320 THE DEER FORESTS OF SCOTLAND. 



chair — that horrid and mysterious gout ! to which so 

 many of my friends are martyrs in spite of the most 

 careful self-denial in diet, whilst I and many others, 

 who eat and drink without a thought, never so much as 

 suffer even a passing pang. Ben Hee is good for forty 

 stags, which are usually obtained; in 1894 the total 

 was thirty-five, averaging 14 stone 12 lbs. quite clean. 

 Ben Hee is beautiful stalking ground, with the lodge 

 pleasantly placed at the west end of Loch Merk- 

 land, on the high road from Lairg to Scourie. Mr. 

 Sanderson is one of the best of tenants, and like the 

 Duke, he stops stalking about the 4th of October, 

 but if he were not to do this, he could easily put 

 another score of very big deer into the larder, for the 

 north beat of his ground on the green face sloping 

 up from the road is the great hind resort of these 

 parts, and as one drives from Lairg to Lochmore, 

 or vice versa, they can be seen in such numbers by 

 the naked eye that counting them without stopping 

 the " machine " for the purpose is quite out of the 

 question. 



