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 



