246 A HUNDRED YEARS 



crofters who had occupied the place forty years before 

 my time. There was nothing approaching good soil on 

 any part of the peninsula, hardly even any gravel or 

 sand ; but in a few places the rotten rock and the peat had 

 somehow got jumbled up together, and when we came 

 across some of this we thought it grand stuff in com- 

 parison with the rest. There was just perhaps one 

 redeeming point about what otherwise looked so hopeless 

 a situation for planting — viz., that the rock was not 

 altogether solid. 



We had to excavate a great deal of the rock behind the 

 site of the house before we could begin to build, and we 

 noticed that the deeper we blasted into it the softer it 

 became, and that there were even running through it 

 veins of a pink kind of clay. The exposure of the Ploc 

 ard was awful, catching, as it did, nearly every gale that 

 blew. With the exception of the thin low line of the 

 north end of Lewis, forty miles ofi, there was nothing 

 between its top and Newfoundland; and it was con- 

 tinualljT- being soused with salt spray. The braes above 

 the site of the house were somewhat better, but even 

 they were swept by the south-westerly gales, which are 

 so constant and so severe in these parts. 



Now I think I ought to explain that, with the exception 

 of two tiny bushes of dwarf willow about three feet high, 

 there was nothing in the shape of a tree or shrub any- 

 where within sight. One of these little willow-bushes I 

 have carefully preserved as a curiosity, and on the site 

 where the other was I lately planted an azalea, which 

 will, I think, soon look down on its neighbour, the poor 

 little aboriginal willow. 



