THE SHIEL DISTRICT 333 



Reference to Eilean Shona reminds me of an excellent 

 example I witnessed, when running up Loch Moidart in a 

 steam-launch, of how land animals may find their way to 

 islands. The channel at the point in question is nearly a mile 

 broad, if shallow. In mid-channel we sailed right on to a 

 weasel swimming hard for Eilean Shona. He screamed with 

 terror when run down, but speedily reappeared under the stern 

 we had stopped the engine and struck out again with 

 surprising agility for his destination. We saw him land 

 successfully on a tidal rock of some size close to the island. 



Loch Shiel is 11% miles in length, not 23 as commonly stated, 

 and is, I believe, for its length the narrowest loch in Scotland. 

 The mean breadth is less than half a mile, and the maximum 

 only nine-tenths of a mile. From Glenfinnan, at its head, it 

 runs 11 miles in a south-westerly direction, and then, from a 

 tortuous constriction, 6 miles west by south. Glenfinnan is 

 ever memorable as the place where Prince Charlie's standard 

 was raised in 1745. The Finnan water is about 5 miles long, 

 descends from an altitude of 1,586 feet, and spreads its flat 

 stretch of alluvium at the junction with the loch. It was on 

 this small flat that the standard was raised, and here a high 

 monument or tower was erected in 1815 by the late Colonel 

 Macdonald of Glenaladale and others. The Macdonald of 

 Glenaladale of the " '45 " entertained the Bonnie Prince on 

 the evening before the raising of the standard, and took a pro- 

 minent place in this stage of the rising. The long inscription 

 at the base of the monument is in Gaelic, Latin, and English. 



Hill Burton relates that on the 19th of August, the date 

 fixed for the ceremony, the Prince had to wait two hours and 

 undergo considerable anxiety and forebodings before any 

 supporter arrived. Then Lochiel's pipes sounded from the 

 hill and a body of between seven and eight hundred Camerons 

 appeared over the sky-line. Before evening the assemblage 

 amounted to 1,500 men. 



Queen Victoria visited the spot in 1873 by driving over from 

 Inverlochy. She writes J : "I thought I never saw a lovelier 

 or more romantic spot, or one which told its history so well. 

 What a scene it must have been in 1745 ! And here was /, 

 the descendant of the Stuarts and of the very king whom Prince 



1 More Leaves from the Journal of a Life in the Highlands, 1884. 



