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 



