  been  told  there  was  but  one  small  flat  stone 
on  which  one  could  land,  and  that  the  natives  would 
pull  me  up  from  it.  That  is  not  quite  the  case.  There 
are  twenty  or  thirty  yards  of  shore  on  which  you  might 
put  foot,  but  there  is  one  spot  more  convenient  than  the 
rest  and  yet  not  altogether  good,  for  the  rock  is  covered 
with  seaweed  of  the  most  slippery  sort,  and  you  are 
almost  sure  to  tumble  on  your  nose.  You  can  never 
land  when  the  wind  is  from  the  south-east,  for  that  is  the 
direction  of  the  bay,  and  a  very  little  breeze  thus  raises 
an  awful  swell.  I  was  told  by  the  people  that  the  last 
time  the  factor  came  to  visit  them  he  was  three  days 
before  he  could  land.  When  at  last  he  did  accomplish 
it,  it  was  by  tying  a  rope  round  his  body  and  throwing 


84  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

the  other  end  to  the  people  on  shore,  and  waiting  till  one 
of  the  enormous  waves  went  backwards,  when  he  flung 
himself  out  and  was  drawn  up  on  the  flat  rock,  the  usual 
landing-place.  Another  story  was  also  told  me,  but 
after  I  got  home.  A  man  from  our  parish  met  William 
Grant  at  Poolewe.  *  Weel,'  said  he, '  so  I  hear  you  have 
been  to  St.  Kilda.  Could  you  manage  to  land  V  '  Land,* 
said  William.  '  Oh  yes,  we  landed  safe  enough,  and 
passed  three  days  and  three  nights  there.*  '  You  were 
in  luck,*  replied  his  friend;  *  the  last  time  I  sailed  there, 
when  in  the  service  of  Macdonald  of  Lochinver,  who 
had  the  islands,  I  was  twenty  days  beating  about  and 
round  St.  Kilda  in  the  Rover's  Bride  and  never  could  land 
after  all.* 

"  The  only  gentleman  I  ever  conversed  with  about 
St.  Kilda  was  the  Rev.  James  Noble,  Free  Church 
Minister  of  Poolewe.  He  went  there  with  one  or  two 
other  ministers  in  Lord  Breadalbane*s  yacht  about 
three  or  four  years  ago.  They  intended  to  remain  three 
days,  but  a  frightful  hurricane  arose  one  night  after 
they  had  gone  to  the  vessel,  and  they  were  in  great 
danger  for  twenty-four  hours.  It  was  impossible  to  put 
out  a  small  boat,  and  they  were  every  instant  expecting 
the  anchor  would  give  way.  Although  the  anchorage- 
ground  at  the  end  of  the  bay  is  fairly  good,  it  is  extremely 
shelving,  the  sea  becoming  deep  so  suddenly,  and  thus 
an  anchor  is  liable  to  shift.  The  captain  had  a  great 
many  fathoms  of  spare  chain  which  he  threw  out  to 
help  to  steady  the  vessel.  She  could  not  sail  out;  the 
wind  was  right  ahead  of  her.  The  next  night  it  changed, 
and  then  they  started,  only  daring  to  put  up  the  jib, 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  85 

and  in  the  midst  of  a  frightful  hurricane  reached  Harris 
in  nine  hours,  thankfully  wondering  that  their  existence 
was  thus  preserved.  It  was  the  same  storm  which  on 
the  east  coast  destroyed  so  many  of  the  Caithness  herring 
fleet  with  their  crews. 

"  Besides  St.  Kilda  itself,  there  are  three  other  islands 
and  the  two  '  Stacks."  Two  of  the  islands,  the  Dun  and 
Soa,  almost  join,  but  the  third,  Borrera,  is  near  the 
Stacks  of  the  solan-geese,  which  are  about  five  miles  off. 
Nearly  all  the  male  inhabitants  of  the  island  were  as- 
sembled to  meet  us  when  we  landed,  and  well  might  they 
welcome  us,  for  they  had  not  seen  a  creature  but  them- 
selves for  nine  long  months,  and  they  were  very  anxious 
for  news  from  Australia  about  their  friends  who  had 
emigrated  the  previous  autumn.  Eight  families  con- 
taining thirty-six  souls  had  then  gone.  Only  fifteen 
heads  of  families  remained,  the  population  now  being 
but  sixty  persons.  Formerly  it  was  always  about  one 
hundred,  but  it  never  materially  increased,  and  this  was 
owing  to  the  mortality  of  the  infants,  the  greater  part 
of  whom  die  at  the  early  age  of  five  or  six  days,  owing, 
it  is  supposed  by  medical  men,  to  the  heat  and  dirt  in 
which  the  child  is  kept  and  the  want  of  proper  washing 
and  attending  to .  The  poor  parents  themselves  attribute 
it  to  no  human  cause,  and  calmly  say  that  it  is  the  will 
of  God.  In  no  family  are  there  more  than  six  children. 
Generally  there  are  not  above  one  or  two.  I  saw  one 
little  boy  who  was  the  only  child  left  out  of  fourteen 
who  were  born  to  his  parents.  The  oldest  man  in  the 
island  was  fifty-seven,  but  there  was  one  old  woman 
nearly  eighty. 


86  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

"  Both  the  men  and  the  women  are  rather  undersized 
and  not  at  all  strong-looking.  Their  complexions  are 
a  sort  of  dingy  yellow.  I  did  not  see  anyone  with  red 
hair,  but  many  with  light  hair,  sandy  and  brown, 
and  several  of  the  women  had  black  hair  and  very 
dark  eyes.  Their  persons  and  houses  and  everything 
belonging  to  them  smell  of  fulmar  petrel  oil,  which,  by 
the  way,  is  not  at  all  fragrant.  They  told  me  they  were 
usually  healthy,  and  they  were  not  subject  to  any 
particular  disease,  but  the  poor  men  often  meet  with 
accidents  among  the  rocks,  and  thus  their  days  are 
shortened.  As  to  their  dress,  I  remarked  that  they  wore 
homespun  and  home-woven  woollen  shirts  sewn  together 
with  worsted  yarn.  Their  trousers  were  of  a  sort  of 
blue  tartan  check,  probably  dyed  in  the  island,  the 
indigo  being  purchased  by  them  from  elsewhere .  Nearly 
all  of  them  were  without  shoes  or  stockings.  Some  of 
them  had  a  little  piece  of  blue  cloth  under  their  heels. 
The  few  shoes  I  did  see  were  very  round  and  ill-shaped. 
They  are  all  able  to  do  shoemaking  and  tailoring,  and 
many  of  them  wove,  but  not  all.  They  have  no  mill, 
but  grind  with  the  quern.  One  woman  works  the  quern 
alone.  They  did  not  appear  to  grind  above  a  quart  or 
two  of  corn  at  a  time.  I  observed  several  men  and 
women  with  lamb-skin  caps.  The  girls  had  a  great  deal 
of  hair,  very  untidily  arranged,  and  the  wives  had 
equally  untidy  caps,  and,  for  what  purpose  I  know  not, 
they  had  two  strings  tied  round  their  bodies,  one  just 
under  their  arms  and  the  other  a  quarter  of  a  yard  below, 
making  their  second  waist  very  low.  Their  gowns  were 
some  of  them  of  dark  cotton  and  some  of  homespun. 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  87 

Neither  the  men  nor  the  women  had  any  politeness  in 
outward  manner.  I  did  not  notice  any  of  them  bow 
or  curtsey  at  any  time,  but  they  are  kind  and  gentle 
in  speech  and  obliging  and  friendly  in  actions.  Yet 
this  does  not  prevent  them  from  being  keen  for  money 
and  still  more  for  tobacco.  They  would  part  with  any 
of  the  commodities  of  the  island  for  half  their  value  if 
paid  in  tobacco. 

"  Their  houses  are  built  rather  in  a  crescent  form 
about  one  hundred  yards  above  the  shore  at  the  head 
of  the  bay,  and  extend  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
I  counted  twenty-five  dwelling-places  besides  the  little 
barns  or  outbuildings.  The  byre  is  on  the  left-hand 
side  as  you  enter,  and  above  it  is  the  only  aperture  for 
letting  out  smoke,  which,  in  fact,  they  wish  to  keep  in 
as  much  as  possible  for  the  sake  of  the  soot,  which  they 
use  to  enrich  the  land  for  the  barley  and  the  potatoes  in 
the  spring.  I  was  told  that  they  never  clean  out  their 
byres  at  all  till  they  take  away  the  manure  in  April, 
and  previous  to  that  time  it  is  almost  impossible  to  get 
in  and  out  of  the  door.  I  visited  the  island  too  late  in 
the  season  to  see  this  bad  arrangement,  and  was  sur- 
prised at  the  cleanly  appearance  of  the  walls  and  roofs 
of  the  houses,  and  the  nice  dry  walk  which  went  all  along 
the  sides  of  the  houses.  The  walls  of  the  houses  are 
built  just  as  they  are  in  Harris — that  is,  double,  being 
very  thick  and  the  middle  filled  with  earth.  The  roof 
extends  only  to  the  inner  wall,  and  you  can  walk  round 
the  top  of  the  wall  quite  easily.  The  form  of  the  roof  is 
oval,  like  a  big  bee-hive.  They  are  made  with  wood 
covered  with  turf  and  then  thatched  with  straw  above, 


88  A  HUNDKED  YEAES 

and  on  the  outside  are  straw  ropes  like  a  network  put 
across  to  keep  the  wind  from  blowing  away  the  thatch. 
The  houses  have  generally  a  sort  of  window  with  a  tiny 
bit  of  glass,  and  they  have  a  plan  of  their  own  for 
locking  their  doors  with  a  wooden  key  made  by  them- 
selves .  It  appears  to  keep  matters  quite  secure .  Osgood 
observed  that  the  beaks  of  the  solan-geese  were  used  as 
pegs  to  keep  down  the  straw  on  the  buildings.  The 
houses  are  built  on  a  gentle  slope,  the  highest  hill, 
Conacadh,  gradually  rising  to  the  west.  The  land 
between  the  shore  and  the  houses  and  up  some  way  above 
them  is  cultivated,  and  at  the  back  is  a  capital  high, 
strong  dyke  to  keep  the  cattle  and  sheep  out.  I  did  not 
hear  how  much  arable  land  they  have,  but  by  making 
a  rough  guess  I  should  say  between  thirty  and  forty 
acres.  Each  head  of  a  family  or  crofter  pays  £1  for  the 
arable  land,  7s.  a  year  for  his  cow's  grass,  and  10s.  for 
ten  sheep  at  Is.  per  head.  Besides  this  £1  17s.,  he  has 
to  pay  7  stones  of  24  pounds  weight  of  feathers,  which 
is  reckoned  to  him  at  5s.  a  stone.  I  heard  various 
accounts  as  to  how  many  birds  would  be  required  to 
supply  sufficient  feathers  to  make  up  a  stone  weight. 
One  lad  told  me  about  two  hundred  fulmars  and  another 
eight  hundred  puffins;  the  latter,  of  course,  are  much 
smaller,  and  the  feathers  are  not  so  plentiful  nor  of  such 
good  quality,  I  should  think. 

"  There  are  two  burns  or  very  small  streams  running 
from  Conacadh  by  the  houses  to  the  shore.  There  is  a 
capital  natural  well  or  spring  in  the  arable  land,  and 
another  in  the  glen  two  or  three  miles  off.  This  one  is 
celebrated.    On  the  right  side  of  the  village  and  near 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  89 

the  shore  is  a  storehouse  where  the  feathers  and  cloth 
and  wool,  etc.,  are  kept.  The  factor  also  keeps  a  small 
supply  of  meal,  planks,  and  coals  there,  and  the  elder 
has  the  key.  Not  far  from  the  store  are  the  manse  and 
the  church,  both  of  which  are  built  with  stone  and  slated. 
The  former  is  always  kept  locked  during  the  factor's 
absence,  and  he  inhabits  it  during  his  visits.  The  church 
is  a  plain  building,  probably  thirty  feet  by  eighteen  feet, 
and  in  it  we  slept  on  hay  and  ate  our  meals.  The  famous 
Dr.  Macdonald  of  Feristosh  visited  St.  Kilda  four  times. 
His  first  visit  was  in  1822,  when  he  remained  eighteen 
days.  I  believe  it  was  through  his  instrumentality 
that  the  church  and  manse  were  built,  but  being  erected 
before  the  Disruption,  they  belonged  to  the  Established 
Church.  The  Kev.  Neil  Mackenzie  was  minister  there 
for  fourteen  years,  and  left,  I  think,  in  1843.  Since  then 
there  has  been  no  regular  pastor,  but  the  Breadalbane 
yacht  with  a  Free  Church  minister  generally  visits  them 
for  a  few  days  once  every  summer.  Neither  have  they 
any  schoolmaster  just  now,  but  aU  can  read  Gaelic  except 
the  younger  children,  and  they  have  a  little  library  of 
all  the  Gaelic  books,  which  are  circulated  among  them. 
They  told  me  they  assembled  in  the  church  for  worship 
every  evening  of  the  week  excepting  Saturdays  and 
Mondays,  and  met  on  the  Sabbath  before  breakfast  and 
in  the  evening. 

**  Though  the  people  are  far  from  large  and  robust- 
looking,  yet  they  informed  us  that  they  were  very  healthy, 
and  were  not  subject  to  any  of  the  great  diseases  of  the 
Long  Island  or  the  mainland.  There  did  not  appear  to 
be  any  abject  poverty  or  scarcity  of  food  amongst  them. 


90  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

They  all  at  that  season  (the  3rd  of  June)  had  still  a  little 
corn.  Barley  grows  best  with  them.  I  thought  the 
grain  looked  small,  and  they  told  me  that  the  reason  was 
the  sea-breeze  dries  and  whitens  it  too  soon  before  it  is 
properly  ripened.  There  is  one  small  elder-bush  near 
the  manse.  I  did  not  remark  any  other  kind  of  bush 
or  tree  of  any  description.  The  grass  on  the  hills  was 
looking  very  dry  and  apparently  suffering  from  drought, 
but  on  the  Dun  amongst  the  cairns,  where  the  puffins 
built,  the  grass  and  natural  clover  was  most  beautiful  and 
luxuriant.  The  people  described  the  weather  as  being 
usually  very  dry  during  May  and  June,  but  dreadfully 
stormy  in  winter,  with  frequently  much  snow.  I 
wondered  to  hear  them  say  so,  as,  being  so  exposed 
to  the  sea-breezes  on  all  sides,  even  if  the  snow  fell 
I  could  not  have  imagined  it  would  have  lain  long. 
Perhaps  they  think  more  of  a  little  snow  than  a  Perth- 
shire man  would  of  three  times  the  amount. 

"  There  are  four  sorts  of  sheep — the  lachdann,  which 
are  of  a  dull  yellow  or  amber  colour ;  the  gorm,  which  are 
of  a  bluish-grey;  the  white  sheep  and  the  black.  In  Soa 
the  sheep  belong  to  the  proprietor,  a  Mr.  John  Macleod, 
son  of  a  Colonel  Macleod  and  grandson  of  a  minister 
that  was  at  St.  Kilda.  I  was  told  that  there  were  in  all 
between  two  and  three  thousand  sheep  on  the  islands. 
The  ewes  belonging  to  the  people  are  milked  every 
morning,  and  the  lambs  shut  up  every  night  to  keep  them 
from  their  mothers.  The  milk  is  chiefly  made  into 
cheese.  The  cows  seem  to  me  of  a  good  size,  rather 
larger  than  many  in  Gairloch,  and  of  ordinary  Highland 
colour,  not  spotted.    There  are  no  peats  to  be  got  any- 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  91 

where  in  the  island,  and  the  poor  people  are  obliged  to 
burn  the  green  turf,  which  they  cut  and  dry  and  put 
into  little  stone  buildings  with  great  trouble  and 
care. 

"  The  bird  that  is  most  esteemed  amongst  the  natives 
for  its  flesh  and  feathers  is  the  fulmar.  It  much  re- 
sembles the  herring-gull,  but  has  no  black  tips  to  its 
wings,  which,  along  with  the  back,  are  of  a  French 
grey,  the  head,  throat,  and  breast  a  pure  white.  They 
belong  to  the  petrel  tribe  of  birds,  and  have  a  bill,  curved 
at  the  point,  which  is  yellow,  and  nostrils  in  a  tube  which 
has  only  one  external  hole.  They  have  a  great  many 
soft  and  rather  long  feathers,  and  skim  along  the  air 
noiselessly.  They  are  very  tame,  and  when  we  were 
rowing  they  passed  close  over  our  heads.  None  of  our 
party  shot  at  them,  for  fear  of  vexing  the  people.  They 
did  not  mind  the  other  birds  being  fired  at.  The  fulmar 
builds  on  the  grassy  ledges  of  the  highest  and  most 
precipitous  rocks,  some  twelve  hundred  feet  high.  They 
lay  but  one  egg,  which  is  white  and  larger  than  a  very 
large  hen's  egg  and  quite  oval.  The  St.  Kilda  folk 
catch  these  birds  with  a  noose  made  of  horse-hair  and 
fastened  to  a  stick  like  a  short  fishing-rod.  Near  the 
ends  it  is  rendered  stiffer  by  pieces  of  the  shafts  of 
the  solan-goose's  feathers  plaited  amongst  the  horse- 
hair. The  man  who  is  to  descend  the  rock  has  two  ropes, 
one  of  which  is  fastened  round  his  waist  and  the  end 
held  in  the  hands  of  his  companion,  who  stands  on  the 
top  of  the  rock.  The  other  rope  is  in  under  the  foot  of 
the  man  above,  who  plants  his  heel  firmly  on  it  in  a  sort 
of  hollow  he  has  made  for  the  purpose,  and  it  is  with 


92  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

this  rope  that  the  fulmar-hunter  descends,  letting 
the  rope  slip  through  his  hands  as  a  sailor  does.  They 
are  very  expert  in  killing  the  birds  by  breaking  their 
necks  in  an  instant,  and  as  the  fulmars  are  killed  they 
are  tucked  into  the  waist  rope.  When  many  are  taken 
they  are  tied  together  to  the  end  of  the  loose  rope,  the 
bird-catcher  meantime  standing  on  a  ledge,  and  they  are 
drawn  up  to  the  top.  It  is  said  that  the  fulmar  lays 
but  one  egg,  and  if  this  be  taken  she  does  not  lay  again 
that  year.  It  was  from  the  face  of  Conacadh  that  we 
saw  them  descend  for  the  fulmars.  One,  a  little  boy 
apparently  not  more  than  twelve  years  of  age,  was 
let  down  by  his  father.  They  all  say  the  same  Gaelic 
words,  Leig  leatha  {'  Let  her  go,'  meaning  '  Let  out  the 
rope  '),  in  going  down.  They  use  their  feet  much  in 
descending,  and  go,  as  it  were,  by  starts  and  bounds. 
They  seem  to  have  no  fear,  though  so  many  have  been 
killed  on  the  rocks. 

"  The  puffins,  or  sea-parrots,  are  very  numerous,  but 
are  chiefly  caught  by  the  dogs  under  the  stones  or  cairns 
or  by  snares.  They  are  very  plentiful  on  the  Dun,  and 
where  they  build  the  grass  is  beautiful.  The  dogs  appear 
to  be  of  a  small,  lean,  mongrel  kind  of  collie  dog.  There 
seem  to  be  numbers  of  them,  and  some  I  saw  at  the 
houses  had  a  rope  round  their  neck  and  one  foreleg 
passed  through  it  to  prevent  them  running  far  away. 

"  The  people  have  no  means  of  killing  the  eider- 
ducks,  as  they  have  no  gun  on  the  island.  Osgood  and 
George  Ross  went  after  them  on  Friday  and  killed  be- 
tween them  three  drakes.  Osgood  killed  one  positively 
and  another  doubtfully.    Two  other  drakes  were  killed 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  93 

afterwards.  They  are  very  beautiful  large  birds  with 
much  white  in  their  plumage,  the  top  of  the  head  velvet 
black,  and  a  pea-green  colour  at  the  back  of  the  neck. 
The  duck  is  of  a  handsome,  dark,  mottled  brown  plumage, 
something  in  colour  like  a  grey  hen.  The  eggs  are  large 
and  of  a  light  opaque-looking  green.  It  was  in  the 
East  Bay  that  we  saw  the  eiders,  perhaps  a  dozen  or 
twenty  pairs.  The  people  said  they  were  getting  much 
more  plentiful  on  the  other  side,  between  Soa  and  the 
Dun.  Their  nests  are  composed  entirely  of  the  softest 
down,  which  in  Norway  is  collected  in  such  quantities  for 
pillows  and  quilts. 

"  The  solan-geese  build  on  the  two  Stacks,  Stac  an 
Armuin  and  Stac  an  Ligh.  We  went  to  the  latter  on 
the  Friday  in  the  afternoon,  about  three  o'clock.  I 
ordered  the  only  boat  in  the  island.  It  is  large  and 
heavy,  with  mast  and  sail  and  eight  oars.  It  is  used 
for  going  to  the  Stacks  and  to  Borrera  and  Soa,  and  also 
generally  once  a  year,  about  Whit-Sunday,  a  party  of 
the  natives  go  over  in  it  to  Harris  to  purchase  little 
things  and  to  hear  the  news.  Osgood  and  I  had  gone  to 
the  Jessie  for  our  luncheon,  and  when  the  big  boat 
came  alongside  there  were  no  fewer  than  nineteen  persons 
in  it.  We  sent  nine  of  them  on  shore,  taking  ten 
St.  Kilda  men  and  six  of  our  own  men  with  us.  The 
Stacks  are  a  good  five  miles  away  from  the  main  island, 
and  though  the  day  was  fine  there  was  a  pretty  heavy 
roll.  The  whole  of  the  way  the  ten  St.  Kilda  men  kept 
singing  a  sort  of  song  at  the  pitch  of  their  voices,  the 
refrain  of  which  consisted  of  the  following  words  of 
encouragement  in  their  rather  funny  St.  Kilda  Gaelic: 


94  A  HUNDEED  YEARS 

"  '  lomru  illean,  iomru  illean, 

Robh  mhath  na  gillean,  robh  mhatli  na  gillean, 
Shid  i,  shid  i,  shid  i,  shid  i.' 

A  rougli  translation  of  which  is — 

"  '  Row,  lads,  row,  lads. 

Well  done,  the  lads  !  well  done,  the  lads  ! 
There  she  goes,  there  she  goes.' 

As  we  approached  the  Stacks  the  gannets  came  to  meet 
us  in  their  thousands,  and  one  could  hardly  see  the  sky 
through  them.  There  is  no  possible  landing-place  on 
the  Stacks  where  a  boat  can  be  drawn  up,  as  they  rise 
sheer  out  of  the  ocean.  At  one  place  for  which  we 
steered  there  had  been  an  iron  pin  three  feet  long  let 
into  the  rock  perhaps  ten  feet  above  high-water  mark, 
and  from  the  boat  a  rope  with  a  loop  at  the  end  of  it 
was  thrown  over  this  pin  and  the  boat  drawn  in  near 
enough  for  some  of  the  best  of  the  St.  Kilda  climbers  to 
spring  on  to  a  small  ledge.  Then  they  ascended  very 
carefully  and  very  slowly  with  their  rods  with  the 
nooses  at  the  end,  and  soon  they  had  caught  and  killed 
a  large  number  of  the  solans  who  were  sitting  on  their 
eggs.  The  Stacks  and  their  feathered  inhabitants  were 
a  sight  never  to  be  forgotten.  The  gannets  are  the  main 
food-supply  of  the  St.  Kilda  people.  They  told  us  they 
caught  the  old  ones  when  they  first  arrived  in  the  spring, 
and  made  their  chief  raid  on  them  just  before  the  fat 
young  ones  leave  the  nests.  They  salt  them  down  by 
the  thousand,  and  they  told  us  they  tasted  like  salted  bull 
beef.  Of  course,  the  natives  live  very  much  upon  eggs 
all  through  May  and  June,  and  we  asked  them  whether 
they  were  very  particular  as  to  the  eggs  being  quite 


IN  TilE^HIGHLANDS         •  95 

fresMy  laid.  From  their  answers  we  inferred  they  ate 
a  lot  of  eggs  that  had  been  more  or  less  sat  upon,  for 
they  said :  *  Of  course,  if  you  don't  like  the  young  bird 
you  can  throw  it  away,  and  just  eat  the  rest/ 

"  On  our  return  to  Uist  to  land  the  pilot  at  Lochmaddy 
we  noticed  that  he  had  a  large  washing-tub  on  deck  full 
of  guillemots'  and  razor-bills'  eggs,  most  of  them 
evidently  quite  hard  set,  and  we  asked  him  what  he  was 
going  to  do  with  them,  and  he  said  they  were  to  be  given 
as  a  present  to  Lady  Hill,  who  was  so  fond  of  blowing  eggs ! 

"  The  return  voyage  to  Gairloch  was  uneventful 
and  safely  accomplished,  and  the  trip  to  St.  Kilda  was 
most  thoroughly  enjoyed  by  every  one  of  us." 

Thus  ends  my  mother's  story,  but  just  to  show  the  very 
primitive  manner  in  which  not  only  the  St.  Kilda 
islanders,  but  also  more  or  less  the  whole  population  of 
the  Long  Island,  lived  in  the  early  fifties,  I  must  tell  the 
story  of  a  visit  I  paid  as  a  boy  to  a  typical  house  in 
South  Harris  on  our  way  back  from  St.  Kilda. 

We  reached  Bun  an  t-struidh  (Stream  End)  or,  as  it  is 
now  more  often  called,  Ob  (the  Pool),  on  the  Sound  of 
Harris,  late  on  a  Saturday  night,  and  having  no  milk  for 
our  Sunday  breakfast  porridge,  I  was  landed,  accom- 
panied by  our  faithful  butler  Sim  Eachainn  (Simon 
Hector),  to  try  and  get  some  from  one  of  the  many 
crofters'  houses  which  were  dotted  about  among  the 
rocks  opposite  to  where  we  were  anchored.  The  habita- 
tion we  selected  for  our  visit  was,  like  most  of  the  native 
houses,  very  long,  considering  its  height  and  its  width 
inside,  because  these  Hebridean  houses  have  to  contain 


96  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

not  only  the  family,  but  also  the  whole  stock  of  cattle, 
not  to  mention  sundry  pet  sheep  and  innumerable  hens, 
with  no  division  of  any  kind  between  the  animals  and 
the  human  beings  !  I  should  say  the  house  was  a  good 
forty-five  feet  long,  with  the  usual  low,  broad  walls, 
six  feet  thick,  built  partly  of  stones,  but  mostly  of  turf, 
and  only  some  five  feet  in  height,  on  which  grass  grows 
and  sheep  and  sometimes  even  a  calf  may  be  seen  grazing 
happily.  What  surprises  a  stranger  at  first  sight  is 
that  instead  of  the  thatched  roof  extending,  as  in  all 
other  parts  of  the  world,  a  little  beyond  the  outside  of 
the  walls,  so  that  the  drip  from  the  roof  may  fall  clear 
of  the  dwelling,  the  couples  which  sustain  the  roof 
invariably  rest  on  the  inside  edge  of  these  wide  walls. 
This  arises  chiefly  from  the  fact  that  there  is  no  wood 
on  the  Long  Island,  with  the  exception  of  the  few 
comparatively  young  trees  in  the  plantations  round  the 
policies  of  Stornoway  Castle  and  Rodal;  so  the  natives 
have  always  had  to  do  their  best  with  very  short 
lengths  of  timber,  such  as  stray  bits  from  wrecks  washed 
up  along  the  coast  or  wood  brought  with  great  trouble 
in  their  fishing-boats  from  the  mainland.  That  houses 
built  on  apparently  such  a  wrong  principle  as  this  must 
be  frightfully  damp  goes  without  saying,  but  notwith- 
standing, they  often  turn  out  as  fine  specimens  of  men 
and  women  as  can  be  found  in  any  part  of  Britain. 

We  entered  the  house,  which  was  very  narrow  (only 
about  twelve  feet  wide  inside),  by  a  door  near  one  end, 
and  had  to  make  our  way  along  through  manure  and 
litter,  there  being  only  just  room  between  the  tails  of 
the  eight  or  ten  cattle  beasts  and  the  wall  for  us  to 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  97 

squeeze  up  to  the  end  where  the  fire  was  burning  against 
the  gable  and  where  was  also  the  bed.  We  were  most 
politely  and  hospitably  welcomed.  The  good  wife,  like 
all  the  Harris  people,  had  most  charming  manners,  but 
she  was  busy  preparing  the  family  breakfast,  and  bade 
us  sit  down  on  little  low  stools  at  the  fire  and  wait  till 
she  could  milk  the  cows  for  us. 

Then  occurred  a  curious  scene,  such  as  one  could 
hardly  have  witnessed  elsewhere  than  in  a  Kaffir  kraal 
or  an  Eskimo  tent  or  Red  Indian  tepe.  There  was  a  big 
pot  hanging  by  a  chain  over  the  peat  fire,  and  a  creel 
heaped  up  with  short  heather,  which  the  women  tear 
up  by  the  root  on  the  hillsides  and  with  which  they  bed 
the  cows.  The  wife  took  an  armful  of  this  heather 
and  deposited  it  at  the  feet  of  the  nearest  cow,  which 
was  tied  up  within  two  or  three  yards  of  the  fire,  to  form 
a  drainer.  Then,  lifting  the  pot  off  the  fire,  she  emptied 
it  on  to  the  heather;  the  hot  water  disappeared  and 
ran  away  among  the  cow's  legs,  but  the  contents  of  the 
pot,  consisting  of  potatoes  and  fish  boiled  together, 
remained  on  the  top  of  the  heather.  Then  from  a  very 
black-looking  bed  three  stark  naked  boys  arose  one  by 
one,  aged,  I  should  say,  from  six  to  ten  years,  and  made 
for  the  fish  and  potatoes,  each  youngster  carrying  off 
as  much  as  both  his  hands  could  contain.  Back  they 
went  to  their  bed,  and  started  devouring  their  breakfast 
with  apparently  great  appetites  under  the  blankets  ! 
No  wonder  the  bed  did  not  look  tempting  !  We  got  our 
milk  in  course  of  time,  but  I  do  not  think  it  was  alto- 
gether relished  after  the  scene  we  had  witnessed,  which 
impressed  me  so  much  that  I  have  never  forgotten  it ! 

7 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  LEWS 

I  SHALL  now  have  a  good  deal  to  say  about  the  Lews, 
and  I  may  mention  that  the  oldest  story  that  I  know 
concerning  that  interesting  island  is  the  following: 

About  1780  Lord  Seaforth  persuaded  my  grandfather, 
Sir  Hector,  to  accompany  him  over  to  Stornoway.  The 
Seaforth  Lodge,  which  then  stood  nearly  on  the  site  of 
the  present  castle,  happening  not  to  be  in  a  very  good 
state  of  repair  for  the  reception  of  its  owner  and  his 
guest,  they  repaired  to  the  Stornoway  Inn,  and  a  queer 
sort  of  hole  it  must  have  been  in  those  days.  It  was  a 
great  day  for  the  landlady,  and  she  did  her  very  besir. 
For  dinner  she  proudly  uncovered  a  big  dish  of  boiled 
grouse,  but  nearly  fainted  at  the  outcry  made  by  his 
lordship  on  seeing  that  his  grouse  had  been  poached 
in  May  ! 

Let  me  now  quote  my  uncle's  experience  of  a  Storno- 
way whale-hunt: 

*'  One  day  when  I  was  fishing  for  salmon  in  the  Ewe 

a  lawyer  came  to  me  with  a  letter  from  a  political  coterie 

saying  a  county  election  was  imminent,  and  I  found  it 

was  decided  that  I  was  the  proper  party  to  go  with  this 

limb  of  the  law  to  canvass  the  voters  in  a  distant  island, 

as  being  well  known  by  name,  person,  or  reputation  to 

them  all.    A  yacht  waited  to  carry  me  there  and  back 

98 


A  HUNDRED  YEARS  IN  THE  HIGHLANDS    99 

again  at  my  command.  That  abominable  yacht  made 
it  impossible  for  me  to  say,  *  But  I'll  not  go.  I'd 
rather  catch  salmon  than  voters.'  So  with  a  heavy 
heart  I  left  my  country — for  my  country's  good  we 
shall  hope,  but,  at  all  events,  for  an  aquatic  battle  such 
as  I  have  never  seen  and  never  shall  see  again.  As  the 
old  ballad  did  not  appeal  to  me  which  says — 

"  '  Up  in  the  mornin's  no  for  me, 
Up  in  the  momin'  airly; 
I'd  rather  gae  supperless  to  my  bed, 
Than  rise  in  the  mornin'  airly,' 

it  was  soon  after  dawn  on  a  calm  grey  morning  that  I 
found  myself  parading  Stornoway  Pier,  whence  the 
long  harbour  was  visible  down  to  the  open  sea  about  three 
miles  away.  I  observed  people  looking  seaward  with 
their  spy-glasses,  and  wondered  what  they  were  taken 
up  with.  In  a  few  minutes  all  but  myself  and  some  of  the 
wise  men  with  glasses  were  scampering  away  up  the 
town  like  mad  bulls,  roaring  their  loudest  for  all  hands 
to  get  out  the  boats,  and  ere  one  could  cry  *  Peas  '  every 
male  in  the  town  seemed  gone  crazy,  shouting  out, 
Mucan  mara,  Mucan  mara  /'  ('  Whales,  whales  !') 
Many,  half-dressed  and  hatless,  were  carrying  oars  and 
guns,  boat-hooks,  old  broadswords,  and  other  kinds  of 
lethal  weapons,  one  of  them  even  bearing  a  kitchen  spit 
with  its  wooden  wheel  at  the  end  like  a  gallant  lancer's 
jpear.  They  all  tumbled  into  the  many  boats  at  the 
Dier  and  on  the  shore,  first  throwing  into  them  heaps  of 
jmallish  stones,  evidently  to  be  used  as  round  shot  for 
he  enemy.  I  just  sucked  a  finger  of  astonishment, 
57ondering  if  I  was  living  in  an  asylum,  until  a  telescope- 


100  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

holder  kindly  told  me  the  people  were  expecting  a 
catch  of  whales. 

"  Then  between  tongues  and  telescope  I  became  aware 
that  a  line  of  six  or  eight  boats  were  acting  in  concert 
with  the  harbour  boats,  some  of  the  men  rowing  and 
others  standing  up  on  the  thwarts  and  waving  hats  and 
jackets  to  indicate  something  not  yet  visible  to  us 
landlubbers.  In  a  few  minutes  some  thirty  boats  were 
steering  down  the  harbour  close  to  the  land  on  our  side, 
rowing  as  if  for  dear  life  or  a  £1,000  prize.  We  saw  them 
very  soon  pass  the  eight  boats  at  the  harbour  mouth, 
which,  it  seemed,  had  gone  off  early  to  their  ordinary 
long  line  fishings,  when  they  fell  in  with  a  great  school 
of  whales  that  were  capering  about  like  lunatics  in 
the  sea.  The  moment  the  supporting  boats  passed 
those  which  had  discovered  the  whales,  we  saw  them 
wheel  round  outside  them  from  the  shore,  and  soon  a 
regular  barrier  of  boats  was  formed  quite  across  the 
bay  about  one  hundred  yards  beyond  the  original 
fishermen,  who  then  left  their  stations  to  join  the  new 
flotilla.  Meanwhile  another  line  of  boats,  arriving  later, 
formed  a  second  barrier  one  hundred  yards  or  so  nearer 
the  ocean  than  the  first  one.  All  this  time  our  telescopes 
showed  us  that  the  chase  was  going  on  vigorously. 
The  crews  of  the  boats  were  waving  coats  and  throwing 
stones  at  the  coveted  mammals,  and  the  sea  was  boiling 
with  the  capers  of  the  monsters,  who  were  growing 
alarmed  at  their  danger.  Oh  dear,  dear  !  they  have  dived 
under  the  first  line  of  boats  and  are  off  back  to  sea  ! 
What  a  loss  of  booty  !  But  all  is  not  over,  for  the 
fugitives  have  taken  fright  at  the  second  line  of  boats, 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  101 

and  the  first  line  has  divided  in  the  middle,  passed 
farther  out  in  two  columns,  to  reform  their  line  again 
beyond  the  second .  This  game  went  on  for  rather  longer 
than  the  fishers  desired,  for  the  demands  upon  wind  and 
limb  were  severe,  and  they  had  started  early,  without 
food  or  liquor,  their  only  breakfast  being  deferred  hope, 
which  does  not  take  long  to  digest. 

*'  However,  about  noon  the  whales  seemed  to  have 
had  enough  of  men  and  boats,  and  their  leader,  dis- 
tinguished by  the  name  of  Delphinus  dednxior — or  caaing, 
that  is,  *  driving  whale  ' — steered  up  the  harbour  and 
was  soon  nearly  opposite  the  town.  All  was  most  quiet 
and  silent  there,  lest  any  noise  on  shore  might  frighten 
the  whales  out  to  sea  again.  The  harbour  grows  so  much 
narrower  near  the  town  that  the  boats  came  gradually 
closer  together,  and  showers  of  stones  were  thrown 
at  every  whale  who  showed  above  water.  I  fetched  my 
double  rifle  and  its  ammunition  from  the  hotel,  and 
became  so  excited  that  when  the  leading  whale  raised  his 
head  high  enough  to  show  his  eye,  I  fired  without  asking 
anyone's  leave,  feeling  certain  I  could  extinguish  it.  A 
universal  groan  and  some  unmistakable  bad  language 
from  land  and  sea  rather  shocked  me  for  a  moment ;  but 
I  am  certain  the  shot  was  a  wise  one,  for  the  leader, 
instead  of  turning  away  to  sea  as  my  groaners  were  sure 
he  would  do,  quietly  continued  his  course  up  the  harbour 
till  he  grounded.  It  was  high  water  or  nearly  so,  and 
ninety-five  others  of  his  large  followers  ran  ashore  also 
or  hung  about  him  like  a  swarm  of  bees  round  their  queen, 
though  there  was  nothing  to  prevent  all  of  them  going 
back  to  sea  if  they  had  resolved  to  do  so. 


UNiVERsn  i  uv  (jalifornm: 

SAIS  lA  liARBAltA 


102  A  HUNDKED  YEARS 

"  As  soon  as  the  boat  people  learnt  the  leader  was 
ashore,  the  boats  dashed  in  among  the  shoal,  busy  with 
every  deadly  weapon  they  could  lay  hands  on,  till  the 
sea  was  mere  bloody  mud.  I  saw  my  spit-bearer  poking 
his  spit  into  shining  backs  as  they  emerged  from  the 
water  alongside  his  boat,  and  I  saw  also  a  leather-cutter 
busy  with  his  knife,  imagining  he  was  killing  whales  also, 
while  in  reality  he  was  only  spoiling  their  leather,  for 
below  the  skin,  which  naturally  he  cut,  was  a  mass  ol 
blubber.  I  soon  expended  all  my  bullets  at  point-blank 
distance.    The  sea  seemed  pink,  nearly  scarlet. 

"  Every  now  and  then  a  boat  was  upset  by  a  whale 
rising  to  the  surface  underneath  it,  and  the  noise  of  the 
killers  and  the  semi-drowning  people  and  the  onlookers 
on  the  shore  was  astounding,  a  whale  sometimes  getting 
his  head  so  much  above  water  that  he  could  join  in  the 
uproar,  which  he  did  with  a  will.  One  boat  stuck 
near  the  shore,  and  a  badly  wounded  whale  took  to 
spouting  blood  in  a  stream  as  thick  as  my  arm  from 
his  blow-hole.  He  anchored  exactly  astern  of  the 
stranded  boat,  and  rather  astonished  its  crew  by 
regularly  deluging  them  with  a  continuous  stream  of 
pure  blood .  The  water  was  too  deep  for  the  men  to  jump 
ashore,  and  in  a  few  minutes,  in  spite  of  their  seeking 
shelter  under  the  thwarts  or  at  the  side  of  the  boat, 
any  one  of  them  might  have  applied  for  a  place  as  the 
Demon  clothed  in  scarlet  in  Der  FreischiUz  ;  and  instead 
of  their  receiving  pity  from  the  spectators,  the  shore  just 
rang  with  yells  of  laughter. 

"  When  it  was  low  water  I  went  among  the  ninety- 
six  captives,  and  forgetting  that  they  were  not  fish. 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  103 

who  died  when  out  of  water,  got  rather  a  start  when  one 
of  them,  which  I  poked,  opened  his  mouth  and  gave  an 
alarming  roar,  making  me  feel  quite  sorry  for  him  and 
his .  They  were  of  all  sizes,  most  of  them  about  twenty  to 
twenty-four  feet  long,  but  some  were  down  to  four  feet, 
and  in  several  places  in  the  mud  I  could  have  taken 
up  bowls  of  milk  that  had  run  out  of  the  mother  whales. 
One  of  them  opened  its  mouth  and  spat  out  an  eight 
or  nine  pound  salmon  as  fresh  as  if  taken  out  of  a  net, 
and  I  doubt  not  it  made  a  dinner  for  some  people  that 
day,  after  having  itself  dined  with  a  whale.  It  was 
evidently  a  salmon  that  intended  to  go  up  the  River 
Creed,  but  had  fallen  in  with  the  school  of  whales  as 
they  passed  along,  and  had  very  naturally  been  gobbled 
up.  The  whole  of  the  townsfolk  were  busy  as  bees 
making  sure  that  there  was  no  risk  of  any  of  the  whales 
swimming  out  to  sea  again  at  the  next  high  tide,  and  in 
due  time  slices  of  whale  were  being  boiled  for  oil  in  every 
hole  and  corner  of  the  town.  For  many  a  day  every- 
thing smelt,  if  it  did  not  taste,  of  whale  oil !  It  was  a 
wild  mess,  ending  most  childishly  in  each  whale  being 
towed  out  to  sea  after  its  blubber  was  pared  off 
and  cast  adrift,  whereas  if  made  into  manure  it 
would  have  made  a  great  piece  of  land  grateful  for 
years." 

When  I  was  ten  years  old  I  paid  my  first  visit  to  Lews 
Castle  with  my  mother,  accompanied  by  our  keeper, 
and  I  brought  my  new  little  rifle.  We  were  sent  to 
Morsgail,  the  deer-forest  on  the  west  side  of  the  island, 
about  thirty  miles  away,  and  were  to  remain  there  some 


104  A  HUNDKED  YEARS 

time  till  I  got  a  stag.  Although  no  one  believed  such 
a  small  boy  could  kill  a  stag,  I  got  two  the  very  first  day, 
one  of  them  with  a  funny  little  head  of  twelve  points  which 
I  still  possess,  and  on  the  third  day  we  returned  to  the 
castle  in  triumph.  For  years  afterwards  I  went  there 
for  long  visits,  and  what  bags  I  used  to  make  of  grouse 
and  golden  plovers,  besides  stags  !  One  day  I  got 
five  stags  right  away  on  the  Harris  march.  I  remember 
as  a  lad  of  fifteen  or  sixteen  starting  on  foot  from  the 
castle,  and  on  the  home  beat  shooting  thirty-six  brace 
of  grouse  over  dogs  with  my  muzzle-loader,  and  after  my 
return  dancing  all  night  at  a  ball  given  in  the  castle  to 
the  townspeople. 

The  Lews  was  a  wonderfully  sporting  island  in  those 
days.  A  connection  of  mine,  a  Captain  Frederick 
Trotter,  used  to  get  as  many  as  twelve  hundred  brace  at 
Soval,  besides  endless  snipe  and  golden  plovers,  while 
hundreds  of  woodcock  used  to  be  shot  out  on  the  open 
moors  over  dogs  in  the  winter.  And  now,  as  on  the 
opposite  mainland,  game  is  nearly  extinct. 

That  summer,  when  I  was  ten,  I  made  my  first  attempt 
at  salmon-fishing  in  the  Ewe,  and  was  much  more 
successful  than  I  have  ever  been  since.  There  had  been 
a  great  drought,  and  towards  the  end  of  June  came 
a  big  flood,  and  I  was  given  a  small  new  salmon-rod 
and  put  in  the  charge  of  Sandy  Urquhart.  He  and  his 
older  brother  Hector,  whom  he  succeeded,  were  the  best 
hands  who  ever  cast  a  flv  on  the  Ewe.  Wonderful  to 
say,  I  killed  twelve  fish  in  the  first  two  days,  the  heaviest 
!27J  pounds,  and  my  little  arms  were  so  tired  each  day 
by  about  two  or  three  o'clock  that  I  could  fish  no  longer 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  105 

and  had  to  go  home.  But  I  got  thirty  fish  in  those  nine 
or  ten  days.  If  I  had  been  eighteen  or  twenty  years  of 
age  and  an  experienced  fisherman,  what  would  I  not 
have  caught  if  I  had  fished  from  six  in  the  morning  till 
ten  at  night !  My  first  salmon-fishing  took  place 
in  the  year  1852,  and  I  do  not  think  my  record  has  ever 
been  beaten,  though  before  my  time  I  have  heard  of 
my  grandfath-er  doing  wonders  and  getting  sometimes 
as  many  as  thirty  fish  a  day  to  his  own  rod. 

1  have  heard  a  story  about  my  father  and  Fraser  of 
Culduthel  fishing  the  Ewe.  Culduthel  was  catching  fish 
after  fish,  and  declared  they  would  take  any  mortal 
thing.  He  removed  his  fly,  put  on  a  bare  bait-hook,  to 
which  he  tied  a  small  tuft  of  moss,  and  cast  with  it. 
No  sooner  had  the  hook  with  the  tuft  of  moss  touched 
the  stream  than  he  had  a  fish  on.  When  the  fish  was 
landed  he  threw  down  his  rod  in  disgust,  saying  it  was 
no  sport  fishing  the  Ewe,  as  the  salmon  would  take 
anything. 

Certain  families  served  the  lairds  in  the  good  old 
times  generation  after  generation.  For  example,  my 
teacher  in  salmon-fishing,  Sandy  Urquhart,  and  his 
brother  Hector  were  grandsons  of  my  grandfather's 
head  herdman,  Domhnall  Donn,  who  had  charge  of  Sir 
Hector's  sixty  black  cows  at  the  Baile  Mor  of  Gairloch. 
How  well  I  remember  their  mother  !  Such  a  handsome 
old  woman,  and  of  such  size  and  strength  !  I  have 
heard  that  as  a  girl,  when  helping  her  father  with  the 
cattle,  she  could  catch  a  heifer  by  the  hind-leg  and  hold 
her.  Many  a  good  lunch  I  have  had  from  her  when 
fishing  the  Ewe  !     Her  boiled  salmon  was  better  cooked 


106  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

and  tasted  better  than  that  of  anyone  else.  Her  recipe 
was  to  boil  the  salmon  overnight  and  leave  it  all  night 
in  the  water  it  was  boiled  in.  In  the  morning  each 
slice  was  encased  in  its  own  jelly.  There  were  few  flour- 
scones  in  those  days,  only  either  good  hard  oat-cakes 
or  softer  barley-scones,  generally  made  with  a  mixture 
of  potato.  Nothing  nowadays  can  come  up  to  Bantrach 
Choinnich  Eachainn's  (Kenneth  Hector's  Widow)  salmon 
and  barley-scones,  with  those  most  delicious  of  all 
potatoes  the  seanna  Bhuntata  dearg  (old  red  potatoes), 
which,  alas  !  did  not  resist  that  awful  plague,  the  potato 
disease,  and  very  soon  entirely  disappeared. 

Describing  salmon-fishing  fully  one  hundred  years 
ago,  my  uncle  says :  "  Our  father  at  breakfast  would 
say :  '  Boys,  salmon  are  crowding  into  the  bay  now 
and  we  must  help  some  of  them  out.  See  and  get  your 
lessons  finished  and  we'll  dine  at  two,  and  have  a  haul 
of  the  seine-net  at  Inverkerry."  *  Hurrah,  hurrah !'  was 
the  ready  response,  and  by  three  we  were  off  in  the 
long-boat,  and  soon  found  the  net  people  with  all  set 
ready  for  a  haul,  and  quite  cross  at  our  being  so  late, 
for  a  shoal  of  salmon  had  cruised  all  round  inside  the 
bight  of  the  net  laughing  at  them,  but  they  dared  not 
begin  till  we  came.  So  we  sat  down  on  the  Scannan 
rock,  and  in  a  few  minutes  there  was  a  grand  fish 
springing  in  the  air  close  to  the  net  and  a  crowd  of  his 
admirers  hauling  on  at  its  shore-ropes  like  mad.  Old 
Iain  Buidh  was  furious  at  us  urchins  for  making  such  a 
row,  as  he  knew  noises  often  frightened  away  fish.  One 
end  of  the  net  is  always  close  to  shore,  but  the  other  end 
of  the  semicircle  may  be  over  one  hundred  yards  out  at 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  107 

sea,  and  it  was  the  rope  from  it  to  the  shore  that  we 
were  all  hauling  at  like  demons — not  nearly  such  tame 
ones  as  old  Iain  would  have  liked.  The  smaller  people 
were  set  to  throw  white  dornagan  (fist-sized  round  stones) 
along  the  line  of  the  hauled  rope  to  prevent  fish  swimming 
away  from  the  net  as  it  kept  closing  in.  Both  ends  of 
the  net  are  now  ashore,  but  much  caution  is  needed  yet, 
lest  it  be  raised  above  the  ground  ere  all  is  high  and 
dry;  for  Mr.  Salmon  has  a  good  eye,  and  would  instantly 
dart  out  to  sea  through  the  gap  ! 

"  Hurrah  !  they  are  all  safe.  There  is  the  leader 
springing  in  the  air,  just  to  see  what  all  this  contracting 
of  their  sea  means.  Alas  !  very  soon  he  is  capering 
on  the  rock  with  all  his  friends,  while  many  of  his  young 
admirers  are  busy  as  bees  with  their  shillelaghs,  made 
for  the  purpose  of  administering  vigorous  head-whacking 
opiates  to  ensure  the  peace.  At  one  such  haul  I  once 
saw  over  three  hundred  salmon,  grilse,  and  trout,  from 
2  or  3  pounds  up  to  25  pounds,  brought  ashore.  Usually 
two  or  three  hauls  of  the  net  landed  as  many  as  our 
father  cared  to  take  home,  for  all  but  the  few  needed 
for  home  use  were  that  evening  allocated  for  tenants  or 
poor  people.  It  takes  more  planning  than  folks  would 
imagine,  first  to  settle  where  each  fish  is  to  go,  and  then 
who  is  to  take  it. 

"  By  the  time  the  net  was  hung  up  in  the  boat  house 
roof,  sledges  were  up  at  Tigh  Dige  with  the  fish,  which 
were  always  laid  out  on  the  grass  in  front  of  the  house, 
that  the  dear  mother  might  admire  the  really  beautiful 
sight,  and  with  paper  and  pencil,  supported  by  her 
devotee  and  housekeeper,  Kate  Archy,  plan  the  fishy 


108  A  HUNDRED  YEAES 

distribution.  I  have  sometimes  wondered  how  my 
father  and  mother  would  have  looked  at  anyone  who 
suggested  their  selling  salmon  or  game  !  So  when  Kate 
had  selected  her  fish  for  kipper-smoking — and  no  one 
ever  matched  her  at  that  trade,  for  the  Tigh  Dige 
breakfast  without  hot  plates  of  kipper  was  not  to  be 
tolerated — and  when  Mrs.  Cook  had  secured  her  share, 
every  other  fish  was  despatched  to  the  tenants  and 
crofters,  and  they  were  legion,  within  reach.  And 
now,  instead  of  those  happy,  exciting  times,  there 
are  horrid  bag  nets  all  round  the  coast,  which  keep 
up  a  melancholy  stream  of  fish,  all  going  to  greedy 
London  in  exchange  for  horrid,  filthy,  useful  lucre. 
My  father,  luckily  for  him,  died  ere  the  Gairloch  salmon 
came  to  such  degeneration.'' 

