100 DAYS OF DEER-STALKING. 



ice, fighting for a salmon, which they had dragged upon it. 

 They were screeching and yelling in fierce combat. The 

 man loaded his gun, and fired at them with success ; for 

 when he arrived with his boat, he found one of the otters 

 killed, and a beautiful salmon of twenty pounds beside him, 

 with a piece only bit out of his throat ; he got a good price 

 for the otter's skin, and fed his family with the salmon. 



"And now, as we are journeying on," said Tortoise, "I 

 will endeavour to lighten the way by giving you a true 

 description of the Badenoch country. I am putting to- 

 gether a short account of the principal forests in Scotland, 

 and I meant to have reserved Badenoch for your perusal 

 with the rest ; but as you have just passed through a large 

 tract of it, and as the Gown-cromb rather libelled his own 

 country, and, moreover, gave you but an apocryphal version 

 of its history, I will take this opportunity of telling mine. 



" The account I am about to relate, as well as I can from 

 memory, was most obligingly given to me by Cluny Mac- 

 pherson, chief of Clanchattan, a very celebrated and accom- 

 plished sportsman. Thus, then, it runs : 



" The Earls of Huntly possessed in former times by far 

 the most extensive range of hills and deer forests in Great 

 Britain ; they commenced at Benavon, in BanfFshire, and 

 terminated at Ben-nivis, near Fort-William, a distance of 

 about seventy miles without a break, with the exception of 

 the small estate of Rothiemurcus, which is scarcely two miles 

 in breadth where it intersects the forest. 



" This immense tract of land was divided into seven dis- 

 tinct portions, each of which was given in charge to the 

 most influential gentleman in its neighbourhood. The 

 names of the divisions or forests were, firstly, Benavon, 

 in Banflshire : secondly, Glenmore, including Cairngorm ; 

 thirdly, Brae-f eshie ; fourthly, Gaick ; * fifthly, Druinnach- 

 der ; sixthly, Benalder, including Farrow ; and, lastly, Loch- 

 treig, which extended from the Badenoch march to Ben-nevis; 

 these are all in Inverness-shire. 



" These divisions are very extensive ; Benavon compre- 

 hends about twenty square miles, Glenmore the same 



* Spelt also Gawick, and Gaig. 



