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 