Kate  Archy  was  widow  of  Fraser,  our  gardener,  and 
mother  of  a  daughter  who  succeeded  her  and  remained 
with  the  family  all  her  life.  I  see  her  now  in  the  high 
white  mutch,  herself  considerably  above  ordinary  height, 
stalking  over  the  lawns  and  along  the  roads  with  a 
strong  apron  fastened  round  her,  containing,  perhaps, 
seven  or  eight  live  chickens,  and  at  her  right  side  a  huge 
pocket.  With  her  right  hand  she  hauls  a  squalling 
chicken  out  of  the  apron.  In  a  second  the  left  hand 
holds  the  feet,  the  knuckle  of  the  right  thumb  (did  she 
not  teach  me  herself  carefully  ?)  dislocates  chicky's  neck, 
and  a  large  handful  of  feathers  goes  into  the  pocket, 
till  in  an  amazingly  short  time  the  featherless  victim 
is  thrust  away  among  the  survivors  in  the  apron. 
Then  another  suddenly  goes  through  the  same  ceremony, 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  109 

till  all  are  served.  When  Kate's  walk  round  the  place 
ends  in  the  kitchen  of  the  Tigh  Dige  seven  or  eight 
chickens,  merely  needing  "  flamming,"  are  lying  on  the 
table  for  the  housekeeper's  orders.  And  don't  I 
remember  her  sometimes  allowing  me,  as  a  reward  for 
being  good,  to  flam  the  feather-plucked  flesh,  passing 
the  bird  suddenly  through  the  flames  of  some  paper, 
which  burnt  off  all  the  small  feathers  or  down  ? 

"  I  don't  believe  Kate  was  ever  aware  of  what  she 
was  doing  when  stalking  about  with  an  apron  full  of 
chickens.  It  never  for  a  moment  stopped  her  singing 
or  holloaing  any  advice  or  warning  to  A,  B,  or  C,  who 
crossed  her  path  or  eye.  Was  there  ever  a  more  valued, 
entirely  trusted,  loving  family  friend  ?  I  doubt  it. 
Christie,  her  daughter,  was  hardly  behind  her.  What 
did  Kate  and  Co.  care  for  their  own  interest  compared 
with  ours  ?  Not  a  straw  !  These  were  the  kind  of 
people  that  cheerfully  *  gaed  up  to  be  hangit '  just  to 
please  the  laird. 

"  How  ashamed  Monsieur  Soyer  would  have  been  had 
he  competed  with  Kate  in  a  dish  of  venison  collops  for 
breakfast  at  Tigh  Dige  !  Such  collops  were  never  made 
before  or  since.  And  as  for  her  kippers,  who  nowadays 
could  settle  like  her  the  exact  quantities  of  salt,  sugar, 
and  smoke  each  dried  salmon  and  grilse  required,  to 
suit  the  date  of  their  consumption,  whether  immediate 
or  deferred,  confidentially  imparted  to  her  by  the  dear 
calculating  mother  ?  Until  salmon  close  time  ended 
the  family  was  never  disgraced  through  being  out  of 
salmon  or  wonderful  kipper,  not  to  mention  venison  and 
venison  hams. 


110  A  HUNDKED  YEARS 

"Our  father,  Sir  Hector,  took  much  interest  in  our 
fishing  and  shooting,  even  planning  our  expeditions 
and  sometimes  taking  a  drove  of  us  on  ponies  to  fish 
in  the  then  celebrated  Ewe,  a  seven-mile  ride  from  the 
Tigh  Dige.  We  were  always  off  by  6  a.m.,  so  as  to  have 
fresh  salmon  cutlets  for  breakfast  in  the  old  inn.  He 
would  land  six  or  eight  fish  before  we  went  to  gorge 
ourselves,  keen  with  hunger,  at  breakfast  with  dish 
after  dish  of  fried  slices  of  salmon.  One  day  I  remember 
he  landed,  besides  many  others,  two  fish  each  about 
40  pounds  weight,  one  of  which  took  him  right  down 
into  the  sea,  whence  it  was  landed.  Nowadays  salmon 
are  all  killed  (at  least,  on  the  Ewe)  ere  they  approach 
that  weight,  for  there  are  nets  everywhere.  In  the 
old  times  there  was  a  haul  of  the  salmon-net,  twice  a 
day  or  so,  at  the  mouth  of  the  river  opposite  Pool  House, 
and  once  in  the  evening  in  the  pool  below  the  cruives. 
Heaps  of  salmon  were  caught  every  day  but  Sunday  in 
the  cruive-boxes,  and  I  once  helped  to  draw  ashore  over 
three  hundred  in  one  sweep  of  the  net  from  the  cruive 
pool. 

**  I  must  admit  that  I  removed  the  cruives  to  please 
the  Government  Drainage  Commissioner,  who  would 
not  in  1847  sanction  drainage  in  Kenlochewe  till  the 
cruives,  which  he  said  dammed  up  Loch  Maree,  were 
removed.  Since  then  there  has  been  no  trouble  taken 
to  make  pools  in  the  river.  The  salmon  scoffed  at  our 
efforts  and  rushed  up  to  Loch  Maree,  very  few  resting  so 
long  in  the  river  as  to  get  hungry,  and  running  fish 
seldom  care  for  fly  or  bait.  I  never  would  have  removed 
the  cruives  had  I  imagined  the  river,  which  is  not  a 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  111 

mile  long,  was  not  to  be  made  into  a  series  of  pools 
instead  of  flowing  in  rough  runs  broken  up  by  big 
stones,  behind  one  of  which,  when  the  river  was  furnished 
with  cruives,  a  fish  was  obliged  to  rest  and  get  a  good 
sight  of  our  flies.  There  was  no  bridge  on  the  Ewe  until, 
I  think,  1836  or  so,  and  the  present  much  altered  Cliff 
House  was  then  the  smoky,  whisky-perfumed  Poolewe 
Inn." 

Apropos  of  salmon-fishing,  my  uncle  tells  a  story  of 
a  lawsuit  his  father  had :  "  My  father  was  his  own  factor 
and  clerk,  as  every  wise  landlord  will  be  till  too  old  for 
work  with  mind  or  body.  He  just  pitied  landlords 
who  knew  not  the  pleasure  of  guiding  their  tenants 
through  all  the  many  difficulties,  which  no  factor 
can  remedy  like  their  landlord,  and  when  the  factor  was 
a  mere  lawyer  his  pity  was  greatly  increased.  He  de- 
tested law  and  kept  out  of  court  with  wonderful  success, 
till  all  at  once  a  litigious  fool  of  a  neighbour  drew 
him  into  no  fewer  than  seven  lawsuits.  The  River 
Ewe  was  the  Gairloch  march  in  one  direction,  and 
Seaforth  had  bought  Kernsary,  which  was  on  the  north 
side  of  the  Ewe.  Like  many  people  who  are  very 
clever  but  not  wise,  he  discovered  that  my  father  was 
using  rights  belonging  to  Kernsary,  etc.  He  soon  found 
lawyers  glad  enough  to  back  him  in  his  folly.  I  need 
not  detail  more  than  one  of  the  complaints  to  court — 
namely,  that  my  father  drew  the  seine-net  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Ewe  on  the  Kernsary  seashore.  No  use  telling 
him  that  this  had  been  done  without  any  objection  for 
more  than  a  hundred  years.  He  would  soon  make 
people  wiser,  and  into  court  he  went  ding-dong.    Then 


112     A  HUNDKED  YEARS  IN  THE  HIGHLANDS 

he  discovered  that  a  ship  pier  erected  on  this,  the  only 
spot  where  a  net  could  be  drawn  at  the  river  mouth, 
would  be  a  grand  thing  to  upset  the  netting,  so  Brahan 
Quarries  were  all  busy  and  ships  were  loaded  with 
dressed  freestone  for  the  pier,  and  were  instantly 
discharged  into  the  sea  on  the  pier  site.  When  the 
lawyers  had  seen  him  well  into  the  courts  they  suddenly 
advised  Seaforth  to  throw  up  the  sponge,  and  the  result 
was  that  he  offered  to  withdraw  the  seven  lawsuits 
and  pay  all  the  costs.  These,  of  course,  were  no  trifle, 
but  the  fishing  up  of  all  those  ship-loads  of  stone  out 
of  the  deep  below  at  the  river  mouth  (for  every  one 
had  to  be  removed)  must  have  been  a  wild  expense. 
He  also  had  to  pay  my  father  damages  for  the  loss  of 
two  seasons  of  fishing  there,  and  the  affair  became 
the  standing  joke  of  the  county  wherever  the  parties 
were  known." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

EARLY  SPORTING  DAYS 

I  LEFT  my  home  for  Germany  in  the  autumn  of  1853, 
when  the  Crimean  War  was  in  full  blast.  My  mother's 
intention,  was  to  remain  abroad  for  perhaps  three  years, 
but  the  first  summer  at  Heidelberg  proved  too  hot  for  me 
(the  thermometer  going  up  to  92°  in  the  shade),  so  we 
had  to  go  to  Switzerland  for  three  months.  Ross-shire 
saw  us  back  again  (at  least,  for  a  good  long  holiday) 
in  1855,  because  I  was  beginning  to  get  very  homesick, 
and  in  consequence  was  not  thriving  quite  to  my  mother's 
satisfaction. 

Now,  as  all  the  shootings  on  the  Gairloch  estate  were 
let  at  this  time,  I  proposed  to  my  mother  that  we  should 
hire  Pool  House,  which  was  empty,  and  which  had  been 
our  home  on  one  or  two  previous  occasions,  and  that  we 
should  try  to  get  the  sporting  rights  over  Inverewe, 
which  was  quite  near.  It  was  then  just  a  neglected 
outlying  sheep-farm,  belonging  to  the  Coul  estate,  with- 
out even  a  resident  farm  tenant  on  it,  and  in  charge  only 
of  two  shepherds,  who  looked  after  its  stock  of  Cheviot 
ewes.  One  of  these  shepherds  generally  carried  a  gun 
instead  of  the  regulation  shepherd's  crook  !  There  were 
also  one  or  two  other  men  in  Poolewe  and  in  the  crofting 

township  of  Londubh   (Black  Bog)   who  occasionally 

113  8 


114  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

shot  over  it;  but  as  grouse  were  so  very  scarce,  they 
more  or  less  confined  themselves  to  sporting  along 
its  shores,  on  the  ofE-chance  of  getting  a  shot  at  an  otter, 
a  merganser,  or,  still  better,  a  great  northern  diver. 
Well  do  I  remember  one  of  them  telling  me  that  a  Muir 
Bhuachaill  (sea  herdsman,  the  Gaelic  for  the  northern 
diver)  was  far  better  than  any  three  fat  hens.  I  can 
certainly  vouch  for  its  being  bigger  and  heavier,  if  not 
better  flavoured,  for  the  first  northern  diver  I  ever  shot 
weighed  17  pounds ! 

Accordingly  we  approached  the  then  laird  of  Coul, 
Sir  Alexander  Mackenzie,  on  the  question  of  shooting 
rent;  his  ideas  were  very  moderate,  for  he  only  asked 
£10  per  annum  for  something  like  7,000  or  8,000  acres, 
on  condition  that  we  put  on  a  good  keeper,  who  would 
stop  poaching  and  destroy  the  vermin.  And  so  I 
started  my  life  as  a  regular  sportsman  at  the  early  age 
of  thirteen  years.  The  keeper  who  was  engaged  came 
of  real  good  old  stock,  who  had  served  the  Gairloch 
family  more  or  less  for  generations,  and  had  been  with 
us  as  hall-boy  for  some  years  in  the  Tigh  Dige.  He 
rejoiced  in  the  modern  anglicised  patronymic  of 
Morrison,  which  would  sound  so  much  nicer  in  its  old 
original  Gaelic  form  of  Mac  ille  Mhoire  (Son  of  the 
Servant  of  St.  Mary). 

The  next  thing  was  to  get  a  good  dog  of  some  kind, 
and  as  I  was  so  young  someone  suggested  that  a  sort 
of  retriever,  which  would  occasionally  point  at  his  game, 
might  suit  me,  instead  of  having  a  regular  team  of 
pointers  or  setters.  There  was  nothing  in  the  way  of  a 
kennel  at  Pool  House,  so  my  first  and  only  dog,  '*  Shot," 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  115 

a  curly  retriever,  made  himself  quite  at  home  in  front 
of  the  kitchen  fire  or  under  the  kitchen  table,  along  with 
various  terriers,  and  there  my  pet  otter  used  to  enjoy 
many  a  rough-and-tumble  game  with  them  ! 

How  distinctly  I  remember  my  first  day  out  on  the 
hill  in  August,  1855  !  I  was  armed  with  my  little  gun, 
which  weighed  only  three  pounds;  but  I  had  a  real 
licence  to  shoot  game,  and  this  made  me  feel  very 
important  and  quite  a  man.  Away  Uilleam  (William) 
and  I  started,  with  great  hopes.  On  our  way  we  met 
the  poaching  shepherd,  Alasdair  Mor  nan  Geadh  (Big 
Sandy  of  the  Geese),  who  was  known  by  that  name 
because  he  had  been  born  at  a  place  called  Achadli  nan 
Geadh  (Field  of  the  Geese),  on  the  shores  of  one  of  the 
Inverewe  lochs,  where  the  greylags  ate  all  the  little 
patches  of  oats.  The  only  news  he  could  give  us  was 
that  he  was  sure  there  were  one  or  two  coveys  of  black 
game  in  Coille  Aigeasgaig,  the  only  bit  of  wood  on  the 
whole  property,  which  consisted  of  dwarf,  scrubby  birch 
with  lots  of  bracken  growing  between  the  trees.  I  was 
for  making  straight  for  the  wood,  but  Uilleam  wisely 
argued  that  we  should  keep  it  for  dessert,  and  first  of 
all  try  the  open  moor  by  the  side  of  Loch  a  Bhad 
luachraich  (the  Lake  of  the  Tuft  of  Rushes) .  I  remember 
everything  as  well  as  if  it  were  yesterday.  All  we  and 
Shot  found  in  the  open  were  two  coveys  (if  they  deserved 
to  be  called  such) — viz.,  a  pair  of  grouse  with  one  cheeper, 
which  Shot  promptly  caught  in  his  big  ugly  mouth,  and 
another  pair  with  two  young  birds,  out  of  which  small 
lot  I  contrived  to  shoot  the  old  cock  as  he  ran  in  front  of 
me.    Then  of!  we  went  to  the  haunt  of  the  black  grouse. 


116  A  HUNDKED  YEARS 

What  a  big  pile  it  would  make  if  all  the  black  game  I 
shot  there  between  1855  and  1900  were  gathered  into  one 
heap  !  Now,  alas  !  there  are  none,  and  why,  who  can 
tell  ?  Shot  was  not  long  in  finding  one  of  the  coveys 
Big  Sandy  of  the  Geese  had  told  us  of.  Up  they  got 
in  ones  and  twos,  fat  young  cocks,  with  their  plumage 
half  black  and  half  brown.  I  blazed  at  them  more  than 
once,  but  was  so  excited  that  I  felt  sure  I  could  not  have 
hit  anything.  However,  Shot,  who  was,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  quite  unbroken,  tore  off  after  them,  and  soon 
returned  with  a  fine  young  black-cock  in  his  mouth; 
of  course,  it  was  supposed  I  must  have  wounded  him, 
though  there  were  no  signs  of  any  pellets.  The  next 
covey  Shot  put  up  out  of  range  of  my  poor  little  scatter 
gun,  but  notwithstanding,  he  brought  back  another 
young  beauty  and  laid  it  at  our  feet.  It  seemed  as  if 
my  firing  or  not  was  quite  a  matter  of  indifference  to 
Shot.  As  for  blue  hares,  even  a  well-grown  leveret  had 
not  a  chance  if  Shot  got  a  sight  of  it,  unless  it  went  to 
ground,  and  then  he  would  come  and  ask  us  to  help  him 
to  dig  it  out.  If  ever  there  was  a  real  poacher,  it  was 
Shot,  so  he  was  voted  a  very  useful  dog  in  helping  to 
make  up  a  bag.  We  came  home  quite  pleased  with  our- 
selves, though  we  should  not  have  thought  much  of  the 
day's  work  in  the  sixties  and  seventies,  after  the  wild- 
cats and  foxes  and  the  falcons  and  hoodies  had  been 
mostly  destroyed. 

The  following  year  we  returned  again  from  Germany, 
and  I  began  rather  to  look  down  on  Shot,  and  aspired 
to  getting  a  brace  of  properly  broken  pointers  or  setters. 
Hearing  of  two  for  sale  in  Loch  Broom — viz.,  at  Foich 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  117 

Lodge,  which  was  then  tenanted  by  a  friend  of  ours,  a 
Mr.  Gilbert  Mitchell  Innes — Uilleam  and  I  crossed  the 
hills  by  way  of  Carnmor,  Strath  na  Sealg,  and  Dun- 
donnell — a  very  long  wild  walk  it  was — and  I  spent  the 
night  with  my  friends,  leaving  again  in  the  morning, 
accompanied  by  the  Foich  keeper  and  two  pointers, 
which  he  was  to  show  off  to  us. 

They  were  of  an  unusual  colour  for  pointers — viz., 
black  and  tan — and  we  found  any  amount  of  grouse  as  we 
went  along,  though  I  believe  they  are  all  but  extinct 
there  now.  We  made  a  bee-line  for  home,  crossing  the 
dreary  high-road  to  Dundonnell,  where  there  used  to 
be  a  tiny  wayside  pub.,  well  known  by  its  Gaelic  name 
of  Tigh  Osda  na  feithean  mora  (the  Inn  of  the  Great 
Swamps).  The  dogs  behaved  well,  and  I  decided  to  buy 
them,  but  we  already  perceived  that  they  would  be 
very  determined  about  returning  to  their  homes  with 
the  keeper,  and  would  refuse  even  to  be  dragged  in  the 
contrary  direction  by  us.  Eoss,  the  keeper,  however, 
was  a  match  for  them;  he  asked  us  to  hold  them  and 
stay  where  we  were,  giving  him  a  quarter  of  an  hour^s 
start;  then  he  walked  straight  ahead  as  if  making  for 
Poole  we,  and  as  soon  as  he  got  well  out  of  sight  over 
a  top,  he  slipped  round,  and  returned  to  the  big  strath 
of  Loch  Broom.  Then  we  started,  the  dogs  always 
thinking  Ross  was  in  front  of  them,  and,  straining  on 
their  couples,  they  dragged  Uilleam,  who  held  them, 
all  the  way  back  to  Pool  House.  They  proved  useful 
dogs,  were  as  hard  as  nails,  and  never  got  tired  or  gave 
in,  but  they  required  constant  flogging,  as  nothing  could 
ever  cure  them  of  running  hares  or  of  quarrelling  and 


118  A  HUNDKED  YEAES 

fighting;  and  though  they  were  brothers,  of  the  same 
litter,  before  very  long  the  one  killed  the  other.  We 
always  thought  they  must  have  had  a  dash  of  foxhound 
or  some  other  blood  in  them,  as  they  took  such  a  fear- 
fully vicious  grip  of  anything  they  got  hold  of.  I 
remember  one  day,  when  shooting  grouse  along  a  hill- 
side on  Inverewe,  we  heard  a  most  awful  row  going  on 
ahead  of  us,  and  there  were  the  black  and  tan  brothers, 
quite  in  their  glory.  They  had  come  on  a  badger  which 
had  got  its  foot  in  a  small  steel  trap,  set  for  a  weasel  or 
crow,  and  had  gone  off  with  it.  One  would  have  thought 
they  had  bulldog  blood  in  them  by  the  way  they  tackled 
the  badger  and  killed  it  straight  ofi. 

We  still  have  in  use  a  big  rug  of  badgers'  skins  in 
front  of  our  smoking-room  fire,  all  caught  on  this  place, 
though,  as  in  the  case  of  the  eagles,  we  had  no  wish  to 
exterminate  them  like  wild-cats  and  foxes;  in  fact,  we 
should  have  liked  to  preserve  them,  but  they  would 
not  keep  out  of  the  vermin's  traps,  and  so  they  soon 
became  extinct. 

At  last  I  determined  to  start  breeding  setters  of  my 
own,  as  the  grouse  and  all  other  game  had  increased 
greatly,  and  I  secured  a  pedigree  bitch  from  Sir  Alexander 
Gumming  of  Altyre.  She  was  *'  Gordon  Castle  "  on  the 
one  side  and  "  Beaufort  "  on  the  other,  and  proved  a 
really  good  investment.  Indeed,  I  was  never,  perhaps, 
quite  as  successful  with  anything  else  as  I  was  with  my 
setters  from  1858  to  1914.  For  many  a  long  year  they 
had  such  a  good  name  that  I  used  to  sell  from  £80  to 
£140  worth  every  season,  and  I  always  had  more  orders 
than  I  could  possibly  supply.    In  1914  we  were  compelled 


m  THE  HIGHLANDS  119 

to  give  up  the  setters.  My  gamekeeper  and  faithful 
friend  and  companion,  John  Matheson,  who  was  such  a 
wonderful  dog-breaker,  had,  alas  !  died,  and  it  was 
impossible  to  get  food  for  a  kennel  of  dogs  during  the 
war,  while  the  grouse  had  decreased  greatly  in  number. 

Among  the  first  litter  I  had  from  the  Altyre  bitch 
was  one  jet  black  pup,  "  Fan."  She  and  I  were  in- 
separable friends  during  the  fifteen  best  years  of  my  life, 
and  it  would  fill  a  book  if  I  attempted  to  describe  what 
she  did  for  me,  and  what  marvellous  powers  of  reasoning 
she  had  in  that  dear  old  head  of  hers.  There  really 
seemed  to  be  nothing  in  the  way  of  sport  that  Fan  was 
not  up  to.  Although  she  was  not  a  "  show  "  dog,  not 
being  quite  correct,  it  was  much  more  interesting  to  be 
out  with  her  than  with  any  other  dog  I  have  ever  seen 
or  possessed. 

About  the  time  Fan  made  her  debut.  Lord  St.  John  of 
Bletsoe  (who  was  my  brother's  shooting  tenant  at 
Gairloch)  very  kindly  gave  me  the  winter  shooting  of 
those  twenty-five  lovely  islands  in  Loch  Maree,  the 
very  place  for  Fan  to  show  ofE — in  fact,  it  was  the  islands 
that  taught  her  so  many  of  her  clever  tricks.  With  the 
exception  of  parts  of  Eilean  Suthainn,  the  islands  were 
more  or  less  covered  with  trees,  but  they  also  had  some 
open  spaces  with  heather  where  grouse  came  in  for 
shelter  from  the  neighbouring  deer-forests  in  wild 
weather  in  November  and  December.  There  were  a 
good  many  black  game  and  woodcock,  and  just  enough 
roe  and  wild  ducks  and  geese,  and  even  wild  swans, 
to  raise  one's  expectations  and  make  it  exciting;  indeed, 
I  did  get  one  wild  swan  on  a  long  shallow  loch  on  Eilean 


120  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

Suthainn  after  a  tremendously  exciting  stalk  with  my 
little  three-pound  gun  and  with  the  help  of  an  Eley 
cartridge  duly  charged  with  slugs  ! 

No  ordinary  dog  was  of  any  use  in  the  islands,  as  one 
could  not  keep  it  in  view  for  a  moment  among  the  Scots 
firs  and  birches;  but  with  Fan  all  that  had  to  be  done 
on  landing  was  to  start  her  and  sit  comfortably  on  a 
stone  or  stump  and  wait  developments.  She  would  not 
be  long  before  she  came  back  to  tell  the  story  of  her 
discoveries.  We  used  to  fancy  we  could  guess  by  her 
face  what  kind  of  game  she  had  found,  and  that  she 
put  on  a  sort  of  apologetic  expression  when  it  was  a 
woodcock  and  not  a  grouse.  She  never  wasted  a 
moment  at  her  point,  unless  we  were  actually  in  sight 
or  she  felt  sure  we  were  following  at  her  heels.  She 
evidently  argued  that  the  only  thing  to  be  done  was  to 
find  us  as  quickly  as  possible,  put  on  a  solemn  face,  and 
lead  us  carefully  up  to  the  game.  Even  black  game 
feeding  on  the  birch  seed  in  the  tops  of  the  trees  did  not 
escape  her,  and  back  she  would  come  to  give  us  notice. 
She  seemed  to  know  perfectly  well  if  birds  were  wild 
or  not,  and,  if  they  were  wild,  she  would  sneak  along, 
keeping  herself  as  low  as  possible,  and  thus  giving 
us  the  tip  to  do  likewise;  but,  if  she  felt  they  would  lie 
close,  she  would  go  boldly  up  to  them.  If  we  had  Fan 
with  us  we  never  had  to  take  a  retriever. 

There  are  numerous  lochs  in  this  Gairloch  district. 
The  grouse  seem  always  to  prefer  the  loch  sides,  and 
when  shot  often  fall  into  them,  and  not  unfrequently 
into  the  sea;  but  whether  it  was  a  duck  or  a  snipe  or  a 
grouse,  distance  was  nothing  to  Fan  if  she  saw  it  fall 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  121 

on  the  water,  and  you  were  as  sure  of  your  bird  as  if  you 
had  a  boat  and  crew  with  which  to  fetch  it.  With  the 
experience  of  the  many  years  she  had  worked  the  ground, 
she  would  find  about  twice  as  much  game  as  most  other 
dogs.  She  knew  the  sedgy  pool  where  a  jack  snipe  was  to 
be  found,  and  the  smooth  greenish  slopes  where  the  great 
flocks  of  golden  plover  spent  their  days  sunning  them- 
selves and  waiting  for  the  dusk,  when  they  could  get  on 
to  the  crofters'  potato  patches ;  and  also  where  the  brown 
hares  and  partridges  were  likely  to  be,  and  the  cairns 
which  held  blue  hares.  She  always  did  her  best  to  get 
us  hares,  though  she  never  chased  them,  and  what  a 
dab  hand  she  was  at  a  woodcock  ! 

One  of  her  wonderful  talents  was  always  appearing 
to  know  in  a  moment  if  a  bird  were  hit  or  not.  She 
would  stand  up  on  her  hind-legs  so  as  to  try  to  mark 
it  down  as  far  as  she  could.  She  had  another  marvellous 
quality,  which  was  that  she  could  gauge  whether  a  bird 
was  mortally  wounded  or  not,  and  she  knew  if  she  could 
make  sure  of  grabbing  it,  or  whether  it  would  rise  again 
and  require  another  shot.  So  if  we  saw  Fan  pointing 
a  wounded  bird  and  waiting  for  a  gun  to  come  up,  then 
we  knew  it  was  only  slightly  hit ;  otherwise  Fan  managed 
the  business  herself,  and  spared  us  all  trouble  by  stalking 
up  to  it  like  a  cat,  and  then,  with  a  sudden  rush,  seizing 
it  and  bringing  it  back  to  us  in  her  mouth  without  the 
mark  of  a  tooth  on  it. 

After  a  year  or  two  of  the  sporting  rights  on  Inverewe 
only,  I  added  three  outlying  portions  of  the  Gairloch 
property  to  my  shooting,  by  hiring  from  my  brother  the 
Isle  of  Ewe,  the  extensive  hill  grazings  of  the  Mellan, 


122  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

Ormscaig  and  Bualnaluib  crofter  townships,  and  the 
small  farm  of  Inveran.  That  gave  me  a  good  deal  more 
room,  and  my  annual  bags  became  much  heavier  and 
more  varied.  Especially  was  this  the  case  after  the 
year  1862,  when  I  became  the  actual  owner  of  Inverewe, 
and  added  some  five  thousand  more  acres  to  it  by  the 
purchase  of  Kernsary.  Mellan  was  some  distance  away, 
and  motors  had  not  even  been  dreamed  of  then;  but 
my  younger  brother,  Francis,  had  built  and  endowed  a 
beautiful  Girls'  School  at  Bualnaluib  for  the  benefit  of 
the  daughters  of  the  numerous  surrounding  crofters, 
and  had  placed  in  it  as  teacher  a  daughter  of  John 
Fraser,  my  grandfather's  old  gardener  at  Conon,  who 
looked  upon  herself  as  one  of  the  family  retainers.  I 
used,  therefore,  to  put  up  at  the  Bualnaluib  school-house 
for  two  or  three  nights  at  a  time  and  shoot  over  the 
crofter  hill  grounds,  which  made  three  good  beats. 
This  I  did  chiefly  in  November  and  December,  and 
delightful  shooting  it  was. 

I  did  not,  perhaps,  make  what  farther  south  would 
have  been  called  big  bags,  but  I  used  to  get  from  twelve 
to  fifteen  brace  and  sometimes  over  twenty  brace  of 
grouse  a  day  to  my  own  muzzle-loader,  and  always  a  few 
woodcock  or  teal,  snipe  or  ducks.  As  for  golden  plover 
and  rock-pigeons,  there  was  no  place  like  it  for  them; 
and  there  were  besides  a  good  many  coveys  of  partridges 
and  many  brown  and  blue  hares.  In  short,  on  Mellan 
and  the  Isle  of  Ewe  there  was  everything  a  boy  sports- 
man could  possibly  desire.  How  constantly  do  I  still 
dream  of  those  happy  days  even  now  in  my  old  age ! 

I  see  by  my  game-book  that  one  year — in  1868 — I 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  123 

got  99|  brace  of  grouse  off  the  crofters'  hill  ground, 
60  brace  off  Isle  Ewe,  and  30  brace  off  the  small  Inveran 
farm;  and  my  total  in  that  year  was  1,314  grouse, 
33  black  game,  49  partridges,  110  golden  plover,  35  wild 
ducks,  53  snipe,  91  blue  rock-pigeons,  184  hares, 
without  mentioning  geese,  teal,  ptarmigan  and  roe,  etc.,  a 
total  of  1,900  head.  In  other  seasons  I  got  sometimes 
as  many  as  96  partridges,  106  snipe,  and  95  woodcock. 
Now  so  many  of  these  good  beasts  and  birds  are  either 
quite  extinct  or  on  the  very  verge  of  becoming  so. 
I  wish  I  had  kept  a  regular  diary  in  addition  to  a  game- 
book,  because  I  saw  and  did  many  things  connected  with 
sport  and  natural  history  which  would  have  been  well 
worth  recording. 

One  day  on  the  Isle  of  Ewe,  in  a  wet  turnip  field 
which  was  full  of  snipe,  I  started  a  thrush  which  had  a 
broad  white  ring  round  its  throat,  just  like  that  of  a  ring 
ouzel.  I  promptly  shot  it.  Immediately  afterwards 
old  Fan  pointed  at  something,  evidently  close  to  her  nose, 
which  I  thought  might  perhaps  be  a  wounded  snipe, 
though  if  she  could  have  spoken  she  would  have 
whispered  to  me  that  it  smelled  like  something  she 
had  never  smelled  before ;  and  what  should  it  be  but  a 
quail,  which  I  also  shot.  Afterwards  I  had  both  thrush 
and  quail  stuffed  in  the  one  case.  I  have  heard  that 
one  hundred  and  fifty  or  two  hundred  years  ago  the 
lairds  in  Easter  Ross  used  to  get  quails  there,  and  also 
that  they  used  to  be  found  in  the  South  of  Ireland ;  but , 
with  the  exception  of  this  one  on  Isle  Ewe,  I  have  never 
heard  of  a  quail  having  been  killed  in  Ross-shire  in  my 
time. 


124  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

Another  day  on  the  same  island  we  kept  putting  up 
nearly  as  many  short-eared  owls  as  grouse  and  snipe. 
Luckily,  they  rose  singly,  otherwise  Fan  would  have 
had  fits,  for,  as  it  was,  she  was  evidently  horrified  with 
this  new  uncanny  kind  of  game  which  had  taken 
possession  of  the  heather  on  her  pet  preserve  !  I  shot 
five.  That  very  same  day  a  ptarmigan  rose  in  front  of 
me,  which  I  also  shot.  It  has  always  puzzled  me  why 
it  had  descended  to  the  very  sea-level,  seeing  that  the 
big  hills,  where  its  home  must  have  been,  were  some  ten 
miles  away.  I  surmise  that  it  must  have  been  driven 
down  by  an  eagle  or  a  falcon. 

Apropos  of  Isle  Ewe,  I  remember  taking  the  late 
Dr.  Warre,  of  Eton  College,  there  one  afternoon.  I  did 
not  have  my  gun,  and  he  did  all  the  shooting  himself. 
His  bag  was  twenty  grouse  and  twenty  snipe.  When 
it  was  getting  on  towards  evening,  and  we  thought  the 
blue  rock-pigeons  would  be  back  in  their  caves  at  the 
outer  end  of  the  island,  we  rowed  there  in  our  boat, 
and  Dr.  Warre  added  a  good  many  pigeons  to  his  bag. 
As  a  finish  up,  and  to  vary  the  sport,  we  lifted  a  long 
line,  which  we  had  set  on  our  way  to  the  island,  and  got 
a  fine  haul  of  haddock  and  other  fish.  The  doctor  was 
good  enough  to  say  it  was  the  best  afternoon's  sport 
he  had  ever  enjoyed. 

Another  day  on  the  island  we  saw  a  flock  of  twenty 
grouse.  We  soon  perceived  they  were  not  natives,  for 
instead  of  being  in  the  heather  they  sat  in  a  row  on  the 
tops  of  the  stone  dykes  and  crowed  incessantly.  They 
all  appeared  to  be  cocks.  So  I  went  at  them,  and  did 
not  stop  until  I  had  got  nineteen  of  them,  only  one 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  125 

escaping.  Extra  old  cocks  they  were,  as  most  of  them 
had  white  feathers  about  their  heads  and  white  whiskers  ! 
We  often  wondered  where  they  had  come  from. 

I  occasionally  had  pretty  good  days  at  woodcock. 
Perhaps  my  best  day  away  from  home  was  once  when  I 
was  staying  at  Invermoriston  Hotel  with  my  brother. 
Sir  Kenneth  Mackenzie,  our  host  being  the  late  Lord 
Lovat,  who  had  with  him  his  two  brothers,  Colonel 
Henry  and  Colonel  Alastair  Eraser.  We  shot  part  of  three 
short  December  days,  and  got,  if  I  remember  rightly, 
146  woodcock,  besides  hinds  and  roedeer,  etc.,  which  was 
supposed  to  be  a  record  bag  in  those  days.  Once  at 
Inverewe  a  friend  and  I  got  fifty-two  cock  in  two  con- 
secutive days,  and  at  Shieldaig,  on  the  south  side  of  the 
parish,  the  late  John  Bateson  and  I  had  a  good  day. 
He  got  eleven  and  I  nine  before  luncheon,  and  after 
lunch  I  got  eleven  and  he  got  nine — forty  in  all.  The 
keepers  sometimes  did  well  right  out  on  the  open  moors, 
when  after  their  traps.  I  remember  my  keeper  getting 
eighteen  woodcock  one  day  with  only  a  retriever  along 
with  him,  and  another  day  twenty-two  in  snow  by 
walking  along  the  old  whin  hedges  in  Isle  Ewe. 

I  have  made  many  a  curious  shot  in  the  course  of  my 
life.  I  have  twice  killed  two  black-cocks  on  the  wing 
with  one  shot,  and  one  day,  at  the  side  of  the  public  road, 
Fan  pointed  at  a  clump  of  bracken,  hidden  in  which 
was  the  best  covey  of  black  game  I  ever  came  across. 
They  began  to  get  up  in  ones  and  twos,  and  I  shot  five 
young  cocks,  leaving  the  old  grey-hen  and  her  four 
daughters  for  stock.  Another  day  an  old  friend  of 
mine,    Anthony   Hamond    of    Westacre,    and    I    were 


126  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

shooting,  and  close  to  wliat  was  then  the  Inverewe 
kennel  in  some  heather,  now  replaced  by  tall  timber, 
a  mixed  lot  of  partridges  and  grouse  got  up.  We  each 
killed  a  partridge  and  a  grouse,  and  it  was  a  very  rare 
occurrence,  that  would  not  be  likely  to  happen  more  than 
once  in  a  century. 

On  two  different  occasions  I  have  killed  a  hare  and  a 
grouse  with  the  same  shot,  and  another  time  I  shot  a 
woodcock  and  a  stoat  with  the  one  barrel !  On  one 
occasion  I  made  quite  a  name  for  myself.  It  was  when 
a  small  covey  of  grouse  rose  in  front  of  me  at  the  Ardlair 
march;  the  tenant  of  the  farm,  a  Mr.  Reid,  was  standing 
on  the  opposite  side  of  the  boundary  at  the  time,  and 
I  happened,  by  a  fluke,  to  kill  three  of  the  birds  with 
the  right  barrel  as  they  rose  and  the  remaining  two  with 
the  left  barrel  as  they  crossed  !  Reid  afterwards  im- 
proved on  the  story  by  declaring  that  the  covey  was  a 
big  one  of  at  least  a  dozen,  and  that  I  killed  every  one 
of  them  with  the  two  shots  !  This  yarn  he  spread  over 
the  whole  parish — I  might  even  say  county — much  to 
my  confusion. 

But  really  the  greatest  fluke  I  ever  made  was  when  I 
let  off  a  rifle,  just  to  see  how  far  away  the  bullet  would 
hit  the  water,  at  three  wild  swans  as  they  rose  on  the 
wing  from  the  sea  at  the  mouth  of  the  River  Ewe,  I 
being  about  one  thousand  yards  away.  My  bullet 
actually  grazed  the  tip  of  one  of  the  swans^  pinions,  and 
down  he  came.  We  were  so  long  in  getting  a  boat 
launched — it  was  full  of  ice  and  snow — that  by  the  time 
we  got  started  the  swan  was  far  out  to  sea.  Fortunately, 
however,  for  us — and,  as  it  turned  out,  for  the  poor 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  127 

wounded  swan — another  boat  was  returning  in  the  dusk 
from  setting  their  long  lines.  The  crew  turned  the 
swan,  and  we  captured  it.  I  had  it  put  in  a  room,  with  a 
tub  full  of  water  into  which  I  threw  a  lot  of  barley.  For 
five  or  six  days  the  barley  was  never  touched,  but  at 
last  one  morning  we  found  the  grain  all  gone,  so  I  took 
courage,  and  a  fortnight  later  I  sent  the  swan  in  a  crate 
to  the  London  Zoo,  where  the  whooper  lived  eighteen 
years,  and  had  an  easy,  if  not  quite  a  happy  time. 

The  only  good  shot  I  ever  had  at  swans  was  on  Loch 
Kernsary.  There  were  three  whoopers  out  in  the  middle 
of  the  loch,  when  a  very  violent  squall  came  on,  with 
sleet  and  hail.  We  noticed  the  swans  come  in  for 
shelter  under  a  promontory  that  jutted  out  into  the 
loch,  so  we  ran  off  to  circumvent  them,  and  I  killed  one 
on  the  water  and  wounded  another  as  it  rose.  The 
latter  we  had  to  chase  in  a  boat,  and  whilst  we  were  doing 
so  the  third  one  passed  high  over  the  boat,  and  I  brought 
it  down.  With  this  swan  story  I  now  end  the  tale  of  my 
early  sporting  days. 


CHAPTER    IX 
DEER-STALKING 

Deer-stalking   about   a   hundred   years  ago  is  thus 
described  by  my  uncle : 

*'  My  father  never  was  young  enough  in  my  days 
to  become  a  deer-stalker,  although  he  was  very  heavy 
on  Kate  Archy's  venison  collops  and  loved  a  fat  haunch, 
so  one  day,  when  I  was  about  fourteen,  says  he :  *  John, 
can't  you  and  Suter  go  to  Bathais  Bheinn  to-morrow 
and  try  and  get  a  deer  V  Strange  to  say,  Suter  was  not 
a  native,  but  from  the  Findhorn  country  in  Morayshire, 
and  never  saw  a  deer  before.  Neither  had  I  much  ex- 
perience in  stalking — Hector  Cameron,  predecessor  to 
Suter,  who  had  been  promoted  to  Loch  Luichart  estate, 
always  killing  what  venison  we  required.  Suter's  father 
(a  poacher,  I  fear)  was  actually  drowned  by  a  salmon 
in  the  Findhorn  River.  There  is  a  fall  there  where 
salmon  are  seen  constantly  leaping  to  get  up,  and  some 
did  and  many  did  not.  There  was  a  narrow  ledge  or 
shelf  of  rock  where,  if  one  could  reach  it  and  the  river 
was  in  proper  trim,  one  could  stand  so  near  to  the  fish 
when  they  leaped  that  a  look-alive  fisher  could  whip 
them  out  of  the  spray  with  a  gafi  or  clip-hook.  Old 
Suter  had  got  on  the  ledge  when,  unfortunately,  an 
extra  heavy  salmon  sprang  in  the  spray  and  was  in- 
stantly gaffed,  but  so  heavy  was  it  that  Suter  could  not 

128 


A  HUNDRED  YEARS  IN  THE  HIGHLANDS    129 

haul  him  aside,  was  overbalanced,  and  away  went  both 
the  salmon  and  the  gafier  down  into  the  pool.  The 
salmon  was  found  dead  from  his  wound,  and  thus  it 
was  learned  how  the  man  was  drowned,  although  no  one 
was  present. 

"  Rifles  in  1817  were  not  actually  unknown,  but  the 
only  one  in  Tigh  Dige  was  an  enormous  one,  say  twelve 
pounds  weight,  carrying  a  two-ounce  ball,  called  the 
Claiseach,  meaning  in  Gaelic  *  the  grooved  one,'  and  a 
still  heavier  one  we  called  the  Spainneach  (the  Spaniard), 
with  the  sides  of  the  bore  half  an  inch  thick,  and,  as 
Paddy  would  say,  *  Its  ball  was  a  plug  of  lead  two  to 
three  inches  long,  warranted  seldom  to  hit  any  mark 
aimed  at.'  So  Suter  was  armed  with  the  Claiseach  and 
the  Spainneach,  and  I  had  my  father's  double  Joe 
Manton,  with  a  whittled-down  bullet  made  to  fit  the 
bore  in  one  barrel  and  a  lot  of  slugs  in  the  other.  It 
was  past  nine  ere  we  climbed  the  Cosag  above  Loch 
Bhad  na  Sgalaig  (Loch  of  the  Ploughman's  Grove), 
walking  and  talking  and  exposing  ourselves,  as  we  were 
not  expecting  deer  for  miles.  On  the  top,  as  visible 
to  us  as  this  pen  is  to  me,  and  about  one  hundred  yards 
away,  was  a  brown  thing  like  a  broken  bank  of  reddish 
earth  with  some  curious  sticks  upon  it.  A  minute's 
look  told  us  the  sticks  were  a  deer's  horns  and  he  himself 
was  the  brown  bank,  evidently  asleep,  or  otherwise 
he  would  have  soon  said  good-bye  to  us. 

*'  In  a  minute  we  two  '  innocents  abroad  '  scrambled 

out  of  sight,  and,  sweeping  round  the  brae  on  which 

the  deer  was  sleeping,  walked,  like  lunatics,  within 

twenty  yards  of  him  ere  he  awoke.    A  proper  stalker 

9 


130  A  HUNDKED  YEARS 

would  have  got  a  favourable  berth,  say  fifty  yards  from 
him,  and  would  have  waited  till  he  woke  and  stood  up. 
We  despised  such  manoeuvres  on  this  our  first  stalk,  and 
the  consequence  was  that  he  did  not  rise  up,  but  flew 
into  the  air  and  away  over  a  flat  piece  of  ground  faster 
than  any  deerhound.  I  could  shoot  decently,  and  so 
banged  off  my  slug  barrel,  while  Suter  fired  the  Claiseach, 
but  neither  of  us  touched  him.  This  seemed  to  paralyse 
me  till  Suter  cried  out:  *  The  other  barrel.'  I  had  quite 
forgotten  my  bullet  till  the  monster  was  nearly  one 
hundred  yards  off.  Then  I  fired,  and  he  rolled  over  and 
over  like  a  rabbit,  the  bullet  having  broken  his  neck. 
We  were  soon  beside  him,  and  while  I  was  reloading, 
Suter,  who  was  over  six  feet  high  and  broad  in  proportion 
rushed  at  the  stag  and  seized  him  by  the  horns.  He 
merely  bowed  his  head,  threw  it  up  again,  and  sent 
Suter  yards  away  like  a  pair  of  old  boots.  It  ended 
with  my  having  to  kill  the  deer  outright  by  a  bullet  in  the 
heart,  and  then  we  two  danced  Gillecallum  and  hur- 
rahed like  two  madmen,  for  though  I  had  seen  many  deer 
killed  by  Hector  Cameron,  they  were  all  like  calves  in 
comparison  to  our  monster. 

**  Nothing  would  serve  me  but  cutting  off  his  head 
and  walking  home  direct  with  it  about  four  miles,  and 
sending  a  horse  for  the  body.  So,  soon  after  twelve, 
there  was  I  marching  up  the  avenue  to  Tigh  Dige  under 
a  royal  stag's  head,  and  Suter  with  the  pieces  of  ordnance 
behind  me.  The  story  having  got  about,  there  were  father 
and  mother  on  the  stone  stair  head  outside  in  little 
less  glee  than  I  was,  though  a  wee  thing  less  tired.  The 
head  was  handed  over  to  the  Jack-of-all-trades,  William 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  131 

Fraser,  Kate  Archy's  son,  with  orders  to  go  with  all 
speed  and  bring  home  the  corpse.    I  have  killed  and  seen 
many  a  good  stag  since  then,  but  never  was  a  stag  like 
my  number  one,  passing  twenty-five  stone,  clean  and 
white  inside  as  a  prize  bullock.    Hurrah  !  my  stag  had 
twelve  points  (he  was  royal),  and  is  now  hanging  up  on 
my  staircase.    My  last  stag,  shot  in  Glencannich,  had 
thirteen  points,  all  clean,  but  was  under  twenty  stone. 
"  I  had  a  hard  day  once  with  a  fine   stag  in  Coire 
Ruadh  Stac  of  Beinn  Eighe  of  Kenlochewe.    I  started 
with  a  lad  and  prog  (food)  for  two  days,  and  we  roosted 
at  Uaimh  Bhraotaig  under  the  big  stone  there,  having 
seen  nothing  the  first  day.    We  were  young,  rash  stalkers, 
and  next  morning  started  a  fine  stag,  which  galloped 
off  towards  Coire  Euadh  Stac,  about  two  miles  off. 
Now,  that  corrie  is  a  cul-de-sac,  its  upper  end  being  one 
sheet  of  white  quartz  gravel  about  one  thousand  feet 
to  the  top  of  the  hill,  in  which  man  or  beast  would  sink 
deep  every  step.    I  had  never  before  seen  a  deer  in  that 
grand  corrie.    Probably  they  knew  that  if  pursued 
there  they  must  come  out  past  their  enemy,  although 
the  corrie  is  about  half  a  mile  wide  at  its  mouth  and  is 
very  rough  hillocky  ground.    Could  our  friend  the  stag 
really  have  gone  into  the  corrie  ?    Peeping  into  it  care- 
fully, we  spied  the  brown  back  of  a  beast  near  its  mouth, 
and  after  we  had  scraped  our  knees  and  tummies  badly 
in  getting  within  shot,  our  deer  turned  out  to  be  a  pony 
strayed  there  from  Lochcarron  or  Torridon  !    Further 
enquiry,  however,  exhibited  our  coveted  friend  lying  on 
a  heather  mulcan  (hillock)  near  the  mouth  of  the  corrie, 
placed  so  that  nothing  alive  could  come  near  him  unseen. 


132  A  HUNDKED  YEAKS 

"  That  was  severe  on  us,  but  I  knew  that  deer  often 
let  people  come  wonderfully  near  them  if  they  seemed 
bent  on  other  business,  walking  smartly  past  and  not 
stopping  and  peeping  about,  and  with  no  gun  visible. 
That  was  my  only  chance,  so,  leaving  the  lad  in  hiding, 
*  Joe  Manton  '  and  I  sauntered  into  and  up  the  corrie 
as  far  as  possible  from  my  friend,  *  whistling  as  I  went 
for  lack  of  thought,'  and  never  even  looking  at  him, 
though  I  saw  he  kept  an  eye  on  me.  The  hillock  faced 
west,  and  I  saw  that,  if  I  could  get  far  enough  east,  a 
shoulder  of  it  would  come  between  me  and  him,  so 
on  I  swung  till  the  shoulder  concealed  me.  Then  I  took 
of!  my  shoes  in  a  second,  and  in  a  few  minutes  I  was 
panting  at  the  back  of  the  hillock,  hoping  for  breath  to 
take  aim.  I  was  on  my  knees  and  seeing  if  my  flint  and 
powder  were  all  right  when  Mr.  Stag  thought  he  had 
better  see  where  I  was  going  up  the  corrie.  He  soon 
saw  I  was  within  fifty  yards  of  him,  and,  turning  like 
lightning,  he  just  flew  away;  but  my  bullet  flew  also, 
and  by  good  luck  hit  his  flank,  breaking  all  the  ribs  on 
one  side  and  his  left  shoulder,  so  on  my  getting  over  the 
hillock  there  he  was,  poor  fellow,  sitting  on  his  end  like 
a  dog,  thinking  how  he  could  pay  me  off.  I  was  rather 
below  him,  but  quite  near,  so  he  rushed  on  three  legs 
at  me  and  made  me  clear  out.  Then  I  loaded  with 
small  shot,  which,  applied  to  his  neck,  ended  matters, 
and,  the  lad  coming  up,  we  had  a  light  fantastic  hop,  for 
he  was  a  trump  stag,  though  only  of  ten  points. 

"  But  we  had  soon  to  drop  the  fantastic  and  to  con- 
sider how  to  get  him  home.  I  never  went  stalking 
with  more  than  one  helper,  so  I  had  always  to  stay  to 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  133 

assist  him  with  the  deer,  and  that  was  often  a  great 
bother.  After  gralloching  the  beast,  I  was  taught  to 
tear  up  heathery  turf  and  hide  my  prize  from  birds 
and  beasts,  of  which  in  those  times  there  were  more  than 
enough,  and  all  willing  to  dine  on  venison.  Then  I 
squibbed  gunpowder  among  the  clods  all  round,  and  no 
fox  would  touch  a  beast  so  perfumed.  If  we  only  had 
our  friend  down  at  Grudie  Bridge,  three  miles  ofi  and 
twelve  miles  from  Tigh  Dige,  we  could  direct  a  carrier 
to  the  deer  while  we  were  more  agreeably  employed. 

