2 86 Notes on Sport and Travel i 



around the cut. It was just such a brain-pan as 

 one would imagine Donald MacCorrachy to have 

 possessed, and may, indeed, have held his most 

 abominable brains. He had something to love him, 

 however ; for when his tomb was opened many 

 years ago, a female skeleton was found beside the 

 bones of the old freebooter. 



Though the innumerable cairns in Sutherland 

 hint pretty strongly at the old value set on human 

 life, they must not all be taken as proofs of actual 

 bloodshed. They were sometimes erected to com- 

 memorate the better part of valour, as in the case 

 of Cairn Teaghie, or the Cairn of Flight, on Ben 

 Gream, which perpetuates the memory of the bolting 

 of the Caithness men from the Sutherland men, 

 and the bloodless recovery of their cows by the 

 latter. Many of these cairns may, I think, fairly 

 be put down to the account of the ' Danes,' and 

 where the groups are very numerous, were probably 

 raised over the victims of their raids by the survivors. 

 The skirmishes among the Highlanders themselves 

 seldom resulted in the slaughter of any great number 

 on either side, though a great deal of vaunting 

 and heroical speechifying, after the manner of the 

 Homeric heroes, took place ; but ill words break no 

 bones, and seldom require cairns. The Northmen 

 had a custom of burying their slain heroes hurriedly, 

 and then returning for their remains afterwards, 

 trusting to the good feeling of the people to find 

 them untouched ; so the tourist who amuses himself 



