35 i REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



has signally failed, and that they have unhinged the 

 great wheel of Trade without obtaining cheap food for 

 the people. Thus much in passing ; but, as I am not 

 -^vriting a political treatise, now to the mountains 

 ao-ain ; wild though they are, not much more wild 

 tiian the political game at present in the ascendant. 



On this territory of the Lochiel, I at times found 

 it a difficult task to keep my mind on sporting inte- 

 rests and incidents, so full were the features of the 

 landscape of legend and romance. While fishing on 

 Loch Arkike, as it is spelt in the curious " Memoirs of 

 Sir Ewen Cameron," every time I turned my head, 

 I saw the ruins of a little tower on an island where 

 he confined three colonels of the English army, who 

 liad been sent by General Monk to inspect the 

 Higliland garrisons and fortifications, and who had 

 been surprised by Sir Ewen, in conjunction with 

 " M'Nacrhtan," at the little villas^e of " Portuch- 

 rekine," on the sea-side, about four miles from Inve- 

 rary, and taken prisoners. The water on Loch 

 Arkeg, I am told, never entirely freezes ; and it is of 

 excellent quality for all useful purposes. The fish 

 that frequent its depths and shallows are the salmon, 

 the salmo ferox, or great lake trout, and the sea and 

 fresh- water trout, the char and the eel. I came to 

 Achnacarry in a storm ; the gale having assisted to 

 propel the old steam tub that brought me, as well as to 

 amuse me — Heaven knows I needed it— on the voyage 

 from Greenock, by showing the rocky promontories 

 of the Highland isles lashed by an angry sea. Weather 

 never interferes with my personal comfort on board 

 ship, save as it renders my fellow-passengers more or 

 less agreeable. The same storm that brought me to 

 the Highlands, continued in its reign and rain without 