**  But  first,  where  on  earth  were  my  shoes  ?  After 
about  an  hour's  hunt  we  found  them.  Then,  the  brown 
pony  coming  in  sight,  we  resolved  to  try  and  catch  him 
and  saddle  him  with  the  stag,  but  probably  he  smelt  blood 
on  us  and  would  never  let  us  handle  him.  We  wen 
close  to  a  scree  of  the  Beinn  Eighe  quartz  shingle.  If 
we  could  only  rush  him  into  it  we  had  him,  but  then 
where  were  our  bridle  and  ropes  to  tie  the  deer  on  him  ? 
Luckily  we  were  both  good  string-collectors,  and  had  two 
big  handkerchiefs,  so  when  at  last  we  grabbed  the  stray 
horse,  we  brought  him  below  a  steep,  broken  bank,  to 
which  we  slid  the  deer,  and  after  about  an  hour's  calming 
of  our  terrified  charger  the  deer  was  on  his  back  with  its 
legs  tied  below  him.  Gentle  reader,  if  you  have  an 
enemy  whom  you  would  like  to  make  miserable  and 
mad,  you  will  give  him  exactly  such  a  job  as  fell  to  our 
lot  for  several  hours  while  we  were  covering  the  three 
miles  on  that  dreadful  hillside.  But  ere  dark  we  had 
our  stag  near  the  track  and  bridge,  and  the  place  was 
marked  so  that  the  men  with  the  deer-saddled  horse 
whom  we  sent  off  next  morning  needed  not  us  to  direct 


134  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

or  help  them.  That  was  the  worst  day's  job  for  fatigue 
that  either  of  us  ever  met  with.  I  suppose  we  had  to 
hoist  up  the  stag  on  to  the  pony  about  fifty  times  on  the 
way.  Had  we  known  what  was  before  us,  we  would 
never  have  handled  him,  but  once  we  started  pride 
carried  us  through,  and  our  praise  when  he  was  in  the 
larder  was  great. 

"  In  all  my  stalking  it  surprises  me  that  I  only  once 
came  across  a  wounded  deer.  Being  abstainers,  I 
believe  they  soon  recover  from  wounds.  I  have  often 
found  shed  horns,  but  have  seldom  seen  the  bones  of  a 
dead  deer  in  the  forest.  Yet  they  must  often  die  un- 
known at  the  time  of  being  shot.  Once,  trotting  along 
the  top  of  the  Glas  Leitir  wood,  I  started  a  hind  in  the 
brae  about  a  hundred  yards  above  me.  I  took  a  flying 
shot  at  her,  but  felt  it  was  a  miss.  I  loaded  and  went 
forward,  never  troubling  to  look  where  she  had  gone,  till, 
about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  on,  I  saw  a  little  burn  red, 
evidently,  with  blood.  Walking  up  it  a  few  hundred 
yards,  I  found  the  hind  stone  dead,  the  heart 
actually  cut  in  two  by  my  bullet.  The  one  wounded  deer 
that  I  ever  got  was  a  fine  old  stag  who  for  years  had  been 
devoted  to  the  Taagan  corn  at  the  head  of  Loch  Maree. 

"  When  Hector  Mackenzie  complained  to  me  of  his 
loss  of  crop  through  deer  I  said  to  him,  what  Sir  George 
Mackenzie  used  to  say  to  me, '  Shoot  them,  shoot  them. 
Hector  was  no  great  gunner,  but  he  took  a  shot  at  his 
enemy  and  made  him  clear  out,  at  all  events  for  the 
season.  Next  year,  however,  he  was  back  again,  though 
his  footmarks  only  were  seen.  Having  Colonel  Inge's 
keen-nosed  lurcher  Gill  with  me  for  some  such  lethal 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  135 

purpose,  1  got  some  beaters  to  drive  the  east  end  of  Glas 
Leitir  wood,  where  Hector  said  the  stag  was  seen  almost 
every  day,  though  he  hid  himself  in  a  jungle  whenever 
disturbed,  but  whereabouts  exactly  no  one  ever  could 
tell.  I  gave  Gill  on  a  leash  to  the  forester,  old  Duncan 
— ^whoever  could  see  or  walk  or  stalk  better  than  he, 
though  then  past  seventy  ? — and  went  out  on  Loch 
Maree  in  a  boat,  sure  that  on  such  a  lovely,  clear,  calm 
day  a  hare  could  not  move  in  front  of  the  beaters  without 
our  marking  it.  But  the  beaters  went  carefully  through 
the  wood  without  seeing  the  stag,  though  they  found  his 
bed  in  a  jungle-hole.  It  was  beaten  as  smooth  as  if  done 
with  hammers  and  coated  with  his  cast  hair,  so  he  had 
been  there  since  spring. 

"  That  was  disappointing,  but  Duncan  waved  for  us 
to  come  on  shore  and  come  up  to  him,  and  there  was  he, 
nearly  pulled  in  pieces  by  Gill  raving  to  follow  some 
scent.  Gill  never  gave  tongue  in  any  circumstances. 
Of  course  we  followed  Gill,  wondering  why  on  earth  he 
was  leading  us  to  an  almost  perpendicular  wall  of  rock 
down  the  centre  of  which  ran  a  small  ravine,  its  bed 
covered  with  red  gravel  that  had  been  washed  from  the 
top  to  the  bottom  by  heavy  floods.  Up  this  ravine  Gill 
dragged  Duncan,  and  we  followed  on  our  hands  and  feet 
till,  after  about  a  hundred  yards,  we  emerged  on  to  a 
flat  peat  moss,  where  Gill  made  us  ashamed  of  having 
doubted  his  nose,  for  there  were  the  quite  fresh  marks 
of  a  big  three-footed  stag,  so  we  drew  breath  and  opened 
eyes  all  around. 

**  Nothing  visible,  but  from  the  lie  of  the  tracks  we 
knew  our  friend  must  have  made  for  the  deep  burn  half 


136  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

a  mile  in  front  of  the  Allt  Giuthais.  So  we  minuetted 
along  slowly  till  old  Duncan  dropped  down  in  front 
of  us  as  if  shot,  turning  round  with  his  tongue  out  and 
holding  up  his  spread  fingers  above  his  bonnet  to  signal 
*  deer's  horns  seen/  Then  we  peeped  and  saw  them 
too,  and  we  had  almost  to  choke  Gill,  who  was  mad  to 
get  on.  A  short  council  of  war  sent  me  away  to  the  left 
to  strike  the  burn  half  a  mile  down,  and  I  was  soon  there 
waiting  till  wanted.  The  two  others  and  Gill  took  to 
the  right,  and  soon  halloaed  to  me  to  look  out.  The  stag 
as  soon  as  he  saw  them  flew  to  the  burn  and  crossed 
it  into  the  fir-wood,  which  grew  out  of  six-foot-long 
heather  and  ferns,  and  but  for  Gill  we  should  have  seen  no 
more  of  him.  Gill,  however,  was  at  his  heels  in  a  few 
minutes  and  compelled  him  to  fly  back  to  the  burn, 
where  the  men  with  stones  prevented  his  keeping  the 
dog  at  bay,  and  speedily  drove  him  through  the  rough 
ravine  and  burn  past  me,  where  my  rifle  ended  the  sad 
story.  And  then  we  found  that  Hector's  bullet  the 
previous  year  had  broken  his  fore  fetlock.  The  wound 
had  healed,  but  it  was  only  a  flail  foot,  and  a  mere 
nuisance  to  the  poor,  beautiful  fellow.  I  think  he  had 
nine  points,  but  was  well  and  fat.  '  Yes,'  said  Hector, 
'  on  my  corn  and  potatoes,  digging  the  potatoes  out  of 
the  pits  with  his  horns,  the  rascal !'  Even  with  three 
feet  he  was  a  grand  beast. 

'*  I  am  reminded  that  when  Hector  Cameron  kept 
the  Tigh  Dige  in  birds  and  beasts  he  was  one  day  on  top 
of  this  same  wood  (Glas  Leitir),  watching  a  roebuck 
feeding  some  hundreds  of  yards  down  in  the  flat  below. 
He  stopped.    What  is  that  other  red  beast  evidently 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  137 

stalking  the  roe  ?  His  spy-glass  soon  told  that  it  was 
Mr.  Fox,  so  he  took  a  lesson  in  stalking  from  him 
without  a  fee  !  In  a  few  minutes  the  roe  was  kicking 
helplessly  below  the  fox,  who,  holding  on  by  the  throat, 
soon  killed  him.  Hector  thought  it  was  then  time  for 
his  stalk,  and  ere  the  fox  had  drained  all  the  roebuck's 
blood,  Hector  had  potted  him,  and  brought  his  skin 
and  the  roe  home. 

"  Years  after  this,  Frank  (Sir  Francis  Mackenzie) 
hired  the  Wyvis  shooting,  and  at  much  expense  in 
keepers,  etc.,  brought  it  up  to  be  so  good  a  moor  that 
in  the  last  year  of  his  tenancy,  on  the  twelfth  of  August, 
he  shot  over  eighty  brace  of  grouse  to  his  own  gun. 
Having  heard  of  the  slaughter,  the  laird  of  Foulis,  a 
recluse  living  in  London  who  had  never  himself  put  a 
keeper  on  the  ground,  which,  till  my  brother  hired  it, 
was  only  shot  over  by  poachers,  resolved  to  allow  it  to 
recover.  I  was  then  nominal  tenant  of  the  sheep-farm 
of  Wyvis,  my  brother  being  the  real  tenant,  and  in  my 
lease  I  was  bound  to  protect  the  game  from  persons 
trespassing.  My  shepherds  gladly  ordered  off  all  who 
were  disturbing  the  sheep,  till  one  day  my  shepherd, 
George  Hope,  who  came  from  the  Borders,  on  a  twelfth 
of  August  saw  three  men  with  pointers  and  a  pony  and 
creels  on  his  beat,  and  had  to  tell  them  his  orders  were 
to  allow  no  one  there.  The  reply  was,  *  Unless  you  want 
your  collie  shot  you  had  better  be  off .'  Nothing  makes 
a  shepherd  get  *  oot  o*  that '  so  quickly  as  such  a  threat, 
so  he  left  the  poachers  alone,  merely  watching  their  move- 
ments, suspecting,  as  there  were  blankets  and  pots,  etc., 
in  the  creels,  that  they  were  making  for  the  Smugglers* 


138  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

Cave  at  Coire  Bhacidh  behind  Wyvis.  And  so  it  turned 
out.  His  spy-glass  showed  them  making  for  the  cave, 
into  which  they  carefully  emptied  the  creels,  and  off 
they  went  with  pony  and  creels  up  a  long  glen  and  began 
business.  As  soon  as  they  were  out  of  sight  Hope  made 
for  the  cave,  and  was  at  least  as  busy  as  they  were. 
Every  pot  and  blanket,  every  bag  of  meal,  all  the  cold 
provisions,  ammunition,  etc.,  he  took  to  a  deep  peat-hole 
he  knew  of,  where  the  articles  are  safe  and  sound  to  this 
day,  for  he  kept  his  secret  to  himself,  for  fear  of  the 
poachers'  revenge,  till  just  when  he  was  leaving  my  service 
for  the  south  years  afterwards.  Then,  retiring  to  a 
hillock  far  off,  but  in  sight  of  the  cave,  he  lay  there  till 
the  sportsmen's  return  to  the  cave  in  the  evening.  His 
glass  revealed  one  of  the  men  entering  the  cave  and 
rushing  out  as  if  chased  by  wasps.  He  seemed  to  be 
explaining  affairs  to  his  comrades,  who  also  ran  to  the 
cave  and  ran  out  again,  all  three  proceeding  to  search 
the  hill  in  the  hope  of  finding  the  cave  robbers.  Then 
Hope  retired  home ;  I  am  sure  he  was  very  sorry  that  he 
dared  not  tell  his  comrades  of  the  fun  he  had  in  his 
burglary. 

"  Wyvis  has  been  sold  since  then,  and  has  long  been 
clear  of  sheep  and  under  deer.  It  makes  a  real  deer- 
stalker sick  to  observe  how  stalking  is  generally  managed 
now  in  the  Highlands.  I  used  always  to  be  on  the 
look-out  ground  if  possible  before  6  a.m.  to  observe 
any  deer  which  had  been  down  feeding  on  the  low 
grounds,  and  were  stepping  away  in  the  morning  to  their 
spying  posts  up  above  for  the  day.  Now  the  sleepy, 
soft-potato  fellows  must  have  a  grand  breakfast   ere 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  139 

they  can  stand  the  fatigue  of  the  hill.  The  keepers  are 
sent  out  very  early  to  find  the  deer  and  mark  them  down 
for  the  guns,  and  when  the  soft  gunners  reach  the  ground, 
on  horseback  if  possible,  they  are  led  up  to  the  shooting 
spot  as  if  to  kill  a  cow  or  a  sheep,  getting  their  shot, 
but  never  forgetting  the  luncheon  hour. 

**  When  we  went  to  stalk  we  were  always  off  ere 
daylight.  I  have  walked  miles  on  the  moor  to  reach 
the  spying  spot  long  before  dawn.  We  had  a  bite  ere 
we  started  to  diminish  carriage,  but  all  we  needed  till  we 
returned  homo  was  coarse  barley  scones  and  the  heel 
of  a  home-made  cheese  in  our  pockets,  while  we  never 
dreamt  of  any  pocket  '  pistol '  except  the  best  water 
we  met  with.  Then  great  were  the  excitement  and 
enjoyment  we  had,  which  the  sleepy  Sassenach  entirely 
misses,  in  watching  every  step  of  the  deer  feeding  hill- 
wards  to  their  look-out  post.  We  had  to  consider  how 
to  get  into  a  good  position  and  have  a  shot  before 
nine  o'clock,  at  which  hour  they  sometimes  lie  down  with 
heads  towards  every  direction,  to  discuss  their  news  and 
examine  anything  suspicious  on  their  horizon.  Unless 
one  gets  a  stalk  and  shot  ere  they  lie  down  they  had  better 
be  let  alone  till  they  get  up  again  in  the  afternoon. 
Sometimes  we  went  to  a  distant  beat  and  did  not  come 
home  at  night,  but  slept  in  the  heather — if  possible, 
below  a  rock  or  stone  tolerably  rain-proof.  Then  our 
stalker  had  provisions  put  up  for  two  days,  and  when, 
as  often  happened,  they  included  a  leg  of  mutton,  I 
never  saw  the  bare  bone  that  the  keeper  or  gillie  did  not 
crack  for  the  sake  of  the  marrow,  precisely  as  every 
bone  in  caves  with  prehistoric  remains  is  found  care- 


140  A  HUNDKED  YEARS 

fully  cracked  by  the  ancestors  of  our  stalkers  and 
gillies. 

"  For  some  years  we  employed  as  our  gillie  Donald 
Munro  of  Clare  (on  Wyvis),  the  most  thorough  poacher 
I  ever  met  with.  We  could  never  reconcile  him  to 
letting  a  bird  rise  before  we  fired.  It  would  be  a  clever 
grouse  whose  head  Donald  did  not  see  the  moment  the 
dogs  pointed ;  then  with  a  dig  at  my  elbow  and  a  shrug 
sideways,  he  would  show  me  two  heads  in  a  line,  and 
when  I  made  them  get  up  before  firing  he  was  perfectly 
sick  at  my  folly  in  wasting  two  shots  when  one  would 
have  killed  both  birds  had  I  fired  when  they  were  on 
the  ground  and  in  line.  He  always  carried  a  ganger's 
iron-pointed  stick,  and  if  close  when  the  birds  rose  he 
would  fling  his  stick  at  them  with  all  his  might,  hoping 
to  knock  one  down  without  such  lamentable  waste  of 
powder  and  shot.  Indeed,  one  day  his  iron  point  flew 
in  among  a  covey  with  such  force  that  it  pierced  a  grouse 
right  through,  and  so  it  had  to  stop,  while  four  barrels 
stopped  other  four  birds.  *  Weel  done,  thon's  behter; 
we'll  be  coming  on  by-and-by  !'  he  exclaimed. 

"  A  blue  leveret  getting  up  once  before  us  would 
have  come  to  bag  had  not  Donald,  who  detested  hares 
as  *  no  canny  brutes,'  seized  my  gun,  saying,  *  The 
stirk  wasna  worth  a  shot.'  He  told  us  he  only  once  had 
a  real  proper  '  go  '  at  grouse.  In  a  snow-storm  he 
stalked  an  immense  pack  of  them  on  Wyvis,  a  white 
shirt  over  him  and  a  white  neckerchief  covering  his 
face.  He  had  his  big  musket  and  a  great  handful  of 
No.  3  as  the  gun  charge,  and  on  that  day  he  bagged 
thirty  grouse  at  the  cost  of  only  three  or  four  charges. 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  141 

He  grinned  with  horrid  glee  when  telling  the  tale,  like 
a  Monadh  Liath  poacher  in  whose  bothy  I  was  once 
benighted,  and  from  whom  I  heard  many  a  shooting 
story. 

'*  Once  in  a  heavy  snow-storm  not  far  from  Killin 
in  Inverness-shire  he  found  about  fifty  deer  packed 
together  like  sheep  in  a  fank*  below  a  rock  for  some 
shelter.  He  crept  close  above  them  and  let  fly  a  handful 
of  slugs  among  them.  Five  stopped  where  they  were, 
and  two  more  went  only  about  one  hundred  yards, 
when  they  also  stopped.  His  brother  was  a  Killin 
shepherd  living  on  the  west  side  of  the  loch,  the  east  side 
of  which  was  under  birch,  where  deer  were  frequently 
seen  among  the  trees  from  his  door.  If  his  salting  barrel 
was  getting  empty  he  never  needed  a  gun  to  refill  it, 
but  went  round  the  loch,  guided  by  his  daughter's  signs, 
till  just  above  the  deer.  Then  he  stalked  down  close 
to  them,  and  by  hounding  on  his  two  very  good  collies 
he  seldom  failed  to  make  one  of  the  deer  take  to  the  loch 
and  swim  across.  Just  before  it  landed  his  daughter 
would  rise  up  in  front  of  it,  working  an  old  umbrella 
for  all  she  was  worth  and  advising  the  deer  to  recross 
the  loch.  This  it  did,  not  noticing  the  shepherd  or  his 
dogs  till  again  about  to  land,  when  the  sight  of  them 
made  it  start  for  another  swim.  Thus  the  shepherd  and 
his  daughter  so  wore  it  out  that  a  drowned  deer  W3,s 
found  in  the  loch — and  of  course  there  could  be  no 
harm  in  using  it  for  food  '/' 

*  Enclosure 


CHAPTEK  X 

DEER-STALKING— Con^iwweti 

I  SHALL  now  follow  up  my  uncle's  account  of  deer- 
stalking by  some  of  my  own  doings  in  that  line  in  the 
fifties.  I  was  about  sixteen  and  residing  with  my  mother 
at  Pool  House,  and  had  Inverewe  hired  as  my  shooting, 
when  one  day  our  great  friend,  the  gentleman  farmer, 
Hector  Mackenzie  of  Taagan,  Kenlochewe,  called. 
Knowing  me  to  be  very  keen  on  deer-stalking,  and  being 
aware  also  that  I  seldom  had  a  chance  of  a  deer  in  those 
days,  he  remarked  that  he  wondered  I  did  not  try  to 
ingratiate  myself  with  my  eccentric  old  English  neigh- 
bour, who  owned  some  seventy  thousand  acres,  forty- 
five  or  fifty  thousand  of  which  were  the  most  famous 
stag  ground  in  the  country.  It  was  then  still  all  under 
sheep,  but  notwithstanding  this,  it  had  a  good  stock  of 
its  original  breed  of  deer  on  it.  Was  it  not  famous  even 
in  the  Fingalian  days,  when  they  killed  the  monster  boar 
in  Gleann  na  Muic  ?  The  very  name  of  Srath  na  Sealg 
(the  Valley  of  Hunting)  suffices  to  show  its  special 
merits. 

The  owner,  who  had  then  been  thirty  years  in  the 
county,  had  never  even  attempted  to  stalk.  My  friend 
of  Taagan  thought  that  if  I  went  and  made  myself 
agreeable  to  the  young  ladies  of  the  house,  and  could 
manage  to  offer  something,  even  a  small  sum,  in  the 

142 


A  HUNDKED  YEARS  IN  THE  HIGHLANDS     143 

way  of  rent,  there  was  no  saying  but  that  I  might  get 
permission  to  stalk  on  the  famous  Srath  na  Sealg  ground, 
which  had  never  been  regularly  stalked,  and  where  the 
deer  had  only  occasionally  been  killed  by  poaching 
shepherds.  Wonderful  to  say,  my  trip  succeeded.  I 
told  the  old  gentleman  that  I  had  no  money  of  my  own 
except  a  little  pocket-money.  He  asked  what  I  could 
give  him,  and  I  told  him  I  could  afiord  only  five  pounds. 
Marvellous  to  say,  though  almost  a  millionaire  himself, 
he  agreed  to  take  that ;  so  I  wrote  him  out  a  cheque  for 
the  amount  and  came  back  in  triumph ;  for  had  I  not  got 
carte  blanche  to  stalk  over  a  huge  bit  of  country  of 
some  fifty  thousand  acres  for  a  whole  season  ?  Perhaps 
that  was  among  the  happiest  days,  if  not  the  very 
happiest  day,  of  my  long  life. 

But  how  was  the  stalking  to  be  managed  1  There 
was  a  broken-down,  thatched  shepherd's  bothy  at 
Carn  Mor,  some  eight  or  nine  miles  away  from  Poolewe, 
with  no  road  to  it ;  this  bothy  had  not  been  lived  in  for 
many  years,  but  it  seemed  to  be  the  only  chance  for  me 
in  the  way  of  shelter  at  night,  so  I  was  determined 
to  try  it. 

We  had  a  favourite  sailor  and  fisherman  in  our  employ 
at  that  time  and  for  many  years  after,  William  Grant, 
who  was  one  of  those  who  went  with  us  to  St.  Kilda. 
Three  or  four  of  these  Grants  have  served  me  faithfully 
and  devotedly  all  through  my  long  life,  and  one  of  them 
(Donald)  is  still  serving  me,  aged  seventy -nine. 

In  1640  one  of  my  ancestors,  Kenneth  the  sixth  of 
Gairloch,  married  as  his  second  wife  Ann,  daughter 
of  Sir  John  Grant  of  Grant  by  Ann  Ogilvie,  daughter  of 


144  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

the  Earl  of  Findlater,  and  when  Ann  Grant  started  on 
horseback  from  the  door  of  Castle  Grant,  her  gille  cas 
fhluich  (wet-footed  lad),  who  led  his  young  mistress  on 
her  palfrey,  wading  through  all  the  fords  between 
Strathspey  and  Gairloch  (and  they  were  many),  was  a 
young  Grant.  From  him  all  the  Grants  in  the  parish  of 
Gairloch  are  descended.  Some  of  the  Grants  were  very 
powerful  men,  and  when  my  grandfather.  Sir  Hector, 
was  young,  there  were  said  to  be  only  two  men  in  the 
whole  parish  who  could  take  up  a  handful  of  periwinkles 
and  crush  them;  they  were  my  grandfather  and  Grant, 
the  big  bard  of  Slaggan. 

To  come  back  to  my  deer-stalking.    William  Grant 
and  our  house-boy  started  away  on  a  Monday  morning 
with  a  little  red  Uist  pony  called  "  Billy."    To  a  big 
saddle  on  his  back  were  attached  two  large  peat  creels, 
into  which  my  dear  mother  put  a  week's  supply  of  pro- 
visions with  her  own  hands.    Away  they  went  to  Carn 
Mor,  whereas  my  trusted  keeper  and  stalker,  William 
Morrison,  and  I  made  a  bee-line  across  the  Inverewe  and 
Kernsary  moors  to  a  tiny  sandy  bay  on  the  Fionn  Loch 
(White  Lake),  where  we  kept  a  boat.    Rowing  across 
the  loch,  we  soon  landed  on  the  Srath  na  Sealg  ground, 
which  was  in  the  parish  of  Loch  Broom,  landing  either 
at  the  foot  of  Little  or  Big  Beinn  a  Chaisgan,  two  hills 
on  the  opposite  side  of  the  loch.     I  forget  if  we  got 
anything  the  first  day,  though  I  know  as  a  fact  that  we 
were  never  out  on  that  ground  without  seeing  lots  of 
deer,  in  spite  of  its  stock  of  eight  or  nine  thousand  sheep. 
We  arrived  in  the  gloaming  at  Carn  Mor,  to  find 
things  in  a  terrible  mess  in  the  bothy.    It  seemed  that 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  145 

a  few  days  before  Grant  and  the  boy  got  there,  a  passing 
herd  of  cattle  belonging  to  the  laird,  being  bothered 
with  the  heat  and  the  flies,  had  pushed  open  the  door 
of  the  bothy  and  taken  refuge  in  it,  which  was  not 
difficult,  as  the  door  was  barely  hanging  by  one  hinge. 
This  was  all  very  well  until  the  beasts  began  to  get 
hungry  and  tried  to  get  out,  but  the  door  which  they 
pushed  inwards  so  easily,  refused  to  be  pushed  outwards, 
and  if  by  the  greatest  luck  a  shepherd  had  not  passed 
that  way  and  looked  in,  the  whole  lot  of  cattle  would 
have  been  starved  to  death.    The  smell  made  the  house 
almost  unbearable,  and  had  it  not  been  a  wet  night 
we  should  rather  have  laid  ourselves  down  a  la  belle 
etoile.    Time,  however,  cures  many  things,  and  it  at 
last  cured  Carn  Mor  of  being  "  cowy." 

The  fire,  which  consisted  of  heather  sticks  and  bog- 
fir,  was  at  one  end  of  the  bothy  against  the  gable,  and 
I  lay  on  the  earthen  floor  on  a  bed  of  heather,  with  a 
blanket  or  two  on  me,  the  man  and  the  boy  having  to  do 
likewise  on  the  opposite  side.  I  was  what  would  be 
called  at  the  present  day  very  badly  armed.  All  I  had 
were  my  little  rifle,  given  me  by  my  mother  when  I  was 
about  eleven  years  old,  which  required  at  least  two 
sights  to  be  raised  if  the  animal  was  one  hundred  and 
fifty  yards  away,  and  an  old,  heavy,  German,  double- 
barrelled,  muzzle-loading  rifle  lent  me  by  my  brother, 
and  a  very  small,  inferior  telescope.  The  second  day 
I  was  in  luck,  and  got  two  stags  with  a  right  and  left. 
I  was  very  pleased  with  myself,  and,  not  forgetting  that 
I  had  got  the  shooting  at  a  fairly  low  rent,  I  thought  it 

my  duty  to  make  the  eccentric  old  gentleman  a  present 

10 


146  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

of  the  whole  lot.  So  the  boy  was  sent  very  early  next 
morning  to  the  mansion  of  the  laird  with  a  polite  note, 
and  he  himself  started  with  a  lot  of  retainers  and  several 
ponies  to  fetch  the  stags.  They  carried  them  home 
in  triumph  and  with  great  pomp. 

Just  to  show  how  eccentric  this  old  gentleman  was, 
his  gamekeeper  told  me  afterwards  that  on  the  arrival 
of  the  cavalcade  at  the  door  of  the  big  house,  they  were 
ordered  to  stand  at  attention  with  the  stags  still  on  the 
unfortunate  ponies'  backs  !  Had  it  been  in  these  modern 
times  the  men  might  have  thought  the  group  was  to  be 
photographed,  but  photography  was  not  known  then, 
and  so  they  fondly  hoped  it  might  mean  a  dram  all 
round  on  the  great  occasion  of  the  laird's  bringing  back 
his  first  stags  (though  they  happened  to  have  been 
shot  by  someone  else).  From  former  bitter  experience, 
however,  they  well  knew  that  treating  was  not  at  all 
in  his  line;  so  there  they  were  kept  standing  for  well 
over  an  hour,  imtil  they  nearly  dropped ;  but  at  long  last 
**  himself  "  appeared,  dressed  as  if  for  an  Inverness 
Northern  Meeting  ball,  with  all  the  paraphernalia  of 
powder  horn  and  pistols,  dirks  and  daggers.  Thus 
embellished,  he  walked  three  times  round  the  stags, 
ordered  the  men  to  give  three  ringing  cheers  for  "  him- 
self,'' and  then  dismissed  them  without  either  a  dram 
or  anything  else,  and  retired  indoors  to  undress  himself. 

How  often  have  I  since  regretted  not  having  at  the 
time  asked  the  keeper  (who  was  so  well  known  by  his 
nickname  of  "  Glineachan ")  whether  on  that  great 
occasion  the  laird  wore  his  long  or  his  short  kilt.  He 
possessed  two,  and  at  the  first  Inverness  gathering  which 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  147 

he  attended  in  the  thirties,  soon  after  his  arrival  from 
England,  he  wore  one  so  long  that  it  reached  nearly 
down  to  his  ankles  !  Some  good  friends  having  ventured 
to  hint  that  the  kilt  would  have  been  more  becoming 
to  his  figure  had  it  been  made  shorter,  he  had  another 
one  made  for  a  Stornoway  ball  which  reached  down  a 
very  short  distance,  to  the  great  consternation  and 
scandal  of  the  assembled  company  ! 

I  think  I  got  twelve  stags  in  all  that  season.  I  might 
have  killed  a  lot  more,  but  I  did  not  like  to  overdo  it 
when  I  thought  of  the  rent !  I  got  one  very  big  stag, 
the  biggest,  I  fancy,  I  ever  killed,  though  we  had  no 
possible  means  of  weighing  him  at  Carn  Mor,  as  he  had 
to  be  cut  up  in  bits  and  packed  in  the  creels  on  each  side 
of  Billy's  back;  but  he  had  a  grand  wide  head  of  eight 
points.  He  was  evidently  the  master  stag  on  Beinn  a 
Chaisgan  Mhor,  and  we  were  after  him  a  good  many 
days  before  I  downed  him  on  the  flat,  smooth  top  2,800 
feet  up,  where  a  coach  and  four  might  have  driven  for 
a  long  distance.  I  think  T  was  in  front  when  I  saw 
the  ears  of  a  lot  of  hinds  coming  along  down  wind, 
probably  moved  by  one  of  the  shepherds,  and  we  had 
just  time  to  throw  our  two  selves  down  behind  a  small 
boulder  which  happened,  fortunately,  to  push  its  head 
through  the  otherwise  smooth,  mossy  turf.  We  both 
at  once  guessed  that  the  big  stag  would  be  bringing 
up  the  rear,  and  luckily  managed  to  let  the  long  line  of 
hinds  file  past  without  their  seeing  us.  When  the  stag 
came  in  sight  I  got  him. 

One  day  in  October  my  stalker  and  I  had  crossed 
the  Fionn  Loch,  so  famous  for  its  big  trout,  and  landed 


148  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

at  a  shepherd's  house  on  the  opposite  shore  at  Feith  a 
Chaisgan.  The  shepherd  came  down  to  meet  us,  and 
he  told  us  he  had  the  previous  day  come  across  the  very 
finest  stag  he  had  ever  seen — namely,  a  grand  big  royal. 
We  had  heard  for  two  or  three  years  of  an  extra  good 
stag  being  in  Slioch,  the  beautiful  hill  which  overhangs 
Loch  Maree,  and  we  had  heard  also  that  the  Cornish 
shooting  tenant  of  Kenlochewe  would  not  allow  anyone 
to  stalk  on  Slioch,  not  even  his  own  brothers,  for  fear 
they  might  shoot  it.  Well,  we  explored  our  ground 
most  carefully  the  whole  day,  and  though  we  saw  deer, 
we  saw  nothing  that  resembled  the  shepherd's  descrip- 
tion of  the  royal  stag. 

It  was  getting  late  and  the  Ught  of  day  was  rapidly 
departing,  so  we  thought  we  would  venture  to  descend 
to  Carn  Mor,  by  an  awful  pass  between  the  twin  peaks  of 
Sgur  an  Laoicionn  and  Sgur  na  Feart.  All  at  once,  in 
a  tiny  green  corrie,  just  above  the  pass,  what  should  we 
come  upon  suddenly  but  three  hinds  and  the  big  royal ! 
They  were  just  about  within  range,  so  I  fired  my  little 
rifle  at  him  and  hit  him,  but  he  was  quite  able  to  take 
himself  off  after  the  hinds,  and  we  saw  no  more  of  him 
that  night;  indeed,  we  did  not  expect  ever  to  see  him 
again,  as  he  did  not  appear  to  be  very  hard  hit.  How- 
ever, before  midday  on  the  morrow,  Morrison  spotted  him 
about  two  miles  away  lying  down  on  the  slope  of  the 
Ruadh  Stac  bheag;  in  fact,  it  was  the  size  and  length 
of  his  beautiful  antlers,  with  the  three  long  white-tipped 
tines  on  each  of  his  tops,  that  betrayed  him.  After  a 
long,  difficult  stalk,  I  gave  him  the  cowp  de  grace  lying 
down.     There  was  a  big  pool  of  blood  under  him  which 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  149 

lie  had  lost  during  the  night.  So  precious  in  my  eyes 
was  his  grand  head  that  we  cut  it  off  at  once,  for  fear 
of  anyone  stealing  it  if  left  till  the  morrow  ! 

I  cannot  quite  finish  my  story  without  referring  to  the 
Cornish  shooting  tenant  of  Kenlochewe.  He  had  a 
habit  always  of  walking  down  in  the  forenoon  to  the 
hotel  to  see  the  arrival  of  the  mail-car  on  its  way  to 
Dingwall,  accompanied  by  his  stalkers  and  gillies,  and 
one  day  what  should  they  see  perched  on  the  top  of  the 
car  but  the  head  of  the  big  Slioch  stag  on  its  way  to  a 
taxidermist  in  Inverness  ! 

I  saw  just  one  other  very  big  stag  during  those  most 
happy  days  I  spent  at  Cam  Mor,  but,  alas  !  I  failed  to 
get  a  shot  at  him.  I  must  say  I  like  the  old  way  of  going 
off  alone  with  one's  stalker  in  the  morning  much  better 
than  the  present  system  of  being  followed  by  a  retinue  of 
gillies  and  ponies,  in  order  to  get  the  stags  home  in  the 
shortest  possible  time,  though  I  admit  this  is  best  for 
the  venison.  To  me,  however,  a  cavalcade  of  that  sort 
takes  a  lot  away  from  the  romance  of  stalking. 

While  I  am  dealing  with  sport  I  may  here  quote  my 
uncle's  story  of  Watson  and  the  eagles.  Even  I  can 
remember  Watson  when  he  was  a  very  old  man.  Though 
he  bore  a  south-country  name,  he  was,  as  we  say  in  the 
north,  **  as  Highland  as  a  peat  ";  in  fact,  he  had  very 
little  English,  and  he  was  the  first  gamekeeper  and  vermin- 
killer  the  Gairloch  estate  ever  had.  I  think  it  was  he 
who,  when  my  mother  was  inveighing  against  the  use 
and  abuse  of  whisky,  replied,  "  'Deed,  yes,  my  leddy, 
too  much  of  anything  is  baad — too  much  gruel  is  baad." 
I  wonder  who  ever  exceeded  in  the  way  of  gruel  ! 


150  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

My  uncle  says :  "  Watson  by  daybreak  was  on  the 
top  of  Bathais  Bheinn  with  swan  shot  in  one  barrel 
and  a  bullet  in  the  other,  peering  over  the  rock.  Away 
sailed  one  of  the  eagles,  but  the  swan  shot  dropped  him 
on  the  heather  below  the  rock.  Another  eagle  from 
the  nest  on  the  other  side  of  the  hill  came  to  the  same 
end.  Then  Watson  hid  himself  among  the  rocks  near 
where  a  wounded  eagle  was  flapping  his  wing,  and  a 
third  eagle,  coming  to  see  what  this  meant,  was  invited 
by  a  cartridge  to  remain,  making  one  and  a  half  brace 
of  old  eagles  before  breakfast.  Then,  to  shorten  matters 
with  the  two  big  chicken  eagles,  he  climbed  the  hill  again, 
and  ere  his  bullets  were  all  used  up  both  of  the  young 
eagles  were  dead,  having  got  more  lead  for  breakfast  than 
they  could  digest,  and  their  remains  were  visible  on  the 
shelf  of  the  rock  for  many  a  year  after.  I  wait  to  hear 
of  the  gunner  in  Britain  who  could  show  his  two  and  a 
half  brace  of  eagles  bagged  in  one  day  before  breakfast.*" 

Watson  was  undoubtedly  a  first-rate  killer  of  foxes 
and  eagles,  but  I  think  we  have  as  good  vermin-killers 
in  the  twentieth  century  as  were  to  be  found  at  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth.  My  stalker,  Donald 
Urquhart,  at  Kernsary  in  the  winter  of  1918-19,  killed 
twenty-five  foxes.  He  once  got  two  eagles  and  two  foxes 
.  in  one  day.  Two  seasons  running  he  got  ten  eagles,  and 
two  seasons  running  he  got  seven  eagles.  One  day  he 
went  out  to  shoot  hinds  and  visit  traps.  First  he  got 
a  wild-cat  in  a  trap.  Shortly  afterwards  he  got  a  hind; 
he  visited  three  other  traps,  getting  an  otter  in  one  trap 
and  a  fox  in  another,  and  then  he  shot  a  hind  on  the  way 
home — a  useful  day's  work  for  a  stalker. 


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IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  151 

I  often  wonder  why  some  County  Councils  take  the 
trouble  to  forbid  eagles  being  destroyed.  How  can  the 
killing  of  eagles  be  prevented  ?  Do  the  County  Councils 
wish  no  traps  to  be  set  for  foxes,  wild-cats,  ravens,  or 
hoodie  crows  ?  And  if  the  traps  are  to  be  set  for  these 
very  destructive  beasts  and  birds,  how  are  the  eagles  to 
be  kept  out  of  the  traps  ?  Is  it  the  wish  of  the  wiseacres 
of  the  County  Councils  that  an  eagle  with  both  or  even 
one  of  its  feet  smashed  should  be  let  go  to  die  a  lingering 
death  of  starvation  ? 

The  best  place  for  a  trap  to  be  set  for  foxes  or  hoodies 
is  a  tiny  island  in  a  pool  of  water,  the  bait  to  be  half 
in  and  half  out  of  the  water,  and  the  big  trap  set  on  the 
top  of  the  hummock  of  sphagnum  moss  just  immediately 
above  the  bait.  I  dare  say  very  few  County  Councillors 
are  aware  that  an  eagle  depends  entirely  on  his  talons 
for  attack  or  defence,  so  that  if  one  of  them  is  fixed  in 
a  trap  you  may  put  your  hand  or  even  your  face  close  to 
his  head  and  he  will  not  touch  you.  Eagles  are  terribly 
destructive .  They  tear  the  live  rabbits  out  of  the  rabbit- 
trappers'  traps,  kill  lambs  wholesale,  and  the  very  sight 
of  one  scares  every  grouse  off  the  ground.  Only  last 
summer  an  eagle  was  seen  attacking  a  hogg  (year-old 
sheep)  on  our  ground  and  had  to  be  driven  away.  The 
Koss-shire  County  Council  very  wisely  does  not  forbid 
the  killing  of  eagles. 

Apropos  of  eagles,  I  shall  describe  what  happened  in 
our  heronry,  which  we  greatly  valued.  It  was  on  an 
island  in  the  Fionn  Loch,  which  was  overgrown  with  a 
jungle  of  stunted  birches,  rowans,  and  hollies,  the  twenty 
or  more  herons'  nests  being  in  some  cases  so  near  the 


152  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

ground  that  I  once  saw  a  terrier  manage  to  scramble 
up  into  a  nest  full  of  young  ones.  It  did  not  relish 
the  unusual  experience,  as,  unlike  the  eagle's,  the  heron's 
means  of  defence  is  his  powerful  bill,  with  which  even  a 
young  one  is  very  handy.  One  day  we  thought  we 
would  visit  our  heronry,  and  as  we  approached  the  island 
we  were  much  surprised  at  seeing  no  herons  flying  about 
as  usual.  On  our  landing  there  was  nothing  to  be  seen 
but  upset  nests  and  quantities  of  feathers  everywhere, 
and  in  one  holly-bush  we  found  a  full-growTi  dead  young 
heron,  covered  with  blood,  but  still  intact. 

We  could  not  imagine  what  had  happened,  and  thought 
some  evil  four-footed  beast  like  a  fox  must  have  swum 
to  the  island,  or  perhaps  a  wild-cat  or  marten,  which  are 
better  at  climbing  trees  than  a  fox.  We  had  some 
strychnine  with  us  to  give  poisoned  eggs  to  a  pair  of 
hoodies  in  another  island,  and  we  decided  to  poison  the 
young  heron  whose  body  had  escaped  being  eaten,  in 
the  hope  that  we  might  thus  discover  the  cause  of  the 
terrible  destruction ;  so  we  laid  its  poisoned  carcase  on  a 
flat  rock  on  the  island.  A  few  days  afterwards  a  dead 
eagle  was  washed  up  on  the  shore  of  the  loch  opposite 
the  island,  thus  making  it  quite  clear  to  us  that  an  eagle, 
or  more  probably  a  pair  of  eagles,  had  done  all  this 
mischief. 

We  have  had  far  too  many  eagles  in  our  country  of 
late,  and  when  one  can  see  seven  in  the  air  at  once  it  is 
about  time  to  thin  them  out.  I  have  only  once  in  my 
life  taken  an  eagle's  nest,  and  that  was  sixty-eight  years 
ago.  We  never  set  traps  for  eagles,  but  when  one  is 
caught  I  must  confess  we  do  not  mourn  very  much. 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  153 

Strychnine  is  a  wonderfully  handy  drug.  I  remember 
once  laying  a  poisoned  egg  in  the  hope  of  killing  a  pair 
of  hoodies  which  were  doing  an  immense  amount  of 
damage  stealing  grouse  eggs,  and  returning  in  a  very 
short  time  to  find  both  the  hoodies  lying  on  their  backs 
dead,  though  still  warm,  one  on  each  side  of  the  egg. 
On  another  occasion  when  stalking  hinds  in  January 
I  was  crawling  along  at  the  foot  of  a  rock  when  I  noticed 
an  egg  which  I  knew  to  be  a  poisoned  one.  Just  a  little 
beyond  it  I  saw  two  small  white  spots  which  looked  like 
little  lumps  of  snow,  and  when  I  got  to  them  I  saw 
that  they  were  two  dead  pure  white  ermines.  They 
must  only  just  have  put  the  tips  of  their  tongues  into 
the  small  hole  at  the  top  of  the  egg,  for  it  was  still  quite 
intact. 


CHAPTER  XI 
THE  FIONN  LOCH 

I  HOPE  I  may  be  excused  if  I  am  often  guilty  of  asserting 

that  Fionn  Loch  (the  White  Loch)  is  the  best  trout  loch 

in  Scotland.    In  one  respect  it  is  certainly  superior  to 

Loch  na  h'oiche,  which  I  have  extolled  in  a  former 

chapter,  because  the  Fionn  Loch  fish  are  of  a  much 

greater  size.    It  is  a  magnificent  loch,  whether  regarded 

from  a  natural  history  standpoint  or  from  that  of  sport 

and  scenery;  indeed,  the  upper  end  has  often  been 

compared  to  Loch  Coruisge  in  Skye.    It  was  not  part 

of  the  original  Gairloch  estate.    Some  time  in  the  early 

forties,  when  my  brother,  the  heir  to  Gairloch,  was  still 

a  minor,  my  mother  and  my  uncle  (the  trustees)  bought 

the   Kernsary  property  for  him  from  the  Seaforths, 

so  as  to  give  Gairloch  the  north  as  well  as  the  south  bank 

of  the  River  Ewe;  for,  though  Gairloch  had  a  Crown 

charter  of  all  the  salmon  rights  in  that  famous  river,  it 

was  more  difficult  to  look  after  it  and  keep  down  poaching, 

etc.,  when  the  land  on  one  side  belonged  to  someone  else. 

So  in  1862,  after  I  bought  Inverewe,  my  brother  sold 

me  back  the  larger  part  of  Kernsary,  which  adjoined 

and   lay   right   into    Inverewe,    retaining   for   himself 

only  that  portion  of  it  which  ran  alongside  the  river, 

and  thus  I  acquired  several  miles  of  the  shores  of  the 

154 


A  HUNDRED  YEARS  IN  THE  HIGHLANDS     155 

famous  Fionn  Locli,  sharing  with  the  Earl  of  Ronaldshay 
the  joint  right  of  fishing  in  all  its  waters. 

The  Fionn  Loch  is  some  six  miles  in  length  and  runs 
nearly  parallel  with  Loch  Maree,  only  that  it  is  very 
much  higher — viz.,  538  feet  above  sea-level,  whereas 
Loch  Maree  is  only  32  feet.  I  believe  there  was  hardly 
ever  a  boat  on  it  until  it  came  into  our  possession  about 
1845  or  1846.  I  think  there  must  have  been  a  boat  of 
some  description  on  its  waters  on  one  occasion,  for  I 
have  often  heard  the  story  told  that  long  ago  the  only 
scrap  of  cultivable  ground  on  its  shores — viz.,  the  tiny 
green  patch  at  Feith  a  Chaisgan — was  dug  and  sown, 
and  that  when  the  harvest-time  came  the  crop  was 
made  into  a  stack  on  one  of  the  islands  (the  Eilean 
Fraoich)  to  protect  it  from  the  deer  in  winter.  So 
there  must  have  been  some  kind  of  a  boat  to  ferry  the 
sheaves  across.  I  was  told  that  once  when  the  owners 
went  to  remove  the  stack  in  the  spring,  it  was  found  so 
full  of  live  snakes  that  they  fled  in  terror,  leaving  the 
stack  where  it  was  ! 

I  asked  the  old  yeoman  farmer,  who  was  one  of  many 
who  recounted  the  story  to  me,  and  happened  to  be 
telling  it  in  English,  if  there  were  many  snakes  in  the 
stack.  His  reply  was  rather  quaint:  "  'Deed,  yes,  there 
waas  severals  of  them."  This  snake  story  is  a  strange 
one,  for  though  adders  are  so  plentiful  in  many  other 
parts  of  the  Highlands,  there  happen  to  be  none  in 
the  Gairloch  district,  and  slow-worms  (which  are 
notoriously  very  slow)  would  not  have  been  in  a  hurry 
to  swim  across  those  cold  waters  in  any  numbers  ! 

At  any  rate,  I  know  there  was  no  boat  on  the  loch 


156  A  HUNDKED  YEARS 

wlien  Gairlocli  got  possession,  and  what  a  job  it  was 
thought  to  be,  when  a  clumsy  sea-boat  had  to  be  dragged 
over  nearly  five  miles  of  bogs  and  rocks,  and  across  a 
ridge  of  something  approaching  eight  hundred  feet  high. 
Many  a  boat  did  we  drag  up  to  it  in  succeeding  years, 
until  at  last  I  made  a  private  road  for  carts  and  motors, 
with  two  good  iron  bridges  over  rivers,  and  built  a  pier 
and  a  boat-house  up  at  the  loch-side. 

When  the  loch  first  became  ours,  a  pair  of  white- 
tailed  eagles  had  their  eyrie  on  the  island,  still  called 
Eilean  na  h'lolaire  (the  Island  of  the  Eagle).  It  was 
quite  small  and  low,  and  covered  with  little  trees, 
but  at  one  end  a  steep,  bare  mass  of  rock  rose  up  sud- 
denly out  of  the  water,  and  on  the  top  of  this  rock  was 
the  large  nest.  It  was,  however,  quite  accessible, 
and  well  do  I  remember,  as  a  very  small  boy,  clambering 
up  to  it,  or  rather  to  the  mass  of  sticks  of  which  it  had 
been  composed,  and  collecting  no  end  of  skulls  and  bones 
of  beasts  and  birds,  which  lay  scattered  all  around  in 
great  profusion. 

The  white-tailed  eagles  had  evidently  trusted  entirely 
for  their  security  to  the  fact  of  there  having  been  no  boat 
on  the  loch  for  many  years,  but  after  being  robbed  several 
times  they  flitted  to  a  shelf  in  that  stupendous  precipice 
at  the  back  of  Beinn  Airidh  Charr  just  above  Cam  nan 
Uamhag  (the  Cairn  of  the  Small  Caves) — that  wonderful 
cairn  and  stronghold  of  foxes  and  wild-cats,  where  the 
last  of  our  martens  was  killed.  When  I  was  not  more 
than  seven  or  eight  years  old,  I  was  already  quite  a  keen 
collector  of  eggs,  and  greatly  coveted  a  clutch  of  those 
of  the  sea-eagle,  which  were  always  rare  in  this  district, 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  157 

whereas  the  golden  eagles  were  comparatively  plentiful. 
I  have  known  only  one  other  nesting-place  of  the  sea- 
eagles  on  this  coast,  where  in  a  sea-cliff  they  continued 
to  breed  till  within  comparatively  modern  times.  I 
gave  my  dear  mother  no  peace  until  she  had  arranged  an 
expedition  to  the  nest;  it  was  just  beyond  our  march, 
but  permission  having  been  got  from  our  neighbour, 
away  we  went  on  pony-back,  with  an  expert  rock- 
climber  and  ropes,  etc.  Though  the  precipice  from  the 
pinnacle  of  Spidean  Moirich  down  to  Loch  an  Doire 
Chrionaich  (Lake  of  the  Withered  Grove)  at  its  base 
cannot  be  much  under  two  thousand  feet  of  nearly 
plumb  rock,  the  eagles  had  fortunately  chosen  for  their 
eyrie  a  fairy  accessible  shelf  near  the  bottom.  But, 
alas  !  on  our  arrival  we  found  we  were  just  a  day  too  late, 
for  a  south-country  shepherd  from  the  other  property, 
having  lately  got  wind  that  eagles'  eggs  had  a 
certain  market  value,  had  taken  them  the  previous  day. 
However,  a  good  Caledonian  bank-note,  if  it  had  Tir  nam 
heann,  nan  gleann  s'nan  gaisgach  (the  land  of  the 
mountains,  the  glens,  and  the  heroes),  printed  on  it,  was 
fairly  powerful  in  those  days;  and  for  a  pound -note  of 
that  description  my  enemy,  Jock  Beatie  (for  I  fear  I 
hated  him  in  my  little  heart),  handed  over  the  two  big, 
pure  white  eggs,  and  I  returned  home  in  a  kind  of  semi- 
triumph  on  my  Shetland  pony's  back.  Just  below  the 
north  end  of  the  Fionn  Loch,  which  is  but  one  of  the 
many  lochs  in  that  wild  stretch  of  moorland,  is  Loch  an 
lasgair  (the  Osprey's  Loch).  In  Gaelic  the  osprey  is 
called  Ailein  lasgair  (Allan  the  Fisherman).  How  well 
I  remember  the  excitement  over  the  arrival  at  Poolewe 


158  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

Inn  of  Lord  Huntingfield  and  a  Mr.  Corrance — both, 
I  think,  from  Sufiolk — ^the  first  egg-collectors  who  ever 
came  to  this  country  !  Hearing  of  the  ospreys,  they 
made  at  once  for  the  loch,  where  the  nest  was  built  on 
the  top  of  a  high  stack  of  rock  rising  sheer  out  of  the 
water.  Their  valet  swam  out,  and  returned  with  the 
two  eggs  safely  in  his  cap,  which  he  held  between  his 
teeth. 

I  flattered  myself  for  some  time  that  I  was  the  first 
to  find  in  Britain,  or  at  any  rate  in  Scotland,  a  goosander's 
nest  with  eggs,  and  that  was  in  an  island  in  the 
Fionn  Loch,  but  afterwards  I  heard  that  a  Cambridge 
professor  maintained  he  had  found  one  in  Perthshire 
prior  to  my  discovery. 

