184 WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS. [CHAP. xxn. 



the plantations at Dalmigaire and considerable tracts of corn- 

 ground the corn in this high country being still perfectly green. 

 Here and there was a small farm-house on a green mound, with 

 a peat-stack larger than the house itself. As we passed these, a 

 bare-headed and bare-legged urchin would look at us round a 

 corner of the building, and then running in, would bring out the 

 rest of the household to stare at us. If we entered one of the 

 houses, we were always greeted with hospitable smiles, and the 

 good wife, wiping a chair with her apron, would produce a bowl 

 of excellent milk (such milk as you only can get in the High- 

 lands) and a plate of cheese and oat-cake, the latter apparently 

 consisting of chopped straw, and seasoned with gravel, though 

 made palatable by the kind welcome with which it was given. 

 Frequently, too, a bottle of whisky would be produced, and a 

 glass of it urged on us, or we were pressed to stop to take an egg 

 or something warm. At Freeburn we parted my friend to go 

 by coach to Inverness, and I to keep my course down the river, 

 which is surrounded by dreary grey hills. As I got on, how- 

 ever, the banks grew more rocky and picturesque, enlivened here 

 and there by the usual green patches of corn, and the small farm- 

 houses, with their large peat-stack, but diminutive corn-stack. 

 Near Freeburn I talked to an old Highlander, who was flogging 

 the water with a primitive-looking rod and line and a coarse- 

 looking fly, catching, however, a goodly number of -trout. He 

 was the first angler I had as yet passed, with the exception of a 

 kilted boy, belonging to the shepherd at our place of rest, who 

 was already out when we left home, catching trout for his own 

 breakfast and that of a young peregrine falcon which he had 

 caught in the rocks opposite the house, and was keeping wholly 

 on a fish diet and a more beautiful and finer bird I never saw, 

 although she had fed for many weeks on nothing but small trout, 

 a food not so congenial to her as rabbits and pigeons and the 

 other products of the low country. I bought the hawk of him, 

 and have kept her ever since. Below Freeburn I had to wade 

 the river, in order to avoid a very difficult and somewliat dan- 

 gerous pass on the rocks. Frequently I met with fresh tracks 

 of the otter. In some places, where the water fell over rocks of 

 any height, so as to prevent the animal from keeping the bed of 

 the river, there were regularly hard beaten paths by which they 



