HELMSDALE TO MEIKLE PERRY. 55 



fog and rushes. Some of it gets top-dressing, but it 

 is terribly rough, and the Norwegian harrows will 

 hardly touch it. The roadside was almost honey- 

 combed with rabbits, which lead far too merry a life 

 of it among the fern. In fact, we hardly heard a 

 shot all day, and were too late for some capital 

 wild-goose shooting on a chain of lochs farther up. 

 Thirty brace out of some five hundred fell to six 

 guns ; but they are very hard to hit, and when they 

 are disturbed they will dive and float along with their 

 dark nebs just above water, and if they do take to 

 the heather they run as low as an otter. 



Once upon a time, nearly the whole strath was held 

 by the late Mr. Keed and Mr. Houstoun. The 

 former, who had 18,000 sheep, began at Edruble, 

 about four miles beyond Helmsdale ; and with the ex- 

 ception of Major Gilchrist's farm, he occupied the 

 whole eighteen miles by eight on the left bank of the 

 Helmsdale up to Aulton Down, the point where it 

 joins the Brora. His farm also ran with the river 

 down Strath Brora ; and he held Balnakiel in Dur- 

 ness parish, near Cape Wrath, as well. With such 

 scope and choice of pasturage, it is no wonder that 

 for nineteen successive summers the celebrated Jamie 

 and Watty Scott of Hawick wrote and took about 

 2,006 wedders and 1,500 cast ewes. The late Duke 

 of Sutherland gradually broke up this gigantic flock 

 system. At first the rents ranged from eighteen- 

 pence to half-a-crown a sheep ; but, since then, the 

 rate has increased on many farms to five shillings, 