A  few  pairs  of  black-throated  divers  still  float  about 
on  our  lochs,  and  sometimes  rear  their  young,  but  sad  to 
say  they  are  diminishing  in  numbers,  and  many  lochs 
where  they  used  never  to  fail  to  breed  are  now  without 
these  beautiful  and  most  interesting  summer  tenants. 
The  red-throated  divers,  which  I  can  quite  well  re- 
member nesting  on  a  small  loch  near  the  Fionn  Loch, 
and  also  on  lochs  in  the  Rudha  Reidh  point,  have  been 
quite  extinct  for  close  on  seventy  years. 

The  islands  in  the  Fionn  Loch,  with  its  heronry  and 
the  lands  surrounding  it,  both  the  high  hills  and  the  flat 
moors,  were  once  upon  a  time  good  sporting  grounds. 
The  late  Viscount  Powerscourt  hired  the  stalking  of  the 
great  Fisherfield  sheep-farm,  just  the  year  before  the 
sheep  stock  was  taken  off  it,  and  had  a  grand  time  among 
the  stags.  Having  noticed,  when  stalking  one  day,  the 
number  of  blue  hares  on  little  Beinn  a  Chaisgean,  on  the 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  159 

north  side  of  the  Fionn  Loch,  he  planned  a  small  hare 
drive. 

There  were  only  four  or  five  guns,  and  I  was  one  of 
them.  We  crossed  the  loch  in  a  boat,  strode  up  the 
steep  hill,  and  were  posted  along  the  ridge  on  the  very 
top,  while  a  limited  number  of  beaters  walked  in  line 
along  the  sides  of  the  hill.  When  the  first  beater  came 
in  sight,  and  called  out  to  me  in  Gaelic,  "  How  many 
hares  have  you  got  V  1  replied  that  I  thought  I  must 
have  at  least  fifty,  as  my  gun  had  got  so  hot  that  I  could 
hardly  hold  it.  Well,  he  gathered  forty-seven.  Twice 
I  killed  a  brace  of  hares  with  one  shot,  as  two  of  them 
happened  to  cross  each  other.  We  got  quite  a  big  bag 
that  day. 

This  hill-top  was  also  famous  for  ptarmigan  in  days 
gone  by,  and  William  Grant,  who  accompanied  us  to 
St.  Kilda  and  was  my  right  hand  during  the  season  I 
stalked  at  Cam  Mor,  told  me  that  when  he  was  in  the 
service  of  a  sporting  innkeeper  at  Aultbea  as  a  boy,  they 
often  used  to  make  expeditions  to  the  Beinn  a  Chaisgean, 
the  worthy  host  armed  with  an  old  flint  blunderbuss. 
It  was,  he  said,  never  a  question  as  to  whether  or  not 
they  would  get  any  ptarmigan,  but  rather  how  it  would 
be  possible  for  him  to  carry  home  what  his  master  shot ; 
for  the  latter  soon  made  a  big  bag,  not  by  firing  at  them 
on  the  wing,  but  by  taking  pot  shots  at  them  on  the 
ground,  thus  often  getting  several  with  one  discharge. 
I  am  told  that  now  there  is  not  a  hare  and  hardly  a 
ptarmigan  to  be  seen  on  those  forty  or  fifty  thousand 
acres. 

A  few  years  later,  when  the  ground  had  been  cleared 


160  A  HUNDKED  YEAKS 

of  sheep,  and  the  deer  had  had  time  to  breed  and 
accumulate,  one  could  sometimes  almost  make  oneself 
believe  that  the  smoother  and  greener  patches  on  the  hill 
looked  red  when  the  sun  shone  on  them,  so  thickly  were 
they  covered  with  deer  !  On  our  side  of  the  loch, 
though  the  ground  consisted  of  only  bog,  rocks,  and 
heather,  it  was  just  about  the  best  for  grouse  in  our  big 
parish.  Shooting  over  it  with  dogs  pretty  late  in  the 
season,  a  cousin  and  I  got  53  brace  one  day,  and  SOJ  brace 
another  day.  In  the  year  when  Lord  Medway  had  our 
shooting,  his  total  bag  was  412  brace,  and  his  lord- 
ship got  100  brace  in  two  days  on  the  shores  of  the 
Fionn  Loch,  on  the  two  beats  right  and  left  of  what 
was  then  the  new  road.  These  flat  moors  used  also  to 
have,  besides  grouse,  a  lot  of  golden  plovers  breeding  on 
them,  with  their  charming  little  satellites,  the  dunlins, 
whom  stupid  people  often  mistook  for  young  plovers, 
because  they  also  had  little  black  patches  on  their 
breasts.  Nowadays  not  a  plover  or  a  dunlin  is  to  be 
seen,  and  the  grouse  are  very  few  and  far  between. 
No  one  seems  able  to  explain  why  all  these  birds  have 
died  out ! 

The  biggest  wild-cat  we  ever  caught — and  we  caught 
many  a  big  one — was  a  monster  we  got  close  to  the 
Fionn  Loch.  It  measured  forty -three  inches  in  length. 
How  I  lamented  he  could  not  have  been  tamed,  as  he 
would  have  looked  so  handsome  on  a  rug,  lying  warming 
himself  before  a  drawing-room  fire  ! 

I  was  nearly  forgetting  the  otters.  The  Fionn  Loch 
is  a  particularly  favourite  resort  for  them,  and  the 
little  Gruinord  River  is  their  highway  from  the  Fionn 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  161 

Loch,  and  the  twenty  or  more  smaller  lochs  that  empty 
themselves  into  it,  to  the  ocean,  which  the  otters 
much  prefer  in  winter  to  the  fresh  water.  One  could 
not  possibly  imagine  a  more  perfect  home  for  otters 
than  the  islands  of  the  Fionn  Loch.  I  remember  one 
day  when  fishing  on  it,  and  when  right  out  in  the  middle, 
we  saw  a  very  young  otter  swimming  along,  which  must 
have  somehow  got  separated  from  its  mother.  During 
the  chase  it  happened  to  come  up  near  enough  to  the  boat 
to  be  captured  with  the  landing-net,  and  after  keeping 
it  for  some  weeks,  we  sent  it  to  the  London  Zoo,  where 
it  lived  and  throve  for  many  a  long  year  in  the  otter  pond. 
About  the  year  1860  I  had  a  deUghtful  tame  otter, 
which  had  been  captured  when  quite  tiny,  and  was 
brought  up  on  milk.  What  a  fascinating  pet  it  was  ! 
It  was  never  so  happy  as  when  playing  like  a  kitten 
with  a  bit  of  stick,  or  tumbling  about  among  dogs  and 
puppies  under  the  kitchen  table,  and  it  loved  a  good 
hot  fire.  I  got  it  in  April,  and  in  the  following  winter 
I  used  to  let  it  out  with  a  very  long  cord  in  the  big  sea- 
pool  of  the  Ewe  below  the  bridge.  One  day  the  cord 
came  off,  the  otter  disappeared,  and  after  swimming 
along  the  coast  for  two  or  three  miles,  came  upon  some 
boys  fishing  for  cuddies  off  the  rocks.  Not  being  in  the 
least  afraid  of  human  beings,  it  clambered  up  the  rock, 
and  began  eating  the  fish,  but  the  boys,  who  did  not 
know  it  was  tame  and  belonged  to  me,  began  belabouring 
it  with  the  butt-ends  of  their  rods  and  killed  it.  They 
added  insult  to  injury  by  bringing  the  skin  to  me  for 
sale  a  few  days  afterwards.  How  I  did  bemoan  the  loss 
of  my  otter ! 

11 


162  A  HUNDKED  YEARS 

My  readers  will  agree  that  the  records  which  I  am 
going  to  give  of  the  various  fishermen  are  truly  amazing. 
From  time  immemorial  the  Fionn  Loch  has  been  always 
famous  for  its  enormous  trout.  As  there  were  no  boats 
on  the  loch,  the  old  crofter  population,  who  lived  around 
its  shores  in  their  shieling  bothies,  used  to  catch  fish 
by  tying  a  cod-hook  to  the  end  of  a  long  string,  baiting 
it  with  a  good-sized  trout,  and  throwing  it  as  far  as 
possible  out  into  the  loch  from  certain  points  and  pro- 
montories best  known  to  themselves.  They  also  used  to 
spear  the  trout  by  bog-fir  torchlight  in  the  burns  and 
the  rivers  in  October  and  November. 

Soon  after  the  purchase  of  Kernsary  by  Gairloch, 
my  uncle  happened  to  come  across  the  late  Sir  Alexander 
Gordon  Gumming  of  Altyre,  who  was  then  a  very  keen 
young  spo-rtsman,  both  with  gun  and  rod,  and  on  hearing 
of  the  reported  size  of  the  trout,  Sir  Alexander  determined 
to  try  the  loch  himself.  Of  all  unlikely  times  of  the 
year  for  trout-fishing,  he  chose  the  middle  of  March, 
when  no  one  but  himself  would  have  had  hopes  of 
catching  anything ;  but  in  spite  of  the  odds  against  him 
he  caught  plenty  of  fish,  many  of  which  were  real 
giants. 

The  old  people  declared  there  were  three  different 
species  (or  at  least  varieties)  of  these  big  trout,  and  gave 
them  three  different  Gaelic  names — viz.,  Claigionnaich 
(skully,  big-headed),  Carraige^naich  (stumpy,  short 
and  thick),  and  Cnaimhaich  (bony,  big-boned).  Cer- 
tainly the  trout  do  vary  a  lot  in  shape  and  colouring. 

How  perfectly  do  I  remember  one  evening  in  April, 
1851  (when  I  was  just  nine  years  old),  Sir  Alexander 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  163 

sending  down  a  message  to  us  at  Pool  House,  asking 
my  mother  and  me  to  come  up  to  the  inn  and  to  witness 
the  weighing  of  the  fish  he  had  brought  back  that  day, 
in  case  his  own  statements  might  be  doubted  in  future 
years.  There  were  four  beauties  lying  side  by  side  on 
the  table  of  the  small  drinking-room,  and  they  turned 
the  scales  at  51  pounds.  The  total  weight  of  the  twelve 
fish  caught  that  12th  day  of  April  by  trolling  was 
87 pounds  12  ounces,  made  up  thus:  14  pounds  8  ounces, 
12  pounds  8  ounces,  12  pounds  4  ounces,  12  pounds, 
10  pounds,  6  pounds  12  ounces,  6  pounds  8  ounces, 
3  pounds,  3  pounds,  2  pounds  12  ounces,  2  pounds 
8  ounces,  2  pounds. 

Sir  Alexander  did  very  well  on  many  of  the  other 
days,  even  in  March.  He  was  so  energetic  that,  in 
order  to  lose  as  little  time  as  possible  in  going  to 
and  from  the  loch,  he  sometimes  put  up  at  the  Srathan 
Mor  shepherd's  house  with  my  enemy,  Jock  Beatie 
of  the  sea-eagle's  eggs.  Before  leaving  he  gave  my 
mother  an  exact  list  of  every  trout  he  caught  during 
his  stay,  with  all  the  dates  and  weights.  This  list  we 
always  retained  in  our  possession.  As  Sir  Alexander 
had  also  a  great  name  as  a  crack  shot,  we  were  keen  to 
see  him  perform  with  the  gun,  so  the  day  before  he 
left  Poole  we  my  mother  and  my  uncle,  who  was  then 
residing  on  his  model  Isle  of  Ewe  farm,  planned  an 
expedition  with  him  to  the  pigeon  caves  at  the  point  of 
Cove  to  test  his  reputation.  The  sea  proved  too  rough 
for  him  to  shoot  from  the  boat  the  pigeons  as  they  came 
out  of  the  cave,  so  he  had  t©  do  the  best  he  could  from 
the  tops  of  the  caves,  and  the  pigeons  very  nearly  beat 


164  A  HUNDKED  YEAKS 

him,  though  he  did  knock  over  a  few.  But  he  did  one 
thing  which  I  never  happened  to  have  seen  done  before, 
nor  have  I  seen  it  done  since.  A  great  black-backed 
gull,  one  of  those  cruel  marine  vultures,  measuring  some- 
times nearly  six  feet  from  tip  to  tip  of  their  wings,  rose  off 
a  rock  on  the  approach  of  the  boat  and  soared  high  up 
over  us.  Sir  Alexander's  gun  was  loaded  with  one  of 
Eley's  wire  cartridges,  which  were  then  the  fashion,  and 
he  fired.  There  was  a  strong  breeze  blowing,  and  the 
gull  fell  straight  down  on  to  the  water,  though  it  was 
quite  alive,  and  the  wing  was  blown  away  in  quite 
another  direction  by  the  wind ;  it  had  been  cut  clean  off 
by  the  cartridge,  which  had  failed  to  burst. 

The  luncheon  was  not  the  worst  part  of  the  outing. 
It  was  provided  by  my  uncle,  and  was  composed  of  the 
produce  of  his  island.  The  previous  day  there  had  been 
an  extra  low  spring  tide,  a  flat,  calm,  clear  sky,  and  a 
bright  sun ;  and  he  had  been  out  with  his  landing-net  at 
the  end  of  a  very  long  pole,  and  had  scooped  up  quantities 
of  the  most  lovely  oysters  and  big  clams.  So  what 
with  the  wonderful  butter  and  cheese  from  his  model 
dairy  and  the  delicious  scones  and  oat-cakes,  oysters  and 
clams,  our  hero  was  made  very  happy  in  spite  of  having 
missed  a  few  pigeons,  and  declared  it  was  the  best 
alfresco  luncheon  he  had  ever  sat  down  to. 

In  my  young  days  I  was  taken  up  rather  more  with 
shooting  than  with  fishing .  Owing  to  my  living  generally 
at  Gairloch,  I  was  far  away  from  the  Fionn  Loch,  and 
only  occasionally  able  to  make  expeditions  to  it.  Some- 
times when  we  wanted  to  make  sure  of  showing  some 
friend  a  sample  of  the  big  Fionn  Loch  trout  we  would 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  165 

send  a  couple  of  men  up  the  previous  evening  with  two 
or  three  lines,  each  having  six  hooks  on  it  and  baited 
with  small  parr  caught  in  the  Ewe.  These  lines  were 
set  by  tying  them  generally  to  a  boulder,  of  which 
there  are  plenty  in  the  loch  standing  up  out  of  the 
water.  One  day  I  remember,  as  we  were  approaching 
the  little  sandy  bay,  where  we  kept  the  boat  in  the 
pre-road  days,  we  noticed  a  great  commotion  on  the 
surface  of  the  water.  One  of  the  men  said,  "  Oh,  that 
is  where  we  set  one  of  our  lines  last  night.''  When  we 
reached  it  there  were  two  twelve-pounders  on  it.  How 
they  dashed  about  and  jumped  out  of  the  water  before 
we  could  get  the  clip  into  them  !  I  could  point  out  the 
very  boulder  even  now,  though  I  am  seventy-eight,  for 
one  does  not  forget  an  event  like  that  in  a  hurry  ! 

Another  day  I  was  fishing  with  a  friend  of  mine,  and 
trolling  along  past  the  Eagle  Island,  when  he  caught 
three  fish  in  quick  succession,  of  9  pounds,  7J  pounds, 
and  7  pounds.  But  the  most  exciting  thing  that 
happened  to  me  on  the  Fionn  Loch  was  the  hooking 
of  the  biggest  fish  I  ever  saw  on  that  loch.  It  was  only 
a  few  years  ago.  I  was  casting  with  a  light  rod,  and  had 
on  an  ordinary  cast  with  three  small  flies,  just  where  the 
small  burn  flows  into  the  loch  at  the  Feith  a  Chaisgan 
sandy  bay,  when  I  hooked  an  enormous  fish.  Some 
readers  might  say  it  was  just  a  big  salmon,  for  both 
salmon  and  sea-trout  come  up  into  the  Fionn  Loch  by 
the  Little  Gruinord  River,  though  they  are  very  seldom 
taken;  but  I  am  a  pretty  good  judge  of  fish,  and  my  two 
rowers — my  late  faithful  friend  and  gamekeeper,  John 
Matheson,  who  came  to  me  when  he  was  sixteen  and  I 


166  A  HUNDEED  YEARS 

was  nineteen,  and  lived  all  his  life  with  me,  and  our 
present  stalker,  Donald  Urquhart,  who  has  also  been  all 
his  days  with  us — were  as  positive  as  I  was  that  this 
monster  was  a  typical  Fionn  Loch  trout,  only  quite 
double  the  size  of  any  we  had  ever  seen  before.  It 
jumped  three  times  clean  out  of  the  water  close  to  the 
boat,  and  we  saw  it  as  well  as  if  we  had  handled  it;  but 
in  spite  of  us  all  doing  our  very  best  to  ease  the  tension  on 
the  line,  it  soon  carried  off  everything.  Without  in  the 
least  wishing  to  exaggerate,  I  honestly  declare  that  fish 
to  have  been  a  twenty-five  pounder  ! 

Just  once  (perhaps  about  the  year  1863)  I  set  a  net 
in  the  Fionn  Loch  which  we  used  in  the  sea  to  catch  lythe, 
and  got  such  a  haul  of  fish  that  the  two  men  who  went 
to  lift  it  could  hardly  carry  them  home  across  the  moor. 
The  biggest  of  the  lot  scaled  eighteen  pounds,  and  I  sent 
it  over  to  my  friend  Lord  St.  John  of  Bletsoe,  the  grand- 
father of  the  present  peer,  who  was  then  and  for  many 
years  after  my  brother's  shooting  tenant  of  Gairloch, 
just  to  show  him  a  sample  of  the  trout  we  could  catch 
in  our  lochs  !  I  have  heard  of  one  other  having  been 
caught  of  a  similar  weight. 

The  last  big  fish  I  handled  was  one  caught  a  couple 
of  years  ago  by  my  son-in-law,  Mr.  Robert  J.  Hanbury. 
He  had  said  that  the  first  twelve-pounder  he  got  on  his 
own  rod  should  be  preserved.  He  was  not  long  in 
getting  a  real  beauty,  and  very  grand  it  looks  in  its  glass 
case  ! 

A  Mr.  Byres  Leake  got  during  the  last  days  of  April 
and  on  eighteen  days'  fishing  in  May  1,370  trout, 
averaging  about  70  per  diem ;  on  three  successive  days 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS 


167 


Inverewe, 

POOLEWE 

,  June-July, 

1912. 

Trout. 

Weight  in 
Pounds. 

Trout. 

Weight  in 
Pounds. 

May 

30 

24 

^ 

June  29 

14 

13 

>> 

31 

77 

28 

July 

1 

68 

23 

June 

1 

72 

31i 

5> 

2 

8 

31 

j> 

3 

60 

21 

3 

95 

47 

4 

74 

28 

4 

68 

25 

5 

23 

84 

5 

67 

26 

6 

134 

48 

6 

41 

221 

7 

180 

62 

8 

63 

23 

8 

189 

74| 

9        116 

41 

10 

187 

631 

10 

76 

27 

11 

119 

42 

11 

51 

19i 

12 

97 

35 

12 

31 

25 

13 

32 

9 

13 

18 

10 

14 

96 

50 

15 

71 

27 

15 

160 

70 

17 

20 

61 

17 

222 

74 

18 

60 

221 

18 

108 

451 

19 

71 

24 

19 

85 

3U 

20 

38 

15 

20 

154 

m 

22 

25 

291 

22 

55 

20 

23 

40 

lOi 

24 

133 

46 

24 

15 

6 

26 

31 

22 

25 

55 

231 

27 

71 

241 

26 

48 

20 

28 

83 

2Qi 

jj 

^L> 

2 

3,625 

1,410 

Note  of  Heavy  Trout. 

Trout     ^pSi" 

Trout. 

Weight  in 
Pounds. 

June  14 

5i 

July 

6 

3 

j> 

14 

6 

J5 

12 

6f 

)> 

17 

4 

12 

3 

>> 

26 

7i 

15 

3 

>> 

29 

31 

22 

8i 

July 

3 

2 

3  each 

22 

7 

>j 

3 

1 

n 

22 

3i 

All  small  trout  (under  6  inches)  were  thrown  back. 


168    A  HUNDKED  YEARS  IN  THE  HIGHLANDS 

he  caught  122,  107,  and  100  fish  !  Mr.  W.  L.  Boase 
and  party  arrived  at  Inverewe  on  the  1st  of  June  and 
fished  thirty-eight  days.  They  caught  2,384  trout, 
weighing  900J  pounds,  and  let  go  between  400  and  500 
which  were  under  half  a  pound.  I  remember  that  one 
day  Mr.  Boase,  who  was  himself  an  old  man,  and  a  friend 
of  his,  a  Mr.  Lindsay,  who  was  an  octogenarian,  were 
fishing  on  one  of  our  lesser  lochs,  near  the  Fionn  Loch, 
in  quite  a  small  boat,  when  both  of  them  hooked  a 
trout  at  the  same  moment.  The  two  fish  were  safely 
secured,  and  a  pretty  pair  they  were,  of  5  pounds  and 
8  pounds.  On  landing,  the  two  fish  were  laid  side  by  side 
on  a  slab  of  rock  and  photographed.  On  the  same  small 
loch  I  have  known  of  an  11-pound  ferox  being  caught 
with  a  small  trout  fly.  Another  day  a  son  of  Mr.  Boase 
was  fishing  from  the  bank  close  to  the  Fionn  Loch 
Pier  with  three  small  flies,  when  he  hooked  a  big  fish 
which  took  him  over  an  hour  to  land.  When  weighed 
it  turned  the  scales  at  10  pounds.  Eight  of  Mr.  Boase's 
trout  were  over  4  pounds  and  weighed  as  follows: 
10  pounds,  10  pounds,  9  pounds,  8  pounds,  7^  pounds, 
6 J  pounds,  5  pounds,  and  4 J  pounds. 

But  perhaps  the  best  record  of  all  was  that  made  by 
Mr.  F.  C.  McGrady,  and  I  give  an  exact  copy  of  his  own 
account  of  his  fishing  on  p.  167. 


CHAPTEK   XII    » 

REMINISCENCES 

Now  I  want  to  say  something  about  my  grandfather, 
Sir  Hector  Mackenzie,  the  fourth  baronet,  generally 
spoken  of  among  Highlanders  as  An  tighearna  Storack 
(the  buck-toothed  laird) .    My  uncle  writes : 

"  I  always  think  of  my  father  as  well  on  in  life, 
perhaps  because  we  never  saw  him  excited  about  any- 
thing, but  always  going  about  quietly,  as  if  thinking 
deeply.  If  a  dog  pointed  at  a  covey,  he  of  course 
shot  a  bird  with  each  barrel,  but  he  never  showed  a 
trace  of  anxiety  as  to  whether  we  picked  them  up  or  not, 
or  where  the  other  birds  went.  He  was  as  quiet  and 
composed  as  if  it  were  none  of  his  business,  but  only 
ours.  I  never  heard  of  his  having  gone  deer-stalking 
or  taken  part  in  any  exciting  work,  but,  though  so 
quiet,  he  was  always  ready  for  a  *  twa-handed  crack,' 
and  was  bright  and  cheery  about  past,  present  and 
future.  He  enjoyed  his  meals  and  was  a  good  hand  at 
breakfast,  being  especially  fond  of  smoked  salmon  and 
venison  collops,  at  which  none  alive  could  match  Kate 
Archy.  If  a  dish  met  him  with  pepper  in  it,  which  he 
detested,  he  would  quietly  give  it  up,  saying,  perhaps, 
*  I  wish  pepper  was  a  guinea  an  ounce,'  or  '  The  Lord 
sent  us  meat;  we  know  where  the  cooks  come  from.* 

On  the  sideboard  there  always  stood  before  breakfast 

169 


170  A  HUNDEED  YEARS 

a  bottle  of  whisky,  smuggled  of  course,  with  plenty  of 
camomile  flowers,  bitter  orange-peel,  and  juniper  berries 
in  it — '  bitters  '  we  called  it — and  of  this  he  had  a  wee 
glass  always  before  we  sat  down  to  breakfast,  as  a  fine 
stomachic. 

"  It  is  impossible  to  imagine  him  mixed  up  with  any 
jolly,  rackety  ploy,  but  I  can  see  him  now  plainly  standing 
on  the  edge  of  a  drain  for  hours,  directing  every  spadeful 
of  earth  throwm  out  or  stone  put  in — for  tiles  were  long 
after  his  day.  He  always  held  in  his  hand  his  double 
Joe  Manton  with  flint-locks,  in  case  of  some  vermin 
showing  itself  or  a  hare  asking  for  a  sudden  shot;  and 
as  he  was  never  in  a  hurry  to  fire  and  never  fired  till 
the  animal  was  covered  by  the  gun-button,  the  distance 
at  which  his  gun  killed  seemed  incredulous.  At  other 
times  he  would  be  busy  directing  the  gardener  about 
some  plant,  or  would  sit  at  his  desk  going  over  his  rental 
ledgers,  or  listening  to  some  complaint  from  a  tenant. 
About  Martinmas-time  he  would  ride  ofi  to  Gairloch  from 
Conon  on  his  pony  to  collect  rents,  with  saddle-bags 
behind  him,  but  no  valet,  groom,  factor,  or  clerk  to  help, 
and  before  Mackintosh's  waterproof  days,  with  no  better 
waterproof  cloak  than  a  camlet.  What  a  blessing  it 
would  be  to  landlord  and  tenant  were  all  lairds  now 
as  well  acquainted  with  their  tenants  and  their  circum- 
stances as  he  was  !  He  was  the  only  son  of  his  mother, 
and,  I  may  add,  the  only  child,  and  was  left  an  orphan 
when  a  mere  infant.  His  Uncle  Mackenzie  of  Millbank, 
near  Dingwall,  had  charge  of  him,  and  he  seems  to  have 
grown  up  anyhow,  till  he  fell  into  the  hands  of  a  tutor 
— ^the  only  one  he  ever  had — the  Rev.  Mr.  Robertson 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  171 

(afterwards  Dr.),  Minister  of  Eddleston  in  Peeblesshire. 

1  have  no  doubt  this  gentleman  cared  for  him  as  well  as  he 
could,  else  my  father  would  never  have  chosen  Robertson's 
son,  the  third  successive  member  of  the  family  to  be 
Minister  of  Eddleston,  to  be  tutor  to  us  five  boys. 

"  I  think  my  father  was  born  about  1758.  He  was 
short  in  height,  only  about  5  feet  5  inches,  but  in 
breadth  and  strength  few  of  any  height  could  match 
him.    His  juniper  walking-stick,  now  beside  me,  is  only 

2  feet  6  inches  long.  It  is  said  that  some  celebrated 
athlete,  hearing  of  his  great  strength,  contrived  to  meet 
him  and  shake  hands  with  him.  My  father  had  heard 
of  the  boaster,  and  on  their  meeting  gave  him  such  a 
wild  squeeze  that  he  just  howled  to  be  let  go,  and  took 
care  never  to  try  another.  I  don't  believe  any  person 
ever  saw  my  father  visibly  out  of  temper  or  in  a  hurry. 
My  mother  and  he  spoke  Gaelic  as  freely  as  English — 
a  great  tie  between  them  and  their  people.  I  never 
heard  of  his  wearing  a  kilt  or  tartan  in  any  shape. 
Tweeds  were  unknown  seventy  years  ago,  and  I  re- 
member him  always  in  iron-grey  shooting-jackets, 
lighter  trousers,  gaiters  and  shoes,  his  waistcoat  loose 
enough  to  hold  easily  his  large  leather  snuff-box,  divided 
in  the  centre,  one  end  full  of  Fribourg  and  Pontees' 
*  Yellow  Irish  Blackguard,'  which  he  used  himself,  and 
the  other  containing  '  Black  Rappie  '  for  friends  who 
preferred  that  more  filthy  powder.  Whether  or  not  it 
was  owing  to  my  father  always  using  *  Irish  Black- 
guard,' no  one  ever  could  tell  that  he  was  a  snuffer, 
or  saw  a  spot  on  his  always  displayed  shirt-breast  rufiles. 
As  a  great  favour  I  was  sometimes  allowed  by  the  maids 


172  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

in  the  laundry  to  plait  the  ruffles  with  an  old  blunt 
pen-knife  aided  by  my  thumb,  and  in  return  for 
this  favour  I  suppose  we  ceased  sometimes  to  plague 
and  worry  the  maids  on  all  suitable  or  unsuitable 
occasions. 

"  For  full-dress,  he  wore  a  blue  swallow-tail  with  gilt 
buttons,  a  buff  or  white  waistcoat,  and  black  trousers 
with  grey -marble  silk  stockings.  He  wore  no  shirt 
collars,  but  round  his  neck  was  any  number  of  unstarched, 
soft  white  muslin  neckerchiefs  rolled  round  and  round 
till  I  suppose  he  could  have  endured  no  more,  without 
losing  all  power  of  turning  his  head.  There  was  a 
wee  knot  on  the  last  roll  in  front,  and  below  that  a  grand 
display  of  my  plaited  shirt-ruffles  sticking  through  his 
waistcoat  (I  admit  I  never  got  much  praise  from  the 
laundry -maids  for  my  starching  abilities).  His  shoes 
were  suited  to  gouty  feet,  although  he  suffered  that 
misery  more  in  his  knuckles  than  his  feet.  I  have  even 
seen  him  with  nankeen  trousers  during  our  old-fashioned 
summers,  to  which  I  have  alluded  before.  I  don't 
believe  he  ever  owned  a  dressing-gown  or  a  pair  of  cosy 
slippers.  At  least,  I  have  seen  him  shaving  with 
nothing  on  him  but  a  day-shirt,  and  that  in  winter. 
He  despised  cosiness,  but  liked  to  lie  on  a  sofa  in  the 
afternoon  or  evening  after  a  long  day  occupied  in 
superintending  farm  work.  I  seem  to  see  him  now 
on  the  sofa  in  the  parlour  at  Tigh  Dige,  reading  news- 
papers with  his  head  towards  the  fire  and  light,  and 
when  one  was  thoroughly  read  he  nipped  a  bit  out  of  it 
to  prevent  a  second  reading.  Except  for  small  mutton- 
chop  whiskers,  he  was  always  clean  shaven,  and  never 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  173 

used  warm  water  or  any  such  fine  nonsense.  His  income 
was  about  £3,000  a  year.  The  shootings  were  not  let 
in  his  time,  in  the  Highlands  at  least.  Landlords  then 
were  not  so  often  hard  up  as  now,  when  with  three  times 
their  income  there  is  homoeopathic  hospitality  very 
different  indeed  from  the  lavishness  in  his  house.  All 
is  now  stored  up  for  cutting  a  splash  in  London  or 
abroad,  just  as  a  couple  of  big  game  battues  in  the 
year  replace  the  continuous  moderate  shooting  through- 
out the  season  which  people  formerly  offered  their 
friends. 

"  '  Father,'  Frank  would  say, '  they  tell  me  there  is  an 
officer  come  to-day  to  the  inn  at  Ceann-t-saile .'  '  Frank, 
run  and  find  out  his  name,'  was  the  reply.  *  Give  him 
my  compliments,  and  say  I  hope  he  will  come  up  at 
once  with  his  things  and  remain  here  till  he  is  obliged 
to  leave.'  The  idea  of  a  gentleman — ladies  in  those 
days  never  inspected  our  country — being  allowed  to 
remain  at  an  inn  was  contrary  to  all  rules  of  Highland 
hospitality  and  thought  disgraceful.  The  entertained 
were  not  always  angels  unawares,  but  one  day  there 
arrived  Major  Colby,  of  the  Engineers,  who,  with  a 
sergeant  and  some  privates,  had  been  sent  to  the  north- 
west as  pioneers  of  the  Government  plans  for  the 
Ordnance  Survey  of  Britain,  a  great  work,  hardly  com- 
pleted yet,  though  I  must  be  writing  of  about  the  year 
1816.  My  father  caught  many  a  fish  on  his  hospitality 
hook,  but  never  one  like  Colby,  a  highly  educated  man 
of  science,  from  astronomy  all  the  way  downwards,  full 
of  every  kind  of  information,  and  most  able  and  glad 
to  pass  it  on  to  others.    He  had  been  all  through  the 


174  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

wars  with  Buonaparte,  yet  was  always  ready  to  come 
shooting  or  fishing  in  burn,  loch,  or  sea  with  us  if  his 
men  were  carrying  on  routine  work  which  only  needed 
his  presence  occasionally.  He  was  with  us  nearly  the 
whole  summer,  and  I  remember  what  high  spirits  he 
was  in  one  day  when  one  of  his  people  won  a  prize  by 
throwing  the  sun's  rays  from  a  concave  mirror  from,  I 
think,  the  top  of  Slioch  to  the  Clova  Hills  in  Kincardine- 
shire through  some  glen  or  other,  thus  enabling  these 
spots  to  be  fixed  accurately  for  mapping.  He  was  much 
interested  by  our  dear  Uncle  Kenneth's  account  of  the 
war  with  Hyder  Ali  and  the  siege  and  taking  of  Seringa- 
patam,  at  which  Uncle  Kenneth  was  present.  He 
retired  afterwards  to  Kerry sdale,  and  seemed  to 
be  more  peaceful  and  happy  than  anyone  I  ever 
knew. 

"  My  father  never  went  out  to  kill  a  heavy  bag. 
Such  things  were  never  boasted  of  in  those  times  as  now, 
when  a  man  who  shoots,  say,  one  hundred  brace  in  a  day 
is  looked  up  to  as  quite  a  hero.  Except  to  vary  the 
house  diet  and  to  give  some  game  to  a  tenant,  killing 
grouse  was  mere  waste,  there  being  no  way  to  dispose 
of  it,  no  steamers,  no  railways,  no  wheels  to  Gairloch  to 
send  the  game  broadcast  all  over  the  kingdom.  There 
was  then  as  much  game  as  could  be  expected  when  the 
gamekeeper  was  merely  a  game-killer  and  never  dreamt 
of  trapping  vermin.  My  father  shot  any  kind  of  vermin 
that  happened  to  come  in  his  way  or  hunted  them  with 
the  dogs.  When  he  went  to  shoot  some  grouse  we  small 
boys  always  begged  to  be  allowed  to  carry  the  dead. 
One  day  I  remember  so  well  his  astonishing  us.    From 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  175 

a  small  bit  of  water  and  reeds  behind  Badacliro  up  got 
five  mallard  in  front  of  us ;  his  first  barrel  brought  down 
two,  and  after  a  long  wait  for  the  second  shot,  away  it 
went,  and  brought  down  the  other  three.  The  cool  old 
hand  did  not  pull  trigger  till  the  ducks  crossed  each 
other's  flight,  as  ducks  often  do.  A  hasty  gunner 
would  have  fired  at  once  and  bagged  probably  only  one. 
Those  were  the  days  of  flint-locks.  What  trouble  I 
have  had  on  a  wet  day  trying  to  keep  the  powder  in  the 
outside  pan  dry,  or  hammering  a  blunt  flint  or  enquiring 
for  a  new  one  !  When  I  fired  I  really  had  to  keep  the 
gun  for  a  time  pointed  at  the  mark  till  the  explosion 
took  place,  whereas  now  the  whole  is  of!  like  greased 
lightning.  My  father  always  carried  his  gun  on  his 
left  arm  behind  his  back,  and  when  a  bird  or  a  hare  got 
up  unexpectedly  before  him  he  took  things  so  coolly 
that  I  have  seen  him  use  up  a  pinch  of  snuff  he  had 
between  his  right  thumb  and  forefinger  ere  *  Manton  ' 
went  up  to  his  shoulder  and  he  touched  its  trigger ;  but 
'  Joe  '  could  not  scatter  his  shot,  and  if  the  gun  were 
held  straight  no  bird  or  beast  was  safe  in  front  of  my 
father  at  eighty  yards'  distance. 

"  Our  dinner  hour  at  Tigh  Dige  was  5  p.m.  Beyond 
washing  face  and  hands,  there  was  no  dressing  for  dinner, 
as  there  was  always  some  evening  ploy  unless  it  was  very 
wet;  indeed,  people  soon  became  careless  about  rain 
in  the  warm  west,  and  semi-amphibious.  At  9  p.m. 
a  tray  with  curiously  contrived  dishes  was  brought  in, 
four  forming  the  outer  ring  on  the  tray  and  one  on  a 
raised  stand  in  the  centre.  Potatoes  and  minced 
coUops,  rumbled  eggs,  some  cutlets  and  patisserie,  etc., 


176  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

exhausted  the  housekeeper's  ideas  of  variety  in  the 
supper  dishes.  The  meal  was  soon  over,  and  when  the 
tray  had  been  removed  a  rummer  tumbler,  hot-water 
jug,  milk-jug,  sugar-bowl,  and  whisky-bottle,  with 
sufficient  wine-glasses,  were  placed  on  the  table.  My 
father  put  just  one  glass  of  '  mountain  dew '  into  the 
rummer,  then  sugar,  and  then  one  toddy  ladleful  of 
milk.  Though  the  *  dew  '  would  be  coarse  and  fiery, 
its  toddy  was  made  essentially  mild  as  cream;  only  1 
nowadays  would  advise  drinking  the  millc  without  the 
*  dew.' 

"  My  father  was  a  great  planter  of  trees,  and  all  the 
big  hard-wood  trees  scattered  about  the  Baile  Mor 
policies  were  planted  by  him.  Wire  fences  were  unborn 
in  his  day,  and  enclosing  by  paling  every  tree  he  took 
a  fancy  to  plant  here  and  there  would  have  been  im- 
possible, so  he  adopted  a  most  simple  and  effectual 
protection  to  his  young  trees  wherever  planted.  He  had 
a  nursery  whence  hard-wood  trees  about  eight  to  ten 
feet  high  were  always  ready  to  be  transplanted  into 
carefully  prepared  pits.  In  Gairloch  in  pre-sheep  days 
thousands  of  wild  roses  grew  everywhere,  often  eight 
to  ten  feet  high.  For  every  hard-wood  tree  transplanted 
a  wild  rose  with  many  stems  was  carefully  taken  up  and 
planted  in  the  same  pit.  The  rose  stems  were  fastened 
to  the  hard- wood  tree  by  wire  ties,  the  result  being 
that  the  most  itchy  cattle  beast  would  go  a  mile  for  a 
scratch  rather  than  touch  a  tree  so  thorn-protected. 
Every  tree  thus  planted  by  my  wise  father  was  perfectly 
safe  from  injury  by  cattle,  the  briers  living  many  years 
— indeed,  almost  for  ever. 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  177 

"  My  father  had  a  poor  opinion  of  those  landed  pro- 
prietors who,  though  quite  aware  that  their  heirs'  bread 
depended  on  their  managing  land  and  tenants  success- 
fully, gave  them  no  chance  of  acquiring  much  information 
on  the  land  that  was  to  be  their  own  some  day.  So, 
instead  of  giving  his  eldest  son  Frank  an  allowance  of, 
say,  £500  a  year,  which  he  could  draw  from  the  bank 
and  use  in  capering  about  the  world  idle  and  useless 
until  his  father  died,  or  in  going  into  the  Army  to  learn 
how  easily  life  is  wasted,  he  gave  him  a  slice  of  the  estate 
to  manage  for  himself  under  his  father's  eye.  This 
portion,  if  properly  cared  for,  would  produce  £500  a 
year,  and  the  son  could  stay  at  home  with  his  father  and 
mother  and  help  in  many  ways  where  needed.  Part  of 
Frank's  farms  were  Bogdoin  and  Tenahaun  of  Conon 
and  the  Isle  of  Ewe  in  Gairloch.  There  was  plenty  to  do 
in  these  then  wildernesses,  and  Frank  put  them  into 
a  very  different  condition  from  what  he  found  them  in, 
before  his  father's  death.  He  managed  his  property 
wisely  and  profitably,  and  my  father's  expectations 
were  entirely  fulfilled.  No  young  northern  proprietor 
that  I  ever  heard  of  gave  his  mind  so  entirely  to  agricul- 
ture as  Frank  did  all  his  life. 

"  My  memory  shows  me  my  father  after  breakfast 
standing  on  the  edge  of  a  drain  he  had  lined  out  in  a 
field  of  the  home  farm,  directing  the  men  carefully,  with 
'  Joe  Manton  '  in  his  left  hand.  Many  a  small  crofter 
would  come  and  ask  advice  on  rural  matters,  and  my 
father  would  answer  as  carefully  as  if  the  £5  croft  was 
a  £200  farm.  He  would  then  move  from  the  drain  to 
some  other  improvement  in  progress,  stopping  a  partridge 

12 


178  A  HUNDKED  YEARS 

or  a  hare  if  it  unwisely  crossed  his  road,  or  a  grey  crow 
or  magpie  which  foolishly,  unaware  that  *  Joe  '  killed 
at  eighty  yards,  had  the  impertinence  to  set  up  their 
chat  within  what  they  believed  was  a  safe  distance. 
The  boys  were  perhaps  at  lessons,  and  their  mother 
deep  in  household  matters  with  the  housekeeper  or 
cook  at  Conon.  She  might  have  arranged  to  meet 
father  at  a  certain  hour  to  inspect  the  flax  crop,  and 
see  whether  it  was  ready  to  pull,  or,  if  pulled,  had  been 
long  enough  in  the  retting  (rotting)  pool,  and  was  fit  to 
take  out  for  drying  and  scutching.  When  ready  it  was 
spun  by  the  maids,  and  old  Junor,  the  sheet  and  table- 
cloth weaver,  finished  it  off  for  the  well-stocked  napery 
press. 

"  Only  the  other  day  I  was  using  a  towel  of  Junor *s 
make,  still  quite  sound,  marked  '  C.  M.  K.,  1806,'  by  my 
dear  mother  when  I  was  three  years  old.  It  was  part  of 
the  present  to  my  wife  on  her  marriage  visit  to  Conon  in 
1826,  which  all  young  daughters-in-law  in  those  days 
expected  to  get  from  their  mothers-in-law.  It  is 
painful  to  contrast  the  placidly  peaceful,  happy  life  of 
my  parents  then  with  the  rush  and  splash  and  constant 
feverish  excitement  all  round  us  now  in  the  same  ranks 
of  society .  How  eager  is  the  pursuit  of  fancied  happiness, 
which  people  imagine  cannot  be  found  in  the  peaceful 
life  their  wiser  parents  lived.  One  is  reminded  of  the 
contrast  between  the  light  of  a  good  steady  lamp  and 
the  blaze  and  rush  of  a  rocket,  which  too  often  ends  in 
an  explosion  and  sends  the  ancestral  acres  and  home 
to  smithereens  !  Then  the  wreckage  is  gathered  up  by 
wiser,  quiet-going  people,  as  we  have  seen  in  too  many 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  179 

northern  homes  which  are  now  occupied  by  people  quite 
unknown  in  my  young  days/' 

To  show  the  enthusiasm  of  the  people  in  past  days 
for  their  lairds  I  must  tell  the  following  story.    Very 
soon  after  my  father's  death,  my  uncle,  as  factor  for  the 
estate,  had  occasion  to  come  up  to  Gairloch,  and  took 
along  with  him  my  two  half-brothers,  aged  twelve  and 
ten.    The  Tigh  Dige  and  the  sporting  rights  of  the  whole 
Gairloch  property  had  been  let  to  an  Irishman,  Sir 
St.  George  Gore,  for  £300  a  year  on  a  lease,  so  my  uncle 
and  the  boys  put  up  at  the  small  Ceann-t-saile  Inn. 
When  the  crofters  heard  this  they  were  frantic  at  the 
idea  of  an  t'oidhre  agus  an  tanaistar  (the  heir  and  the  next 
in  succession)  not  putting  up  in  the  ancestral  home, 
and  a  mob  of  them  came  and  surrounded  the  Tigh  Dige, 
and  threatened  the  Irishman  that,  if  he  did  not  at  once 
invite  my  uncle  and  the  boys  to  come  and  stay  with  him, 
he  would  find  himself  with  a  rope  and  stone  round  his 
neck  at  the  bottom  of  Loch  Maree  !     My  uncle  had  the 
greatest  difficulty  in  pacifying  the  people,  and  had  to 
apologise  most  profusely  to  Sir  St.  George  Gore,  who  was 
terrified  and  very  nearly  started  shooting  into  the  crowd. 
Before  long,  Sir  St.  George  having  proved  himself  a 
very  imsatisfactory  tenant,  my  uncle  gave  him  notice  to 
quit.    This  surprised  him  very  much,  as  he  knew  he 
had  a  pretty  long  lease  of  the  place,  and  was  quite 
unaware  that,  in  the  case  of  an  entailed  property,  by 
Scots  law  any  lease  of   a   mansion-house  comes  to  an 
end  on  the  death  of  the  proprietor,  so  that  the  heir  of 
entail  can  at  once  take  possession  of  his  home. 


180  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

The  Gairloch  people  were  indeed  devoted  to  their 
proprietor  in  those  days.  How  often  has  my  mother 
described  them  to  me,  and  how  often  did  she  extol  their 
very  great  merits  !  Still,  when  she  and  my  uncle  were 
ruling  these  five  hundred  to  six  hundred  families  of 
crofters  it  was  an  extra  hard  time  for  them,  for  first 
of  all  there  was  the  potato  blight — and  want  generally 
brings  out  the  bad  and  not  the  good  qualities  of  a  people ; 
then  there  was  the  great  upheaval  caused  by  the  trustees 
deciding  to  do  away  with  the  runrig  system  and  dividing 
all  the  arable  land  into  crofts  of  about  four  acres. 
They  forced  the  people  to  pull  down  their  old  insanitary 
houses,  where  the  cattle  were  under  the  same  roof  as 
human  beings,  and  where  the  fires  were  on  the  floor  in 
the  centre  of  the  dwelling-room,  with  only  a  hole  in 
the  roof  to  let  the  smoke  out,  and  made  them  build  new 
and  rather  better  houses  on  their  crofts,  the  proprietor 
providing  the  timber.  My  mother  told  me  many  a  time 
that,  with  very  few  exceptions,  the  one  desire  of  the 
whole  population  seemed  to  be  to  learn  how  they 
could  please  the  young  laird,  and  how  they  could  best 
fulfil  the  wishes  of  those  who  were  managing  this  huge 
estate  for  him  to  the  best  of  their  abilities. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  people  of  the  west  coast 
went  through  periods  of  terrible  hunger  in  what  we  now 
speak  of  as  "  the  good  old  times,"  especially  before  the 
introduction  of  the  potato.  How  they  lived  in  pre- 
potato  days  is  a  mystery .  But  even  prior  to  the  destruc- 
tion caused  by  the  potato  blight,  when  the  potatoes 
usually  grew  so  well,  there  was  hardly  a  year  in  which 
my  grandfather  and  my  father  did  not  import  cargoes 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  181 

of  oatmeal  to  keep  the  people  alive,  and  those  cargoes 
were  seldom,  if  ever,  paid  for  by  their  poor  recipients. 
One  has  only  to  look  at  the  sites  of  the  shielings  even 
some  miles  from  the  sea,  where  great  heaps  of  shells 
tell  their  tale.  Shell-fish  boiled  in  milk  was  a  great 
stand-by  in  those  days.  I  sometimes  wonder  that  they 
did  not  carry  the  milk  downhill  to  the  coast,  rather  than 
cany  the  shell-fish  up  to  the  hills. 

I  remember  my  old  faithful  servant,  George  Maclennan, 
telling  me  a  story  which  shows  how  scarce  anything  in 
the  form  of  bread  was  even  in  comparatively  modern 
times.  George's  father  was  the  postman  at  one  time 
who  carried  the  Lews  and  Poolewe  mails  through  Creag 
Thairbh  to  Brahan  Castle  and  Dingwall,  fully  sixty 
miles,  and  a  good  part  of  his  salary  consisted  of  bolls  of 
oatmeal.  Consequently  his  house  often  had  meal  in  it 
when  the  neighbours'  houses  were  empty.  George  as  a 
boy  was  for  some  reason  wandering  over  the  wild  moors 
up  on  the  Fionn  Loch  side  when  he  met  a  very  old  man, 
whom  even  I  can  remember,  who  was  there  with  his  cows 
at  the  shieling  near  the  Airidh  Mollach.  The  old  man 
seemed  very  faint,  and  he  admitted  to  the  boy  that  he 
had  not  tasted  anything  in  the  form  of  bread  for  some 
days,  living  entirely  on  milk  and  the  trout  he  was  able 
to  catch  with  his  rod.  George  had  a  good  supply  of  oat- 
cake in  his  pocket,  and  he  gave  it  to  the  old  man,  who 
was  more  than  grateful. 

Shell-fish  must  have  been  good  strong  food  if  there 
was  something  to  take  along  with  it,  for  I  was  always 
told  that  the  finest  and  strongest  family  of  young  men 
ever  known  at  Poolewe — Gillean  an  Alanaich  (the  Lads  of 


182  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

Allan) — were  a  family  who  above  all  other  families  in 
the  place  were  brought  up  on  Maorach  a  Chladaich 
(the  shell-fish  of  the  shore) .  But  there  were  shell -fish  and 
shell-fish,  and  long  ago,  after  sheep  had  been  for  some 
time  on  what  are  now  my  lands,  a  change  was  made 
by  the  then  proprietor.  Sir  George  Mackenzie  of  Coul, 
and  the  place  was  let  to  a  lot  of  crofters  from  Melvaig, 
a  township  right  out  on  the  point  of  the  Rudha  Reidh. 
Well,  as  there  were  no  stretches  of  sand  and  shingle 
out  on  this  wild  promontory  and  only  rocks  and  precipices, 
the  shell-fish  they  had  been  accustomed  to  eat  was  the 
impet  and  that  white  whelk  whose  English  name  I  do 
not  know,  but  which  is  known  in  Gaelic  as  Gille  Fionn 
(white  lad).  So  when  they  shifted  their  abode  to  the 
head  of  Loch  Ewe  and  had  to  live  on  oysters  and 
mussels  and  cockles,  they  thought  the  change  of  diet 
did  not  altogether  suit  them,  and,  like  the  Israelites  of 
old,  they  pined  for  the  shell-pots  of  Melvaig.  I  was 
quite  lately  at  the  Rudha  Reidh  Lighthouse  and  passed 
through  the  sites  of  the  old  Melvaig  shielings,  where 
masses  of  limpet  and  whelk  shells  were  still  to  be  seen 
all  around. 

Here  is  another  story  of  hard  times.  A  very  old 
friend  of  mine,  who  was  always  known  at  Poole  we  as 
Mackenzie  of  Cliff  House,  told  me  that  a  great-uncle  of 
his  who  had  a  farm  at  Kenlochewe  suffered  so  badly 
one  spring  that  he  lost  all  his  cattle,  with  the  exception 
of  one  black  heifer;  the  meal  was  done,  and  starvation 
stared  him  in  the  face.  Early  in  May  the  heifer  calved, 
and  he  and  his  wife  put  up  a  kind  of  bothy  in  Coire  mhic 
Fhearchar  between  Meall  a  Ghiubhais  and  Beinn  Eidh, 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  183 

in  the  very  heart  of  what  is  now  the  Kenlochewe  deer- 
forest,  and  there  they  lived  on  the  milk  of  the  heifer  and 
venison.  A  deer  would  be  killed  from  time  to  time,  but 
not  very  often,  as  they  were  scarce  in  those  days,  and 
the  venison  would  be  hung  up  in  the  spray  of  a  great 
waterfall,  which  entirely  prevented  any  blue  flies  getting 
at  it.  Thus  they  spent  five  or  six  months,  the  happiest, 
they  always  declared,  they  ever  spent  in  their  lives,  till 
the  corn  and  potatoes  ripened  down  in  the  glen  in 
October,  when  they  returned  to  their  home  in  Ken- 
lochewe. 

