ItOYAL SPORT. 51 



If this account by Barclay is matter of fact throughout 

 (which I very much doubt), it would be curious to know in 

 what manner these 2,000 men proceeded, and how they 

 consumed several weeks in bringing down 2,000 head of 

 deer. Such a force of men, well and equally distributed, 

 would cover an immense tract of ground, but the wind 

 must be changing upon them continually, and it must have 

 required the strictest order, and perhaps fires throughout 

 the line to keep the deer in during the dark nights, at 

 which time they will go in any direction, either up or down 

 wind. Even in the daytime, a cross wind might be fatal to 

 the drive, if it were not for the enormous extent of ground 

 that a force of 2,000 men could cover. A hundred men a 

 mile would give less than twenty yards of interval between 

 each man, and constitute a line of twenty miles in length. 

 But how did all these rough-footed Highlanders subsist for 

 two months on the barren mountains ? A few days, one 

 would think, would have been quite sufficient for their 

 purpose. As for the number of deer that were killed, if a 

 hundred couple of fierce and swift dogs were let loose, 

 which we are told was not unusual, they must have pulled 

 down a great many hinds and calves, though probably but 

 few harts. 



When the country was partially covered with wood the 

 forests were driven, and the sportsmen occupied passes 

 where they took their chance of sport ; and this method is 

 still occasionally resorted to in the forest of Glengarry and 

 in other places. But, generally speaking, the system has 

 given way to the more exciting amusement of deer-stalking. 



The destruction of the woods, and the substitution of the 

 gun for the bow and arrow and hagbute, formed quite an 

 epoch in the habits and size of the deer, as well as in the 

 mode of killing them. 



In Sutherland, fire-arms were unknown until about the 

 latter end of the 16th century, when a large awkward kind 

 of blunderbuss, named by the country-people Glasnabhean 

 (meaning the mountain match-lock gun), was obtained 

 by Angus Baillie of Uppat, one of the most noted of the 

 Sutherland foresters of whom we have any correct account; 

 and it was used by him with great effect in some of the 



