LOCH OICH 185 



I may say that in March 1908 I netted this part for the 

 purpose of marking salmon kelts, and only caught one pike ; 

 she was, however, a beauty of 23 Ib. It was marked in quite 

 another way, and was not returned to the water. In referring 

 to this netting, I may add that the kelts we caught were with- 

 out exception the finest, healthiest, and handsomest I have 

 seen in Scotland, and I have seen a large variety. A good 

 number, certainly, had healed scars, either from wounds 

 caused by rocks in the upper waters, or the attentions of seals 

 in the Inverness Firth, but the scars were healthy, completed 

 cures, and there was no disease even in these cases. 



Loch Oich is a narrow, straight sheet of water, the long axis 

 lying in a north-east and south-west direction. Rich and 

 varied wooding clothes the western shore, more especially in 

 the neighbourhood of Invergarry, where the eye is naturally 

 focused on the ruined Invergarry Castle, standing up, as if to 

 catch the light, on the summit of its rocky knoll. The loch, 

 the woods, the castle, and the noble sweep of the hills beyond 

 make the most charming view in the whole of the Caledonian 

 Canal route. The castle was in stirring times the headquarters 

 of the Macdonells of Glengarry who threw in their lot with the 

 Bonny Prince. It was here he first allowed himself sleep in 

 his precipitate flight from Culloden, before pushing on through 

 Lochiel's country to the lonely head of Loch Arkaig, and so 

 over Glen Dessary to the west. Here he was tracked by the 

 royalist troops, who burned and sacked the old castle only a 

 few hours after Prince Charlie had fled from it. Lochiel's 

 castle shared the same fate ; but while the modern Achnacarry 

 stands on the site of the old and a beautiful site it is the 

 modern Invergarry occupies a position rather more to the 

 north, closer to the river, and this hoary old ruin remains a 

 monument of the '45. 



Loch Oich is four miles long and has a maximum breadth of 

 a little over quarter of a mile, and a mean breadth of barely 

 one-fifth of a mile. It is comparatively shallow, and the water 

 contained in it has been estimated as only one-fourth the 

 volume of Loch Garry. 



" A great part of the loch, equal to 68 per cent, of the entire 

 area, is less than 50 feet in depth. The central part of the 

 loch is shallowest. Opposite the mouth of the Garry the 



