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 