I  once  asked  an  old  man,  Ali  Dubh,  who  used  to  work 
for  me,  and  who  as  a  boy  was  often  with  grandparents 
living  in  one  of  the  inland  crofter  townships  of  the  parish 
of  Gairloch,  whether  they  did  not  sometimes  suffer  great 
hardships  and  hunger.  His  answer  was  as  follows: 
"  Oh,  sometimes  we  had  plenty.  I  remember  one  year 
when  there  was  a  terrible  snow-storm  early  in  the  winter 
before  Martinmas,  and  all  the  tenants'  stock  of  goats 
were  smothered  at  Meallan  nan  Gabhar.  That  year 
we  had  salted  goat  and  smoked  goat  hams  right  on  till 
near  Whit-Sunday."  "  And  what  about  the  following 
years  V  1  asked  him.  "  Oh,  indeed,  it  was  many  a  long 
year  before  the  tenants  had  meat,  as  it  took  so  long  to 
get  up  a  stock  of  goats  again." 


CHAPTER  XIII 
AGEICULTURE 

People  have  an  idea  that  agriculture  was  very  far 
behind  in  the  old  days  of  the  runrig  system.  That  this 
system  was  as  bad  a  one  as  could  be  there  is  no  denying. 
There  was  no  incentive  to  improve  your  rig  or  patch,  for 
what  you  had  this  year  one  of  your  neighbours  probably 
had  next  year.  There  were  continual  quarrels  over  the 
distribution  of  the  allotments,  and  then  the  whole  ground 
was  remeasured  with,  as  my  uncle  described  it,  "  miles 
of  string,"  and  lots  were  cast  as  to  who  were  to  get  the 
various  bits  of  ground.  I  may  mention  that  the  trustees 
left  one  big  township — namely,  Inverasdale — under  the 
old  system,  and  before  three  years  had  run  the  crofters 
unanimously  begged  to  get  separate  crofts  like  the  rest. 
I  know  a  chauffeur  from  a  township  in  Torridon  where 
the  runrig  system  still  prevails,  and  he  told  me  his 
ground  was  in  thirty-six  different  patches,  none  of  them 
contiguous. 

In  spite  of  all  this,  and  though  the  only  implements 
of  husbandry  were  the  caschrom  and  croman  (the  old 
prehistoric  Norwegian  hand  plough  and  a  kind  of  home- 
made Highland  hoe),  I,  who  am  more  or  less  of  a  farmer 
myself,  am  prepared  to  prove  that  far  more  crop  was 
raised  out  of  the  soil  then  than  there  is  now.  I  re- 
member having  it  constantly  dinned  into  my  ears  when 

184 


A  HUNDRED  YEARS  IN  THE  HIGHLANDS    185 

I  was  young  that  when  the  people  were  educated  (and 
not  till  then)  the  land  would  be  properly  cultivated,  and 
that  then  every  croft  would  become  perfect  like  a  garden. 
But,  alas  !  it  has  turned  out  the  very  contrary.  The 
modern  crofter  has  nearly  given  up  the  use  of  all  hand 
implements  of  culture,  and  trusts  to  hiring  a  pair  of 
more  or  less  starved  ponies  and  often  a  very  inefficient 
plough  and  harrows.  They  get  the  ground  scratched 
over  in  some  kind  of  way,  but  much  of  it  only  to  a  depth 
of  a  very  few  inches,  all  head  rigs  and  difficult  stony 
bits  being  left  untouched.  As  there  is  great  difficulty 
in  getting  horses  and  ploughs,  the  crops  are  almost  always 
so  late  in  being  sown  that  the  equinoctial  gales  are  upon 
them  before  they  ripen ;  this  means  disaster  and  a  ruinous 
harvest  nearly  every  year,  owing  to  the  floods  and 
storms. 

I  maintain  that  education  has  done  nothing  for  agricul- 
ture among  the  crofters  on  the  west  coast  as  far  as  I  can 
see.  Though  the  people  are  certainly  improving  their 
dwellings,  I  seldom,  if  ever,  see  them  use  the  pick,  the 
spade,  and  the  crowbar,  which  are  so  essential  for  trench- 
ing and  draining  and  getting  rid  of  boulders.  In  fact, 
many  of  the  crofts  are  going  back,  instead  of  being 
improved  and  turned  into  gardens,  as  they  might  be 
with  fixity  of  tenure  and  fair  rents  to  encourage  their 
owners.  In  the  old  caschrom  days  every  inch  of  the 
ground  was  cultivated  even  among  boulders,  where  the 
best  soil  is  often  to  be  found  and  which  no  plough  can 
go  near. 

And  how  the  women  used  to  work  among  the  potatoes, 
weeding  them  by  hand  so  carefully,  putting  all  the 


186  A  HUNDKED  YEARS 

chickweed  and  spurry  into  creels,  carrying  it  to  the 
nearest  burn,  and  there  washing  it  to  give  to  the  cattle 
for  supper,  much  to  the  benefit  of  the  milk-supply  ! 
Also,  how  beautifully  they  earthed  up  their  potatoes 
with  the  cromanan,  whereas  now  the  weeds  are  often 
allowed  to  get  to  a  great  height  before  a  horse  with  a 
scuffler  can  be  hired  or  borrowed,  for  very  few  four-acre 
crofts  can  support  a  pony  besides  the  cows. 

I  can  remember  a  good  many  crofters  who  were 
keen  cultivators  and  prided  themselves  on  the  number 
of  bolls  of  meal  they  could  produce  from  their  crofts. 
Nowadays  hardly  a  boll  of  meal  is  made  on  any  croft, 
and  the  mills  are  mostly  derelict  and  falling  to  pieces, 
as  neither  the  man  nor  the  woman  will  bother  them- 
selves to  thresh  the  sheaves  before  giving  them  to  the 
cows.  Many  of  the  girls  dislike  milking  a  cow,  and  they 
will  not  accept  willingly  of  service  where  a  cow  is  kept, 
though  they  do  not  object  to  having  cream  in  their  tea 
if  they  can  get  it  without  trouble  to  themselves ! 
I  am  afraid  that  education,  when  it  takes  the  shape  of 
drawing,  French,  and  music,  has  made  the  present 
generation  of  girls  very  unsuitable  as  wives  for  young 
west-coast  crofters. 

Before  the  crofters'  arable  land  was  turned  into  four- 
acre  crofts,  and  the  runrig  system  was  done  away  with, 
every  family  in  the  west  went  with  their  cattle  for  two  or 
three  of  the  summer  months  to  the  shieling.  In  the 
Lews  they  still  continue  this  custom.  But  when  the 
great  change  was  made  one  of  the  new  ideas  for  the 
betterment  of  the  smaller  tenants  was  that  they  should 
give  up  their  migrations  to  the  shieling,  and  consume 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  187 

the  grass  of  their  distant  hill  pastures  by  grazing  them 
with  sheep,  instead  of  with  cattle. 

Before  the  potato  blight  in  the  early  forties,  it  was 
fairly  easy  to  raise  food  anywhere  on  the  coast,  where 
sea-ware  was  procurable.  Though  most  of  the  ground 
consisted  of  poor  peaty  soil  among  stones  and  rocks, 
sea-ware  with  its  potash  would  generally  force  a  crop — 
often  a  bumper  crop — of  potatoes  out  of  almost  any  soil, 
even  though  wet  and  boggy,  if  it  was  made  into  what 
were  known  as  "  lazy  beds,"  such  as  are  so  common 
to-day  in  the  West  of  Ireland.  Though  the  good  effects 
of  the  sea-ware  were  not  very  permanent,  the  land  thus 
planted  with  potatoes  would  give  at  least  one  heavy 
following  crop  of  oats  the  next  year.  There  was  also  a 
considerable  amount  of  cultivation  inland,  there  being 
in  the  parish  of  Gairloch  a  good  number  of  what  are 
called  in  Gaelic  Bailtean  Monaidh  (inland  townships). 
These  townships  were  too  far  from  the  coast  for  sea- 
ware  to  be  transported  on  men's  and  women's  backs, 
the  only  method  of  transit  in  the  days  when  there  were 
no  roads  and  consequently  no  carts  in  the  district.  So 
what  the  inland  crofters  did  was  this.  They  chose  fairly 
smooth  pieces  of  sloping  ground,  which  had  to  be  as  dry 
as  possible  naturally,  as  they  knew  nothing  about 
artificial  draining,  and  they  would  then  surround  them 
with  a  low  dyke  of  stones  and  turf,  just  sufficiently  high 
to  keep  the  cows  from  getting  over.  In  some  cases  they 
used  movable  wicker-hurdles,  where  birch  and  hazel 
were  handy,  and  into  one  of  the  enclosures  the  cattle 
were  driven  after  being  milked  in  the  evening,  to  pass 
the  night,  for  perhaps  a  fortnight  or  three  weeks,  until 


188  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

the  wise  men  of  the  community  considered  they  had 
sufficiently  manured  that  particular  plot.  Then  the 
cows  were  made  to  pass  their  nights  on  another  achadh 
or  enclosure.  In  the  following  spring  these  manured 
achaidhnan  (fields)  were  very  laboriously  turned  over 
by  the  men  with  the  caschrom,  and  a  more  or  less  good 
crop  of  the  small  and  hardy  aboriginal  black  oats  was 
reaped,  and  later  on  ground  into  meal  by  the  Bra  or 
quern.  Sometimes  they  would  take  a  second  or  even  a 
third  crop  of  oats  out  of  the  achadh,  or  vary  the  crop, 
especially  if  the  soil  were  hard  and  stony,  with  one  of 
grey  field  peas,  which,  when  ground  and  mixed  with 
barley  meal,  made  most  nourishing  bread  in  the  form  of 
scones  baked  on  a  girdle  over  a  peat  fire.  Many  a  time 
have  I  eaten  them  as  a  boy. 

When  the  achadh  was  completely  exhausted,  the  dyke 
was  allowed  to  tumble  down,  and  the  field  to  go  wild 
again  under  weeds  (the  sowing  of  grass  seeds  was  quite 
unknown  then)  till  it  had  time  to  recover  itself,  in  a  kind 
of  way.  Then,  the  dyke  having  been  repaired,  the  same 
process  of  manuring  the  ground  with  the  cattle  was  gone 
through  over  again  !  Most  people  would  imagine  that 
the  time  allowed  for  the  cattle  to  lie  on  these  enclosures 
for  the  purpose  of  enriching  them  would  be  about  the 
same,  whether  early  or  late  in  the  season,  but  the  crofter 
knew  better  what  was  necessary  from  years  of  experience. 
The  old  men  used  to  tell  me,  when  I  was  a  boy,  that 
twenty  cows  on  an  enclosure  in  June  when  the  grass 
was  young  and  in  full  force  did  as  much  enriching  in  a 
week  as  they  would  do  in  a  fortnight  in  August  or 
September,  when  the  hill  grasses  or  bents  were  going 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  189 

back  and  turning  brown.  This  folding  of  the  cattle  at 
night,  though  necessary  for  the  production  of  grain, 
was  not  at  all  good  for  the  cows  from  a  milking  point  of 
view.  These  bits  of  cultivation  were  generally  high  above 
sea-level  and  in  open,  exposed  places,  and  as  there  are 
pretty  frequently  on  this  north-west  coast,  even  in  the 
height  of  summer,  wild,  cold  nights  with  wind  and  rain 
storms,  the  cows  often  suffered  from  the  exposure  and 
from  not  being  free  to  go  and  choose  for  themselves 
warm  and  sheltered  spots  in  which  to  make  their  beds. 

The  old  inhabitants  of  these  inland  townships  had 
also  a  way  of  growing  potatoes  as  well  as  oats  on  the 
cultivated  patches  away  up  in  the  glens,  where  no  sea- 
ware  could  be  procured,  and  where  it  was  impossible 
to  carry  the  manure  from  their  byres  and  stables  in  the 
township,  because  it  was  all  required  for  the  cropping  of 
what  was  then  known  as  the  "  infield  "  land  round  their 
houses.  One  way  of  growing  potatoes  up  in  the  wilds 
was  by  substituting  bracken  for  sea -ware,  and  making 
"  lazy  beds  "  of  it  where  the  soil  was  fairly  deep  and 
moist.  The  bracken  was  cut  with  the  sickle  in  Julv 
when  at  its  richest,  and  the  ground  given  a  thick  coating 
of  it;  ditches  were  then  opened  about  six  feet  apart,  and 
the  soil  from  the  ditches  put  on  the  bracken  so  that  it  had 
a  covering  of  six  or  eight  inches  of  earth  on  it.  Thus  it 
was  left  for  some  nine  months  to  decay,  till  the  spring 
came  round  again,  when  holes  were  bored  in  the  beds 
with  a  "  dibble  "  and  the  seed  potatoes  dropped  into 
them.  In  this  case  also  the  sheep  and  the  goats  helped 
in  the  growing  of  the  potatoes  ! 

In  those  olden  times  there  were  but  few  sheep  kept. 


190  A  HUNDEED  YEAKS 

and  they  were  all  of  the  Seana  chaoirich  hheaga  (little 
old  sheep)  breed,  with  pink  noses  and  very  fine  wool, 
quite  different  from  the  modern  black-faced  sheep, 
much  less  hardy,  and  accustomed  to  be  more  or  less 
housed  at  night.  They  were  far  less  numerous  than  the 
goats,  and  when  the  people  migrated  to  the  shielings 
they  took  their  sheep  and  goats  with  them.  These  had 
to  be  carefully  herded  by  the  children  all  day,  to  keep 
the  lambs  and  kids  from  being  carried  off  by  the  eagles 
and  foxes.  At  night  at  the  shielings  the  sheep  and 
the  goats  were  driven  into  bothies  and  bedded  with 
bracken  or  moss,  and  when  these  bothies  were  cleaned 
out  in  the  spring  they  contained  a  large  accumulation  of 
excellent  manure  for  the  potatoes.  I  well  remember 
an  old  man  telling  me  that  when  out  with  the 
cattle  he  used  in  dry  summers  to  set  fire  to  old,  useless 
turf  dykes  and  use  the  peat  ashes  for  his  "  outfield  " 
potatoes,  and  that  sometimes  he  grew  better  potatoes 
thus  away  up  in  the  hills  than  he  could  grow  at  his  home 
in  the  glen  below.  But  who  could  be  got  to  do  this 
sort  of  land  cultivation  nowadays  ?  It  is  therefore 
useless  to  talk  of  cultivating  these  green  spots  among 
the  hills,  which  were  only  forced  to  produce  what  would 
now  be  considered  very  poor  crops  of  corn  !  At  that 
time  there  was  no  alternative  but  either  to  do  this 
or  starve.  There  is,  I  think,  a  very  mistaken  idea 
afloat  that  these  Highlanders  of  the  olden  times  were  a 
lazy  lot,  instead  of  which  they  were,  in  my  opinion,  just 
the  very  contrary.  I  know  as  a  fact  that  the  fathers  of 
several  of  the  old  Poolewe  men  I  knew  so  well  as  a  lad 
used  to  go  in  their  small  fourteen-foot  boats  in  stormy 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  191 

weather  in  March  and  April  to  cut  tangle  on  the  coast 
of  the  Eudha  Reidh  promontory,  ten  miles  out  to 
sea  from  their  homes,  for  manure  for  their  potatoes. 
They  then  carried  this  fearfully  heavy  wet  mass  on  their 
backs  in  creels  for  a  good  two  miles  up  a  steep  hill  from 
the  sea-pool  of  the  Ewe,  to  some  cultivable  spots  on  the 
moor  above  the  present  ToUie  farm,  which  stiU  glisten 
like  emeralds  among  the  surrounding  heather.  I  am 
glad  to  say  they  were  sometimes  well  rewarded  by 
Providence,  as  I  have  heard  that  they  not  infrequently 
brought  home  a  creel  full  of  potatoes  in  autumn  for 
every  creel  of  sea-ware  they  had  carried  up  in  the  spring, 
so  effective  is  sea -ware  on  new  land  !  And  the  women 
of  those  days — how  they  slaved  carrying  the  peats  or 
kneeling  do\vn  to  cut  short  grass  for  hay  with  small  sickles. 
When  collecting  shell-fish  for  food  and  bait  for  the 
lines,  they  had  to  stand  out  in  the  sea  above  their  knees, 
and  they  were  continually  rounding  up  the  goats  bare- 
footed among  the  most  dangerous  precipices,  in  order 
to  get  them  in  at  night  and  thus  be  able  to  milk  them 
and  make  cheese  for  winter  consumption !  How 
different,  alas  !  are  the  men  and  the  women  of  the 
present  day,  when  it  is  thought  a  hardship  if  the  women 
have  to  make  porridge  for  breakfast  or  oat-cakes  for 
dinner,  because  the  baker  failed  to  call  at  the  door  with 
his  van,  of  often  very  bad  loaf  bread  ! 


CHAPTER  XIV 
CHURCH  AND  STATE 

The  Disruption  in  the  Church  of  Scotland  took  place 
about  the  time  when  I  was  born,  and  I  never  worshipped 
in  the  old  Parish  Church  of  Gairloch,  as  our  family- 
entered  the  Free  Church.  No  wonder  the  people 
rebelled  when  worthless  men  were  appointed  to  big 
parishes  by  lay  patrons,  quite  regardless  of  their  being 
suitable  or  unsuitable.  This  was  the  case  at  Gairloch 
when  an  old  tutor,  who  had  hardly  a  word  of  Gaelic, 
tried  to  make  up  for  his  want  of  the  language  by  the 
roaring  and  bawling  he  kept  up  in  the  pulpit  while 
attempting  to  read  a  Gaelic  sermon  translated  from 
English  by  some  schoolmaster  !  On  one  occasion  when 
my  grandfather  and  his  party  were  in  church,  our 
Mackenzie  cousin,  who  was  tenant  of  Shieldaig,  and  his 
family  were  among  the  congregation,  and  were,  as  usual, 
invited  up  to  the  Tigh  Dige  to  luncheon.  Among  the 
Shieldaig  party  was  a  small  boy  of  four  or  five  summers 
who  had  been  brought  to  church  for  the  first  time  in 
his  life.  My  grandfather,  wishing  to  say  something 
to  the  little  chap,  asked  him  what  he  saw  in  church,  and 
his  reply  was  much  to  the  point:  "  I  saa  a  man  baaling, 
baaling  in  a  box,  and  no  a  man  would  let  him  oot." 
I  think  I  must  give  my  uncle's  description  of  the 

Communion  gathering  in  his  time.    Those  gatherings 

192 


A  HUNDRED  YEARS  IN  THE  HIGHLANDS    193 

were  much  the  same  in  my  young  days,  and  I  regularly 
attended  with  my  mother  in  the  famous  Leabaidh  na  ba 
baine  (Bed  of  the  White  Cow),  where  Fingal's  white 
cow  calved. 

"  My  father  and  mother  always  communicated  in 
Gairloch  and  Ferintosh,  going  through  the  whole  five 
days*  ceremonies,  for  they  were  unwilling  to  appear  in 
opposition  even  to  unreasonable  customs  so  long  as 
these  were  harmless.  Owing  to  want  of  roads,  wheels, 
or  steam,  the  Gairloch  Communion  used  to  be  held 
only  once  in  three  years.  Consequently  it  became  a 
very  great  holy  fair.  I  never  remember  it  but  in  mid- 
summer in  fine  weather.  For  days  before  the  Fast  Days 
every  spare  hole  and  corner  was  got  ready  for  the  mob 
of  people  that  came  from  the  neighbouring  parishes, 
some  fifty  or  sixty  miles  distant.  This  was  considered 
a  pleasant  walk,  not  by  the  communicants  merely,  but 
by  crowds  who  came,  not  to  communicate,  but  to  see 
the  people  and  to  hear  the  many  clergymen. 

"  In  Gairloch  every  hole  or  corner  with  a  roof  over  it 
was  got  ready  by  strewing  it  with  straw  for  the  visitors* 
beds  during  the  six  nights  of  their  stay.  Undressing 
during  that  time  was  never  dreamt  of  by  the  crowd, 
and  washing  was  impossible  !  Our  barns  and  stables 
were  all  scrubbed  out  and  ready  for  visitors,  and  for 
days  before  the  feast  there  was  much  killing  and  cooking 
of  cattle,  sheep,  and  salmon,  for  all  the  hungry  visitors 
who  were  expected.  Such  really  hard  labour  for  the 
house  servants  all  through  the  five  days  would,  if  I  were 
to  detail  it  truly,  hardly  be  believed  as  occurring  in  a 
Christian   land    in   connection   with    religion.     It   was 

13 


194  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

simply  fearful.  On  Sunday,  as  soon  as  breakfast  was 
over,  every  hand  set  to  work  preparing  for  the  grand, 
popular,  open-house  cold  luncheon,  to  which  all  *  the 
upper  crust '  and  the  clergy  were  invited.  When  I 
remember  the  condition  of  the  Tigh  Dige  lower  regions 
in  those  days,  before,  during,  and  after  the  Sacrament, 
and  the  cruel  hard  labour  involved  in  feeding  everybody, 
I  should  thank  God  that  I  was  then  merely  looking  on 
with  amazement,  and  glad  it  occurred  only  every  third 
year. 

*'  Yet  I  was  something  more  than  an  onlooker,  for 
I  had  to  form  part  of  the  wonderful  out-of-door  congre- 
gation that  assembled  daily  in  that  most  charming 
Leabaidh  na  ba  baine  !  The  bed  is  close  to  the  Parish 
Church,  being  an  exact  oval  in  shape,  lined  with  the 
finest  short  grass,  and  able  to  hold,  it  is  said,  three 
thousand  people.  In  the  bottom  of  the  deep  oval  hollow 
at  one  end  was  the  clergyman's  preaching-box,  giving 
him  shelter  from  the  sun  and  rain.  Wind  could  not 
blow  there,  and  even  a  weak  voice  would  float  over 
the  whole  hollow  clearly.  In  front  of  the  pulpit  the 
Communion-tables  extended  to  the  farther  end  of  the 
bed,  the  soil  was  pure  drifted  sand  dating  back  thousands 
of  years,  and  so  porous,  that  were  rain  to  fall  for  a  month 
not  a  drop  would  be  seen,  while  the  sheep  kept  the  grass 
as  short  as  a  mowing  machine  could  do.  I  should  be 
surprised  indeed  if  a  stranger  passing  along  the  road, 
which  merely  separates  the  Leabaidh  from  the  church, 
on  hearing,  say,  three  thousand  voices  floating  up  out 
of  this  wonderful  deep  hollow,  and  chanting  beautiful 
ancient    Gaelic    psalms,    could    help    being    perfectly 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  195 

charmed  with  the  solemn  sound  and  feeling  that  he  had 
never  heard  the  like  before.  A  little  farther  on  I  could 
have  brought  the  stranger  back  to  earth  pretty  quickly, 
for  on  the  side  of  the  road  he  would  find  very  ordinary 
tables  covered  with  gingerbread  and  kebbucks  of  cheese 
and  goodies,  etc.,  to  suit  hungry  mortals,  and  well- 
frequented  at  the  week-day  services.  It  is  even  reported 
that  for  a  penny  certain  outside  laiaves  allowed  us  urchins 
to  have  a  shy  with  a  stick  at  a  kind  of  Aunt  Sally  on 
which  gingerbread  was  set  up  for  the  knocker-olf  to 
pocket,  while  a  miss  left  the  penny  a  prize  in  the  knave's 
possession.  Who  knows  if  this  gambling  was  known 
to  the  saints  in  the  Leabaidh  ? 

"  I  frequently  observed  great  politeness  from  the 
young  men  to  the  girls,  and  often  I  saw  a  lassie,  semi- 
fainting  owing  to  the  heat,  much  gratified  by  her  beau 
presenting  her  with  his  shoe  full  of  water  from  the  well 
above  the  burying-ground  !  The  people  got  strong 
advice  from  the  preachers,  the  Kev.  Kennedy,  of 
Killearnan,  being  a  great  favourite.  One  who  was 
present  at  a  Communion  where  he  was  helping  told 
me  that,  after  the  fencing  of  the  tables  to  prevent  the 
young  and  timid  from  communicating,  when  all  were 
seated  he  suddenly  shouted,  *  I  see  Satan  seated  on 
some  of  your  backs,'  whereupon  several  screamed  and 
more  than  one  fainted  and  had  to  be  removed.  None 
of  your  milk  and  water  preachers  !  The  sensational 
is  alone  of  use." 

Even  I  can  remember  not  so  many  years  ago  being 
present  at  an  Aultbea  Communion  where  a  Free  Church 


196  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

minister,  when  fencing  the  tables,  forbade  anyone  com- 
municating who  was  "  a  frequenter  of  concerts  or 
dances  "I  It  was  said  in  Gaelic,  and  this  is  an  exact 
translation  of  his  words,  which  show  how  very  rigid  and 
narrow  is  the  creed  of  the  Free  Church,  and  also  of  the 
Free  Presbyterians,  even  at  the  present  day. 

Few  in  the  south  could  believe  their  narrowness  also 
as  regards  the  keeping  of  the  Sabbath. 

How  well  do  I  remember  as  a  young  lad,  when  living 
at  Inveran  Lodge  on  the  Ewe,  our  Free  Church  minister, 
whom  we  liked  very  much  and  whose  manse  was  at 
Aultbea,  coming  every  alternate  Sunday  to  preach  in 
the  little  old  meeting-house  at  Poole  we.  We  loved 
having  him  to  dine  and  sleep  at  Inveran,  and  I  know  he 
enjoyed  being  with  us;  but  as  he  was  very  laidir  (violent) 
in  the  pulpit,  he  naturally  perspired  very  freely,  and 
required  a  change  of  underclothing  if  he  passed  the 
night  with  us.  Well,  he  could  do  this  only  if  there  had 
been  a  chance  during  the  preceding  week  of  getting  the 
small  brown-paper  parcel  containing  a  shirt,  etc.,  con- 
veyed to  Poole  we;  for  though  he  was  driven  to  church 
in  his  own  dog-cart,  nothing  would  induce  him  to  carry 
the  smallest  parcel  in  his  trap  on  the  Sunday. 

At  the  yearly  Communion-time  at  Aultbea  how 
hospitable  the  minister  and  his  wife  were,  and  how  the 
luncheon-table  in  the  manse  groaned  with  the  very  best 
of  everything  eatable  and  drinkable  !  How  they  used 
to  implore  of  us  not  to  think  of  drinking  water,  because 
it  had  necessarily  to  be  brought  from  the  spring  on 
Saturday  and  consequently  would  be  flat,  but  to  stick 
to  port  and  the  sherry  wine  (as  they  called  it);  and  if 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  197 

water  must  be  taken,  to  put  plenty  of  whisky  in  it  to 
counteract  its  flatness  and  make  it  more  wholesome  ! 
It  would  have  been  an  unpardonable  sin  to  go  to  the 
spring,  which  was  quite  near  the  manse,  for  a  jug  of 
fresh  water;  anyone  guilty  of  doing  so  would  render 
himself  liable  to  undergo  Church  discipline  and  censure 
from  the  Kirk  Session. 

How  well  I  remember  also  hearing  of  the  case  of  a 
big  boat  returning  from  the  Caithness  herring  fishing, 
which  was  long  delayed  on  its  voyage  by  storms  and 
adverse  winds,  and  managed  to  get  to  Loch  Ewe  only  on 
a  Sunday  forenoon  shortly  before  church-time.  The 
owner  of  the  boat  was  an  elder  in  the  Free  Church,  and 
very  much  respected,  but  even  he  could  hardly  solve 
that  most  difficult  question  of  the  moment — which 
would  be  the  greater  sin,  viz.,  to  shave  of!  some  of  the 
ten  days'  growth  of  hair  on  their  faces  to  make  them- 
selves look  respectable,  or  to  keep  away  from  church  ? 
At  length  it  was  decided  that,  shaving  on  Sunday  being 
a  quite  unpardonable  sin,  it  would  be  less  wicked, 
perhaps  (just  for  once  in  a  way),  to  stay  away  from 
church  ! 

My  uncle,  who  had  quite  a  model  farm  on  Isle  Ewe, 
with  a  byre  of  thirty  pedigree  Ayrshire  cows,  required 
turnips  to  be  harrowed  to  them  twice  a  day,  but  on 
Sunday  the  cattleman  could  not  think  of  using  a  barrow, 
aB  it  was  on  a  wheel;  so,  in  his  best  Sunday  suit,  he 
carried  in  all  the  muddy  turnips  for  the  cows  in  armfuls, 
and  though  a  martyr  to  turnips  in  this  world,  he  looked 
to  being  recompensed  accordingly  in  the  world  to  come  ! 
I  also  well  remember  how  my  dear  mother,  when  we  lived 


198  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

at  Gairloch,  always  went  to  lier  school  at  Strath,  about 
two  miles  away,  to  teach  her  Sunday  class.  She  might 
start  going  there  by  daylight,  but  in  winter  it  would 
be  pitch  dark  before  her  return.  My  mother  had  a 
favourite  old  servant  who  always  accompanied  her,  and 
who  also  taught  a  class.  Now,  it  was  necessary  to  have 
a  small  hand-lantern  for  coming  home,  and  this  old 
Peggy  was  quite  willing  to  carry  when  lighted,  but 
nothing  would  induce  her  to  carry  it  unlighted,  so  the 
lantern  had  to  find  its  way  down  to  the  school  some 
day  during  the  week,  otherwise  there  would  be  no 
lantern  to  light  them  on  their  way  on  Sunday  night. 

What  a  pity  that  such  superstition  should  have  been 
fostered  and  encouraged  in  the  Highlands  by  the  clergy ! 
If  the  ministers  would  preach  less  about  predestination 
and  abstruse  dogmas  of  that  kind,  and  would  some- 
times take  as  their  text  that  "  a  merciful  man  is  merciful 
to  his  beast,"  and  persuade  their  people  to  clean  out 
their  byres  and  stables  on  Sunday,  they  would  be  doing 
far  more  good  in  my  opinion. 

Before  the  manse  was  built  at  Gairloch  (and  I  may 
perhaps  mention  that  the  famous  geologist,  Hugh 
Miller,  was  one  of  the  masons  who  helped  to  build  it 
as  a  young  apprentice).  Cliff  House  at  Poolewe,  which 
my  uncle  described  as  Poolewe  Inn,  a  mere  dirty  smoke- 
hole  reeking  of  whisky,  was  the  parish  manse,  and  the 
incumbent  at  one  time  was  a  good  man,  but  not  a  very 
brilliant  one.  He  possessed  as  his  glebe  nearly  all  the 
arable  land  on  the  south  side  of  the  Ewe.  The  minister 
also  had  a  summer  shieling  for  his  cows  at  the  back  of 
the  hill,  where  now  stands  the  derelict  mill  of  Boor. 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  199 

When  the  minister's  corn  was  ripe  every  male  and  female 
in  the  neighbourhood  was  pressed  into  his  service  with 
sickle  in  hand,  and  to  cheer  up  his  squad  of  perhaps 
not  very  willing  workers  he  always  had  a  piper  to  play 
to  them.  Before  leaving  his  gang  of  harvesters  to  go 
back  to  the  manse  for  his  dinner,  he  used  to  walk  forward 
a  good  bit  in  front  of  his  reapers,  and  plant  his  walking- 
stick  in  the  corn,  and  call  out  to  the  squad :  "  Now,  good 
folks,  I  shall  expect  you  to  get  the  reaping  done  as  far 
as  my  stick  by  the  time  I  return  from  my  dinner,  so 
do  your  best." 

No  sooner  was  the  minister  out  of  sight  round  the 
corner  than  someone  ran  forward,  removed  the  stick, 
and  planted  it  a  good  bit  behind  instead  of  in  front  of 
them.  Then  the  whole  gang  would  start  dancing,  and 
would  dance  furiously  till  the  time  drew  near  for  the 
minister's  return.  In  this  way  they  imposed  on  the 
stupid  old  minister,  who  on  his  return  would  say :  "  Well 
done,  my  squad.  You  have  not  only  reached  my  stick, 
but  have  got  a  good  bit  beyond  it." 

On  one  occasion  his  reverence  thought  he  would  like  to 
pass  the  night  at  the  shieling,  where  two  young  girls 
were  in  charge  of  his  cows.  The  shieling  consisted  of  two 
very  small  bothies,  one  of  which  contained  the  wooden 
dishes  with  the  milk,  and  the  other  had  just  room  in  it 
for  the  two  girls  to  pass  the  night  side  by  side  on  a  bed 
of  heather  with  a  plaid  over  them.  The  girls  were  in 
the  habit  of  finding  just  sufficient  room  close  behind  their 
heads  for  the  big  wooden  receptacle  which  held  all  the 
week's  supply  of  cream,  so  that  it  might  ripen  sooner 
from  the  warmth  of  their  bodies,  and  turn  more  quickly 


200  A  HUNDKED  YEAKS 

into  butter  in  tlie  churn  !  That  night  they  had  to  pass 
in  the  open;  in  fact,  they  had  to  sit  up  all  night  with 
the  cows,  but  they  were  determined  to  have  their  revenge. 
Peeping  into  the  bothy  about  four  in  the  morning,  when 
they  felt  sure  the  minister  would  be  sound  asleep,  they 
noticed  that  he  had  hung  up  his  red  wig,  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  fashion  of  the  times,  was  large  with  longish 
curls,  on  a  peg  in  the  wall  just  above  the  receptacle 
containing  the  week's  cream.  So  they  got  a  long  stick 
and  managed  to  dislodge  the  wig  from  its  peg  and  to 
drop  it  into  the  cream.  In  the  morning  the  wig  could 
not  be  found,  and  the  girls  suggested  it  must  have  been 
carried  off  by  the  fairies,  as  they  were  always  particularly 
troublesome  about  that  shieling.  But  at  last  the  wig 
was  discovered,  and  the  upshot  was  that  the  minister 
never  bothered  them  at  the  shieling  any  more. 

I  am  now  going  to  describe  three  funerals  which  took 
place  about  a  hundred  years  ago.  The  first  two  were 
conducted  in  the  old,  old  way,  and  the  wrong  way — 
namely,  with  whisky  flowing  like  water.  The  third 
funeral  was  without  whisky,  and  was,  I  think,  a  pattern 
funeral,  taking  into  consideration  the  long  distance  to 
the  place  of  interment,  and  the  fact  that  no  wheels  could 
be  used  for  want  of  roads. 

A  laird  of  Dundonnell  (which  is  the  southern  portion 
of  the  parish  of  Loch  Broom)  died  in  Edinburgh,  and 
his  remains  were  brought  by  sea  to  Inverness,  and  from 
there  on  wheels  as  far  as  Garve,  where  the  road  ended. 
At  that  spot  it  was  met  one  evening  by  the  whole  of  the 
adult  male  population  of  the  Dundonnell  estate.    They 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  201 

were  to  start  carrying  tlie  corpse  early  the  following 
morning.  There  was  no  place  where  even  a  twentieth 
part  of  this  crowd  could  sleep,  so  they  all  sat  up  through 
the  whole  of  the  night  drinking  themselves  drunk, 
as  there  was  any  amount  of  drink  provided  for  them, 
though  probably  but  little  food  !  Early  in  the  morning 
a  start  was  made  by  the  rough  track — the  Diridh  Mor — 
which  led  to  Dundonnell,  some  twenty-five  miles  away. 
The  crowd  of  semi-drunken  men  had  marched  several 
miles  of  the  way,  when  one  of  the  mourners,  who  was 
rather  more  sober  than  the  rest,  suddenly  recollected 
that  they  had  no  coffin  with  them,  they  having  left  it 
behind  them  at  Garve,  and  so  back  they  all  had  to  trudge 
to  fetch  their  beloved  laird. 

Now  for  one  of  our  jovial  funerals.  My  uncle  writes: 
*'  The  wettest  I  ever  remember  was  the  Chisholm's, 
the  brother  of  our  good  old  '  Aunty  General."  My 
father  went  off  early  to  reach  Erchless  Castle  in  time, 
alone  in  our  yellow  coach,  with  Rory  Ross  driving  and 
Sandy  Mathieson,  our  butler,  on  the  box  beside  him. 
About  8  p.m.  of  a  fine  summer  evening  we  boys  were 
playing  about  the  Conon  front  door  when  we  heard  the 
carriage  coming,  but,  to  our  great  amazement,  on  the 
box  beside  Rory  sat  our  father,  dressed  in  full  mourning^ 
though  we  had  never  heard  of  or  seen  him  on  the  box 
before  !  The  inside  seemed  packed  full  of  people,  whose 
identity  was  soon  revealed  to  us  at  the  front  door. 
Out  came  Mathieson,  and  then,  helped  by  my  father, 
two  seemingly  dead  mortals  were  dragged  out  of  the 
carriage  and  laid  down  at  the  stair-foot,  to  be  promptly 
rolled  up  in  coverlets  and  carried  upstairs  to  the  double- 


202  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

bedded  room.  There  was  an  amount  of  silent  secrecy 
about  the  business  that  quite  sobered  our  spirits,  which 
were  usually  raised  to  a  very  high  pitch  when  drunkies 
met  us.  I  suppose  our  father  considered  both  cases 
very  serious,  and  felt  their  only  chance  of  surviving 
was  to  take  them  home  with  Mathieson  planted  between 
them  inside  the  carriage  to  keep  up  their  heads  and 
prevent  their  being  suffocated. 

"  When  Mathieson  had  got  the  clothes  off  the  poor 
fools  and  bedded  them,  we  were  allowed  to  come  into 
the  room  and  got  a  lesson  on  the  evil  of  *  moderate 
drinking,"  and  I  shall  never  forget  their  fearful  purple 
faces  and  stertorous  breathing.  We  then  learnt  that 
they  were  two  great  friends  of  ours,  the  famous  Dr.  W. 
of  Dingwall  and  one  nicknamed  '  Sandy  Port,*  the 
British  Linen  Company  banker  (then  the  only  bank 
in  Inverness) — a  very  noted  judge  of  port  wine  and  a 
great  drinker  thereof.  In  about  twenty-four  hours 
they  recovered  sufficiently  to  have  wheels  to  take  them 
home  quietly  without  tuck  of  drum. 

"  Afterwards  I  learnt  from  some  who  were  presen 
that  after  the  funeral  a  grand  dinner  was  eaten  in  a 
granary.  My  father,  I  think,  was  in  the  chair,  and  the 
drinking  was  something  quite  extra,  and  as  one  by  one 
of  the  diners  stepped  away  quite  tight,  the  others  sat 
up  and  closed  ranks,  and  peepers  in  at  the  end  door  of 
the  granary,  seeing  empty  seats  and  heaps  of  full  bottles, 
quietly  became  part  of  the  mourning  drinkers.  In 
time  so  many  intruded  that  Mackenzie  of  Ord  and 
Mackenzie  of  Allangrange  got  their  blood  up,  and,  each 
seizing   a   wooden   chair,   belaboured   the   thieves   so 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  203 

vigorously — both  were  extra  able  young  fellows  then — 
that  they  rushed  to  the  granary  door,  and,  there  being 
no  railing  to  the  stair  leading  up  to  it,  the  chairmen 
belaboured  them  over  the  stair-top  till  they  lay  in  a 
heap  reaching  right  up  to  it  from  the  ground,  to  the 
uproarious  delight  of  all  the  mourners.  We  learnt 
that  the  intruders  poured  over  the  stair-head,  say  nine 
or  ten  feet  above  the  ground,  like  turnips  being  emptied 
out  of  a  cart.  Then  the  two  chairmen  returned  to  the 
merry  party  inside,  locking  the  granary  door  for  peace. 

"  At  that  funeral  every  farmer  that  could  muster  a 
horse  and  saddle  within,  say,  ten  to  twelve  miles 
attended,  and,  as  stalls  for  horses  in  Beauly  could  then 
easily  be  counted,  the  horses  were  picketed  in  rows 
side  by  side.  The  country  was  more  populous  then  than 
now,  when  so  many  proprietors  have  cleared  away  their 
people  to  make  room  for  big  farms;  so,  as  every  crofter 
felt  bound  to  attend  the  funeral,  the  crowd  was  by  the 
thousand.  In  those  times  it  was  common  for  the 
farmers  and  crofters  to  tan  their  own  leather,  and  then 
make  their  own  shoes,  but  the  leather  was  not  always  Al, 
and  the  sight  of  such  crowds  of  horses,  each  with  a  saddle 
whose  flaps  would  make  first-rate  shoe  soles,  produced 
such  a  thirst  for  leather  that  it  is  asserted  that  no  rider 
brought  home  with  him  that  night  any  flaps  to  his 
saddle;  indeed,  the  scallywags  seldom  had  such  a  good 
chance  for  shoe  soles  !" 

I  quote  again  from  my  uncle:  "  In  April,  1830,  Frank 
and  his  wife  (Sir  Francis  and  Lady  Mackenzie),  who 
were  both  devoted  to  Gairloch,  settled  to  go  there  for 
her  confinement,  and  as  these  things  had  given  her  no 


204  A  HUNDEED  YEARS 

trouble  previously,  and  as  I,  a  doctor,  was  at  hand 
should  any  help  be  needed,  she  and  Frank  had  no  fear 
of  danger.  But  a  week  before  the  time  when  I  was 
told  to  be  at  hand,,  as  I  was  riding  along  the  rough  track 
by  Loch  Maree  to  Tigh  Dige,  I  met  Kennedy,  the 
gardener,  riding  with  such  a  dreadful  face  of  woe  that 
I  hardly  needed  to  ask  for  Kythe.  Alas  !  she  had  gone 
to  heaven  the  previous  day.  A  dear  little  girl  had  come 
ten  days  too  soon.  Then,  as  Frank  was  quite  unable 
even  to  think  of  any  arrangements,  I  fixed  the  invitations 
for  friends  to  meet  us  at  Conon  and  go  thence  to  Beauly 
to  a  very  different  funeral  compared  with  the  one  I 
have  already  noted.  As  we  had  no  wheel  roads  nearer 
than  Kenlochewe,  I  decided  on  carrying  the  body 
shoulder  high  from  Gairloch  to  Beauly,  willing  hands 
being  more  than  plenty.  I  sent  out  word  all  over  the 
parish  for  men  between  twenty  and  thirty  to  attend  at 
the  Tigh  Dige  on  Monday  evening  ready  to  help  us  to 
Conon  next  morning,  and  I  had  quite  a  thousand 
from  whom  to  choose  the  five  hundred  I  wanted, 
those  who  were  not  chosen  being  anything  but 
pleased. 

"  So  I  picked  out  four  companies  of  one  hundred  and 
twenty -five  strong  men,  made  them  choose  their  four 
captains,  and  explained  clearly  to  them  all  the  arrange- 
ments. I  was  to  walk  at  the  coffin  foot  and  Frank 
at  the  head  all  the  way  to  Beauly,  resting  the  first  night 
at  Kenlochewe  and  the  next  night  at  Conon,  say  twenty- 
four  miles  the  first  day  and  forty  the  second;  the  third 
day  we  were  to  reach  Beauly  and  return  to  Conon,  say 
nine  miles.     I  sized  the  companies  equally,  the  men  in 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  205 

one  company  being  all  above  six  feet,  and  the  others 
down  to  five  feet  nine  or  so.  I  had  a  bier  made  so  that 
its  side-rails  should  lie  easily  on  the  bearers'  shoulders, 
allowing  them  to  slip  in  and  out  of  harness  without  any 
trouble  or  shaking  of  the  cofiin.  We  started  with  eight 
men  of  No.  1  company  at  the  rear  going  to  work,  four 
on  each  side;  the  captain  observed  the  proper  time  to 
make  them  fall  out,  when  the  eight  next  in  front  of  them 
took  their  place,  and  so  on  till  all  the  one  hundred  and 
twenty -five  had  taken  their  turn.  Before  all  the  men 
in  No.  1  company  were  used  up,  the  second  company 
had  divided,  and  the  fresh  bearers  were  all  in  front  ready 
to  begin  their  supplies  of  eight,  the  first  company  filing 
back  to  be  the  rear  company.  Thus  all  had  exactly 
their  right  share  of  the  duty. 

"  At  first  there  was  not  that  precision  that  was  so 
surprising  afterwards,  but,  once  started,  had  the  men 
been  drilled  at  the  Guards  Barracks  in  London,  it  would 
have  been  impossible  for  them  to  have  gone  through  their 
willing  task  more  perfectly  and  solemnly.  Not  one 
word  was  audible  among  the  company  on  duty,  or, 
indeed,  in  the  other  three ;  every  sound  was  uttered  sotto 
voce  in  the  true  spirit  of  mourning,  and  I  am  sure  every 
man  of  them  felt  highly  honoured  by  the  service  en- 
trusted to  him.  All  of  us  being  good  walkers,  we  covered, 
once  we  fairly  started,  about  four  miles  an  hour.  With 
the  help  of  Rory  Mackenzie,  the  grieve  at  Conon,  and 
James  Kennedy,  gardener  and  forester  at  Gairloch,  we 
had  prepared  plenty  of  food  for  the  five  hundred  before 
we  started;  the  food  was  carried  in  creels  on  led 
horses  for  each  halt  on  the  way.      We  had  plenty  of 


206  A  HUNDKED  YEAES 

straw  or  hay  for  beds  at  night,  and  charming  weather 
all  the  way. 

**  Our  first  halt  was  at  Slatadale,  on  Loch  Maree, 
where  a  regular  flotilla  of  boats,  drawn  to  the  loch  by 
men  from  the  sea  at  Poole  we,  was  waiting  for  us.  They 
landed  us  all  safely,  like  an  army  of  dumb  people,  at 
Taagan,  whence  we  marched  again  to  the  inn  at 
Kenlochewe,  where  we  fed  and  went  to  rest  for  an  early 
start  next  morning.  The  captains  had  their  men 
trained  so  quickly  that  really,  had  I  been  blind,  I  could 
hardly  have  known  when  a  new  company  went  on  duty. 
Not  one  word  was  spoken,  but  all  changed  places  at 
a  wave  of  the  hand;  there  was  nothing  to  tell  of  the 
change  but  the  tramp,  tramp  of  the  new  company 
stepping  out  on  each  side  of  me  to  reach  the  front.  I 
have  never  been,  and  never  will  be  again,  at  such  a 
wonderful  scene;  I  have  never  heard  of  the  like,  and 
were  I  to  live  a  thousand  years  I  never  could  forget  it. 
Had  the  five  hundred  dreaded  being  put  to  death  if  heard 
to  speak  one  word,  they  could  not  have  been  more  silent. 
Many  years  after  I  had  the  great  pleasure  of  reading  the 
beautiful  lines  on  the  '  Burial  of  Moses  ' : 

"  '  That  was  the  greatest  funeral  that  ever  passed  on  earth, 
When  no  man  heard  the  tramping,  or  saw  the  train  go  forth. 
Noiselessly  as  the  springtime  her  crown  of  verdure  weaves, 
And  all  the  trees  on  all  the  hills  paint  their  myriad  leaves; 
So  without  sound  of  music,  or  voice  of  them  that  wept, 
Silently  down  from  the  mountain's  crown  the  great  procession 
swept.' 

"  I  doubt  if  ever  a  more  silent,  solemn  procession  than 
ours  was  seen  or  heard  of,  and,  though  it  was  nearly 
fifty  years  ago,  I  never  can  think  of  that  wonderfully 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  207 

solemn  scene  with  dry  eyes.    On  the  second  day,  some 
distance  east  of  Achnasheen,  we  halted  to  give  the  men 
a  little  rest  and  some  food.    And  as  I  spread  them  out 
on  the  sloping  grassy  braes  above  the  road  and  saw  food 
handed  round  by  the  captains,  it  was  difficult  not  to 
think  of  the  Kedeemer  when  He  miraculously  fed  the 
thousands  who  came  to  Him  in  a  wilderness  probably 
not  very  unlike  the  bleak  Achnasheen  moor.    Before 
we  moved  away  again  every  man  had  added  a  stone 
to  the  cairn  on  the  spot  where  the  coffin  had  rested. 
Is  it  not  there  to  this  day  ?     Among  those  five  hundred 
surely  there  were  some  not  faultless  in  head  or  heart, 
yet  sure  I  am  that  had  more  than  a  word  of  kindly 
thanks  been  offered  to  any  one  for  his  loss  of  a  week's 
work  and  about  one  hundred  and  thirty  miles  of  most 
fatiguing  walking,  it  would  have  fared  ill  with  the  offerer. 
Every  man  was  there  with  his  heart  aching  sadly  for 
us.    All  were  substantially  and  well  dressed  in  their 
sailor  homespun  blue  clothes,  such  as  they  may  be  seen 
wearing  going  to  or  returning  from  the  herring-fishing. 
They  were  all  dressed  alike  and  quite  sufficiently  sombre 
for  mourners ;  not  a  rag  of  moleskin  or  a  patched  knee  or 
elbow  was  visible;  all  were  in  their  Sunday-best  clothes. 
**  Our  next  halt  was  at  the  west  entrance  to  Tarvie 
Wood,  opposite  to  Roagie  Island,  where  another  cairn 
still  tells  where  the  coffin  rested  while  the  bearers  had 
some  more  food.    There  Tulloch  met  us  with  his  de- 
tachment from  Loch  Broom,  about  thirty  in  number,  and 
had  he  not  just  sold  the  Gruinord  property  he  could 
and  would  have  met  us  with  a  regiment  like  our  own,  but 
I  fear  our  men  would  not  willingly  have  given  up  their 


208  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

places.  Indeed,  I  had  an  unpleasant  time  getting  them 
to  allow  the  Conon  tenants  to  carry  the  body  from 
Conon  to  the  Highfield  march  towards  Beauly.  So  our 
next  halt  was  at  the  door  of  Conon,  once  dearly  loved  by 
our  charge,  and  all  of  us  were  glad  that  we  had  got  over  so 
much  of  our  undertaking  so  wisely  and  well.  We  rested 
till  next  day  at  one  o'clock,  when  what  some  would  think 
a  more  impressive  procession  accompanied  us,  in  a 
crowd  of  carriages  and  riders,  to  Beauly.  We  had  a 
very  long  day's  walk  at  not  under  three  and  a  half  to 
four  miles  an  hour  between  Kenlochewe  and  Conon, 
and  though  all  our  men  were  trained  to  boating  and  not 
to  steady  walking,  not  one  fell  out  of  our  ranks  all  the 
way ;  but  a  crowd  of  them  lay  down  on  the  Conon  lawn 
the  moment  we  halted,  and  some  were  hardly  able  to 
move  to  the  straw-bedded  Conon  granaries,  where  plenty 
of  the  best  food  gave  them  fresh  strength  for  their  last 
march. 

