THE ISLE OF SKYE IN 1882. 27 



authorities in Portree, an early start was made for the Braes 

 to surprise and arrest the ringleaders. The secret was well 

 kept, but two newspaper correspondents were fortunate 

 enough to get an inkling of the proceedings, namely, Mr. 

 Mackinnon Ramsay, of the Citizen, who followed the in- 

 vading force from Glasgow, and Mr. Alexander Gow, a 

 special correspondent of the Dundee Advertiser^ who had 

 gone to Portree a few days before the Battle of the Braes. 

 These gentlemen accompanied the county officials, saw the 

 whole proceedings, and sent a full description of the desper- 

 ate and humiliating scrimmage to their respective papers. 

 We give below Mr. Gow's graphic account, every particular 

 of which we found corroborated by the leading county 

 officials on our arrival in Portree the same evening. After 

 describing the state of feeling, and the acts on the part of 

 the crofters which led up to direct contact with the criminal 

 authorities, Mr. Gow proceeds : 



Here we were, then two Sheriffs, two Fiscals, a Captain 

 of police, forty-seven members of the Glasgow police force, 

 and a number of the county constabulary, as well as a 

 couple of newspaper representatives from Dundee and Glas- 

 gow, and a gentleman representing a well-known Glasgow 

 drapery house fairly started on an eight-mile tramp to the 

 Land League camp at Braes, in weather that for sheer brutal 

 ferocity had not been experienced in Skye for a very long 

 time. In the cold grey dawn the procession wore a sombre 

 aspect. It looked for all the world like a Highland funeral. 

 It was quite on the cards, indeed, that the return journey 

 might partake of the nature of a funeral procession. There 

 could be no doubt that every one was fully impressed with 

 the gravity of the mission on which we were proceeding. 

 It is literal truth to say that no member of the company 

 expected to return without receiving knocks, if not some- 



