1888-89.] Kintail and Glenelg, zvith Notices of the Brocks. 231 



lythe and other fish hung up to dry, and festooning the walls 

 of the huts ; tall, scraggy-looking frameworks of sticks, upon 

 which the nets are stretched ; outhouses formed of dry-stone 

 walls, with an inverted hoat for a roof, — these and many 

 other signs are sufficient to indicate the various occupations of 

 the inhabitants, who by turns are fishermen, crofters, or labour- 

 ers, according to the season and the exigencies of existence. 

 Several miles inland from the head of Loch Long, above Kil- 

 elan, are the famous Falls of Glomach, 370 feet high, the 

 gorge into which the cataract descends being in many parts 

 fully 500 feet of sheer precipice, and probably the wildest and 

 most savage bit of scenery that Scotland can produce. To 

 give anything like adequate delineation of this wonderful 

 locality would, however, necessitate a paper solely devoted to 

 the subject, so mere mention of the name must suffice. 



Within a short distance of Dornie, on a little rocky islet, 

 approachable at low tide from the eastern shore, stands the 

 ancient castle of Eilan Donan, long a stronghold of the Mac- 

 kenzies of Seaforth, and the arena of many stormy and ofttimes 

 bloody deeds. This historical structure, which forms so strik- 

 ing an object in the landscape, is now in a sad state of dilapi- 

 dation, and consists of long, gaunt, isolated pieces of masonry 

 standing erect on the summit of the rock, which bear a resem- 

 blance to the decayed teeth of some old witch-like Highland 

 beldame, whose curses and prognostications of evil were such 

 a potent source of dread in days gone by. While clearing out 

 a large well lately inside the building, the workmen discovered 

 several memorials of the past in the shape of swords and two 

 old cannons ; and I myself saw in a cottage at Dornie a 

 curiously shaped cutlass-looking implement that was evidently 

 the remains of one of those quaint -fashioned short swords, 

 such as seamen carried in the olden times. This relic was 

 picked up on the shore of Loch Duich, and may not improb- 

 ably have belonged to some member of the Spanish troop that 

 figured in the skirmish of Glenshiel during the abortive re- 

 bellion of 1719. It is strange to think that Spaniards found 

 their way into this outlandish district ; but if we consult his- 

 tory we will find that many years prior to this episode the 

 same race appeared on the tci'ph in even more out-of-the-world 

 localities farther north, and under much more disastrous cir- 