*'  After  the  luncheon  in  Conon  House,  and  after 
thanking  our  sympathising  visitors,  I  marshalled  our 
men  and  we  walked  off,  the  six-foot  company  leading, 
just  as  we  had  left  Tigh  Dige  and  Kenlochewe,  the 
carriages  and  riders  following.  At  the  lodge  gate  the 
Conon  tenants  and  hundreds  of  others  disorganised  us, 
as  they  wished  to  carry  the  coffin,  and  had  our  Gairloch 
men  had  but  the  least  drop  of  whisky  there  would  have 
been  a  serious  fight.  However,  I  compromised  matters 
by  getting  them  to  let  the  Conon  people  carry  the  body 
to  the  Highfield  march,  and  then  we  resumed  our 
arrangement  of  the  two  previous  days  till  we  entered 
the  Beauly  Priory,  where  we  found  old  John  Eraser,  the 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  209 

Conon  gardener,  our  sexton  when  needed,  with  the  grave 
all  ready.  After  a  Burial  Service,  we  gently  laid  all 
that  was  earthly  of  dear,  dear  Kythe  to  rest  in  the  grave 
till  the  Resurrection/' 

I  should  like  to  finish  this  chapter  with  a  description 
of  a  contested  Parliamentary  election  in  the  county, 
which,  of  course,  included  the  Lews.  I  was  but  a  boy 
of  six  at  the  time,  and  my  mother  took  a  keen  interest 
and  part  in  the  contest. 

The  Gairlochs  had  always  been  strong  Conservatives, 
and  had  invariably  voted  for  old  Mackenzie  of  Applecross, 
who  had,  I  think,  been  M.P.  for  the  county  for  many 
years.  Now,  my  mother  did  not  happen  to  like  old 
Applecross;  and  besides,  she  was  of  a  Quaker  family 
herself,  and,  like  most  of  her  people,  a  strong  Whig; 
so  she  set  herself  heart  and  soul  to  help  the  opposing 
Liberal  candidate.  Sir  James  Matheson,  who  had  just 
before  this  come  back  as  a  very  rich  man  from  China,  and 
had  bought  the  Lews  from  the  Seaforth  Mackenzies. 
My  mother  got,  I  believe,  every  voter  on  the  Gairloch 
estate  to  vote  for  Sir  James,  and  Sir  James's  majority 
in  the  county  exactly  equalled  the  number  of  the 
Gairloch  voters.  Lady  Matheson  and  he  never  forgot 
the  good  turn  my  mother  had  done  them,  and,  from  the 
time  I  was  a  boy  of  ten  till  I  was  a  middle-aged  man 
with  a  nearly  grown-up  daughter,  I  was  always  looked 
upon  (as  dear  Lady  Matheson  expressed  it)  as  enfant 
de  la  maison,  and  welcome  to  stay  at  the  castle  as  long 
as  I  liked. 

Before  saying  more  about  this  election  I  must  tell  a 

14 


210  A  HUNDKED  YEAES 

story  of  another  Ross-shire  election,  which,  though  it  was 
much  farther  back  in  the  century,  concerned  the  same 
old  Applecross.  In  those  far-back  days,  it  appears, 
votes  could  be  handed  to  the  candidate  in  the  form  of 
letters  or  mandates.  Well,  there  was  an  enterprising 
man  called  Macdonald  of  Lochinver,  and  he  had  noticed 
on  the  Applecross  property  a  beautiful  native  Scots  fir 
wood  in  Glenshieldaig,  on  Loch  Torridon,  which  he 
wanted  to  buy  and  ship  away  south.  Now,  he  was 
canny,  and,  as  he  knew  there  was  a  county  election 
coming  on,  it  struck  him  votes  would  be  more  acceptable 
to  Fear  na  Comaraich  (as  the  laird  of  Applecross  is 
called  in  Gaelic)  than  cash,  so  he  asked  him  if  he  would 
sell  the  wood  for  the  Stornoway  votes.  Applecross 
agreed.  Macdonald  sailed  away  in  his  yacht,  the 
Rover's  Bride,  for  Stornoway,  and  by  threats,  and  bribery, 
and  cajolery  of  every  kind,  he  evidently  got  every  vote 
in  Stornoway,  and,  recrossing  the  Minch  with  all  the 
paper  votes  in  his  pocket,  he  handed  them  to  the  laird 
a  few  days  before  the  election.  He  then  immediately 
started  cutting  down  the  wood.  This  is  the  story  as  it 
was  told  to  me,  and  I  believe  it  to  be  true. 

I  have  heard  also  that  the  same  Macdonald  once  got  a 
wood  for  nothing  by  a  trick.  It  was  a  natural  fir  forest 
opposite  Ullapool,  on  the  Dundonnell  side  of  Loch  Broom, 
belonging  to  the  wife  of  the  minister  of  Loch  Broom. 
The  bargain  was  made,  and  what  did  Macdonald  do  but 
go  to  the  manse  with  payment  on  a  Sunday.  The 
minister  refused  to  accept  money  on  the  Sabbath,  and 
thus  it  is  said  Macdonald  got  the  wood  and  never  paid 
anything  for  it ! 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  211 

How  well  I  remember  the  fight  between  Sir  James 
and  Applecross  !  We  were  living  at  the  time  in  Pool 
House,  at  the  head  of  Loch  Ewe,  and  Sir  James  actually 
sent  a  steamer  (one  of  the  first,  if  not  the  very  first 
to  enter  the  loch)  with  my  mother  and  all  the  voters  in 
the  parish  of  Gairloch  to  the  poll  at  Ullapool.  I  was 
one  of  the  party,  and  also  my  dear  old  uncle.  Captain 
Kenneth  of  Kerry sdale,  attended  by  a  faithful  daughter. 
The  Captain  was  then  nearly  eighty  years  my  senior. 
We  got  back  to  our  homes  that  night.  Still  more 
wonderful,  the  same  steamer  took  a  number  of  us  over 
the  following  day  to  Stornoway  with  the  latest  news  of 
the  poll,  and  back  in  the  evening.  I  doubt  whether  there 
were  many  living  in  those  days  who  accomplished  such 
a  feat  as  to  go  from  the  mainland  to  the  Lews  and  return 
the  same  day. 

I  remember  the  great  castle  was  hardly  finished  then, 
and  the  Mathesons  were  not  yet  resident  there,  but  my 
mother  was  presented  by  the  castle  gardener  with  a 
bouquet  of  scarlet  geraniums  and  bits  of  yellow 
calceolaria .  My  astonishment  at  the  latter 's  resemblance 
to  little  slippers  was  great,  for  I  had  never  seen  a 
calceolaria  in  my  life  !  My  uncle  mentions  having  seen 
his  first  fuchsia  when  he  was  a  lad  at  Brahan  Castle  in 
the  last  Lord  Seaforth's  days. 


CHAPTER  XV 
SMUGGLING  AND  SHEEP-STEALING 

A  BOOK  dealing  with  the  Highlands  could  not  be  con- 
sidered complete  if  it  omitted  to  tell  something  about  the 
drinking  habits  and  about  smuggling  in  the  old  days. 
So  I  quote  once  more  from  my  uncle : 

"  I  never  saw  or  heard  of  champagne,  hock,  claret, 
etc.,  on  our  table,  only  madeira,  sherry,  and  port  of  the 
best  quality  that  could  be  procured.  In  my  father's 
day,  and  long  after,  doctors  and  every  other  person 
were  satisfied  that  health  depended  greatly  on  the 
quantity  of  '  good  '  liquor  a  person  swallowed  daily. 
I  have  seen,  though  not  in  our  home,  men  of  note  glad 
of  the  help  of  the  wall  on  entering  the  drawing-room 
after  dinner,  until  a  chair  or  a  sofa  came  within  reach. 

"  I  heard  him  say  that  once,  going  unexpectedly  to 
Gairloch  without  sending  notice  beforehand,  he  was 
surprised  by  the  want  of  the  usual  joy  on  his  appearing, 
and  was  sure  something  was  wrong.  It  turned  out  that 
a  vessel  loaded  with  brandy,  claret,  etc.,  had  been  chased 
into  the  bay  by  a  revenue  cutter,  and  willing  hands  had 
carried  the  cargo  into  Tigh  Dige,  into  which  my  father  had 
to  enter  by  a  ladder  through  a  window.  The  revenue 
folk  never  dreamed  of  looking  for  the  casks  in  Tigh  Dige. 

"  Once,  when  there  on  my  Edinburgh  holiday,  the 
Rover's  Bride  anchored  in  the  bay,  and  the  skipper, 
James  Macdonald,  as  popular  a  man  as  ever  stood  in 

212 


A  HUNDRED  YEARS  IN  THE  HIGHLANDS    213 

leather  and  a  distant  connection  of  ours,  was  of  course 
nailed  for  dinner.  He  was  bound  for  Skye,  and  hearing 
I  was  longing  for  a  chance  of  getting  there  to  visit  our 
friends,  the  Mackinnons  of  Corry,  Mrs.  Mackinnon  being 
sister  to  Aunty  Kerry sdale,  James  offered  me  a  passage. 
When  on  board  next  day  he  asked  me  to  guess  his  cargo. 
I  said  '  Salt  for  herrings,'  but  his  reply  was:  '  Tubs  of 
brandy  !  I'm  straight  from  Bordeaux,  and  the  cruiser 
is  not  afloat  that  can  lay  salt  on  the  Bride  if  there  is  an 
air  of  wind.' 

"  Even  so  late  as  then,  say  1820,  one  would  go  a 
long  way  before  one  met  a  person  who  shrank  from 
smuggling.  My  father  never  tasted  any  but  smuggled 
whisky,  and  when  every  mortal  that  called  for  him — they 
were  legion  daily — had  a  dram  instantly  poured  into 
him,  the  ankers  of  whisky  emptied  yearly  must  have 
been  numerous  indeed.  I  don't  believe  my  mother  or 
he  ever  dreamed  that  smuggling  was  a  crime.  Ere 
I  was  twenty  he  had  paid  £1,000  for  the  *  superiority  ' 
of  Platcock,  at  Fortrose,  to  make  me  a  commissioner  of 
supply  and  consequently  a  Justice  of  the  Peace  and  one 
of  the  about  thirty  or  forty  electors  of  the  county  of 
Ross;  and  before  it  had  occurred  to  me  that  smuggling 
was  really  a  serious  breach  of  the  law,  I  had  from  the 
bench  fined  many  a  poor  smuggler  as  the  law  directs. 
Then  I  began  to  see  that  the  '  receiver  ' — myself,  for 
instance,  as  I  drank  only  '  mountain  dew  '  then — was 
worse  than  the  smuggler.  So  ended  all  my  connection 
with  smuggling  except  in  my  capacity  as  magistrate,  to 
the  grief  of  at  least  one  of  my  old  friends  and  visitors, 
the  Dean  of  Ross  and  Argyle,  who  scoffed  at  my  resolu- 
tion and  looked  sorrowfully  back  on  the  happy  times 


214  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

when  lie  was  young  and  his  father  distilled  every 
Saturday  what  was  needed  for  the  following  week. 
He  was  of  the  same  mind  as  a  grocer  in  Church  Street , 
Inverness,  who,  though  licensed  to  sell  only  what  was 
drunk  off  the  premises,  notoriously  supplied  his  cus- 
tomers in  the  back  shop.  Our  pastor,  Donald  Eraser, 
censuring  this  breach  of  the  law,  was  told,  *  But  I  never 
approved  of  that  law  !'  which  was  an  end  to  the  argu- 
ment. He  and  the  Dean  agreed  entirely  that  the  law 
was  iniquitous  and  should  be  broken. 

"  Laws  against  smuggling  are  generally  disliked. 
People  who  if  you  dropped  a  shilling  would  run  a  mile 
after  you  with  it,  not  even  expecting  thanks,  will 
cheerfully  break  the  law  against  smuggling.  When 
I  was  young  everyone  I  met  from  my  father  downwards, 
even  our  clergy,  either  made,  bought,  sold,  or  drank 
cheerfully,  smuggled  liquor.  Excisemen  were  planted 
in  central  stations  as  a  terror  to  evil-doers,  but  they 
seemed  to  stay  for  life  in  the  same  localities,  and  report 
said  they  and  the  regular  smugglers  of  liquor  were 
bosom  friends,  and  that  they  even  had  their  ears  and 
eyes  shut  by  blackmail  pensions  from  the  smugglers. 
Now  and  again  they  paraded  in  the  newspapers  a 
*  seizure  of  whisky,'  to  look  as  if  they  were  wide  awake; 
wicked  folks  hinted  that  the  anker  of  whisky  was  dis- 
covered and  seized  when  it  was  hidden  in  the  gangers' 
peat  stack !  This  saved  the  ganger  much  trouble 
searching  moors  and  woods  for  bothies  and  liquor.  I 
was  assured  that  one  of  our  old  gangers,  when  pensioned 
ofi,  retired  rich  enough  to  buy  a  street  in  a  southern 
town,  and  I  believe  the  story  was  quite  true.  Indeed, 
in  my  young  days  few  in  the  parish  were  more  popular 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  215 

than  the  resident  ganger.  Alas !  when  the  wicked 
Commissioners  of  Excise  went  in  for  *  riding  officers  * 
and  a  squad  of  horrid  coastguard  sailors  with  long,  iron- 
pointed  walking-sticks  for  poking  about  wherever  earth 
seemed  to  have  been  lately  disturbed,  it  ended  all  peace 
and  comfort  in  smuggling,  for  these  rascals  ransacked 
every  unenclosed  bit  of  country  within  their  limits  each 
month;  accordingly,  the  ganger  soon  began  to  be  the 
most  detested  of  men. 

"  In  the  good  old  times,  when  we  were  going  to  shoot, 
my  mother  often  called  Hector  Cameron,  our  dear 
shooting  help,  gave  him  a  tin  can,  and  desired  him  to 
bring  it  back  with  barm — i.e.,  yeast.  It  never  occurred 
to  her  that  we  might  fail  to  meet  with  a  bothy  where 
brewing  was  carried  on  ere  we  came  home.  I  have  been 
in  several  during  an  ordinary  day's  walk  in  moor  or  wood, 
and  of  course  had  a  mug  of  sweet  '  wort '  or  a  drop  of 
dew  and  drank  to  the  brewer's  good  luck.  In  those 
days  we  baked  at  home,  and  as  barm  from  the  recognised 
beer-makers  was  generally  bitter  from  the  hops  used, 
and  my  mother  and  we  children  could  not  eat  bitter 
bread,  what  could  the  dear  soul  do  but  prefer  barm  from 
the  smugglers  ?  On  the  watershed  between  Strath  Bran 
and  Fannich,  in  sight  almost  of  the  road  in  Strath  Bran, 
between  Dingwall  and  Lochcarron,  and  on  the  hill  road 
from  Strath  Bran  to  Lechky,  within  a  few  yards  of  its 
many  passengers,  I  have  been  in  a  bothy  with  regularly 
built,  low  stone  walls,  watertight  heather  thatch,  iron 
pipes  leading  cold  spring  water  to  the  still-rooms,  and 
such  an  array  of  casks,  tubs,  etc.,  as  told  that  gangers 
never  troubled  their  owners.  They  sometimes  troubled 
malt  barns,  or  rather  caves.     Once  when  shooting  I  fell 


216  A  HUNDEED  YEARS 

through  the  cunningly  concealed  roof  of  such  a  cave 
into  a  heap  of  malt,  within  fifty  yards  of  the  present 
high-road  above  Riverford. 

"  Once  in  the  Dingwall  court  a  criminal  came  before  us 
Justices  accused  by  two  cutter-men  of  being  caught 
making  malt.  On  the  way  to  Wyvis  by  a  country  road, 
the  cutter  policemen  observed  a  grain  or  two  of  barley, 
then  some  more,  and  at  length  a  continuous  stream  of 
grain,  which  had  evidently  dropped  from  a  hole  in  a 
sack  carried  in  a  cart  or  on  a  horse.  In  due  time  the 
grains  ceased  opposite  to  a  steep  heather-clad  hillock 
close  to  the  road.  A  poke  from  their  wicked  iron- 
pointed  sticks  showed  that  the  heather  belonged  to  a 
pile  of  blocks  of  turf  nicely  arranged,  and  when  these 
were  pulled  down,  lo  and  behold  !  there  was  the  door 
to  a  hillock  cave  in  which  malt  was  being  nicely  made. 
In  the  absence  of  the  maltster  one  of  the  cutter-men 
got  into  the  cave,  while  his  comrade  built  up  the  turf 
neatly  again  as  if  no  one  had  touched  it,  and  then  hid 
himself  behind  a  heather  knoll  ready  to  pounce  out  when 
required. 

"  Soon  after  this  the  maltster  came  up  the  road, 
stopped  at  the  hillock,  pulled  down  the  turf  and  got  in, 
all  but  his  feet.  In  a  second  these  were  flourishing  in 
the  air,  while  fearful  shouts  came  from  the  cave,  and  in 
a  minute  out  came  the  maltster,  coatless,  and  away  he  ran 
down  the  road  like  mad,  while  his  opponent  emerged  from 
the  cave  with  the  coat  in  his  hand.  He  and  his  comrade 
ran  after  the  maltster,  and  caught  him  in  his  house. 
One  can  easily  imagine  the  maltster's  thoughts  when, 
sure  that  all  was  safe  as  usual,  he  was  grappled  by  two 
hands  the   moment  his  head  was  in  the   cave.    He 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  217 

admitted  he  hieiv  it  must  be  Satan  who  seized  him. 
It  is  very  seldom  the  Bench  is  so  convulsed  with  laughter 
as  it  was  when  listening  to  this  smuggling  story, 

**  Many  years  after,  when  I  was  factor  for  Gairloch, 
I  had  to  support  the  anti-smugglers,  and  I  warned  the 
crofters  that  anyone  convicted  of  smuggling  would  be 
evicted;  for,  irrespective  of  law-breaking,  no  person 
who  works  in  a  smuggling  bothy  is  ever  a  well-doing,  rent- 
paying  tenant.  One  day  the  riding  officer  and  his  two 
helps  came  to  complain  that  Norman  Mackenzie,  a 
Diabaig  tenant,  had  been  caught  brewing  *  dew,'  and 
after  beating  him  and  his  two  men  badly  had  escaped 
and  absconded,  and  that  as  I  could,  of  course,  lay  hands 
on  him,  I  must,  as  a  Justice  of  the  Peace,  do  so,  and 
commit  him  to  Dingwall,  eighty  miles  of? !  I  could 
only  promise  to  do  what  I  could,  and,  getting  word  to 
Norman,  who  was  about  the  smartest  and  best  young 
crofter  on  the  estate,  I  had  an  interview  with  him. 
His  excuse  was  that  he  was  going  to  be  married,  and 
that  he  could  not  ask  his  friends  to  drink  the  horrid 
Parliament  whisky.  So  he  was  making  some  proper 
stui?  for  them  merely  for  his  marriage.  He  could 
not  imagine  that  this  was  a  reasonable  cause  for 
eviction. 

"  Alas  !  in  spite  of  my  desire  to  protect  Norman, 
I  could  not  help  telling  him  he  must  go  to  Dingwall 
and  give  himself  up  to  the  Sheriff,  our  law  agent  going 
with  him  and  explaining  matters.  So  he  was  landed 
in  the  gaol,  and  in  a  day  or  two  I  had  a  letter  from 
our  agent  saying  Norman  was  fined  £30  or  thirty  days 
in  gaol,  and  that  he  feared  Norman  would  *  go  out  of 
his  mind  '  with  the  public  disgrace  of  the  thing.     But, 


218  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

like  many  well-doing  crofters,  Norman  had  a  poke  of 
money  in  my  hands  in  case  of  a  rainy  day,  people  like 
him  dreading  their  friends  knowing  they  were  '  men  of 
money,'  which  would  leave  them  no  rest  till  it  was  all 
borrowed  from  them;  so  I  wrote  to  our  agent  telling  him, 
if  he  got  Norman's  consent,  to  pay  the  fine  and  put 
to  my  debit  his  £30  fine,  then  loose  him,  and  let  him 
go  home.  But  the  few  days  in  the  far  too  cosy  gaol 
had  quite  dispelled  Norman's  sense  of  degradation,  so 
he  declined  to  pay  the  fine,  and  at  the  end  of  the  month 
he  came  home,  if  a  sadder  and  wiser  man,  at  any  rate 
not  a  poorer  one  ! 

"  Why  does  any  accident  happening  to  a  ganger  give 
general  pleasure — far  more  so  than  an  accident  to  a 
policeman  ?  I  have  heard  of  a  Strathglass  ganger  being 
quietly  murdered.  It  was  known  he  would  on  such  a 
day  and  hour  be  riding  to  where  he  knew  a  bothy  was 
in  full  work.  One  part  of  the  road  wound  round  a 
corner  where  a  step  missed  would  probably  land  horse 
and  rider  one  hundred  feet  below  in  a  horrid  rocky 
ravine.  As  he  came  round  the  corner  a  woman  rose  up 
from  the  side  of  the  road  and  suddenly  threw  her  gown 
over  her  head  in  an  apparently  innocent  fashion  to 
shelter  herself  from  the  wind;  the  horse  instantly 
lurched  over  into  the  ravine,  and  both  it  and  its  rider 
soon  died  from  the  accident  (?)  to  the  sorrow  (?)  of  the 
smugglers. 

*'  Sometimes  the  Dingwall  Sheriff  was  not  so  ready 
to  imprison  law-breakers  as  he  was  in  Norman's  case. 
One  day  when  I  was  factor  for  Gairloch  a  boat's  crew 
from  Craig  brought  before  me  at  Tigh  Dige  one  of  their 
neighbours  who  had  been  caught   red-handed   killing 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  219 

their  sheep.  They  had  heard  of  a  sermon  to  be  preached 
at  Shieldaig,  of  Applecross,  on  a  week-day,  and,  there 
being  only  four  tenants  at  Craig  township,  were  surprised 
when  the  fourth  refused  to  take  the  fourth  oar  and  go 
with  them  on  the  ground  that  he  was  not  well.  When 
they  reached  Shieldaig  they  found  the  preacher  had 
Hot  come,  so  they  turned  home,  and  were  there  too 
early  for  *  number  four,'  whom  they  found,  though 
he  had  told  them  in  the  morning  he  was  poorly,  coming 
down  the  hill  by  the  peat  path  with  a  creel  on  his  back, 
which,  of  course,  could  not  contain  peats,  as  that  drudgery 
was  left  to  the  inferior  animals,  the  women.  The  three 
were  soon  alongside  of  their  friend,  and,  lifting  some 
heather  from  the  top  of  the  creel,  there  they  found  a 
sheep-skin  belonging  to  one  of  the  anxious  enquirers, 
and  below  it  the  sheep  cut  up  for  the  salt  cask.  Then 
they  made  him  take  them  to  where  he  had  left  the  head, 
etc.  They  had  often  missed  sheep  before,  and,  seeing 
wool  so  over-plentiful  with  number  four,  were  satisfied 
he  was  too  fond  of  mutton  ! 

"  A  Sassenach  may  doubt  our  west-coast  crofters  being 
able  to  catch  sheep  by  running  them  down  on  the  open 
moor  or  hill,  but  it  is  constantly  done  when  they  need 
wool  and  have  no  sheep-dog,  and  at  night  sheep  are 
quite  easily  handled  when  sleeping.  So  next  morning 
the  criminal,  with  his  head  low  enough,  was  brought 
before  me;  and,  not  having  in  these  degenerate  times 
the  power  of  pit  and  gallows  at  my  command,  I  had 
after  examination  to  issue  a  warrant  sending  him  to 
Dingwall  gaol  for  trial.  He  made  no  defence,  but  when 
I  asked  what  possessed  him  to  kill  the  sheep  he  replied, 
*  The  devil !'    The  end  of  the  story  is  that  he  was  home 


220  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

in  a  few  days,  the  Sheriff,  without  any  enquiry,  beyond 
the  statement  in  the  committal  warrant,  informing  me 
that  the  Lord  Advocate  did  not  think  it  a  case  for 
prosecution  !  So  all  I  could  do  was  to  eject  him,  and 
I  learned  he  was  welcomed  on  the  neighbouring  Torrid  on 
estate,  where  no  doubt  he  found  the  mutton  as  good  as 
at  Craig  ! 

"  A  somewhat  similar  case  occurred  to  our  stalker, 
Watson.  At  Badachro  my  father  had  long  ago  given 
a  site  for  a  house  as  a  feu.  A  mutton-lover  had  been 
ejected  from  Aultbea,  and  got  a  room  belonging  to  the 
feu.  Watson  had  a  tame  ewe  always  feeding  near  his 
house,  well-marked  by  half  her  face  being  black.  She 
was  '  there  yesterday,  gone  to-day.'  He  was  sure  his 
neighbour  had  taken  it.  The  neighbour  and  his  wife 
and  family  always  looked  well-fed,  though  no  person 
knew  where  their  food  came  from.  One  day  one  of  their 
children,  five  years  old,  was  inveigled  into  Watson's 
to  get  '  a  piece.'  Asked  how  they  were  getting  on, 
the  child  answered,  '  Very  well.'  '  What  had  they  for 
dinner  yesterday  ?'  '  Mutton  and  broth.'  '  Did  they 
eat  all  the  mutton  ?'  '  No;  the  rest  of  it  was  salted.' 
'  What  did  they  do  with  the  skin  ?'  '  It's  below  the 
bed.'  Instead  of  getting  a  search-warrant,  Watson 
waited  till  he  saw  me  a  week  after,  and  by  then  nothing 
was Jound. 

"  About  that  time  a  great  flood  had  changed  the 
course  of  the  Kenlochewe  River.  On  the  bank  stood 
the  bothy  of  a  strongly  suspected  mutton-lover,  a  pauper 
with  a  wife  and  well-fed  children,  he  himself  being  sickly 
and  on  the  poor  roll.  His  sole  occupation  lay  in  keeping 
two  collies,  and  they  provided  a  constant  supply  of 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  221 

puppies,  which  he  carried  about  and  used  to  sell,  '  for 
the  amusement  of  the  children,'  to  the  poorest  crofters, 
for  the  more  prosperous  ones  rarely  have  dogs.  Now, 
his  bothy,  before  the  rain  changed  the  gravelly  course 
of  the  river,  stood  on  the  bank  of  a  deep  black  pool. 
This  pool  soon  lost  all  its  water,  and  was  then  exposed 
as  the  cemetery  for  innumerable  bones  of  sheep,  which 
had  undoubtedly  been  thrown  in  there  from  the  bothy, 
where  the  mutton  had  been  consumed,  though  never 
bought  for  the  family  supply. 

'*  I  had  been  joking  once  with  Rory  Oag  about  his 
never  improving  his  stock,  as  all  others  did,  by  buying 
new  rams.  He  decided  to  follow  my  advice,  and 
actually  bought  a  good  ram  and  sent  him  off  to  the  hill 
among  the  ewes.  A  few  days  after,  longing  for  a  look 
of  him,  he  took  a  walk  on  the  moor,  where  his  dog 
directed  his  notice  to — his  new  ram's  head  !  A  mutton- 
lover  had  caught  and  killed  it,  and  carried  off  the  body, 
but  had  left  the  huge  horned  head  as  being  too  heavy 
for  its  value  in  broth  !  The  thief  was  evidently  sorry 
to  see  such  an  unusually  fat  sheep  on  Rory's  moor,  and 
probably  '  borrowed  '  him  the  very  night  he  was  turned 
loose.  Rory  never  threw  his  money  away  again  to 
improve  his  stock.  In  cases  so  strongly  suspicious  as 
these  I  have  mentioned,  I  always  saved  Sheriff,  Lord 
Advocate,  etc.,  all  trouble,  by  merely  evicting  paupers 
and  crofters  who  had  no  visible  means  of  support  to 
make  them  fat  and  rosy,  at  the  request  in  private  of 
all  their  suffering  neighbours. 

"  Sheep-stealing  on  a  different  and  large  scale  was 
then  general  all  over  the  north.  Ere  I  became  tenant 
of  Wyvis,  a  Mr.  Mitchell  had  it  stocked  with  black. 


222    A  HUNDRED  YEARS  IN  THE  HIGHLANDS 

faced  wedders.  He  lived  in  the  south  generally.  Stock 
going  south  from  Ross-shire  must  cross  the  Caledonian 
Canal  bridges.  One  day  Gillespie,  tenant  of  Ardachy, 
being  at  the  Fort  Augustus  bridge,  came  upon  some 
hundreds  of  black-faced  dinmonts  driven  by  two  ordinary 
shepherds.  Sheep  have  marks  on  the  face  or  ears  made 
by  their  owners  to  prevent  theft  or  the  loss  of  stragglers. 
Many  sharp  sheep-farmers  know  the  marks  of  each  farm, 
and  Ardachy  at  once  knew  these  were  Wyvis  dinmonts. 
So  he  said  to  the  driver,  *  Where  are  you  going  with 
Mr.  Mitchell's  dinmonts  V  and  was  answered,  '  To  the 
south .'  Months  afterwards,  happening  to  meet  Mitchell, 
he  said:  'So  you're  changing  your  stock  on  Wyvis.' 
*  Indeed  I  am  not,'  was  Mitchell's  reply.  '  Then  go  and 
count  your  dinmonts,'  said  Ardachy,  '  and  you'll  be 
surprised.'  And  so  Mitchell  was,  for  they  were  nearly 
all  gone  ! 

"I  had  a  flock  of  four  hundred  to  five  hundred  dinmonts 
(cheviots)  on  one  part  of  Wyvis,  herded  by  George  Hope. 
They  were  always  on  the  same  ground,  and  were  all 
safe  one  Saturday  afternoon,  but  not  a  tail  was  to  be  seen 
on  the  following  Monday  morning.  Hope  spent  days 
travelling  all  round  the  country  looking  for  them  before 
I  heard  of  the  theft.  By  that  time  they  were  *  over  the 
hills  and  far  away.'  We  traced  them  across  the  canal 
bridges  and  into  Morayshire  but  not  a  hoof  ever  returned 
to  Wyvis.  The  great  sheep-farmer,  Walter  Scott, 
told  me  he  gave  up  sheep-farming  in  the  Lews,  as  he 
could  not  count  on  having  less  than  five  hundred  or  six 
hundred  '  missing  '  sheep  every  year." 


CHAPTER  XVI 
LOCAL  SUPERSTITIONS 

How  well  do  I  remember  our  country  when  all  the 
lunatics  were  at  large  !     There  were  no  asylums,  and 
there  was  no  cure  except  the  great  and  only  possible 
one  of  Loch  Maree.    The  cure  was  still  in  vogue  in  my 
time.    The  patient  was  brought  to  the  loch  and  put  into 
a  boat,  which  made  at  once  for  the  Holy  Island  (Eilean 
Maree) .     Then  a  long  rope  was  tied  round  the  unlucky 
person's   waist,  and   he  or  she  was  suddenly  dropped 
into  the  water  and  dragged  behind  the  boat  three  times 
round  the  island,  taking  the  car  deasal  (the  way  of  the 
sun)  being  a  very  important  part  of  the  cure  !     The 
crew  rowed  for  all  they  were  worth,  and  if  the  patient 
was  still  alive  and  capable  of  swallowing  anything  he 
was  landed  on  the  island,  and  as  if  he  had  not  got  already 
more  than  sufficient  water  inside  him,  he  was  made  to 
swallow  a  lot  more  from  Naomh  Maolruaidh's  (Saint 
Malrubas)  Holy  Well.     The  awful  shock  and  the  fear 
of  having  it  repeated  did,  I  believe,  occasionally  subdue 
some  of  the  most  violent  cases,  but  it  was  a  cruel  ordeal, 
and  quite  an  example  of  "  kill  or  cure/' 

We  had  two  mad  Marys  always  going  about  Gairloch 
— Mairi  Chreagan  (Mary  of  the  Rock)  and  Mairi  Sganan. 
Each  one  thought  the  other  very  mad  and  herself  quite 

sane,  and  whenever  they  met  they  fought  like  wild  cats. 

223 


224  A  HUNDEED  YEARS 

Then  we  had  Eachainn  Crom  (Bent  Hector)  and  the 
Oinseach  bheag  (the  little  she-idiot),  and  all  sorts  and 
sizes  of  lunatics,  some  of  whom  were  often  quite  amusing. 
Our  favourite  was  Iain  Bait  (Drowned  John)  from  Loch 
Broom.  He  was  more  often  called  Bathadh  (drowning). 
He  was  a  singer,  and  could  go  on  singing  Gaelic  songs 
for  ever  at  the  top  of  his  voice.  On  one  occasion  he  fell 
into  the  Ullapool  River  when  it  was  in  flood,  and  com- 
menced yelling  out  "  Bathadh,  hdthadh,  a  Dhia  gle 
mise"  ("Drowning,  drowning!  0  God,  save  me!"); 
but  when  he  got  hold  of  some  heather  or  a  bush  on  the 
bank  of  the  river  and  felt  himself  a  little  safer  he  called 
out,  "  Ah  /  fhaodadh  noch  ruigeadh  tu  a  leas  "  ("  Oh  ! 
perhaps  now  Thou  need  not  take  the  trouble  ").  He 
was  quite  sharp  in  some  ways.  On  one  occasion  when 
the  Ullapool  people  had  ofiended  him  he  avenged  himself 
very  cleverly.  Seeing  a  long  line  with  many  hundreds 
of  hooks  baited  with  fresh  herring  lying  in  some  outhouse 
ready  to  be  set  in  the  sea  the  following  day,  he  waited  till 
everyone  was  in  bed  and  asleep  and  then  set  it  right  along 
the  village  front.  As  Ullapool  indulged  largely  in  ducks 
in  those  days,  and  as  ducks,  unlike  hens,  are  night- 
feeders,  the  long  line  was  doing  its  work  all  night,  and 
endless  operations,  many  of  which  proved  fatal,  had  to 
be  performed  in  the  morning  on  the  ducks. 

There  was  also  a  famous  mad  Skye  woman  who  used 
to  go  round  the  country,  called  Nic  Cumaraid.  She  was 
accompanied  by  a  big  drove  of  pigs.  She  always  slept 
outside  in  the  heather,  and  the  pigs  lay  close  up  round 
her  and  kept  her  warm,  but  I  only  used  to  hear  of  her 
and  never  actually  saw  her. 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  225 

Fearachar  a  Ghunna  (Farquliar  of  the  Gun)  was  a  very- 
well  known  character  all  over  the  eastern  side  of  the 
county.  He  always  carried  an  old  blunderbuss  of  a  gun 
with  him,  and  collected  every  conceivable  horror,  such 
as  old  bones  and  skins  and  filthy  rags.  He  lived  in  a 
bothy  on  the  Redcastle  glebe,  and  as  the  smell  from 
Farquhar's  accumulations  became  quite  unbearable,  the 
minister  applied  to  the  Sheriff  to  have  Farquhar  ejected 
from  his  hovel.  It  seems  the  minister  had  been  long  in 
Canada,  and  came  to  Redcastle  only  when  he  got  the 
call  to  the  parish.  On  being  examined  by  the  Sheriff, 
Farquhar  suggested  that  the  minister  must  have  a 
peculiarly  sensitive  nose  when  he  was  able  to  smell  the 
stipend  of  Kedcastle  all  the  way  from  America  ! 

My  uncle  gives  the  following  instances  of  the  manner 
in  which  dangerous  lunatics  were  treated  in  pre-asylum 
days,  the  misery  the  unfortunates  suffered,  and  the 
scandal  that  occurred  from  having  even  harmless  lunatics 
running  all  over  the  country.    He  says: 

"  When  I  was  a  boy  I  went  for  a  short  time  to  school 
at  Tain,  and  the  home  of  a  dangerous  lunatic  was  then 
the  upper  cell  in  Tain  Gaol,  a  square  tower  in  the  centre 
of  the  town  having  at  its  base  the  Town  Cross,  on  the 
steps  of  which  the  fishwives  used  to  sit  and  display  their 
wares  to  purchasers.  Some  friend  had  given  Donald, 
the  lunatic,  a  strong  cord  with  an  iron  hook  at  its  end. 
It  used  to  be  thought  fun  to  call  on  Donald  Heuk  (Hook), 
as  we  named  him,  to  let  down  his  hooked  cord,  which  we 
fastened  to  anything  movable,  from  a  penny  roll  to  a 
peat,  and  on  our  crying  '  Heuk,  Donald  !'  up  went  the 
prize  instantly  to  the  iron  cage  at  the  top  of  the  tower. 

15 


226  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

Donald  used  to  shoot  down  many  queer  things  from  his 
cell  on  to  the  people  passing  through  the  street;  for 
though  he  could  not  see  the  cross  or  things  around  it, 
he  had  a  clear  view  of  the  street.  Wicked  boys  were 
sometimes  accused  of  getting  Donald  to  lower  his  cord 
and  hook  on  the  coming  of  the  fishwives,  and  as  soon 
as  the  creels  were  uncovered  the  hook  was  through  a 
haddock's  or  cod's  gills  or  a  skate's  mouth,  and  *  Heuk, 
Donald  !'  saw  the  prize  in  a  minute  flying  up  to  the  top 
of  the  gaol.  It  is  said  that  on  one  unlucky  day  when 
the  hook  was  down  a  boy  put  it  through  the  back  of  a 
fishwife's  petticoats,  and  on  his  calling  out  *  Heuk, 
Donald  !'  up  in  the  air  sailed  a  most  unusual  kind  of 
fish.  The  poor  fishwife  kicked  and  screamed  furiously, 
till,  the  hold  giving  way,  she  came  to  the  ground  like  a 
shot,  and  got  badly  hurt.  After  this  Donald's  hook  was 
instantly  taken  away. 

"  The  Inverness  Court  House,  where  the  Judges  sat, 
was  a  mere  box  in  size  and  attached  to  the  present  town 
steeple,  which  was  part  of  the  gaol.  Such  places  as  the 
gaols  and  asylums  then  in  Britain  would  not  be  credited 
now  but  by  those  who  had  seen  or  been  in  them.  Our 
northern  dangerous  lunatics  were  locked  up  in  our 
gaols,  a  most  unenviable  berth,  as  I  can  vouch  from 
personal  inspection.  We  had  no  asylums  then  in  the 
north,  where  we  were  overrun  with  lunatics.  One  of 
that  tribe,  who  was  harmless  except  that  he  believed  he 
was  a  calf,  went  about  driving  people  nearly  mad  by 
imitating  the  cry  of  a  calf  from  morning  till  night  with 
the  lungs  of  a  bull,  till  at  last  he  had  to  be  caged  in  the 
gaol,    where    he    sang    out    unceasingly    '  Baa-a-o-u ! 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  227 

Baa-a-o-u  !'    The  town  folks  got  used  to  this  noise,  but 
once  when  our  father  took  us  over  to  a  Circuit  Court,  the 
Court  had  hardly  begun  ere  the  Judge  asked  what 
unearthly  noise  was  that.    He  could  hear  nothing  for  it, 
and  ordered  the  noise  to  be  removed.    We  happened, 
luckily,  to  be  on  the  loose,  and  soon  twigged  there  was 
fun  ahead,  for  there  were  the  gaoler  and  the  town  officers 
in  full  rig  dragging  '  Baa-a-o-u  '  down  the  gaol  stairs 
and  off  to  the  old  bridge  that  was  washed  away  in  the 
1848  flood.    The  ingenious  builders  had  contrived  to 
build  a  wee  cell  in  the  spring  of  one  of  its  arches,  with  a 
foot  square  iron  grated  hole  for  air  and  light.    On 
shovelHng  away  the  road  gravel  above,  an  iron-plated 
padlocked  door  appeared  in  a  few  minutes.    The  door 
was  thrown  open,  '  Baa-a-o-u  '  was  rammed  by  force 
into  the  cell,  and  the  door  relocked  and  gravelled  over. 
Everything  was  just  the  same  as  before,  except  for  the 
incessant  *  Baa-a-o-u-ing  '  issuing  from  the  grated  cell 
window.    The  sound  gave  far  more  pleasure  to  us  boys, 
I  really  believe,  than  a  band  of  music  would  have  done, 
and  I  have  no  doubt  that '  Baa-a-o-u  '  remained  in  that 
cosy  cell  till  the  judges  left  Inverness. 

"  Before  asylum  times  one  of  the  many  wandering 
lunatics  belonging  to  the  district  used  to  prowl  about 
Dingwall  groaning,  a  martyr  to  toothache.  Good- 
natured  Dr.  Wishart  persuaded  Jock  to  come  to  his 
surgery  in  town,  though  he  himself  lived  at  his  farm  of 
Uplands,  near  Tulloch,  and  offered  to  cure  Jock's 
malady.  So  Jock  was  brought  to  the  surgery  and  per- 
suaded to  show  the  wicked  tooth.  In  a  second  it  was 
extracted,  but  the  doctor,  nippers  and  tooth  in  hand 


228  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

and  hat  less,  had  only  just  time  to  spring  into  the  street. 
He  fled  along  it,  pursued  by  Jock,  uttering  loud  threats  to 
take  the  doctor's  life,  till  some  friend  put  out  a  foot  and 
upset  Jock  and  let  Dr.  Wishart  disappear. 

"  Jock's  appetite  was  quite  abnormal.  In  those  happy 
times  no  door  was  ever  locked  at  night,  front  or  back,  in 
summer  or  winter,  for  at  Conon  every  soul  in  the  district 
was  bound  to  sleep  between  10  p.m.  and  6  a.m.  unless 
sick.  Jock,  however,  was  one  of  those  who  was  bound 
by  no  rules.  His  dress  was  a  very  short  kilt,  and  he  had 
bare  legs  and  feet  summer  and  winter,  so  he  made  little 
noise  on  his  travels.  The  Conon  pantry  was  close  to 
the  back-door,  and  on  getting  up  one  morning  the  house- 
keeper was  shocked  to  find  her  pantry  door  open  and  a 
cold  pudding  she  had  put  away  the  previous  night  gone, 
dish  and  all.  The  mystery  as  to  who  could  have  stolen 
it  was  explained  by  the  clean  dish  being  found  next  day 
in  one  of  the  recesses  of  Conon  Bridge,  with  the  words 
*  The  pudding  was  goot '  chalked  by  Jock  above  it,  for 
ere  his  reason  fled  poor  Jock  had  been  at  school.  He 
would  gladly  fill  his  huge  stomach  with  anything  he  could 
cram  into  it.  I  admit  that  one  advantage  of  the  new 
county  police  over  our  old  rural  constables,  who,  being 
only  paid  by  the  job,  cost  a  mere  fraction  of  the  thousands 
now  paid  to  the  semi-military  gentlemen  that  parade 
the  public  roads  in  fine  weather,  is  that  tinkers  and  others 
are  not  allowed  to  leave  their  dead  horses  at  the  road- 
sides, to  the  joy  of  all  dogs  and  the  horror  of  travellers. 
In  Jock's  day  we  managed  matters  after  the  manner  of 
the  ancients,  to  his  great  delight,  as  he  was  devoted  to 
high  horse  venison.    He  was  sure  to  be  found  near  every 


m  THE  HIGHLANDS  229 

dead  horse  till  its  bones  had  been  picked  clean  by  him 
and  the  doggies,  who,  aware  of  Jock's  unfair  competition 
with  them  for  horse-flesh,  never  could  see  him  without 
an  uproar  and  a  try  at  his  bare  legs ;  and  but  for  his  great 
skill  in  pelting  them  with  stones  they  would  have  made 
Jock  give  up  eating  their  beloved  banquet.  I  was  once 
assured  by  a  looker-on  that  as  he  was  passing  by  a  dead 
horse  at  the  roadside  he  saw  Jock's  bare  legs  in  the  air, 
their  owner's  head  and  shoulders  out  of  sight  feasting  on 
some  tit-bits  far  up  inside  the  horse's  ribs.  I  quite 
believe  this  disgusting  story,  which  probably  helped  to 
promote  the  building  of  our  present  asylum  palaces  and 
the  gathering  into  them  of  all  poor  insane  Jocks  and 
Jimmies." 

In  the  sixties  I  had  an  old  acquaintance  of  the  name 
of  Colin  Munro,  who  was  a  very  well  educated  man  and 
had  practised  as  a  solicitor  for  many  years  in  our  county 
town  of  Dingwall.  Somehow  or  other  he  came  into 
money,  and  invested  it  in  a  very  large  sheep  farm  near 
me,  called  Innis  an  lasgaich  (Fisher  Field).  He  had 
not  taken  up  his  abode  there  very  long,  and  had  got  a 
nice  byre  of  cattle,  when  suddenly  the  cows  went  all 
wrong,  and  instead  of  milk  all  that  could  be  drawn 
out  of  their  udders  was  a  horrid  mixture  of  blood 
and  pus. 

His  servants  declared  some  old  woman  had  bewitched 
the  cows,  and  that  the  only  way  to  counteract  the  harm 
done  was  to  get  a  still  more  powerful  witch  from  a  dis- 
tance, who  would  undo  what  the  local  witch  had  done- 
So  they  told  Colin  Munro  the  name  of  a  competent  woman, 


230  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

who  lived  in  the  township  of  Achadh  Ghluinachan,  in  the 
big  strath  of  Loch  Broom.  To  please  and  pacify  his 
servants,  and  as  there  was  no  veterinary  surgeon  to  be 
had  in  those  days,  he  sent  a  messenger  for  the  cailleach 
(old  woman),  and  in  due  course  she  arrived. 

Colin  Munro  sat  up  all  that  night  (there  was  really  no 
night,  as  it  was  June)  so  that  he  might  watch  the  move- 
ments of  the  witch.  About  three  in  the  morning  he  saw 
her  sneak  out  of  the  house  and  make  for  the  hill,  instead 
of  going  to  the  byre,  as  he  supposed  she  would  have  done. 
So  he  followed,  stalking  her  very  carefully,  as  if  she  had 
been  an  old  hind,  and  watched  her  from  some  little 
distance.  The  first  thing  she  did  was  to  light  a  small 
fire.  Then  he  saw  her  hunting  about  for  lusan  (herbs 
or  plants)  and  putting  them  on  the  fire  until  the  smoke 
rose  up  heavenwards.  After  a  bit  she  returned,  and 
Colin  ordered  the  milkmaids  to  go  and  try  the  cows  in 
his  presence,  which  they  did,  and,  wonderful  to  relate, 
the  milk  of  every  cow  was  as  perfect  as  it  was  before  they 
were  bewitched.  He  could  not  do  otherwise  than  give 
the  Banahhuidseach  (witch)  a  handsome  present.  He 
never  could  account  for  this  miraculous  cure  of  the  cows. 

My  uncle  writes :  "  Our  old  keeper  Cameron  hated  the 
sight  of  a  hare.  He  looked  on  it  as  an  unclean,  *  no 
canny  '  brute,  only  fit  for  mad  people  to  eat,  as  witches 
frequently  turned  themselves  into  hares  especially  when 
they  were  employed  stopping  the  milk  of  cows.  Indeed, 
little  more  than  twenty  years  ago  the  Tarradale  game- 
keeper, hearing  me  scofiing  about  witches,  asked  me  in 
private  if  I  really  believed  they  did  not  exist.     '  Well,' 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  231 

says  he,  '  that's  extraordinary.  Everyone  round  here 
knows  that  Jock  Maclean's  wife  is  a  witch.  My  own 
cow  had  her  milk  stopped  last  winter.  One  morning 
at  dawn  I  went  to  the  byre,  and  on  opening  the  door 
out  sprang  a  hare  and  ran  through  my  legs,  and  away 
straight  down  to  Jock  Maclean's  door,  which  she  entered, 
that  being,  of  course,  her  home.'  Mackenzie,  the 
keeper,  was  a  well-educated  man,  more  intelligent  than 
most  of  his  position,  but  a  firm  believer  in  witchcraft." 

I  shall  add  another  superstition,  very  prevalent  in 
the  east  country,  against  pulling  down  an  old  house  and 
building  a  new  one.  This  did  not  meet  me  at  Gairloch, 
but  it  did  at  Redcastle ,  on  the  east  coast .  When  dividing 
a  field  into  crofts  there,  I  told  the  crofter  he  would  need 
to  build  the  house  on  his  own  ground,  as  his  present  house 
was  on  somebody  else's.  There  was  so  much  shrugging 
of  shoulders  and  humming  and  hawing  about  it  that  a 
neighbour  whispered  to  me,  "  It's  about  the  black  cock." 
"  The  black  cock  V  said  I;  "  what  had  it  to  do  with 
his  house  ?"  But  seeing  that  there  was  something 
secret  about  it,  I  waited  a  little,  and  learnt  that  some 
years  ago  one  of  Colin  Macdonald's  sons  took  the  "  falling 
sickness  " — i.e.,  epilepsy — the  only  cure  for  which, 
according  to  the  old  belief,  is  burying  a  jet  black  cock 
alive  in  a  grave  dug  in  the  clay  floor  of  the  family  kitchen. 
I  believe  the  very  centre  is  the  proper  place.  While  the 
cock  is  undisturbed  the  epilepsy  keeps  away,  but  if  it  is 
dug  up,  as  it  probably  would  be  if  the  house  were 
removed,  woe  to  the  family  of  the  disturber  from  the 
evil  spirit  of  epilepsy  ! 


232  A  HUNDEED  YEAES 

The  people  on  the  west  coast  used  firmly  to  believe 
that  events  which  were  going  to  happen  were  often  fore- 
told by  supernatural  sounds  and  sights. 

On  our  purchasing  Inverewe  and  deciding  to  make 
our  home  on  the  neck  of  the  Plocaird,  I  began  to  make 
enquiries  as  to  what  special  use  had  been  made  of  that 
promontory  in  the  old  days,  when  the  Mackenzies  of 
Lochend,  who  were  offshoots  of  our  family,  owned  the 
place.  I  was  told  by  the  old  people  round  about  us, 
whose  parents  at  least  had  lived  in  those  days,  that  the 
Plocaird  was  where  Fear  cheannloch  (the  man  or  laird  of 
Lochend)  kept  his  cows  at  night,  for  at  that  time  most 
of  the  cattle  in  the  Highlands  had  no  roofs  to  shelter 
them  summer  or  winter.  There  still  remained  the  old 
dyke  from  sea  to  sea  across  the  neck  of  the  peninsula 
for  keeping  in  the  cows,  and  there  was  one  bright  green 
little  oasis  among  the  heather  where  had  stood  the  bothy 
of  the  herd,  Domhnall  Aireach  (Donald  the  Cowman). 
Into  this  green  spot  I  at  once  dibbled  a  lot  of  the  good 
old  single  Narcissus  Scoticus,  which  I  had  got  from  my 
great-uncle  at  Kerrysdale.  How  they  still  bloom  there 
every  spring,  though  I  planted  them  nearly  sixty  years 
ago  ! 

Among  the  old  stories  in  connection  with  the  Plocaird 
and  its  sole  inhabitant,  Domhnall  Aireach,  I  was  told 
that  the  old  herd  and  his  wife  used  to  be  much  troubled 
by  certain  uncanny  sounds  and  apparitions,  and  that 
the  place  was  said  by  them  to  be  haunted.  The  sounds 
they  were  said  to  hear  were  just  as  if  there  had  been 
a  blacksmith's  forge  on  the  shore  below  their  bothy,  and 
there  appeared  at  night  to  be  a  continuous  hammering 


o 

X 


a; 
> 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  233 

of  iron  and  steel  going  on.  Moreover,  every  now  and 
then,  in  the  gloaming,  a  couple  of  com  mhora  hhreaca 
(big  spotty  dogs)  tied  together  would  rush  past  their 
door  ! 

Some  years  after  our  house  was  finished  we  decided  to 
build  an  addition  to  it,  and  instead  of  quarrying  the 
stones  for  it  in  a  distant  quarry,  as  had  been  done  before, 
we  thought  we  could  get  the  material  we  required  by 
breaking  up  some  big  boulders  of  good  quality  just  below 
the  site  of  the  old  herd's  bothy.  So  for  many  weeks 
there  was  a  continuous  din  of  iron  and  steel,  and  of 
hammers  and  crowbars  and  jumpers  boring  into  and 
breaking  up  these  boulders.  At  the  same  time  I  had 
started  a  big  kennel  of  black-and-white  setters  about 
half  a  mile  away,  and  these  fifteen  or  twenty  dogs  were 
let  out  on  couples  for  exercise  on  the  shore  twice  a  day. 

