260 FIELD-NOTES FOR THE YEAR. CH. XVIII. 



the effect that all the country within six miles of the 

 coast should be swallowed up by floods during the 

 last week of this very July. So strong an eifect 

 had this prediction on the minds of the lower orders, 

 that almost all the Highlanders who had come 

 down to the coast, according to their custom, for 

 the herring fishing, had returned homewards with- 

 out putting their foot in a boat, to the great loss 

 and inconvenience of the owners of the boats and 

 nets, who had reckoned on the usual assistance of 

 these men. It is singular that floods of a most 

 mischievous and urmsual extent should actually 

 have taken place at the very time this woman had 

 foretold. 



For my own part I felt chiefly annoyed at the 

 alarm our absence would occasion at home, as it was 

 already evening, and we had no means of making 

 signals or of sending word where we were, it being 

 quite impossible to cross the river at any point. 



The water still rose, and continued to do so for 

 half an hour longer, washing away our standing- 

 place slowly but constantly. On looking round I 

 could not but feel most grateful at our not having 

 been overtaken by it before we reached this part of 

 the island. Had we been in many of the places 

 over which we had so lately passed we must have 

 been swept away at the first rise of the river, or, at 



