234 OCTOBER 



LXXIV 



One donkey, at least, has made itself famous 

 Cawdor ^ n Scottish history. Probably no part 

 Castle O f Scotland enjoys such a charming 

 climate, year in and year out, as the broad wedge of 

 champaign lying between where Findhorn, on the 

 east, rolls his dark flood from the Monadh Lia, 

 and, on the west, the miniature salmon-river Nairn 

 hurries to the Moray Firth. The mild, yet bright 

 and bracing air, is such as those who have not 

 proved the merits of Nairn as a sanatorium can 

 scarcely reconcile with the latitude. This fertile 

 strath, lying between the brown front of Carn-nan- 

 tri-tighearnan, or the Hill of the Three Lords, and 

 the sea, was of old the choicest part of the Thane- 

 dom of Cawdor. The Thane's seat used to be at 

 Nairn or Invernarne, as it used to be called and 

 his hunting seat was some five miles inland, at Old 

 Cawdor. But after the fall of the Douglases in 

 1455, including Archibald Bell-the-Cat pretensus 

 comes Moravie Thane William resolved to build 

 himself a stronghold worthy of his dignity and wide 

 possessions. Being of thrifty habits, he first sat 

 down and counted the cost, and then collected the 