Now,  the  dogs  knew  quite  well  that  since  the  Plocaird 
point  had  been  enclosed  and  planted  there  were  more 
hares  and  grouse,  etc.,  in  it  than  anywhere  else  near  at 
hand,  so  whenever  the  keeper's  attention  was  taken  off 
them  for  a  moment  a  couple  of  the  older  and  more 
cunning  ones  would  give  him  the  slip,  and  make  tracks 
for  the  Plocaird,  and  in  their  regular  course  would  rush 
past  the  very  site  of  Domhnall  Aireach's  bothy  on 
their  couples.  Does  it  not  seem,  therefore,  that  these 
events  which  were  to  take  place,  and  did  actually  happen, 
had  been  supernaturally  heard  and  seen  by  old  Donald 
and  his  wife  more  than  a  hundred  years  beforehand  ? 

The  best-known  Gairloch  fairy  of  modern  times  went 
by  the  name  of  the  Gille  Dubh  of  Loch  a  Druing.  How 
often  did  I  hear  of  him  when  I  was  a  boy  !    His  haunts 


234  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

were  in  the  bircli-woods  that  still  cluster  round  the 
southern  end  of  that  loch  and  extend  up  the  sides  of 
the  high  ridge  to  the  west .  There  are  grassy  glades,  dense 
thickets,  and  rocky  fastnesses  in  these  woods  that  look 
just  the  very  place  for  fairies.  Loch  a  Druing  is  on  the 
north  point,  about  two  miles  from  the  present  Rudha 
Reidh  lighthouse.  The  Gille  Dubh  was  so  named  from 
the  black  colour  of  his  hair.  His  dress,  if  dress  it  could 
be  called,  was  merely  leaves  of  trees  and  green  moss. 
He  was  seen  by  very  many  people  and  on  many  occasions 
during  a  period  of  more  than  forty  years  in  the  latter  half 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  He  was,  in  fact,  well  known 
to  the  people,  and  was  generally  regarded  as  a  beneficent 
fairy.  He  never  spoke  to  anyone  except  to  a  little  girl 
named  Jessie  Macrae,  whose  home  was  at  Loch  a  Druing. 
She  was  lost  in  the  woods  one  summer  night.  The 
Gille  Dubh  came  to  her,  treated  her  with  great  kindness, 
and  took  her  safely  home  again  next  morning.  When 
Jessie  grew  up  she  became  the  wife  of  John  Mackenzie, 
tenant  of  Loch  a  Druing  farm,  and  grandfather  of  the 
famous  John  Mackenzie  who  collected  and  edited  the 
Beauties  of  Gaelic  Poetry. 

It  was  after  this  that  Sir  Hector  Mackenzie  of  Gairloch 
invited  Sir  George  Mackenzie  of  Coul,  Mackenzie  of 
Dundonnell,  Mackenzie  of  Letterewe,  and  Mackenzie  of 
Kernsary,  to  join  him  in  an  expedition  to  repress  the 
Gille  Dubh.  These  five  lairds  repaired  to  Loch  a  Druing 
armed  with  guns,  with  which  they  hoped  to  shoot  the 
fairy.  Most  of  them  wore  the  Highland  dress,  with 
dirks  at  their  side.  They  were  hospitably  entertained 
by  John  Mackenzie,  the  tenant.    An  ample  supper  was 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  235 

served  in  the  house.  It  included  both  beef  and  mutton, 
and  they  had  to  use  their  dirks  for  knives  and  forks, 
as  such  things  were  very  uncommon  in  Gairloch  in  those 
days.  They  spent  the  night  at  Loch  a  Druing,  and 
slept  in  John  Mackenzie's  barn,  where  couches  of  heather 
were  prepared  for  them.  They  went  all  through  the 
woods,  but  they  saw  nothing  of  the  Gille  Dubh  1 

The  existence  of  water-kelpies  in  Gairloch,  if  perhaps 
not  universally  credited  in  the  present  generation,  was 
accepted  as  an  undoubted  fact  in  the  last.  The  story 
of  the  celebrated  water-kelpie — it  was  sometimes  spoken 
of  as  the  Each  Uisge,  and  at  other  times  as  the  Tarbh 
Oire — of  the  Greenstone  Point  is  very  well  known  in 
Gairloch.  The  proceedings  for  the  extermination  of 
this  wonderful  creature  formed  a  welcome  topic  even 
for  the  Punch  of  the  period.  The  creature  is  spoken  of 
by  the  natives  sometimes  as  "  The  Beast."  He  lives,  or 
did  live  in  the  fifties,  in  the  depth  of  a  loch,  called  after 
him  Loch  na  Beiste,  or  Loch  of  the  Beast,  which  is  about 
half-way  between  Udrigil  House  and  the  village  of  Mellan 
Udrigil. 

Mr.  Bankes,  the  then  proprietor  of  the  estate  on  which 
this  loch  is  situated,  was  pressed  by  his  tenants  to  take 
measures  to  put  an  end  to  the  beast,  and  at  length  was 
prevailed  upon  to  take  action.  Sandy  Macleod,  an 
elder  of  the  Free  Church,  was  returning  to  Mellan  Udrigil 
from  the  Aultbea  church  on  Sunday  in  company  with 
two  other  persons,  one  of  whom  was  a  sister  (still  living 
at  Mellan  Udrigil  in  1886)  of  the  well-known  John 
Mackenzie  of  the  Beauties,  when  they  actually  saw  the 
*'  Beast  "  itself.    It  looked  something  like  a  big  boat 


236  A  HUNDKED  YEAKS 

with  its  keel  turned  up.  Kennetli  Cameron,  also  an 
elder  of  the  Free  Church,  saw  it  another  day,  and  a  niece 
of  his  told  a  friend  of  mine  she  had  often  heard  her 
mother  speak  of  having  seen  the  Beast.  Mr.  Bankes 
had  a  yacht  named  the  Iris,  and  in  her  he  brought  from 
Liverpool  a  huge  pump  and  a  large  number  of  cast-iron 
pipes. 

For  a  long  time  a  squad  of  men  worked  this  pump  with 
two  horses,  with  the  object  of  emptying  the  loch.  The 
pump  was  placed  on  the  burn  which  runs  from  the  loch 
into  the  not  far  distant  sea.  A  deep  cut  or  drain  was 
formed  to  take  the  pipes  for  the  purpose  of  conducting 
the  water  away.  I  have  myself  more  than  once  seen  the 
pipes  stored  in  a  shed  at  Laide.  But,  unfortunately,  it 
was  forgotten  that  the  burn  which  came  into  the  loch 
brought  a  great  deal  more  water  into  it  than  the  pump 
and  the  pipes  carried  out;  consequently,  except  in  very 
dry  weather,  the  loch  never  got  any  less. 

When  this  plan  failed,  it  was  proposed  to  poison  the 
Beast  with  lime,  and  the  Iris  was  sent  to  Broadford  in 
Skye  to  procure  it.  Fourteen  barrels  of  hot  lime  were 
brought  from  Skye  and  taken  up  to  the  Loch,  along 
with  a  small  boat  or  dinghy.  None  of  the  ground  officers 
of  the  estate  would  go  in  the  boat  for  fear  of  the  Beast, 
so  Mr.  Bankes  sent  to  the  Iris  for  some  of  the  sailors, 
and  they  went  in  the  boat  over  every  part  of  the  loch, 
which  had  only  been  reduced  by  six  or  seven  inches  after 
all  the  labour  and  money  that  had  been  spent  on  it. 
These  sailors  plumbed  the  loch  with  the  oars  of  the  boat, 
and  in  no  part  did  it  exceed  a  fathom  in  depth,  except 
in  one  hole,  which  at  the  deepest  was  but  two  and  a  half 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  237 

fathoms.  Into  this  hole  they  emptied  the  fourteen 
barrels  of  hot  lime. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  Beast  was  not  discovered, 
nor  has  it  been  further  disturbed  up  to  the  present  time. 
There  are  rumours  that  the  Beast  was  seen  in  1884  in 
another  loch  on  the  Greenstone  Point.  There  was  one 
curious  fact  about  this  kelpie  hunt — viz.,  that  the 
eccentric  English  laird  who  started  it  was  cam  (one- 
eyed),  the  tinker  who  soldered  the  pipes  together  was 
cam,  so  was  the  old  horse  which  worked  the  pumps, 
and  it  was  altogether  such  a  gnothach  cam  (one-eyed 
business)  that  people  began  to  wonder  whether,  if  the 
Each  Uisge  were  ever  captured,  it  might  not  prove  to 
be  cam  also  ! 

So  angry  was  the  laird  at  his  failure  to  capture  the 
kelpie  that  he  was  determined  to  avenge  himself  on 
something  or  someone ;  and  at  last  he  decided  to  wreak 
his  vengeance  on  the  unfortunate  crofters  whose  town- 
ships were  in  the  vicinity  of  the  loch.  Unlike  the  kelpie 
they,  poor  wretches,  could  not  escape  him,  so  he  fined 
them  all  round  a  pound  a  head,  which  in  those  days, 
when  money  was  so  scarce,  meant  a  great  deal  to  them  ! 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  FAMOUS  GAIRLOCH  PIPEES 

In  1609  an  ancestor  of  mine,  who  was  also  one  of  the 
most  famous  of  the  Gairloch  lairds,  John  Roy  Mackenzie, 
paid  a  visit  to  the  laird  of  Reay  in  Sutherland.  I  be- 
lieve the  laird  of  Reay  (Lord  Reay)  was  his  stepfather. 
On  John  Roy's  return  from  his  visit  to  Tongue  House, 
Mackay  accompanied  him  as  far  as  the  Meikle  Ferry, 
on  the  Kyle  of  Sutherland.  On  their  arrival  at  the 
ferry  it  seems  there  was  another  gentleman  crossing, 
accompanied  by  a  groom,  who  attempted  to  prevent 
anyone  entering  the  boat  but  his  master  and  his  party. 
Mackay  had  his  piper  with  him,  a  young,  handsome  lad 
of  only  seventeen  summers.  A  scuffle  ensued  between 
the  piper  and  the  groom,  the  former  drew  his  dirk,  and 
with  one  blow  cut  the  groom's  hand  off  at  the  wrist. 

The  laird  of  Reay  at  once  said  to  his  piper:  **  Rory, 
I  cannot  keep  you  with  me  any  longer ;  you  must  at  once 
fly  the  country  and  save  your  life."  John  Roy  said: 
"  Will  you  come  with  me  to  Gairloch,  Rory  V  And  the 
piper  was  only  too  glad  to  accept  the  offer. 

As  they  were  parting,  the  laird  of  Reay  said  to  his 

stepson:  "  Now,  as  you  are  getting  my  piper,  you  must 

send  me  in  exchange  a  good  deer-stalker."    On  his 

return  home  the  latter  at  once  sent  Hugh  Mackenzie, 

whose  descendants  still  live  in  the  Reay  country.    To 

238 


A  HUNDRED  YEARS  IN  THE  HIGHLANDS    239 

this  day  it  is  remembered  how  and  in  what  capacity 
their  ancestor  came  from  Gairloch. 

I  may  mention  that,  besides  the  piper,  John  Roy  took 
two  good  deer-hounds  back  with  him  from  Sutherland, 
and  even  their  names  are  not  yet  forgotten — "  Cu  dubh  " 
and  **  Faoileag  "  ("  Black  Hound  "  and  "  Seagull  "). 

Rory,  the  young  piper,  who  was  also  a  Mackay  and 
was  born  about  1592,  was  soon  after  followed  by  an 
older  brother,  called  Donald.  It  was  Donald  who  was  in 
attendance  as  piper  on  the  twelve  sons  of  John  Roy, 
when  Kenneth,  Lord  of  Kintail,  met  them  at  Torridon, 
where  John  Roy  so  nearly  met  with  his  death. 

Rory  was  piper  in  succession  to  four  of  the  Gairloch 
Lairds — namely,  John  Roy,  Alasdair  Breac  (who  was 
a  head  taller  than  any  of  John  Roy's  eleven  other  sons), 
Kenneth,  the  sixth  laird,  and  his  son  Alexander.  Rory's 
home  was  at  Talladale,  on  the  mainland,  while  his  first 
two  masters,  John  Roy  and  Alasdair  Breac,  resided 
mostly  in  their  island  homes  on  Eilean  Ruairidh  Beag 
and  Eilean  Suthainn,  in  Loch  Maree,  opposite  Talladale, 
which  were,  I  suppose,  considered  safer,  at  any  rate  for 
the  ladies  and  the  children,  in  those  wild  times.  The 
last  two  chiefs,  however,  whom  Rory  served,  lived  in  the 
original  Tigh  Dige  or  Stank*  House  of  Gairloch,  which 
had  the  moat  round  it  and  the  drawbridge.  Rory  did 
not  marry  till  he  was  sixty  years  old.  He  had  just  the 
one  son,  the  celebrated  blind  piper,  and  during  the  latter 
part  of  his  life  he  lived  in  the  Baile  Mor  of  Gairloch,  so 
as  to  be  near  his  masters  in  the  Stank  House.  Rory  died 
about  1689,  in  extreme  old  age,  being,  like  his  son,  almost 

*  Stank=moat. 


240  A  HUNDEED  YEAES 

a  centenarian.  He  was  buried  in  the  Gairloch  church- 
yard. He  is  said  to  have  been  a  remarkably  handsome 
and  powerful  Highlander.  He  literally  flayed  an 
important  part  in  the  many  fights  which  took  place 
during  the  earlier  part  of  his  career. 

John  Mackay,  the  only  son  of  Eory,  was  born  at 
Talladale  in  1656.  He  was  not  blind  from  birth,  as  has 
been  erroneously  stated,  but  was  deprived  of  his  sight 
by  smallpox  when  about  seven  years  old .  He  was  known 
as  Iain  Dall  (Blind  John)  or  an  Piobaire  Dall  (the  Blind 
Piper) .  After  mastering  the  first  principles  of  pipe  music 
under  his  father's  tuition,  he  was  sent  to  the  celebrated 
Macrimmon  in  Skye  to  finish  his  musical  education.  He 
remained  seven  years  with  Macrimmon,  and  then  returned 
to  his  native  parish,  where  he  assisted  his  father  in  the 
ofi&ce  of  piper  to  the  laird  of  Gairloch. 

After  his  father's  death  he  became  piper  to  Sir 
Kenneth  Mackenzie,  the  first  baronet  of  Gairloch,  and 
after  Sir  Kenneth's  death  to  his  son,  Sir  Alexander,  the 
second  baronet  and  ninth  laird  of  Gairloch.  He  com- 
bined the  office  of  bard  with  that  of  piper.  Iain  Dall 
retired  when  in  advanced  years,  and  Sir  Alexander 
allowed  him  a  good  pension.  Like  his  father,  he  married 
late  in  life.  He  had  but  two  children — Angus,  who 
succeeded  him,  and  a  daughter.  After  he  was  super- 
annuated, he  passed  his  remaining  years  in  visiting 
gentlemen's  houses,  where  he  was  always  a  welcome 
guest.  Like  his  father,  he  lived  to  a  great  age.  He  died 
in  1754,  aged  ninety-eight,  and  was  buried  in  the  same 
grave  as  his  father  in  the  Gairloch  churchyard.  He 
composed    twenty-four    pibrochs,    besides    numberless 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  241 

strathspeys,  reels,  and  jigs,  the  most  celebrated  of 
which  are  called  Cailleach  a  Mhuillear  and  Cailleach 
LiatJi  Rasaidh. 

When  he  was  with  Macrimmon  there  were  no  fewer 
than  eleven  other  apprentices  studying  with  the  master 
piper,  but  Iain  Dall  outstripped  them  all,  and  thus 
gained  for  himself  the  envy  and  ill-will  of  the  others. 
On  one  occasion,  as  Iain  and  another  apprentice  were 
playing  the  same  tune  alternately,  Macrimmon  asked 
the  other  lad  why  he  did  not  play  like  Iain  Dall.  The 
lad  replied,  "  By  St.  Mary,  I'd  do  so  if  my  fingers  had 
not  been  after  the  skate,''  alluding  to  the  sticky  state 
of  his  fingers  after  having  touched  some  of  that  fish  on 
which  Macrimmon  had  fed  them  at  dinner.  And  this  has 
become  a  proverbial  taunt  which  northern  pipers  to  this 
day  hurl  at  their  inferior  brethren  from  the  south. 

One  of  the  Macrimmons,  known  by  the  nickname  of 
Padruig  Caogach,  composed  the  first  part  of  a  tune 
called  Am  port  Leatach  (the  half  tune),  but  was  quite 
unable  to  finish  it.  The  imperfect  tune  became  very 
popular,  and,  as  it  was  at  the  end  of  two  years  still  un- 
finished, Iain  Dall  set  to  work  and  completed  it.  He 
called  it  Lasan  Phadruig  Chaogach,  or  "  The  Wrath  of 
Padruig  Caogach,"  thus,  whilst  disowning  any  share  in  the 
merit  of  the  composition,  anticipating  the  result  which 
would  follow. 

Patrick  was  furiously  incensed,  and  bribed  the  other 
apprentices,  who  were  doubtless  themselves  also  inflamed 
by  jealousy,  to  put  an  end  to  Iain  Dall's  life.  This  they 
attempted  while  walking  with  him  at  Dun  Bhorreraig, 
where  they  threw  the  young  blind  piper  over  a  precipice. 

16 


242  A  HUNDKED  YEAKS 

Iain  Dall  fell  eight  yards,  but  alighted  on  the  soles  of  his 
feet  and  suffered  no  material  injury.  The  place  is  still 
called  Leum  an  Doill  (the  Leap  of  the  Blind). 

The  completion  of  Macrimmon's  tune  brought  great 
fame  to  Iain  Dall,  and  gave  rise  to  the  well-known  Gaelic 
proverb  which,  being  translated,  says :  "  The  apprentice 
outwits  the  master.'*  Iain  Dall  made  a  number  of 
celebrated  Gaelic  songs  and  poems.  One  of  them,  called 
Coire  an  easain,  was  composed  on  the  death  of  Mackay, 
Lord  Reay.  It  is  said  not  to  be  surpassed  in  the  Gaelic 
language.  Another  fine  poem  of  his  was  in  the  praise 
of  Lady  Janet  Mackenzie  of  Scatwell  on  her  becoming 
the  wife  of  Sir  Alexander,  the  ninth  laird  of  Gairloch. 
His  fame  as  a  bard  and  poet  seems  to  have  almost 
equalled  his  reputation  as  a  piper.  Several  of  his  songs 
and  poems  appear  in  that  excellent  collection  The 
Beauties  of  Gaelic  Poetry. 

Angus,  the  only  son  of  Iain  Dall,  succeeded  his 
illustrious  father  as  piper  to  the  lairds  of  Gairloch.  He 
was  born  about  1725.  He  was  piper  to  Sir  Alexander 
Mackenzie,  tenth  laird  of  Gairloch,  and  when  Sir 
Alexander  visited  France  as  a  young  man  he  left  Angus 
in  Edinburgh  for  tuition.  We  know  little  of  him  beyond 
that  he  was  a  handsome  man,  and  that  he  at  least 
equalled  his  ancestors  in  musical  attainments.  He 
attended  a  competition  in  pipe  music  whilst  in  Edinburgh. 
The  other  competing  pipers,  jealous  of  his  superior 
talents,  made  a  plot  to  destroy  his  chance.  The  day 
before  the  competition  they  got  possession  of  his  pipes 
and  pierced  the  bag  in  several  places,  so  that  when  he 
began  to  practise  he  could  not  keep  the  wind  in  the  pipes. 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  243 

But  Angus  had  a  fair  friend  named  Mary.  To  her  he 
went  in  his  trouble.  She  found  for  him  a  sheep-skin, 
from  which,  undressed  as  it  was,  he  formed  a  new  bag  for 
his  beloved  pipes,  and  with  this  crude  bag  he  succeeded 
next  day  in  carrying  off  the  coveted  prize .  He  composed 
the  well-known  pibroch  called  Moladh  Mairi,  or  "  The 
Praise  of  Mary,"  in  honour  of  his  kind  helper.  Angus 
lived  also  to  a  good  old  age,  and  was  succeeded  by  his 
son  John. 

John  Mackay,  grandson  of  the  blind  piper,  was  born 

about  1753,  and  became,  on  his  father's  death,  family 

piper   to   my   grandfather,   Sir   Hector   Mackenzie   of 

Gairloch .    As  a  young  man  he  went  to  the  Reay  country, 

the  native  land  of  his  great-grandfather  Rory,  and  there 

received  tuition  on  the  little  pipes  which  are  often  used 

for  dance  music.    He  lived  in  the  latter  part  of  his  career 

at  Slatadale,  where  he  married  and  had  a  numerous 

family,  for  whose  advancement  he  emigrated  to  America 

with  all  his  children  except  one  daughter.    She  had 

previously  married,  but  her  father  was  so  anxious  that 

she  should  emigrate  with  the  rest  of  the  family  that  she 

had  to  hide  herself  the  night  before  they  left  Gairloch, 

in  order  to  avoid  being  compelled  to  accompany  them. 

John  Mackay  was  a  splendid  piper,  and  when  he  went  to 

America  Sir  Hector  said  he  would  never  care  to  hear 

pipe  music  again,  and  he  never  kept  another  piper. 

John  prospered  in  America,  and  died  at  Picton  about 

1835.     One  of  his  sons,  who  was  Stipendiary  Magistrate 

in  Nova   Scotia,   died  in  the  autumn   of   1884.    The 

daughter  w^ho  remained  in  Gairloch  was  married  to  a 

Maclean,  and  their  son,  John  Maclean  of  Strath,  called 


244    A  HUNDKED  YEAES  IN  THE  HIGHLANDS 

in  Gaelic  Iain  Buidhe  Taillear,  has  supplied  mucli  of 
the  information  here  given  regarding  his  ancestors,  the 
hereditary  pipers  of  the  Gairloch  family. 

It  is  a  singular  fact  that  the  four  long-lived  Mackays 
were  pipers  to  the  lairds  of  Gairloch  during  almost 
exactly  two  centuries,  during  which  there  were  eight 
lairds  of  Gairloch  in  regular  succession  from  father  to  son, 
but  only  the  four  pipers  ! 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
THE  INVEREWE  POLICIES 

In  the  year  1862  my  mother  bought  for  me  the  two 
adjoining  estates  of  Inverewe  and  Kernsary,  on  the 
west  coast  of  Ross-shire. 

Kernsary  lay  inland,  but  Inverewe  had  a  good  many 
miles  of  coast-line,  and,  after  taking  about  two  years 
to  settle  where  we  should  make  our  home,  we  finally 
pitched  upon  the  neck  of  a  barren  peninsula  as  the  site 
of  the  house.  The  peninsula  was  a  high,  rocky  bluff, 
jutting  out  into  the  sea. 

The  rest  of  what  are  in  Scotland  usually  called  "  the 
policies  "  {i.e.,  the  enclosed  grounds  round  about  the 
mansion)  consisted  mostly  of  steep  braes  facing  south 
and  west,  with  the  exception  of  a  narrow  strip  of  land 
down  by  the  shore — ^the  only  bit  where  the  coast-line  was 
not  rocky — and  this  strip,  which  was  an  old  sea-beach, 
was  turned  into  the  garden.  I  may  say  the  peninsula, 
whose  Gaelic  name,  Am  Ploc  ard  (the  High  Lump),  so 
aptly  describes  it,  consisted  of  a  mass  of  Torridon  red 
sandstone. 

This  promontory,  where  the  rock  was  not  actually  a 
bare  slab,  was  mostly  covered  with  short  heather  and 
still  shorter  crowberry,  and  the  only  soil  on  it  was  some 
black  peat,  varying  from  an  inch  to  two  or  three  feet  in 
depth.  There  had  been  more  peat  originally  in  some  of 
the  hollows,  but  it  had  been  dug  out  for  fuel  by  the 

245 


246  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

crofters  who  had  occupied  the  place  forty  years  before 
my  time.  There  was  nothing  approaching  good  soil  on 
any  part  of  the  peninsula,  hardly  even  any  gravel  or 
sand ;  but  in  a  few  places  the  rotten  rock  and  the  peat  had 
somehow  got  jumbled  up  together,  and  when  we  came 
across  some  of  this  we  thought  it  grand  stuff  in  com- 
parison with  the  rest.  There  was  just  perhaps  one 
redeeming  point  about  what  otherwise  looked  so  hopeless 
a  situation  for  planting — viz.,  that  the  rock  was  not 
altogether  solid. 

We  had  to  excavate  a  great  deal  of  the  rock  behind  the 
site  of  the  house  before  we  could  begin  to  build,  and  we 
noticed  that  the  deeper  we  blasted  into  it  the  softer  it 
became,  and  that  there  were  even  running  through  it 
veins  of  a  pink  kind  of  clay.  The  exposure  of  the  Ploc 
ard  was  awful,  catching,  as  it  did,  nearly  every  gale  that 
blew.  With  the  exception  of  the  thin  low  line  of  the 
north  end  of  Lewis,  forty  miles  ofi,  there  was  nothing 
between  its  top  and  Newfoundland;  and  it  was  con- 
tinualljT-  being  soused  with  salt  spray.  The  braes  above 
the  site  of  the  house  were  somewhat  better,  but  even 
they  were  swept  by  the  south-westerly  gales,  which  are 
so  constant  and  so  severe  in  these  parts. 

Now  I  think  I  ought  to  explain  that,  with  the  exception 
of  two  tiny  bushes  of  dwarf  willow  about  three  feet  high, 
there  was  nothing  in  the  shape  of  a  tree  or  shrub  any- 
where within  sight.  One  of  these  little  willow-bushes  I 
have  carefully  preserved  as  a  curiosity,  and  on  the  site 
where  the  other  was  I  lately  planted  an  azalea,  which 
will,  I  think,  soon  look  down  on  its  neighbour,  the  poor 
little  aboriginal  willow. 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  247 

I  started  work  in  the  early  spring  of  1864  by  running 
a  fence  across  the  neck  of  the  peninsula  from  sea  to  sea, 
to  keep  out  the  sheep.  I  was  very  young  then  (not 
being  of  age  when  the  place  was  bought),  and  perfectly 
ignorant  of  everything  connected  with  forestry  and 
gardening,  having  never  had  any  permanent  home,  and 
having  been  brought  up  a  great  deal  on  the  Continent; 
but  I  had  all  my  life  longed  to  begin  gardening  and 
planting,  and  had,  I  fully  believe,  inherited  a  love  for 
trees  and  flowers  from  my  father  and  grandfather. 

My  mother  undertook  the  whole  trouble  of  house- 
building, and  I  set  myself  to  the  rest  of  the  work  with  a 
determination  to  succeed  if  possible.  Oh  that  I  had 
only  known  then  what  I  know  now,  and  could  have 
started  with  my  present  experience  of  over  forty  years  ! 
For  example,  I  had  never  heard  of  the  dwarf  Pinus 
montana.  Had  I  known  its  merits  then,  as  I  know  them 
now,  I  would  have  begun  by  planting  a  thick  belting 
of  it  among  the  rocks  round  my  peninsula,  just  above 
high-water  mark,  to  break  the  violent  squalls  carrying 
the  salt  spindrift  which  is  so  inimical  to  all  vegetation. 

I  did  not  know  that  there  was  little  use  in  planting 
Pinus  Austriaca,  mountain  ash,  service,  or  even  birches, 
in  the  middle  of  a  wood,  as,  though  they  look  nice  for 
some  years,  they  eventually  get  smothered  by  the  faster- 
growing  trees,  and  one  has  the  trouble  of  cutting  most  of 
them  out.  If  I  were  beginning  again  I  would  commence, 
as  I  have  already  said,  with  a  row  of  the  Tyrolese  Pinus 
montana  above  high- water  mark,  then  put  Pinus 
Austriaca  behind  it,  and  for  the  third  row  I  would  plant 
that  admirable  tree  Pinus  Laricio.    This  triple  row  of 


248  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

pines  would  form  my  fortification  against  the  ocean 
blast,  and,  behind  the  protection  thus  afforded,  I  would 
start  putting  in  my  ordinary  forest  trees — Scots  pines, 
silver  firs,  sycamores,  oaks,  beeches,  etc. 

If  I  were  asked  what  tree  I  have  the  highest  opinion 
of  for  hardiness  and  rapidity  of  growth  on  bad  soil  and 
on  exposed  sites,  I  would  certainly  award  the  first  prize 
to  the  Corsican  pine.  I  have  seen  them  in  their  own 
island  on  mountains  9,000  feet  above  sea-level,  with 
nothing  between  them  and  Spain  or  Algeria,  growing  to 
an  enormous  size — some  of  those  I  measured  there  were 
twenty  feet  in  circumference — and  here,  at  the  same 
age,  they  make  nearly  double  the  amount  of  timber 
compared  with  Scots  fir,  and  are  proof  against  cattle, 
sheep,  deer,  and  rabbits,  which  no  other  tree  is  that  I 
know  of.  They  told  me  in  the  ship-building  yards  at 
Savona  that  old  Laricio  timber  was  as  good  as  the  best 
Baltic  redwood. 

I  am  ashamed  to  confess,  but  it  can  no  longer  be 
hidden,  that,  among  trees,  many  of  the  foreigners  are  far 
and  away  hardier  and  better  doers  than  our  natives. 
The  Scots  fir  (as  bred  nowadays)  is  often  a  dreadfully 
delicate  tree  when  exposed  to  Atlantic  gales.  It  was 
not  so  in  the  good  old  times,  as  one  finds  the  enormous 
remains  of  Pinus  sylvestris  forests  right  out  on  the  tops 
of  the  most  exposed  headlands  of  our  west  coast.  My 
brother,  the  late  Sir  Kenneth  Mackenzie  of  Gairloch, 
gave  me  one  hundred  plants  of  the  right  breed  from  his 
old  native  fir-wood  of  Glasleitir,  on  the  shores  of  Loch 
Maree,  which,  like  the  rest  of  that  good  old  stock  at 
Coulan,  in  Glen  Torridon,  or  in  those  grand  glens  of 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  249 

Locheil,  are  as  different  in  growth  and  constitution  from 
what  are,  alas  !  too  often  sold  nowadays  as  Scots  firs 
as  Scots  kale  is  from  cauliflower.  I  have  seen  the 
seedlings  side  by  side  in  the  seed-beds  in  my  brother's 
Gairloch  nursery,  and  in  the  months  of  March  and  April 
the  seedlings  from  the  bought  seeds  were  of  a  rusty  red, 
as  if  scorched  by  fire,  whereas  the  home-bred  ones  were 
of  a  glossy  dark  green. 

For  four  or  five  years  my  poor  peninsula  looked 
miserable,  and  all  who  had  prophesied  evil  of  it — and 
they  were  many — said,  "  I  told  you  so."  But  at  last 
from  the  drawing-room  windows  we  could  see  some 
bright  green  specks  appearing  above  the  heather. 
These  were  the  Austrians  and  the  few  home-bred  Scots 
firs  which  had  been  dotted  about  in  the  places  of  honour 
near  the  house.  About  the  fifth  or  sixth  year  everything 
began  to  shoot  ahead;  even  the  little  hard-wood  trees, 
which  until  then  had  grown  downwards,  started  upwards, 
many  of  them  fresh  from  the  root.  Now  came  the  real 
pleasure  of  watching  the  fruit  of  all  our  labour  and 
anxiety. 

The  young  trees  had  fewer  enemies  then  than  they 
would  have  nowadays.  Grouse  strutted  about  among 
them,  wondering  what  their  moor  was  coming  to,  but 
did  no  harm.  Black  game  highly  approved  of  the 
improvements,  and  by  carefully  picking  all  the  leading 
buds  out  of  the  little  Scots  firs  did  their  level  best  to 
make  them  like  the  bushy  Pinus  montana.  Brown 
hares  and  blue  hares  cut  some  of  the  fat  young  shoots 
of  the  Austrian  pines  and  oaks;  but,  on  the  whole,  my 
young  trees  fared  well  in  comparison  with  the  way  young 


250  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

plantations  here  would  fare  now  from  tlie  rabbit  plague, 
and  the  roe,  and  the  red  deer. 

I  planted  very  few  of  the  rarer  trees  to  begin  with. 
Wellingtonias  were  then  the  rage,  and  I  felt  bound  to 
invest  in  four  of  them,  and  planted  them  in  the  best 
sites  I  could  find  near  the  house.  I  tried  to  make  pits  for 
them.  I  took  out  the  little  peat  there  was,  but  how  well 
I  remember  the  clicks  the  spades  gave  when  we  came  to 
the  bed-rock  !  Next  morning  (the  night  having  been 
wet)  all  we  had  produced  were  four  small  ponds,  and  I 
had  to  get  an  old  man  to  bring  me  creels  of  rather  better 
soil  for  them  on  his  back  from  a  distance.  I  have  just 
measured  my  Wellingtonias.  In  the  forty -three  years 
of  their  existence  they  have  made  some  sixty-six  feet 
of  growth,  and  are  about  eight  feet  in  circumference  six 
feet  from  the  ground,  and  their  strong  leaders  show  they 
are  still  going  ahead.  So  much  for  the  old  man  and  his 
creels  of  soil ! 

Silver  firs  in  the  hollows  have  done  well,  and  some  of 
them  also  are  sixty  to  seventy  feet  high.  One  thing 
has  surprised  me  very  much — viz.,  that  oaks,  of  which 
I  planted  but  few,  thinking  it  was  the  last  place  where 
oaks  would  thrive,  are  very  nearly  level  with  the  firs, 
larches,  and  beeches. 

It  was  only  after  the  plantation  on  the  peninsula  had 
been  growing  fifteen  or  twenty  years,  and  was  making 
good  shelter,  that  I  began  cutting  out  some  of  the 
commoner  stuff,  especially  my  enemies  the  "  shop  '* 
Scots  firs,  as  I  call  them,  which  continued  more  or  less 
to  get  blasted  by  the  gales  of  the  ocean.  Then  it  was  I 
began  planting  all  sorts  of  things  in  the  cleared  spaces — 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  251 

Douglas  firs,  Abies  Alberti,  copper  beeches,  sweet  and 
horse  chestnuts,  Picea  nobilis,  P.  PinsafO,  P.  lasiocarpa 
and  P.  Nordmanniana,  Cwpressus  macrocarpa  and  C. 
Lawsoniana,  Thuja  gigantea,  bird-cherries,  scarlet  oaks, 
etc.,  and  now  these  trees  appear  almost  as  if  they  had 
formed  part  of  the  original  plantation.  I  am  still  pro- 
ceeding in  this  style,  and  have  dotted  about  a  lot  of 
Eucalypti,  tree  rhododendrons,  Arbutus,  Griselinias, 
Cordylines,  and  clumps  of  bamboos  and  Phormiums 
which  are  giving  a  charming  finish  to  the  outskirts  of 
my  plantation. 

Even  the  eucalypti  I  find  much  hardier  than  that  bad 
breed  of  Scots  fir;  no  wind,  snow,  or  frost  seems  to  hurt 
them  here;  and,  in  case  it  may  interest  my  readers,  I 
shall  name  those  I  find  thoroughly  hardy — Eucalyptus 
coccifera,  E.  Gunnii,  E.  Whittinghamii,  E.  cordata, 
E.  coriacea,  E.  urnigera,  and  one  or  two  others;  but  I 
warn  all  against  trying  Eucalyptus  glohosa — the  very 
species  that  most  people  persist  in  planting  ! 

I  ought,  perhaps,  to  mention  what  does  not  do  quite 
so  well  with  me — viz.,  the  common  Norway  spruce. 
They  will  grow  in  low-lying  hollows  at  the  rate  of  nearly 
three  feet  a  year,  but  as  soon  as  they  get  to  about 
thirty  feet  in  height  they  look  (as  my  forester  very  aptly 
describes  them)  like  red-brick  chimneys  among  the 
other  trees,  and  even  if  not  directly  exposed  to  the 
ocean  gales  they  get  red  and  blasted.  I  tried  also  a  few 
Pinus  Strobus  in  the  peninsula,  but  they  quite  failed. 
I  much  regret  not  having  experimented  on  either  Pinus 
Cembra  or  Pinus  insignis.  I  know  the  first  named  would 
succeed,    and,    as    the    Monterey    cypress    [Cupressus 


252  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

macrocarpa)  does  so  very  well,  I  should  have  the  best  of 
hopes  of  the  Monterey  pine  also,  because  they  both  come, 
I  am  told,  from  the  same  locality  in  California. 

My  latest  craze  is  cutting  out  spaces,  enclosing  them 
with  six-foot  fences  (deer,  roe,  and  rabbit  proof),  and 
planting  them  with  nearly  every  rare  exotic  tree  and 
shrub  which  I  hear  succeeds  in  Devon,  Cornwall,  and 
the  West  of  Ireland.  I  think  I  may  venture  to  say  that 
I  have  been  fairly  successful,  and  nothing  would  give 
me  greater  pleasure  than  to  have  a  visit  of  inspection 
from  some  of  the  members  of  the  Royal  Horticultural 
Society.  I  fear  I  must  confess  to  feelings  of  exultation 
when  I  visit  that  charming  collection  in  the  temperate 
house  of  Kew,  and  assure  myself  that  I  can  grow  a  great 
many  of  its  contents  better  in  the  open  air,  in  the  far 
north,  than  they  can  be  grown  at  Kew  under  glass. 

What  a  proud  and  happy  day  it  was  for  me,  about 
fourteen  years  ago,  when  Mr.  Bean  of  Kew  honoured  me 
with  a  visit,  and  I  had  the  pleasure  of  showing  him  my 
Tricuspidarias,  Embothriums,  and  Eucryphias,  my  small 
trees  of  Ahutilon  vitifoUum,  my  palms,  loquats,  Drimys, 
Sikkim  rhododendrons,  my  giant  Olearias,  Senecios, 
Veronicas,  Leptospernums,  my  Metrosideros  and 
Mitrarias,  etc. !  I  have,  too,  some  of  the  less  common 
varieties.  One  of  them  is  a  nice  specimen  of  Podocarpus 
totara,  from  which  the  Maoris  used  to  make  their  war 
canoes  holding  one  hundred  men,  and  I  have  Dicksonia 
antarctica,  raised  from  spores  ripened  in  Arran.  My 
Cordyline  Australis  are  all  from  seed  ripened  at  Scourie, 
in  the  north  of  Sutherland.  The  Billardiera  longifoha, 
from  Tasmania,  with  its  wonderful  blue  berries,  is  a 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  253 

most  striking  climber.  Acacia  dealbata,  the  Antarctic 
beech,  Betula  Maximowiczii  from  Japan  (with  leaves 
as  big  as  those  of  the  lime),  the  New  Zealand  Rata,  and 
Buddleia  Colvillei  from  the  Himalayas,  are  all  flourishing 
thanks  to  the  Gulf  Stream  and  lots  of  peat  and  shelter. 
There  are  (as  I  suppose  must  be  the  case  everywhere)  a 
very  few  plants  which  are  not  happy  here,  and  they  are 
varieties  which  I  dare  say  most  people  would  have 
thought  would  revel  in  this  soil  and  climate — viz.,  the 
Wistarias,  Camellias,  Kalmias,  Euonymus,  Tamarix,  and 
Cyclamens.  I  hope  to  master  even  these  in  course  of 
time.  One  thing  I  wonder  at  is  why  so  many  of  my 
exotics  seed  themselves  far  more  freely  than  any  natives, 
except  perhaps  birch,  and  gorse,  and  broom,  though  I 
ought  perhaps  to  mention  that  neither  gorse  nor  broom 
is  indigenous  to  this  particular  district.  The  strangers 
which  seed  so  freely  are  Rhododendrons,  Cotoneaster 
Simonsii,  Berbens  Darwinii,  Veronica  salicifoUa, 
Olearia  macrodonta,  Diplo'pa'ppus  chrysophylla,  and 
Leycesteria  Formosa. 

And  now  I  venture  to  say  something  about  the 
garden — the  *'  kitchen  garden,'"  as  my  English  friends 
always  take  care  to  call  it.  As  is  often  the  case  with  us 
Highlanders,  I  possess  only  the  one  garden  for  fruit, 
flowers,  and  vegetables,  and,  as  I  have  already  stated, 
it  was  mostly  made  out  of  an  old  sea-beach,  which  most 
people  would  say  does  not  sound  hopeful.  Even  now, 
in  spite  of  a  wall  and  a  good  sea-bank,  the  Atlantic 
threatens  occasionally  to  walk  in  at  its  lower  doors,  and 
the  great  northern  divers,  who  float  about  lazily  just 
outside,  appear  quite  fascinated  by  the  brilliant  colours 


25i  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

inside,  when  the  lower  doors  are  left  open  for  their 
benefit. 

The  soil  of  this  old  sea-beach  was  a  four-foot  mixture 
of  about  three-parts  pebbles  and  one  part  of  rather  nice 
blackish  earth.  The  millions  of  pebbles  had  to  be  got 
rid  of.  So  in  deep  trenching  it,  digging  forks  were  mostly- 
used,  every  workman  had  a  girl  or  boy  opposite  him, 
and  the  process  of  hand-picking  much  resembled  the 
gathering  of  a  very  heavy  crop  of  potatoes  in  a  field. 
The  cost  of  the  work  was  great,  as  thousands  upon 
thousands  of  barrow-loads  of  small  stones  had  to  be 
wheeled  into  the  sea,  and  the  place  of  the  pebbles  made 
up  with  endless  cartloads  of  peaty  stuff  from  old  turf 
dykes,  red  soil  carted  from  long  distances,  and  a  kind  of 
blue  clay  marl  from  below  the  sea,  full  of  decayed 
oyster-shells  and  crabs  and  other  good  things,  hauled  up 
at  very  low  tides.  There  is  also  a  terrace  the  whole 
length  of  the  garden  cut  out  of  the  face  of  a  steep  brae, 
which  was  just  above  the  old  beach.  It  had  to  be  carved 
out  of  the  solid  gravel  and  covered  with  soil  brought 
from  afar.  The  cutting  at  the  top  was  fully  twelve  feet 
deep,  and  against  it  a  retaining  wall  was  built,  which  I 
covered  with  fan  and  cordon  trained  fruit-trees. 

When  the  cutting  was  first  made  we  found  a  number 
of  large  holes  or  burrows  going  deep  into  the  hillside. 
These,  we  were  convinced  by  the  various  signs  we  found, 
must  have  been  inhabited  in  prehistoric  times  by  a 
colony  of  badgers,  and  no  sooner  was  the  light  let  into 
these  galleries  than  up  came  a  thick  crop  of  raspberry 
seedlings,  as  far  in  as  the  light  could  penetrate.  It 
appeared  evident  that  the  badgers,  like  bears,  had  been 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  255 

keen  on  fruit,  and  had  made  their  dessert  off  wild 
raspberries,  and  that  the  eating  and  digestion  of  the 
fruit  had  not  prevented  the  seeds  from  germinating. 
This  is  the  case  nowadays  with  the  seeds  of  Berheris 
Darwinii,  which  the  birds  swallow  and  then  distribute 
all  over  the  place.  There  were  no  signs  of  any  wild 
raspberries  about  here  at  that  time,  but  the  sight  of 
them  encouraged  me  greatly,  and  I  thought  that  where 
wild  rasps,  as  we  call  them,  once  grew,  tame  rasps  could 
be  made  to  grow.  My  expectations  in  this  respect  have 
been  fully  justified.  I  think  I  may  say  that  my  garden, 
which  took  me  three  or  four  years  to  make,  has  most 
thoroughly  rewarded  me  for  all  the  trouble  and  expense 
incurred. 

In  good  years,  as  many  of  my  friends  can  testify,  I 
grew  Bon  Chretien  pears  on  standards  which  are  as 
luscious  as  any  that  could  be  bought  in  Covent  Garden 
Market.  Curiously,  they  were  always  better  on  the 
standards  than  on  the  walls.  Alas  !  last  year,  which 
was  the  very  worst  year  I  have  experienced  since  my 
garden  was  made,  they  were,  as  my  gardener  expressed 
it,  not  equal  to  a  good  swede  turnip.  I  have  had 
excellent  Doyenne  de  Comice  pears  and  Cox's  Orange 
Pippin  apples  on  my  walls,  and  masses  of  plums  of  all 
sorts  both  on  the  walls  and  on  standards.  There  is  one 
thing  I  may  mention,  which  I  hardly  suppose  even  my 
friends  in  the  south  can  boast  of — viz.,  that  I  have 
never  yet,  in  over  forty  years,  failed  to  have  a  crop  of 
apples,  and,  I  might  almost  add,  pears  and  plums  as 
well,  though  the  quality  varies  a  good  deal.  Really  our 
difficulty  is  that  we  have  not  force  sufficient  to  get  them 


256  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

thinned,  so  thickly  do  they  set,  a  fact  which  I  suppose 
must  be  credited  to  our  good  Gulf  Stream. 

Now  I  turn  to  the  flowers,  and  I  think  almost  any- 
thing that  will  grow  in  Britain  will  grow  with  me.  I 
was  once  in  a  garden  in  a  warm  corner  of  the  Isle  of 
Wight,  in  June,  when  my  hostess  and  I  came  upon  the 
gardener  carrying  big  plants  of  Agapanthus  in  tubs 
from  under  glass  to  be  placed  out  of  doors.  His  remark 
as  we  passed  him  was,  "  I  think,  my  lady,  we  may 
venture  them  out  now,"  and  I  could  not  refrain  from 
answering  the  old  man  back:  "  If  not,  then  I  do  not 
think  much  of  your  climate,  for  in  the  far  North  of 
Scotland  we  never  house  them,  nor  even  protect  them 
in  winter."  I  have  had  great  clumps  of  Agapanthus  in 
the  open  for  thirty  years  and  more,  and  the  white,  as 
well  as  the  blue  variety,  flowers  magnificently  every  year. 

Ixias  are  as  hardy  a  perennial  here  as  daffodils. 
Crocosmia  iiwperiaUs  runs  about  my  shrubbery  borders 
and  comes  up  with  its  glorious  orange  blooms  in  October 
in  all  kinds  of  unexpected  places,  just  like  twitch 
grass;  Alstrcemeria  fsittacina,  Sparaxis  pulcherrimay 
Sdlla  peruviana,  Crinum  capense,  the  Antholyzas,  and 
several  Watsonias  (including  even  the  lovely  white 
Watsonia  Ardernei),  are  quite  hardy,  and  Hahranthus 
pratensis  also  blooms  every  year;  and  as  for  lilies,  I  have 
had  Lilium  giganteum  ten  feet  high  and  with  nineteen 
blooms  on  it. 

We  never  lift  our  scarlet  lobelias,  nor  our  blue  Salvia 
patens  (except  when  shifting  them),  and  the  dahlias  are 
often  quite  happy  left  out  all  winter.  I  have  never 
happened  to  come  across  Schizostylis  coccinea  anywhere 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  257 

else  equal  to  what  I  grow  here  in  November;  one  can  see 
its  masses  of  dazzling  scarlet  on  my  terrace  from  a  boat 
sailing  about  in  the  bay. 

Tigridias  live  out  all  the  year.  Some  seasons  they 
even  seed  themselves  profusely,  and  I  have  seen  the 
seedlings  coming  up  thick  in  the  gravel  walks.  In  a  good 
July  I  have  seen  the  tea-roses  on  my  lower  terrace  wall 
almost  as  good  as  on  the  Riviera,  but  the  hybrid  per- 
petuals  do  decidedly  less  well  here,  I  think,  than  they  do, 
for  instance,  in  Hertfordshire,  and  florists'  Anemones 
and  Ranunculus  and  also  the  Moutan  Paeony  have  so  far 
nearly  defied  me.  On  some  of  my  lower  walls  I  grow 
the  Correas,  and  C.  alba  blooms  the  whole  winter  through 
and  is  most  charming.  Callistemons  (the  scarlet  bottle- 
brush)  flower,  and  Cassia  corymbosa,  Habrothamnus 
elegans,  and  Romneya,  seem  quite  happy ;  J^6eZm  quinata, 
Lapageria,  and  Mandevilla  suaveolens  are  growing,  but 
have  not  yet  bloomed  with  me. 

Just  one  more  remark,  and  that  is  about  our  rainfall. 
This  is  supposed  to  be  a  very  wet  part  of  the  country, 
but,  according  to  my  gardener,  who  keeps  his  rain-gauge 
very  carefully,  we  had  under  55  inches  in  1907,  whereas 
there  are  places  in  Britain  where  the  fall  is  130  and  even 
140  inches. 


17 


CHAPTER   XIX 

VANISHING  BIRDS 

This  is  a  sad  subject  to  take  up,  but,  alas  !  I  fear  it 
cannot  be  disputed  that  birds  of  many,  if  not  of  most, 
kinds  are  far  less  numerous  now  on  the  west  coast  of 
Ross-shire  than  they  were  fifty  or  sixty  years  ago. 

Let  me  start  with  the  game  birds.  The  Black  Grouse 
is  a  bird  of  the  past  as  far  as  this  part  of  the  country  is 
concerned.  Even  on  my  small  property  I  used  to  kill 
from  twenty  to  thirty  brace  of  Black  Game  in  a  season. 
In  1915,  as  far  as  I  know,  only  one  pair  remained,  but  the 
old  Grey-hen  was  shot  by  accident,  and  the  cock,  which 
was  a  very  old  acquaintance,  disappeared.  When  I 
bought  this  estate  there  had  been  no  cultivation  of  the 
arable  land  for  some  fifty  years  at  least,  and  there  was 
not  a  vestige  of  wood  on  the  12,000  acres,  except  one  small 
patch  of  low,  scrubby  birch.  Now  all  the  arable  land 
is  cultivated,  and  there  are  a  number  of  plantations 
dotted  over  the  property  of  from  fifty  to  three  or  four 
years'  growth,  which  anyone  would  have  thought  ought 
to  have  encouraged  Black  Game,  but  even  in  parts  of 
Argyll,  which  a  few  years  ago  was  swarming  with  them, 
there  are  now  comparatively  few.  I  know  of  one  place 
in  that  country  where,  in  1914,  250  Black-cock  were 
killed,  and  in  1916  the  total  bag  of  Black  Game  was  one 
Black-cock.    Along  the  shores  of  Loch  Maree  my  mother 

258 


A  HUNDEED  YEAES  IN  THE  HIGHLANDS    259 

once  counted  sixty  Black-cock  on  the  stooks  of  a  very 
small  field,  and  the  old  farmer,  to  whom  the  patch  of 
oats  belonged,  told  her  he  had  counted  one  hundred  the 
previous  evening.  The  keeper  on  that  beat  told  me 
quite  lately  that  along  the  whole  loch-side,  a  stretch  of 
country  of  from  twelve  to  fourteen  miles,  he  knows  of 
only  one  Black-cock. 

