352 NETHER LOCHABER. 



On a dull day last week we were routed out of our study by 

 a visit from Professor Geikie, who, accompanied by some half- 

 dozen others, was geologising in the districts of Appin and 

 Lochaber. In such a place as this, it was impossible but that they 

 should find much to interest them geologically and otherwise ; and 

 we were glad to hear them all say that they were much delighted 

 with their wanderings. An occasional invasion of this kind, some- 

 times, too, when you least expect it, never fails to do one good. It 

 makes you, nolens volens, shake yourself clear, as best you may, of 

 the accumulated cobwebs of months, and you return to your 

 ordinary work not a little invigorated and refreshed by having 

 had an opportunity of comparing notes, rubbing shoulders, and 

 even crossing blades in all friendship of course with foemen 

 worthy of your steel. 



A lady correspondent writes us from London as follows : " I 

 was much pleased with your reference to the old pipe tune. The 

 music I have long known, but the origin and history of the piece 

 was unknown to me, nor had I ever heard any of the words 

 attached to it. I agree with you that all such scraps of informa- 

 tion should be collected and preserved, adding so largely as they do 

 to the interest with which we Highlanders must always regard our 

 national melodies. I need not, of course, ask you if you know the 

 very fine pipe tune ' Macrimmon's Lament,' Cha till mi tuilleadh. 

 When I was a girl in the Hebrides I am afraid to say how many 

 years ago I often heard the following story associated with this 

 tune. In the island of Mull there is a large cave which in popular 

 belief reaches right across the island from the east shore to the 

 west. This cave, in the old times, was inhabited, so ran the 

 tradition, by a colony of wolves and other wild animals. ISTo man 

 in conseqence had ever the courage to explore its dark labyrinthine 

 windings. At a wedding party assembled in a hamlet in the 

 neighbourhood of the cave, its vastness and many dangers became 



