EAGLES AT KYLESKU. 



saw such a confusion of rock and stone as we passed through 

 for some two or three miles. The rocks seemed to have been 

 splintered and broken up by some great convulsion of the 

 earth ; all looking broken and angular, none of them wearing 

 a round weather-worn appearance, or being much overgrown 

 with heather or herbage. 



Eagles are by no means scarce in this part of the country, 

 but as they hunt principally in the higher districts, they are 

 not seen so often as might be expected, excepting by an eye 

 that is accustomed to them. 



Having rested our horse and drank tea (the only meal we 

 could get) at the ferry-house, we managed to persuade the 

 landlord, who was also ferryman, to leave the hot whisky and 

 water which he was drinking with some acquaintance of his 

 own at that hour, twelve A.M., and ferry us across. 



We entered into conversation with a shepherd on the 

 north side of the ferry, who told us of a nest of the " Eagle 

 Fisher," as he called it, on an island in a loch not very far 

 from the road ; so we appointed the man to meet us the 

 following morning at a certain place, and drove on to 

 Scowrie, through a .succession of the most wild and rocky 

 passes, along which the road is carried with a skill that does 

 infinite credit to the engineer who formed it. Occasionally 

 the scene is varied by glimpses of the sea, studded, as it there 

 is, with islands. The country continues still of the sanje 

 aspect ; consisting of the most confused and disorderly chaos 

 of broken and rugged rocks, but with rank heather, and warm 

 sheltered corners and nooks, with little clumps of birch trees 

 already ih full leaf. Many, too, of the innumerable deep- 

 looking lochs by the roadside have islands covered with birch 

 and rank heather the haunts of numbers of otters. There 

 seems a great scarcity of birds of all kinds ; which is 

 accounted for by the number of marten and wild cats who 

 live here, amongst the great and nearly inaccessible masses 

 of rock, in the most perfectly undisturbed security. Cuckoos, 

 wheatears, and ring-ousels seemed to be almost the only 

 feathered inhabitants, with an occasional pair of ravens or 

 peregrine falcons. 



The inn at Scowrie, kept by a man of a most un-Highland 

 name, viz., " Tough," is excellent, and most cleanly and com- 

 fortable did we find it, and the people full of civility. Un- 

 luckily there were two ship-loads of emigrants on the point 

 of leaving a harbour near Scowiie, and their friends were 



