24 TOUR IN SUTHERLAND. CH. II. 



liigher districts, they are not seen so often as might 

 be expected, excepting by an eye that is accustomed 

 to them. 



Having rested our horse and drank tea (the only 

 meal we could get) at the ferry-house, we managed 

 to persuade the landlord, who was also ferryman, to 

 leave the hot whisky and water which he was drink- 

 ing with some acquaintance of his own at that hour, 

 twelve A.M., and ferry us across. 



We entered into conversation with a shepherd on 

 the north side of the ferry, who told us of a nest of 

 the " Eagle Fisher," as he called it, on an island in 

 a loch not very far from the road ; so we appointed 

 the man to meet us the following morning at a 

 certain place, and drove on to Scowrie, through a 

 succession of the most wild and rocky passes, along 

 which the road is carried with a skill that does 

 infinite credit to the engineer who formed it. Occa- 

 sionally the scene is varied by glimpses of the sea, 

 studded, as it there is, with islands. The country con- 

 tinues still of the same aspect ; consisting of the most 

 confused and disorderly chaos of broken and rugged 

 rocks, but with rank heather, and warm sheltered 

 corners and nooks, with little clumps of birch trees 

 already in full leaf. Many, too, of the innumerable 

 deep-looking lochs by the roadside have islands 

 covered with birch and rank heather — the haunts 