When  I  was  a  small  boy  in  the  fifties  I  used  to  follow 
the  head-keeper,  whose  duty  it  was  to  provide  game 
for  the  larder;  on  the  low  ground  round  the  head  of 
Loch  Gairloch  the  bags  used  to  consist  of  Black  Game, 
Partridges,  and  Brown  Hares ;  now  there  is  not  a  single 
head  of  Black  Game,  nor  a  Partridge,  nor  even  a  Brown 
Hare  to  be  found.  From  Cape  Wrath,  I  may  say,  to  the 
Clyde  the  Partridges  are  extinct,  or  very  nearly  so. 
They  used  to  be  fairly  plentiful  up  and  down  this  west 
coast,  and  quite  good  in  many  parts  of  Skye  and  Argyll, 
and  even  here,  with  only  little  bits  of  arable  land,  I  have 
killed  as  many  as  fifty  brace  in  a  season  in  the  sixties 
and  seventies.  No  one  can  account  for  their  disap- 
pearance, and  though  they  have  been  reintroduced  on 
various  occasions,  the  restocking  has  been  of  no  avail. 

Though  Eed  Grouse  have  not  done  very  well  on  this 
coast  for  the  last  few  years,  there  are  still  enough  on  some 
parts  to  replenish  it  if  we  could  get  a  few  good  breeding 
seasons.  Both  north  and  south  of  us,  however,  I  hear 
very  ominous  reports  of  districts  where  big  bags  were 
once  made — in  some  cases  about  nine  hundred  brace 
used  to  be  the  bag — but  where  now  there  are  practically 
none.  Similar  reports  come  from  some  of  the  inland 
portions  of  Inverness-shire  and  from  many  of  the  islands, 


260  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

from  Islay  right  up  to  the  Lews,  where  it  is  feared  Grouse- 
shooting  will  soon  be  a  thing  of  the  past. 

I  have  a  record  of  all  the  game  killed  on  a  property 
on  the  west  coast  from  1866  to  1916.  In  the  seventies 
(1872)  1,939  Grouse  were  shot,  and  1,244  and  1,356 
were  killed  in  1890  and  1891.  Since  then  they  have 
gone  down  and  down  till  they  got  to  98,  90,  85,  62, 
and  only  31  in  1914.  The  Black  Game  on  the  same 
estate  used  to  average  about  80,  but  now  they  run  from 
1  to  3  on  an  average  for  a  season.  The  Ptarmigan  used 
to  be  from  59, 47,  and  55  each  year,  and  after  coming  down 
as  low  as  4  they  seem  quite  to  have  disappeared.  From 
many  other  hills  that  used  to  hold  them,  our  own  hill  of 
about  2,600  feet  included,  the  White  Grouse  has  com- 
pletely vanished. 

The  Grey  Lag  Goose,  which  we  formerly  considered  a 
nuisance,  especially  when  flocks  of  them  devoured  our 
young  oats  in  spring,  used  to  hatch  out  their  broods 
in  the  islands  of  many  of  our  lochs.  They  too  have  left 
us,  and  are  not  likely  ever  to  return.  We  are  now 
surprised  if  we  see  half  a  dozen  Wild  Ducks  floating  about 
on  the  loch  opposite  our  windows,  where  formerly  there 
used  to  be  eighty  to  one  hundred  waiting  for  dusk  in 
order  to  start  feeding  on  the  stubbles  and  potato-fields. 
Snipe,  Golden  Plover,  Green  Plover,  Greenshank,  Dunlin, 
and  Whimbrel  are  on  the  verge  of  extinction.  I  saw 
only  one  Whimbrel  in  May,  1918,  and  they  used  to  be 
in  flocks  resting  on  our  shores  at  the  migration-time. 
The  Golden  Plover  has  entirely  changed  its  habits,  and 
has  become  migratory.  A  very  few  come  in  March  to 
breed,  but  instead  of  passing  the  winter  in  hundreds 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  261 

on  our  low  grounds  along  the  coast,  and  during  frost 
and  snow  swarming  down  to  our  shores  at  ebb-tide,  they 
now  completely  desert  this  country  in  September. 

I  have  known  350  Snipe  shot  in  a  season  on  a  neigh- 
bouring shooting  only  a  few  years  ago.  They  bred  also 
in  considerable  numbers  on  my  own  ground,  and  gave  me 
a  lot  of  sport.  Now  there  is  hardly  a  snipe  to  be  seen 
anywhere.  The  Rock  Pigeons,  which  used  to  provide 
such  good  practice  for  our  guns,  have  also  pretty  well 
disappeared.  The  Great  Northern  Diver  is  becoming 
quite  scarce,  whereas  it  used  to  be  common.  The 
Redthroat  is  also  extinct  here,  and  the  Blackthroats 
have  ceased  breeding  on  many  a  loch  where  they  used  to 
nest  every  year  regularly  and  without  fail;  but  there  are 
still  a  few  pairs  about. 

The  rapid  decrease  of  the  Lesser  Black-backed  Gull 
is  one  of  the  most  striking  instances  of  a  bird  disap- 
pearing. They  were  wont  to  breed  in  their  thousands 
in  the  islands  of  Loch  Maree,  and  their  eggs  were  quite 
a  source  of  food-supply  in  the  hungry  months  of  May 
and  June;  now  there  are  hardly  any,  and  they  get  fewer 
and  fewer  every  year,  in  spite  of  the  islands  being  now 
watched  and  preserved.  The  Storm  Petrel,  which  used 
to  breed  in  large  numbers  in  a  small  island  in  this  parish, 
now  no  longer  does  so,  and  I  never  see  a  Common 
Guillemot  on  the  sea,  though  there  are  still  plenty  of 
Razorbills,  Puffins,  and  Black  Guillemots  about. 

No  Nightjars  have  been  seen  for  years  here,  though 
they  used  in  former  times  to  fly  about  the  gardens  and 
nest  close  to  my  house.  The  Wheatear,  which  was 
formerly  the  commonest  of  all  small  birds  on  our  moors, 


262    A  HUNDRED  YEARS  IN  THE  HIGHLANDS 

is  now  quite  rare.  The  House  Martin  deserted  us  thirty 
or  forty  years  ago.  Prior  to  that  they  came  in  swarms, 
not  only  nesting  under  the  eaves  of  many  of  the  bigger 
houses,  but  also  in  thousands  in  the  precipitous  Tolly  rock 
on  Loch  Maree.  The  Rooks,  which  used  almost  to 
darken  the  sky  with  their  multitudes,  and  the  Jackdaws 
are  gone,  for  which,  however,  we  are  truly  thankful. 

In  1918  we  had  about  the  heaviest  crop  of  rowan- 
berries  I  have  ever  seen,  and  they  remained  on  the  trees 
in  scarlet  masses  right  through  November  and  long  after 
every  leaf  had  fallen.  In  former  years  huge  flocks  of 
Fieldfares  and  Redwings  came  from  Norway  at  the  end 
of  October  and  very  quickly  finished  them  off;  this  year 
all  I  saw  was  a  tiny  flock  of  Redwings,  about  a  score 
all  told,  which,  with  the  few  Blackbirds,  Song  Thrushes, 
and  Missel  Thrushes  (also  in  very  reduced  numbers), 
were  quite  unable  to  make  any  impression  on  the  berries, 
which  were  nearly  all  wasted.  In  summer  I  did  not  see 
a  single  Ring  Ouzel,  neither  breeding  among  our  rocks 
nor  later  on  descending  with  their  broods  to  feed  on  our 
cherries  and  geans .  Can  anyone  explain  what  has  caused 
so  many  of  our  birds  to  disappear  ? 

I  have  seen  the  following  uncommon  birds  in  the 
parish  of  Gairloch  during  my  lifetime — viz.,  Quail, 
Turtle  Dove,  Kingfisher,  Golden  Oriole,  Hoopoe,  Rose- 
coloured  Pastor,  Chough,  Crossbill,  Great  Grey  Shrike, 
Bohemian  Waxwing,  and  Pied  Flycatcher. 


CHAPTER  XX 

PEAT* 

Having  been  honoured  by  a  request  from  the  Secretary 
of  the  Inverness  Scientific  Societv  and  Field  Club  to 
write  a  paper,  I  rather  reluctantly  agreed,  doubting  my 
capability  of  producing  with  my  pen  anything  sufficiently 
interesting  to  make  it  worth  listening  to;  and  now  that 
I  have  written  on  "  Peat,"  I  feel  as  one  who  is  not  an 
authority  on  the  subject,  but  rather  as  one  in  search 
of  knowledge.  Still,  I  hope  that  I  may  be  the  feeble 
means  of  rousing  someone  else  more  capable  than  myself 
to  take  up  and  go  fully  into  the  subject  on  which  I  write. 
I  have  often  wondered  why  so  very  much  energy  has 
been  expended  in  writing  and  theorising  on  the  funda- 
mental gneiss  and  the  Torrid  on  red,  whereas  no  one 
seems  to  take  any  notice  of  the  thick  black  layer  which 
usually  covers  both  these  ancient  rocks  in  this  part  of  the 
country. 

The  American  tourists  profess  to  be  always  interested 
in  what  they  amusingly  term  "  the  elegant  ruins  of  the 
old  country.''  Now,  though  my  peat  is  undoubtedly 
a  ruin,  and  a  very  old  one,  I  fear  I  cannot  exactly  lay 
claim  to  its  being  very  elegant  (being  certainly  more 
useful  than  ornamenoal),  but  I  do  think  it  deserves  to  be 
classed  among  the  most  interesting  natural  phenomena 
of  our  land.    Not  only  is  the  actual  peat  itself  in- 

*  A  paper  read  at  a  meeting  of  the  Inverness  Scientific  Society 
and  Field  Club  in  1908. 

263 


264  A  HUNDKED  YEARS 

teresting,  but  still  more  interesting  are  the  many  objects 
found  preserved  in  it.  What  excitement  there  is  when 
in  Eg5rpt  or  at  Pompeii  there  are  found  grains  of  wheat 
in  a  mummy,  or  well-preserved  figs  or  walnuts  are  taken 
from  under  twenty  feet  of  volcanic  ash  !  Why  should 
I,  in  my  humble  way,  not  be  quite  as  much  elated  when, 
from  the  bottom  of  one  of  my  bogs,  I  take  out  handfuls 
of  hazel-nuts  as  perfect  as  the  day  they  dropped  off  the 
trees;  or,  still  more  wonderful,  when  I  find  the  peat  full 
of  countless  green  beetle  wings,  still  glittering  in  their 
pristine  metallic  lustre,  which  may  have  been  buried 
in  these  black,  airtight  silos  before  Pompeii  was 
thought  of  ? 

To  mark  the  manner  in  which  the  climate  of  our  earth 
has  changed  at  different  periods  must  always  be  an 
interesting  subject  to  the  student  of  Nature,  ancient  Or 
modern.  I  cannot  help  thinking  that,  if  the  lower 
strata  of  some  of  our  very  deepest  peat-bogs  were  care- 
fully examined,  with  the  help  of  the  microscope,  etc.,  the 
botanist  and  entomologist  would  derive  information 
which  would  give  us  some  approximate  idea  of  their  age, 
and  prove  that  a  somewhat  different  vegetation  covered, 
the  earth  when  the  peat  began  to  form,  and  that  our 
country  was  then  the  abode  of  plants  and  insects  (if  not 
of  still  higher  forms  of  animal  life)  which  are  either  very 
rare  or  quite  extinct  with  us  now. 

One  bird  has  become  extinct  even  in  my  day — viz., 
the  great  auk;  and  what  were  indigenous  plants  are 
becoming  extinct  from  various  causes,  chiefly,  I  fancy, 
climate.  I  know  as  a  fact  that,  in  my  grandfather's  time, 
the  woods  of  this  country  were  full  of  Epipactis  ensifoUa, 
a  lovely  white  orchidaceous  plant,  which  is  so  rare  now 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  265 

that  I  have  only  twice  in  my  lifetime  seen  one  here, 
though  I  have  found  them  in  abundance  in  the  woods  of 
the  Pyrenees.  Why  has  it  died  out  ?  Surely  it  is  that 
the  climate  has  changed,  and  that  it  liked  the  hot 
summers  of  the  last  century,  when  my  grandfather 
regularly  feasted  at  Gairloch  on  ripe  strawberries  and 
cherries  on  the  King's  birthday,  the  4th  of  June ;  whereas 
now,  if  he  were  alive,  and  still  thought  strawberries  and 
cherries  necessary  for  the  proper  keeping  of  the  festival, 
he  would  require  to  shift  the  day  to  the  4th  of  July 
at  least. 

The  green  beetle  wings  in  the  peat  appear  to  be  those 
of  the  rose-beetle,  which  is  now  rather  a  rare  insect  with 
us,  but  which,  judging  by  their  debris  in  the  peat,  must 
have  swarmed  at  one  time,  like  the  locusts  in  Egypt  in 
the  days  of  the  plagues .  Nowadays  one  comes  across  a  few 
of  them  only  in  sunny  places  facing  the  south,  but  these 
remains  have  been  found  in  dark,  dank  hollows,  looking 
due  north.  Perhaps  in  the  good  old  beetle  days  the 
climate  was  so  hot  that  they  chose  the  shade  in  preference . 

Now  as  to  when  the  peat  began  to  form .  It  is  evidently 
a  post-glacial  deposit,  because,  when  out  deer-stalking,  I 
notice  beds  of  it  lying  on  the  top  of  ice-polished  slabs  of 
gneiss.  Geologists  can  give  us  no  idea  of  the  age  of  the 
rocks,  though  they  can  tell  us  that  some  rocks  are  young 
in  comparison  to  others.  I  wonder  whether  they  can 
make  any  guess  at  the  date  when  the  snow  and  glaciers 
began  to  recede  uphill  from  high-water  mark  ?  To  look 
at  some  of  the  ground  in  the  Torridon  and  Gairloch  deer- 
forests,  one  would  say  that  the  final  disappearance  of 
the  glaciers  from  some  of  their  high  corries  could  not 
be  such  a  very  old  story,  as  in  some  places  neither  peat 


266  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

nor  even  plants  have  as  yet  managed  to  cover  the  slabs 
of  glaciated  rock,  which  have  still  nothing  on  them  but 
carried  stones  and  boulders  of  every  shape  and  size,  just 
as  they  were  dropped  on  the  slabs  when  the  ice  departed. 
One  cannot  help  wondering  what  the  climate  was  like 
when  the  ice  began  to  disappear;  if  it  was  like  the 
climate  of  Switzerland  in  the  present  day — hot  and  dry 
in  summer,  and  cold  and  dry  in  winter — it  would  not 
encourage  a  growth  of  peat.  If,  on  the  contrary,  it  was 
cool  and  wet,  it  would  encourage  a  growth  of  the  sphagnum 
mosses,  which  I  look  on  as  the  main  creators  of  peat. 

If  the  peat  commenced  to  grow  immediately  on  the 
departure  of  the  ice,  it  would  be  most  likely  that  the  low 
grounds  were  then  covered  with  Arctic  plants,  such  as 
Azalea  frocumbens,  Betula  nana,  Saxifraga  oppositifolia, 
which  our  present  climate  has  banished  to  the  highest 
tops.  Now,  how  interesting  it  would  be  if,  when 
microscopically  examined,  traces  of  the  Azalea,  for 
instance,  with  its  hard,  twisted  roots  and  stems,  were 
found  at  the  bottom  of  the  peat-bogs  at  the  sea-level* 
Last  year  I  found  quantities  of  yellow  seeds  at  the  base 
of  a  nine-foot  cutting  in  the  solid  peat.  So  I  sent  some 
of  them,  all  washed  and  clean,  to  the  late  Professor 
Dickson  of  Edinburgh.  He  showed  them  to  my  friend 
Mr.  Lindsay,  the  curator  of  the  Edinburgh  Royal  Botanic 
Gardens,  and  said  he  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
some  hoax  had  been  played  upon  me,  and  that  the  seeds 
were  modern  and  not  ancient.  He  was  then  just  starting 
on  a  tour  to  Norway,  and  on  his  return,  sad  to  say, 
Professor  Pickson  died,  and  I  never  heard  any  more  of 
my  seeds.  But  I  determined  not  to  give  up  my  interest 
in  them,  so  the  other  day  I  began  looking  for  the  seeds 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  267 

again,  and  found  them  in  quantities  in  the  lowest  part 
of  the  peat,  where  it  rested  on  the  subsoil.  I  had  other 
bogs  examined,  and  there  they  were  also  found  among 
the  compressed  brown  sphagnum  below  a  great  depth 
of  solid  black  peat.  So  I  sent  them,  this  time  unwashed, 
to  my  friend  Mr.  Lindsay,  who  in  his  reply  said  that  at 
first  he  was  in  doubt  as  to  whether  they  were  whin  or 
broom  seeds,  but  on  comparing  them  with  modern 
seeds  of  both  these  shrubs,  he  had  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  they  were  whin  seeds.  Notwithstanding  my  having 
perfect  faith  in  Mr.  Lindsay  (as  a  botanist),  I  cannot  take 
in  the  idea  that  these  seeds  are  whin.  Neither  the  whin 
nor  the  broom  is  a  native  plant  here.  One  hundred 
years  ago  the  only  broom  plants  in  the  district  were  a 
few  sown  round  the  garden  of  my  far-back  predecessors 
in  this  place — the  Mackenzies  of  Lochend  of  that  day — 
and  the  first  whins  that  ever  grew  anywhere  near  here 
were  produced  from  seed  sown  by  a  certain  Kev.  Mr. 
Macrae,  a  minister  on  the  Poole  we  glebe,  and  some  sown 
also  by  a  member  of  the  Letterewe  family  at  Udrigil. 
It  is  certain  it  was  not  an  indigenous  plant  here  in  modern 
times,whatever  it  might  have  been  in  the  beetle  days,  and 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  shrubs  or  plants  which 
produced  these  seeds  lived  contemporaneously  with  the 
beetles. 

We  now  find  hazel,  birch,  alder,  and  willow  in  the 
most  perfect  state  at  the  bottom  of  the  bogs,  with  the 
silvery  bark  on  the  former  kinds  as  perfect  as  when  they 
were  growing,  but  no  one  has  found  the  gnarled,  twisted 
stems  of  the  whin  or  broom  in  any  bog  in  this  country. 
A  most  intelligent  man,  who  has  taken  a  very  lively 
interest  in  these  seeds,  has  put  forward  the  theory  that 


268  A  HUNDKED  YEAES 

tliey  may  have  been  the  seeds  of  the  buck  or  bog  bean 
which  grew  at  one  time  on  the  bottom  of  shallow  lochs 
which  have  since  filled  up;  but  Mr.  Lindsay  is  not  of 
this  opinion. 

There  is,  I  think,  an  impression  abroad  that  peat  is 
a  very  modern  growth  and  is  quickly  formed.  I  think 
this  idea  is  quite  erroneous.  That  it  is  very  modern 
compared  with  our  rocks  is  certain,  but,  still,  I  hold  to  the 
belief  that  our  peat  is  a  very  old  formation,  though  still 
growing  slowly.  Can  anyone  tell  when  was  the  Bronze 
Age  up  here  ?  We  found  a  perfect  bronze  spear-head  in 
one  of  the  peat-bogs,  pretty  near  the  surface,  with  a 
deer's  antler  lying  close  to  it;  and,  to  show  what  a  pre- 
servative peat  is,  part  of  the  wooden  shaft  of  the  spear 
was  still  to  the  fore  when  the  spear-head  was  found. 
Now,  in  the  days  of  the  primitive  man  who  owned  this 
spear  this  peat-bog  must  have  been  very  much  what  it 
is  now,  otherwise  the  spear  would  not  have  been  so  near 
the  surface. 

There  was  also  a  very  valuable  find  of  bronze  anti- 
quities in  this  neighbourhood  a  few  years  ago.  On 
going  to  examine  the  place,  I  found  that  the  peat  was 
not  three  feet  deep,  showing  that  it  had  not  grown  much 
since  the  day  when  the  owner  had  buried  his  treasures, 
as  it  would  not  be  likely  that  he  would  have  hidden 
them  in  a  place  having  less  than  a  couple  of  feet  of  peat 
at  least.  Close  to  my  house  there  is  a  bog  in  a  hollow, 
enclosed  all  round  with  a  rim  of  rock,  and  on  trying  to 
drain  it  we  found  it  impossible  to  do  so  without  cutting 
the  rock.  We  probed  the  peat  and  found  it  fourteen  feet 
thick. 

Usually  the  trees  found  under  the  peat  have  their  roots 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  269 

fixed  in  the  subsoil  and  their  stumps  are  close  to  the 
bottom;  but  this  is  not  always  the  case,  for  near  the 
surface  of  this  bog  we  found  several  immense  stumps, 
and,  on  attempting  to  count  the  rings  on  one  of  the  roots 
which  we  sawed  off,  we  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that 
the  tree  was  about  four  hundred  years  old  when  it  ceased 
to  live.  Now,  it  is  about  four  hundred  years  since  my 
ancestors  came  from  Kintail  and  took  possession  of 
Gairloch  by  a  coup  de  main,  and  we  know  that  at  that 
time  (and  probably  long  before  then)  these  shores  had  a 
resident  population.  It  is  therefore  unlikely  that  these 
trees  would  have  been  allowed  to  remain  standing  so 
close  to  the  seashore  at  the  head  of  Loch  Ewe  for  very 
long  after  the  place  became  inhabited.  Supposing 
these  trees,  then,  to  have  been  dead  some  five  hundred 
years,  and  that  they  were  four  hundred  years  old  when 
destroyed,  that  takes  us  nearly  one  thousand  years 
back.  Query,  then  how  old  is  the  lower  layer  of  peat  in 
the  bog  which  lies  fourteen  feet  below  the  stumps  ? 

I  have  heard  of  a  bog  at  Kenlochewe  which  was 
drained  and  improved,  and  in  it  were  two  distinct  sets 
of  fir  roots,  one  above  the  other,  with  a  considerable 
layer  of  peat  between  them.  Nearly  all  the  bog  stumps 
in  this  country  have  marks  of  fire  on  them  and  charcoal 
about  them.  Now,  it  would  seem  that  in  this  case  two 
successive  forests  sprung  up,  grew  to  maturity,  and  were 
destroyed,  and  that  between  each  crop  of  fir  there  had 
been  a  sufficient  interregnum  for  the  peat  to  form  and  to 
cover  up  and  preserve  each  set  of  roots.  It  would  be 
what  the  lawyers  would  call  "  a  nice  question  ''  as  to 
how  many  centuries  the  remains  of  the  two  forests  and 
the  layers  of  peat  represent. 


270  A  HUNDKED  YEAKS 

One  must  not,  however,  judge  altogether  of  the  age  of 
peat  by  its  depth.  The  best  peat  I  have  ever  seen  for 
burning  purposes  was  only  one  foot  in  depth  below  the 
top  sod,  and  had  grown  on  blue  clay,  so  that,  as  we  cut 
the  fuel,  the  lowest  end  of  each  peat  had  the  clay  attached 
to  it,  and  turned  into  red  bricks  in  the  fire.  These  peats 
were  nearly  equal  to  coal,  and  were  evidently  like  the 
Irishman's  pig,  very  little  and  very  old,  which  is  much 
more  of  a  merit  in  peat  than  in  pigs. 

I  might  go  rambling  on  with  my  peat  stories — about 
peat  at  the  bottom  of  lochs,  and  submarine  peat-bogs 
which  I  have  seen  at  low  spring-tides,  which,  I  am 
ashamed  to  say,  I  have  never  thoroughly  examined,  and 
which  must,  at  least,  have  the  merit  of  being  really  very 
old;  but  instead  of  commencing  anew  I  will  stop. 

Since  writing  the  above  I  have  been  in  the  Lews,  and  I 
have  seen  there  peat  such  as  I  never  imagined  could  be 
found  anywhere  in  Great  Britain.  On  the  mainland  of 
Ross-shire  it  is  uncommon  to  find  peat  six  or  eight  feet 
deep,  but  between  Skigersta  and  North  Tolsta  the  peat 
for  miles  is  from  sixteen  to  twenty-six  feet  in  depth. 

Can  any  of  my  readers  help  me  to  fathom  some  of  the 
many  mysteries  that  lie  at  the  bottom  of  our  peat-bogs 
and  lochs,  which  have  always  interested  me  so  much  ? 
What  puzzles  me  perhaps  most  of  all  are  the  stems  of 
birch  and  hazel  which  I  find  six  and  eight  feet  below 
the  surface,  with  the  bark  (especially  of  the  former)  as 
smooth  and  glistening  as  if  the  trees  had  been  cut  only 
the  previous  day;  indeed,  the  bark  of  the  bog  birches 
is  generally  much  whiter  than  that  of  the  more  or  less 
stunted  modern  birches  of  this  west  coast,  which  is  a 


IN  THE  HIGHLANDS  271 

purple-grey  tint  and  quite  different  from  the  white  stems 
of  the  birches  along  the  shores  of  Loch  Ness — in  fact, 
they  are  as  snowy  white  as  the  bark  of  those  that  grow 
to-day  in  Sweden  and  Russia  ! 

I  quite  well  know  what  most  people  will  say — viz., 
that  the  peat  is  a  great  preservative,  and  that,  as  in  the 
case  of  ensilage  in  a  silo,  decomposition  has  been  arrested 
by  the  exclusion  of  atmospheric  air.     But  I  would  first 
of  all  ask  my  readers  how  the  birch-trees  got  into  the 
bottom  of  these  bogs.    I  suppose  they  would  answer 
that  peat  grows,  and  that  it  grew  round  these  birches 
and  hazels,  and  thus  preserved  them,  quite  forgetting 
that  peat  will  not  grow  except  where  it  is  wet,  and  that 
neither  birch  nor  hazel  will  grow  if  the  ground  is  at 
all  wet.     They  also  have,  perhaps,  very  little  idea  of 
the  delicacy  of  the  thin,  white,  outer  skin  of  the  birch 
bark.    Perhaps  they  imagine  that  if  they  cut  down  a 
birch  or  hazel  tree,  and  laid  it  on  the  top  of  a  peat-bog, 
it  would  gradually  sink  do^vn  of  its  own  weight,  or  that 
the  peat  would  grow  up  round  it,  and  that  thus  the 
silvery  bark  would  be  preserved;  but  I  dare  say  most 
people  have  also  very  little  idea  of  the  slowness  of  the 
growth  of  peat,  and  I  may  mention  that  this  white  outer 
skin  of  birch  bark  is  just  like  silver  paper,  and  would  not 
remain  attached  to  the  stem  more  than  a  very  few  months, 
and  the  birch  branch  or  stem  laid  on  the  top  of  the  bog 
would  turn  into  pulp  and  disappear  long  before  the  peat 
could  grow  over  it  to  preserve  it. 

It  might  be  argued  that,  supposing  a  birch-wood  grew 
at  the  very  foot  of  a  mountain  of,  say,  2,000  to  3,000  feet 
high,  and  that  the  mountain  was  covered  most  of  the 
way  up  with  a  deep  bed  of  peat,  and  that,  owing  to  an 


272     A  HUNDRED  YEARS  IN  THE  HIGHLANDS 

earthquake  or  some  other  inexplicable  cause,  the  peat 
on  the  hillside  began  sliding  down  like  a  black  avalanche 
and  overwhelmed  the  birch-wood,  then  one  would 
certainly  quite  understand  the  white  bark  on  the  birches 
being  preserved.  But,  unfortunately,  this  theory  is  im- 
possible, as  deep  peat  does  not  form  on  steep  mountains 
in  a  sufficient  quantity  to  cause  a  landslide;  and  besides, 
where  I  came  across  the  white-stemmed  birches  in  the 
bogs  there  are  no  hills  high  enough  or  near  enough  for 
peat  or  anything  else  to  have  slipped  down  and  covered 
these  thousands  of  acres  of  flat  moor. 

Then,  as  regards  the  remains  of  forests  at  the  bottom 
of  lochs,  I  happen  to  own  a  great  many  lochs  and  tarns, 
and  when  boating  on  them,  on  a  calm  day  with  a  clear 
sky,  the  tree-stumps  can  be  seen  side  by  side,  just  as  they 
grew  before  these  lochs  existed.  Now,  how  were  these 
lochs  created  to  the  ruin  of  thousands  of  acres  of  forest  ? 
It  would  be  most  interesting  to  examine  some  of  the 
deeper  lochs,  with  an  electric  light  appliance,  to  see  if 
there  are  remains  of  forests  in  them  as  well  as  in  the 
shallower  ones.  I  dare  say  some  people  will  imagine  that 
the  roots  have  got  washed  into  the  lochs  in  great  floods ; 
well,  this  might  have  happened  so  far  as  logs  or  branches 
are  concerned,  but  the  stumps  I  refer  to  are  all  firmly 
rooted  in  the  bottom,  each  one  just  where  the  original 
grain  of  Pinus  sylvestris  seed  fell,  germinated,  and 
grew  up. 

THE   END 


PRINTBO    IN   aRBAT   BRITAIN    BY 
BILLING    AN1>    SONS,    LTD.,    GUILDFORD    AND    KSUER. 


Telegrams  :  "Scholarly,  London."  41  and  43  Maddox  Street, 

Telephone  :    1883   Mayfair.  Bond  Street,  London,  W.  i. 

Jpril,  1 92 1. 

Mr.   Edward  Arnold's 
SPRING 

ANNOUNCEMENTS,   1 92 1. 


A   HUNDRED   YEARS   IN    THE 
HIGHLANDS. 

By   OSGOOD    MACKENZIE. 
With  Illustrations.     One  Vol.     Demy  8vo.     i6s.  net. 

The  title  of  this  interesting  work  is  justified,  in  that  the  Author's 
own  recollections  cover  a  period  of  nearly  eighty  years,  while  the 
diaries  of  his  uncle.  Dr.  John  Mackenzie,  have  provided  him  with 
a  wealth  of  materials  reaching  much  further  back.  It  is  indeed 
fortunate  that  these  vivid  diaries  have  been  preserved,  for  their 
possession  enables  the  Author  to  supplement  and  amplify  his 
own  reminiscences  with  many  valuable  quotations,  describing 
Highland  life  in  bygone  times. 

The  book  appeals  to  all  lovers  of  the  Highlands  of  Scotland, 
both  in  Great  Britain  and  in  all  parts  of  the  world  where  men  of 
Scottish  blood  or  descent  have  settled.  Very  characteristic  of 
the  Author  is  his  intense  devotion  to  his  northern  home.  He 
loves  the  hills  and  the  sea,  the  heather  and  the  loch.  He  loves 
the  people,  their  language  and  traditions  ;  he  has  a  soft  place  in 
his  heart  for  their  superstitions.  All  forms  of  Highland  sport 
have  been  familiar  to  him  from  childhood,  and  he  is  a  shrewd 
observer  of  animal  and  bird  life  as  all  true  sportsmen  should  be. 
His  successful  transformation  of  a  Ross-shire  wilderness  into 
beautiful  gardens,  full  of  rare  trees  and  plants  never  previously 
grown  in  those  parts,  is  famous  throughout  Scotland.  Last,  but 
not  least,  is  his  keen  and  kindly  sense  of  humour,  which  gives 
rise  to  many  a  well-told  anecdote  and  permeates  the  whole  book. 


2  Mr.  Edward  Arnold's  Spring  Announcements. 

A    SURVEY    OF 
ENGLISH    LITERATURE 

(1780-1880). 

By  OLIVER  ELTON, 

HON.    D.LITT.    DURHAM    AND    MANCHESTER, 
PROFESSOR    OF   ENGLISH    LITERATURE    IN    THE  UNIVERSITY   OF   LIVERPOOL. 

From  1 780- 1 830.     Two  Vols.     32s.  net. 
From  1 830-1880.     Two  Vols.     32s.  net. 

With  the  publication  of  the  two  new  volumes  dealing  with  the 
period  1830- 1880  Professor  Elton  completes  his  fine  work  on 
English  Literature  during  the  hundred  years  antecedent  to  1880. 
The  plan  and  arrangement  of  both  books  is  the  same.  With 
regard  to  the  later  one  the  author  in  his  preface  says,  "  Here  are 
another  fifty  years  chronicled;  that  they  form  a  real,  not  an 
artificial  period,  the  book  itself  must  prove.  And  the  aim  is  still 
critical,  rather  than  simply  historical,  although  the  historical 
pattern  and  background  have  been  kept  well  in  mind.  I  hope, 
at  least,  to  have  shown  that  more  Victorian  prose  and  verse 
deserves  to  live  than  is  sometimes  imagined." 

As  has  been  said,  the  general  aim  of  the  two  works  is  critical — 
they  are  a  series  of  judgments  and  appreciations — but  there  is 
also  an  historical  background  and  setting  ;  and  a  mass  of  notes, 
printed  at  the  end  of  each  volume,  and  meant  primarily  for 
scholars,  gives  further  evidence  on  points  of  detail  as  well  as 
some  bibliographical  guidance.  The  text,  however,  it  is  hoped, 
will  not  be  found  by  the  more  general  reader  to  be  overloaded 
with  learned  matter. 

"We  shall  not  disguise  our  opinion  that  in  its  union  of  freshness  and 
maturity,  of  versatile  sensibility  and  incisive  clearness,  applied  to  an  immense 
mass  of  exact  and  first-hand  knowledge,  it  bids  fair  to  take  its  place  as  the 
most  authentic  judgment  of  our  generation  upon  the  Victorian  age."  — 
Professor  Herford  in  the  Manchester  Guardian. 

"  We  have  no  historian  of  literature  superior  to  Mr.  Elton  in  the  art  of 
giving  balanced  impressions  of  a  wide  and  varied  district  of  letters,  without 
favour  and  without  prejudice.  He  possesses  the  purely  judicial  faculty  to  an 
extent  unparalleled  in  contemporary  criticism.  He  has  the  quiet  confidence 
of  a  man  who  is  aware  that  the  concentration  of  a  lifetime  has  equipped  him 
with  knowledge  that  cannot  be  challenged." — Mr.  Edmund  Gosse  in  the 
Sunday  Times. 

"  There  is  not  in  the  whole  range  of  these  volumes  a  chapter  that  it  is  not 
a  pleasure  as  well  as  a  profit  to  read ;  and  for  any  student  of  English  literature 
the  work  is  invaluable.  There  is  information,  indeed,  exact  and  copious 
enough  to  make  this  survey  a  standard  textbook  of  the  period  ;  but  happily 
there  are  other  qualities— qualities  of  the  best  criticism — which  surely  reserve 
it  for  a  higher  fate." — Morning  Post. 


Mr.  Edward  Arnold's  Spring  Announcements.  3 

CALICO  PAINTING  AND  PRINT- 
ING IN  THE  EAST  INDIES  IN  THE 
XVIIth    and    XVIIIth    CENTURIES. 

By  G.  P.  BAKER. 

Double  Demy  Folio  (22^  in.  x  lyi  in.)  With  37  Coloured  Plates 
{in  a  separate  portfolio)  and  numerous  Black  and  White  Illustrations 

and  a  Map.     £30  net. 

The  purpose  of  this  magnificent  work  is  to  place  in  the  hands 
of  Students  of  Design  and  those  engaged  in  the  apphcation  of  the 
Arts  to  Industry,  the  best  facsimiles  of  early  Oriental  painted  and 
printed  cotton  fabrics  that  modern  methods  of  reproduction  can 
achieve. 

Few  such  examples  survive,  and  from  the  perishable  nature  of 
the  fabrics,  they  must  gradually  be  lost  to  the  world.  The  ex- 
amples are  chosen  from  various  collections,  and  as  specimens  of 
decorative  art  are  incomparable  in  design  and  may  be  classed  with 
the  finest  of  Oriental  carpets.  As  masterpieces  of  manufacture 
they  bewilder  the  expert  Calico-printer,  and  teach  the  handi- 
craftsman the  immense  value  of  patience  in  reproduction. 

The  author,  Mr.  G.  P.  Baker,  is  well-known  for  his  life-long 
interest  in  the  subject,  and  no  expense  has  been  spared  in  making 
the  coloured  plates  as  perfect  as  possible.  The  work  of  producing 
them  has  been  entrusted  to  Messrs.  Griggs  and  the  London 
Stereoscopic  Company. 

"Mr.  G.  P.  Baker  has  given  to  the  world  in  a  very  beautiful  form  the 
result  of  a  lifetime's  study  of  this  branch  of  the  arts.  What  a  difference  it 
would  make  to  the  work  produced  in  this  country  if  every  manufacturer 
possessed  the  culture  and  enthusiasm  for  his  craft  which  characterizes  the 
author  !  A  vast  amount  of  erudition  has  gone  to  the  making  of  this  book  ; 
the  history  of  the  subject  is  set  down  at  length ;  there  is  subtle  appreciation 
of  various  influences  on  design — Chinese,  Persian,  Indian,  and  European  ; 
expert  knowledge  of  weaving  and  chemistry  is  brought  to  bear  on  the  subject, 
and  finally,  the  way  in  which  these  beautiful  painted  and  printed  textiles 
affected  furnishing,  decoration,  and  dress  in  ICurope  in  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries  is  described  in  detail. 

"  All  who  love  beautiful  things  will  feel  grateful  to  Mr.  Baker  for  making 
it  possible  for  them  to  examine  the  most  characteristic  examples  of  a  most 
captivating  art,  very  little  known  and  long  since  passed  away.  Few  examples 
of  it  survive,  and  these  from  the  perishable  nature  of  the  fabrics  will  be  lost 
gradually  to  the  world. 

"This  book  will  be  preserved  in  all  the  important  libraries  of  the  world, 
and  those  who  most  fully  understand  the  subject  will  best  recognize  what  a 
great  service  to  the  arts  Mr.  G.  P.  Baker  has  rendered  by  publishing  the 
results  of  his  research." — The  Cabinet  Maker, 


4  Mr.  Edward  Arnold's  Spring  Announcements. 

PSYCHOLOGY    AND 
PSYCHOTHERAPY. 

By  WILLIAM  BROWN,  M.A.,  M.D.,  D.Sc. 

READER    IN    PSYCHOLOGY    IN   THE   UNIVERSITY   OF    LONDON   (kING's   COLLEGE), 
CLINICAL   ASSISTANT   IN    NEUROLOGY,    KING's   COLLEGE   HOSPITAL. 

With  Foreword  by  WILLIAM  ALDREN  TURNER, 

C.B.,  M.D. 

Crown  8vo.     8s.  6d.  net. 

In  this  work  the  author  has  stated  the  psychological  factors 
underlying  those  forms  of  nervous  reaction,  which  form  the 
borderline  disorders  known  as  hysteria,  neurasthenia,  psychas- 
thenia  and  the  compulsion  neuroses.  He  has  not  attempted  to 
give  a  clinical  picture  of  these  reactions,  but  more  especially  his 
object  has  been  to  indicate  the  psychological  mechanism  of  their 
causation  and  the  principles  concerned  in  their  treatment  by 
psychotherapy. 

Dr.  Brown  has  brought  to  his  task  a  well-equipped  mind,  and 
his  book  is  the  outcome  of  a  large  practical  experience  obtained 
both  during  the  war  and  subsequently. 

Psychotherapy,  as  now  understood,  has  found  its  place  amongst 
the  recognized  measures  of  treatment,  and  the  reader  of  Dr. 
Brown's  book  will  find  the  principles  on  which  it  is  based  clearly 
stated  and  discussed. 

"The  volume  is  one  of  the  best  simple  expositions  of  psycho-analysis 
which  have  yet  appeared,  and  it  is  all  the  better  in  avoiding  a  dogmatism 
which  at  this  time  of  day  must  be  hasty." — AthencBum. 

NEW   VOLUME    IN    THE    MODERN    EDUCATOR'S    LIBRARY. 

THE  ORGANIZATION  AND 
CURRICULA  OF  SCHOOLS. 

By  W.  G.  SLEIGHT,  M.A.,  D.Lit. 

Crown  8vo.     6s.  net. 

This  book  is  intended  to  give  points  of  view  rather  than 
numerous  details.  The  teaching  profession  needs  more  than 
anything  else  the  broad  views  and  the  ideals  which  will  keep  its 
work  free  from  monotony  and  staleness.  In  each  division  of  the 
subject-matter,  therefore,  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  give  the 
chief  features,  principles  and  ideals,  and  to  avoid  a  mere  compila- 
ation  of  facts. 

"A  very  important  addition  to  Messrs.  Arnold's  admirable  series.  The 
book  is  both  comprehensive  and  practical." — Glasgow  Herald. 


Mr.  Edward  Arnold's  Spring  Annotmcements.  5 

JOHN    MARTINEAU, 

THE   PUPIL  OF  KINGSLEY. 

By  his  Daughter,  VIOLET  MARTINEAU. 

With  Portrait.     DemySvo.     12s.6d.net. 

Being  extracts  from  the  letters  and  writings  of  John  Martineau, 

with   other  memorials    of    his    life,    chiefly   in    connection    with 

C.  Kingsley,  Tom  Hughes,  and  others  of  their  contemporaries. 

"We  do  not  remember  ever  reading  a  book  of  this  kind  which  possessed 
such  ineffable  charm,  or  so  arresting  an  interest  in  every  one  of  its  pages." — 

Nottingham  Guardian. 

"It  is  fortunate  that  letters  so  good  as  those  which  are  published  in  Miss 
Violet  Martineau's  book  have  been  preserved  and  given  to  the  world  at  large. 
They  are  all  worth  reading,  especially  those  that  tell  us  about  Charles 
Kingsley." — Daily  News. 

A  MANUAL  OF  COOKERY. 

By  the  late  FLORENCE  A.  GEORGE, 

AUTHOR   OF    "king   EDVVARIj's   COOKERY   BOOK,"    "VEGETARIAN    COOKKRV,"    ETC. 

Crown  Svo.     8s.  6d.  net. 

Miss  George's  small  cookery  books  are  well-known  to  thou- 
sands of  housewives,  and  have  had  a  long  career  of  popularity. 
She  had  been  engaged  for  some  time  in  writing  a  more  compre- 
hensive work,  but  succumbed  to  a  fatal  illness  before  it  was 
completed.  The  MSS.  has  now  been  finished  and  carefully 
edited  by  Miss  Irene  Davison,  and  the  book  will  be  found  an 
admirable  manual  for  family  use  in  every  respect. 

It  opens  with  a  valuable  introduction  on  household  routine, 

giving  details  of  daily  and  weekly  work  in  different  departments. 

The  kitchen  and  scullery,  the  larder,  and  the  storeroom  are  then 

dealt  with.     Marketing  and  the  choice  of  foods  are  not  forgotten 

among  other  matters  of   great   importance  to  the  housekeeper. 

The  bulk  of  the  work  is  of  course  composed  of  recipes,  arranged 

under  different  headings,  and  it  is  for  the  practical  excellence  of 

her  recipes,  and  the  clearness  with  which  they  are  described,  that 

Miss  George's  work  has  always  been  conspicuous.     The  volume 

concludes  with  a  chapter  on  the  service  of   meals,    and    some 

samples  of  menus,  and  is  provided  with  a  full  index. 

"Of  inestimable  value  for  its  wide  range  of  useful  information,  and  indis- 
pensable to  the  economic  housewife." — Western  Mail. 

"All  that  the  good  housewife  needs  to  know  about  the  culinary  art  is 
excellentl\-  compacted  in  '  A  Manual  of  Cookery  '  by  the  late  Miss  Florence  A. 
George,  wlioseprevious  work  on  a  smaller  scale  has  enjoyed  wide  popularity." 
— Scotsman. 


6  Mr.  Edward  Arnold's  Spring  Announcements. 

GEOLOGY  OF  THE  BRITISH 
EMPIRE. 

By    F.    R.    C.    REED,    M.A.,    Sc.D.,    F.G.S. 
With  numerous  Maps.     Demy  8w.     40s.  net. 

Apart  from  certain  standard  works  on  the  geology  of  India, 
South  Africa,  New  Zealand,  and  a  few  other  countries,  much  of 
our  knowledge  of  the  geology  of  the  various  distinct  parts  of  the 
British  Empire  is  scattered  through  the  pages  of  scientific 
journals  and  Government  memoirs,  or  is  found  in  foreign  publi- 
cations, most  of  which  are  difficult  of  access  for  the  ordinary 
student,  or  too  technical  in  character  for  the  general  reader. 

To  bring  these  scattered  materials  together  and  to  present  a 
connected  and  comprehensive  view  of  the  subject  is  the  intention 
of  the  present  work,  which  is  based  upon  the  author's  lectures  to 
students  at  Cambridge  University  during  the  last  ten  years. 

While  it  is  not  possible  to  deal  exhaustively  with  the  geo- 
logical formations  of  each  country  in  a  work  of  this  kind,  yet  it 
will  be  found  that  all  the  salient  features  are  considered,  and  the 
bibliography  at  the  end  of  each  section,  giving  a  selection  of  the 
more  important  references  to  the  geological  literature,  will  indi- 
cate to  those  who  desire  further  information  the  sources  from 
which  it  can  be  obtained. 

Special  attention  has  been  devoted  throughout  the  book  to 
those  deposits  of  economic  importance,  a  separate  section  being 
devoted  to  economic  geology  in  the  description  of  each  area. 
The  geological  maps  and  sections  will  prove  of  great  assistance 
when  used  in  conjunction  with  the  text. 

It  will  be  seen  that  this  book  is  a  valuable  work  of  reference, 
not  only  for  all  geologists,  mining  engineers,  and  civil  engineers 
who  are  engaged  in  the  investigation  of  the  geological  formations, 
or  in  the  development  of  the  mineral  resources  of  the  British 
Empire,  but  also  for  the  general  reader  who  is  interested  in  their 
economic  development. 

COAL  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

By  WALCOT  GIBSON,  D.Sc,  F.G.S. 

With  numerous  Maps  and  Illustrations.     21s.  net. 

Deals  with  the  composition,  structure,  and  resources  of  the 
Coal  Fields,  visible  and  concealed,  of  Great  Britain,  and  also  with 
the  Geology  of  Coal. 


Mr.  Edward  Arnold's  Spring  Announcements.  7 

THE  WORLD   IN  ARMS. 

The  Story  of  the  Great  War  for  Young  People. 

By   SUSAN   CUNNINGTON. 

With  Illustrations  and  Maps.     Limp  cloth.     1^2  pages. 

Price  2S.  6d. 

This  is  a  volume  which  should  find  a  place  on  the  children's 
book-shelf  in  every  home.  It  is  written  very  simply,  upon  broad 
lines,  and  does  not  attempt  to  describe  the  terrible  details  of  the 
fighting.  But  it  is  wonderfully  lucid  and  vigorous,  and  tells  the 
grand  story  of  how,  in  1914-1918,  "England  to  herself  proved 
true"  in  that  critical  page  of  her  history.  Miss  Cunnington, 
while  touching  briefly  on  the  strategical  aspects  of  the  War, 
gives  a  splendid  picture  of  the  resolution  and  fortitude  of  the 
nation  at  home,  and  vividly  describes  all  those  penetrating 
changes  in  our  daily  life,  which,  taken  as  a  matter  of  course  at 
the  time,  are  surely  destined  to  astonish  generations  yet  unborn. 


MEN  OF  MIGHT. 

STUDIES  OF  GREAT  CHARACTERS. 
By  A.  C.  BENSON,  C.V.O.,  LL.D., 

MASTER    OF    MAt;DAI.KN    COLLEGK,     CAMBRIDGE  ;    AUTHOR    OF     "  THE    UPTON    LETTERS," 
"  FROM    A   COLLEGE    WINDOW,"    ETC., 

AND 

H.  F.  W.  TATHAM. 
New  Illustrated  Edition.     Crown  8vo.     6s.  net. 


Socrates. 
Mahomet. 
St.  Bernard. 
Savonarola. 
Michael  Angelo. 


Contents : 

Carlo  Borromeo. 
Fenelon. 
John  Wesley. 
George  Washington. 
Henr}'  Martyn. 


Dr.  Arnold. 
Livingstone. 
General  Gordon. 
Father  Damien. 


"  Models  of  what  such  compositions  should  be  ;  full  of  incident  and  anec- 
dote, with  the  right  note  of  enthusiasm,  where  it  justly  comes  in,  with  little 
if  anything  of  direct  sermonizing,  though  the  moral  for  an  intelligent  lad  is 
never  far  to  seek.  It  is  a  long  time  since  we  have  seen  a  better  book  for 
youngstiiTS," —Guardian. 


8  Mr.  Edward  Arnold's  Spring  Announcements. 

RECENTLY   PUBLISHED. 

THE  LIFE  OF 
HORACE   BENEDICT  DE  SAUSSURE. 

By  DOUGLAS  W.  FRESHFIELD.  D.C.L.. 

LATE  PRESIDENT   OF   THE    ROYAL   GEOGRAPHICAL   SOCIETY,  AND   OF   THE   ALPINE   CLUB. 

With  numerous  Illustrations  and  Maps.     8vo.    25s.  net. 

' '  Mr.  Freshfield  has  not  only  given  us  the  picture  of  a  blameless  life,  rich  in  varied  achievement, 
and  brought  together  treasures  of  Alpine  lore  scarcely  accessible  elsewhere,  but  he  has  also  made 
to  history  a  contribution  of  permanent  value,  worthy  of  his  own  long-established  reputation  as  a 
mountaineer  and  a  man  of  letters."— Lord  PSryce  in  the  A  anchester  Guardian.  _ 

"  We  have  enjoyed  very  thoroughly  wandering  over  Mr.  Freshfield's  spacious  narrative. 
Saussure  was  philosopher,  scientist,  and  aristocrat,  with  the  great  gesture  in  everything.  He 
has  found  the  right  biographer  in  Mr.  Freshfield,  who  gives  us  a  large  and  vivid  picture  of 
a  Man,  a  Mountain,  and  a  '^^xxoA."— Observer. 

A   PIONEER  IN  THE  HIGH  ALPS. 

Diaries  and  Letters  of  F.  F.  TUCKETT,  1856-1874. 
With  Illustrations,     i  Vol.     2 is.  net. 

"  All  Alpine  climbers  will  revel  in  the  record  of  Mr.  Tuckett's  eighteen  years  of  climbing." 
JEvenitig  Standard. 

"  I  can  conceive  no  more  interestirg  book  for  lovers  of  the  sport,  for  it  gives  his  own  detailed 
account  of  practically  every  expedition  that  he  made." — IVestuiinstsr  Gazette. 

SPIRITUALISM  AND  THE  NEW 
PSYCHOLOGY. 

An  explanation  of  Spiritualist  Phenomena  and  Beliefs  in  terms  of 
Modern  Knowledge. 

By  M.  CULPIN. 

6s.  net. 

"  We  cordially  recommend  this  book  as  a  searching  investigation  of  an  interesting  phase  in  the 
evolution  of  Western  psychology." — Athenceum. 

GALLIPOLI    DIARY. 

By  General  Sir  IAN  HAMILTON,  G.C.B. 
With  Maps  and  Illustrations.     2  Vols.     36s.  net. 

"  The  interest  of  the  book  is  in  the  personality  of  the  writer  and  in  his  judgments  on  men  and 
affairs.  Certainly  there  is  no  book  that  has  yet  appeared  in  the  war  that  gives  so  intimate  a 
picture  of  what  its  organization  was,  seen  from  the  inside." — The  Times. 

THE  MARCH  ON   PARIS  AND  THE 
BATTLE    OF  THE  MARNE,    1914. 

By  ALEXANDER  VON  KLUCK,  Generaloberst. 

With  Portrait  and  Maps  [including  a  large  and  elaborate  coloured  map  giving  in  detail 
the  routes  of  the  imits  of  the  First  German  Army).     Demy  8vo.     I  OS.  6d.  net. 
"Should  be  read  by  everyone  who  wishes  to  know  why  we  escaped  from  Mons."— Major- 

General  Sir  F.  Maurice  in  the  Observer. 


LONDON  :  EDWARD  ARNOLD,  41  &  43  MADDOX  STREET,  W.  i. 


J^ 


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