84 



sible care should be taken of these venerable trees 

 to preserve them from external injury ; as from their 

 detached and elevated situation, they are a great 

 ornament to the whole of this part of the country, 

 and it is probable, were growing on this fairy knoll 

 when this part of Scotland was over-run and plun- 

 dered by the Irish warrior, Alexander M 'Donald, 

 commonly called Sandy M'Donald, about two cen- 

 turies ago, when they would be mute witnesses of 

 his rueful countenance when informed of the name 

 of this knoll ; his nurse, who was possessed of the 

 gift of prophecy, or prying into futurity, told him 

 that all his adventures would prosper with him till 

 he stood on Cnochgamgoach, when the scales would 

 be turned against him, and in all his future adven- 

 tures he would be worsted, which, as history in- 

 forms us, turned out to be the case. There are other 

 old trees on this farm, which, in this part of the 

 country are a great beauty ; these venerable produc- 

 tions of nature speak more than volumes, to what 

 a degree of maturity and perfection, these noble 

 works of nature can be brought to in this part of the 

 country ; nothing but the ravages of time, that great 

 leveller, and I may add, the lapse of two centuries, 

 has brought some of those stately trees to show 

 symptoms of decay ; a person must be filled with 

 delight and wonder on seeing trees unprotected 

 and uncared for, towering to the clouds in magni- 

 ficent grandeur, and bidding defiance to the storms 

 and tempests which has, during these two hundred 

 years past, shaken to their foundations the strongest 

 castles built by human art and ingenuity, and laid 

 many of them in ruins j* when clad in their summer 



* It is a well known fact that there are a great many old castles, once very 

 strong places of defence and safety in this part of the country, now in ruins. 



