134 NETHER LOCHABER. 



original inscription are distinctly legible : — Ph. II., D.G. Hisp: et 

 Ind: Eex. 1585. On th.e reverse disc is what seems to have heen 

 intended for the prow of a ship between two palm trees. The 

 owner of this coin tells us that it came into his possession in the 

 following manner :— A brother of his, who owned and commanded 

 a coasting schooner about fifty years ago, chancing to be becalmed 

 while passing through the Sound of Mull, thought it best to come 

 to anchor for the night. Next morning, when getting under weigh, 

 the anchor, as it came to the bows, was found to have brought up 

 a large mass of tangle. While clearing this away, the edge of the 

 coin was observed sticking out from among a lot of sand and 

 shingle attached to the tangle roots, and having been secured and 

 handed to the Captain, he ever after kept it in his purse as a 

 " luckpenny," on which he set a high value, and all the more so, 

 perhaps, that it happened to be found on the morning of Easter 

 Sunday, a fact that to him, as a good Catholic, had a significance 

 and meaning that the rest of the crew took no account of. Be 

 this as it may, he was from that day an exceedingly prosperous 

 and lucky man in all his undertakings, and till the day of his 

 death he carried the coin about him wherever he went, as a " luck- 

 penny " and talisman of extraordinary virtue. The present 

 owner, too, sets a very high value on this numismatic talisman, 

 which, he declares, hardly anything would induce him to part 

 with. During the ten years that it has been in his possession, 

 he assures us that he has been prosperous and successful as he 

 never was before, with never a moment's illness ; and although too 

 sensible and shrewd a man actually to assert that the coin has any- 

 thing to do with it, it is a fact that he very seriously looks 

 upon his Spanish dollar as a sort of " lee-penny," giving its 

 possessor a fair chance of an amount of health and wealth, that 

 without it he might struggle for in vain. This nonsense apart, 

 however, the question remains, What business had a Spanish 



