100 DAYS OF DEER-STALKING. 



ice, fighting tor 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 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 gentlemen in its neighbourhood. The 

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

 in Banfishire : secondly, Glenmore, including Cairngorm ; 

 thirdly, Brae-feshie; fourthly, Gaick,* fifthly, Drumnach- 

 der; sixthly, Beualder, 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 Oawick, and Oaig. 



